Page 18 of Centaur Bolt

They traveled away from us, but if I wasn’t fast, they still might catch the movement. To do this and not die, I needed a clear shot at it. Which meant being exposed.

But Ace and I had done this a million times, daring each other to go faster… It had been a while, and I had never done it carrying such weight, but I thought I could pull it off.

I dropped just beneath the clouds, hugging the bottom so that the vapor swirled around us. My keen eyes spotted what I was looking for.

When I folded my wings, and dove, the beast I held hissed. I ignored him, only clutching his body closer with all four legs. We became a blur as we plummeted toward the cliffs.

He went rigid as I aimed not directly for them, but for the water at the base.

Then, with a flash of foam, we hit.

9

Marcus

Marcus, you have to take control!

I’d never heard Iskar’s voice so frantic. In contrast, my thoughts were bogged down, as though I waded through mud. Everythinghurt. Still, his urgency drove me to push through the shrieking in my mind, struggling past the chaos.

My first true awareness was of powerful arms pinning me against an enormous scaled body. A Dragon. I blinked and saw the cliff coming at me.

Before I could scream, we hit the water right at the base of the rocks. Our momentum arrowed us into the churning waves, and I had a dim awareness of passing beneath stone—I choked on foam and salt water as whoever carried me took us right under.

Then we broke the surface into an odd green glow. The wings above me beat hard, carrying us up out of the water. Only then was I truly aware of my form—my hind legs dangled below me, while my arms were folded close to my body—but they weren’t arms. They were wings—Wyvern wings? The purple feathers running along the bones confused me.

What was I? I twisted to look at myself, and my captor hissed.

“Stays still.” His deep voice echoed through the space. “Yous weighs a fucking ton.”

Maybe I did, but we had an even bigger problem. As I twitched my tail out of the water, a blunt-nosed, vicious head lunged at me from below. Snapping teeth missed me by inches.

“Ralorian eels,” the Dragon rumbled. “Goods eating ifs they don’t eats you first.”

I opened my mouth to curse, but all that emerged was a ratcheting growl.

Your beast is still in control.Iskar rasped.You need to push it back where it belongs.

Easier said than done, and certainly impossible while dangling in the air. A situation rectified when the Dragon dumped me on the gravel beach well beyond the water.

Caught up in the battle to regain my human, I barely registered that he’d dropped me. I lay in a heap, curling in on myself as my body contorted in agony.

Visualize your human form,Iskar coached.Imagine shifting to it.

Can’t I please just die?

Don’t be melodramatic. Focus.

I did my best. At some point, my captor shoved a chunk of driftwood at me. “Stops fucking screeching, ors they’ll hears us.”

I gritted my teeth and peered up at the looming Dragon. Was he bigger than he’d been, or was I smaller? “I wasn’t screaming.”

“Yous fucking ares.”

My hands were once more human, although they still sported claws. When another paroxysm of pain pierced me, I took the bit of wood from between his talons and stuck it in my mouth.

Moments later, my teeth bit clear through it. I was, as the Dragon put it, fucking screaming. I didn’t seem to have any control over it. Somehow, as the tail retracted into my body with a final frisson of anguish, I was able, at last, to stop. To lie on the gravel as a shivering, naked rat of a human.

I’d obviously shrunk, because the Dragon was huge. Bigger than most—Dragon Legion size, for sure. Although I’d never met a Legion Dragon quite so grumpy.

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