Page 38 of Fae Reckoning

Tracking Einar’s flight—fuck, was he powerful and graceful!—I led him through Pru’s suggestions. He didn’t even resist. Perhaps that should have made me wary, but what better choice did we have?

The tension ratcheted up as the massive dragon heaved groaning trees from the ground, a shower of dirt raining down from their roots. He snapped them in half with jolting claps, before flinging them behind him, mindless of how the discarded trees knocked down others. Or he landed on a tree, appearing as a bird on a pinhead, balancing himself with a few mighty flaps of hiswings, before clutching trees in his wicked claws and crunching them into pieces.

I asked him with all the sarcasm I could muster. Wrapped up in all that power, I sensed his unbridled delight.

the dragon said. He flung aside a tree that was maybe sixty-feet long as if it were a mere stick.

I affirmed.

At the racket, Saffron had turned to peer toward Einar. I rubbed the still-soft crown of his head. “You like all that chaos, huh, boy?”

Saffron chuffed, twin balls of smoke puffing from his nostrils.

“I know you do. Someday you’ll get to do that too.” I caressed his head some more. “Well, maybe notthatexactly. I would appreciate you taking into account the well-being of the forest and the safety of others.” With how magic coursed through the land, did the trees feel their destruction? Were arbosauruses among them?

Einar commented.

With each foreclaw, he snapped a tree, then hurledthem both behind him with such force that he bowled swaths through the woods.

Balanced atop a tree canopy he dwarfed despite its fullness, it took me several moments of silence to realize he’d stopped moving.

“Uh … Mistress?” Pru asked from behind me, her shaky voice precisely matching my own nervousness.

I didn’t glance at her or any of the others I sensed crowding closer. What had I said? I barely paid attention to what came out of my mouth, or worse, my thoughts, which were proving impossible to censor.

Einar still hadn’t moved. The tree canopy shivered beneath his bulk.

Einar’s question was a hissed accusation as it tore through my mind.

I grimaced.Shit, I had said that, hadn’t I?

he thundered.

Despite the obvious peril of his anger, I couldn’t help but smile. After a lifetime of believing I was only half fae, the other part of me human, it was still odd to hear myself referred to plainly asfae. A member of a magical race.

My smile widened. Like, if I didn’t get my hands on my mate in the next ten minutes, I was going to scream.

he said, still motionless atop that tree.

Though I fully expected him to keep resisting my pleas, he broke the tree he crouched on, then let it fall to the ground of its own momentum as he landed—carefully and gently—in the center of the clearing. He occupied all of it, my companions scurrying to its edges or into the cabin to avoid being crushed by the terrifying dragon.

I said.

My hand stilled in mid-caress along Saffron’s spine.

He chuffed, and Larissa, Pru, Zafi, and Azariah squeaked when smoke streamed from his nostrils.

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