Page 546 of Flirting with Darkness

“We have a deal.” Kyllen stepped back, moving the torch away. “Come, Amira.” He gripped my hand.

The moment the flames were away from his body, King Aigel leaped aside and screamed, “Guards!”

Kyllen pulled me under the canopy of the nearby tree, scanning the smoky sky above. The winged shapes of the guards broke through the smoke.

“Run.” Kyllen took off, dragging me with him.

He tossed the torch at a tree as we passed by. The flames sprung up the trunk, engulfing the branches and sending puffs of black smoke up into the sky, momentarily obscuring us from view.

“This way!” He swerved toward a milky white river that bent around the burning palace. “Faster.”

I moved my legs, trying to keep up as he led me to the river bank.

The king’s winged guards descended from above. Focused on the way ahead of us, Kyllen stretched hissentiestheir way. Two of the guards immediately turned to stone, crashing onto the rocky river bank. The rest, however, had the spider silk tied over their eyes. They had learned from the mistakes of the others and knew who they were up against.

Kyllen stopped at the very edge of the cliff over the river.

“Jump!” He tugged at my hand.

Instead of water, the milky-white mist filled the river bed. There was no bottom, only the clear sky below, open all the way to the wetlands of Lorsan.

“We’ll fall and die!” I froze on the edge, my feet firmly planted on the solid rock.

The massive shape of a dragon moved below the stream of the cloudy mist. The sun reflected off the polished, golden-red scales, making me squint.

“Jump!” Kyllen leaped off the edge, yanking me off the solid ground and into the abyss below.

My insides leaped up to my throat. Air rushed by me with shreds of white fog. Breath stuck in my chest, stifling a scream.

“We’re going to die… We’re going to die…”rushed through my mind in a twister. Everything froze inside me, even fear. With ice cold fingers, I clung onto Kyllen.

The dragon emerged from below, and we hit hard against his back. I coughed the air out of my lungs then gasped for more.

Kyllen’s arm went around me, pressing me to him.

“We’re all right, Amira. You’re safe.” Kyllen rubbed my side, soothing the tension that impeded my breathing.

Coughing and wheezing, I panted, “Thanks, but you’re crazy. Absolutely, positively, bat-shit crazy, Kyllen.”

The long, thick neck of the creature we’d straddled jerked with a deep chuckle. “I agree, Your Majesty. Something definitely isn’t right with your husband.”

Kyllen just laughed, holding me tight. He drew his hood back over his head, concealing hissentiesand hiding his eyes. “It’s safe to look now, King Galan.”

“Thanks, but I’d rather not.” The dragon flopped his huge, leathery wings, making a wide turn in the air.

“King Galan? Is this really him?” I asked under my breath.

“At your service, Queen Amira,” the dragon boomed.

Leave it up to my husband to hitch a ride on gargoyle royalty.

“I may as well take you to Ufaris,” King Galan said. “Unless you have another destination in mind?”

“No. Ufaris is…just fine.”

If the dragon-king didn’t mind us using him like a taxi cab from back in my old world, we might as well go straight home now. I couldn’t wait to hug my children again.

I cleared my throat, collecting my thoughts and remembering my manners. “King Galan, I am forever in your debt.”

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