Page 148 of Phoenix Burn

No sooner had I processed that than the ground vanished beneath me, dropping me a good fifteen feet into a seething cauldron of rapids. I lost my grip on the knife, and the water swept it and me away. I fought to keep my head above the water as it crashed me against boulders before swirling me off again.

The moonlight flickered as something massive dove at me, but I twisted away from the Dragon’s talons.

I’d take my chances with the river.

I’d just completed that thought when it slammed me into a jagged boulder. My head hit hard.

And I knew nothing more.

40

Sebastian

The ground be flying beneath my hooves.

I’d always been wicked fast, even for my kind. Cara fell back, but I dared not slow down for her.

Anna had pushed me out of her mind, but I be still getting random glimpses of the peril she be in. She’d left Jacques and now lured the Dragons away from where he lay.

It was all I could do not to jump the sardding stone fence and charge across the estate. But I knew that would be suicide. Xumi had over a hundred Dragons in her guard ranks, and most would be here.

I dropped back to Cara.

“Jacques be hidden on the banks of the overflow lake,” I told her. “He be alive, but only just.”

She tossed her mane. “I’ll go to him. I can tap into the lodestone power from there, and gate him out.” Cara fixed me with a vivid-blue eye. “Watch your back, Sebastian.”

I snorted in affirmation and launched myself forward. Somewhere in the forest along the river, a Dragon grabbed Anna, and hurled her into a tree.

I felt her ribs cracking as though they be my own, and my stride hitched.

Just ahead be the bridge. The moment the stone wall bent away into the forest, I raced along it.

The trees slowed me down, but I shredded any bush that got in my way, pulling life essences to part them before me. Dragons circled overhead, but I moved so fast that even their keen eyesight be not likely to spot me flickering through the shadows. They might sense me, though, depending on the level of crystal in their blood.

Xumi be wealthy enough to supply her guards well, but not up to Legion standards. I dared them to come down and face me.

Years of training evaporated the instant the Dragon pushed himself on Anna.No.The rage rode me like a demon upon my back. I wouldshredhim for touching her.

I sensed her break away from him, and her desperate race through the forest. Then—shock, as she fell into the water.

River. She be in the river. Only it be not the lazy, swirling thing that I raced alongside. This river be angry, churning with rapids.

I accelerated, my sides skimming the trees until they scraped me raw. A huge form swooped by overhead, and then another.

Dragons. Hunting for her.

Huntingmy Anna.

Then from her came a flash of pain, and nothing but darkness. My heart felt as though it be tearing in two.

I daresay that I came closer to flying than I had ever come.

I ruthlessly yanked energy from every living thing I passed to lend speed to my feet. I be running so hot that the ground sizzled beneath my hooves and my horn steamed.

I was running blind now. The ground opened up before me—a channel that led to the river, but currently dry. I cleared it in a single bound. Over my snorting breath, I heard the river change as it dropped and churned its way over rocks.

I sensed the gate open, and then close again. Cara. She’d found Jacques. With any luck, the Satyr be still alive.

---