Page 71 of Centaur Bolt

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Marcus

The bit of ocean that extended into the cave rose and fell with the tide. By the time the darkness neared the underwater entrance, Iskar had used his scholarly brain to come up with a viable plan.

He refused to tell me more than the first part of it, which sent every alarm bell I possessed ringing. As it was, phase one hit a significant snag right away.

“No,” the Dragon shifter growled.

“I cannot grow wings just to get out of here,” I stated. “Or what emerges from this cave will not have any interest in following a plan.” Iskar and I were on the same page in this. No shifting to wings. Control was just too fleeting.

But Havoc resisted the alternative. He glowered at me. “No one sharding rides me.”

I gritted my teeth. “Then carry me. Just don’t feed me to the freking eels.”

His eyes glowed. “Freking?”

“Fucking, sharding, whatever, I have no desire to be eel fodder.”

“So if I carry you outta here, what then? Those Dragons will be all over these mountains. The closest town is where we came through, no way we can go there. The alternative is an hour's flight from here. Even at night, they’ll find us.”

“They can’t track us through the crystal,” I insisted.

The Dragon snorted. “Don’t know if you noticed, but I ams kinda hard to hide.”

He was, but then Iskar offered up a gem.He won’t be a Dragon.

What?

Once we are clear of this cave, you are going to shift to your equine form. He will ride you, so we’ll look like peasants on the way to town.

It rendered me speechless.I’m not letting this bastard ride me.

There is more testosterone in this cave than there are rocks. If you want to see Riley again, Havoc is going to ride you.

I groped for reasons why it wouldn’t work. Because my brain insisted it could.I won’t be able to shift to equine.

It is your default shift,he refuted.I can help you.

“You are weird,” Havoc said.

I’d been pacing while I argued with Iskar, and now I froze with one hand waving in the air. Okay, it looked weird.

I took a deep breath. “Once we’re out of here, I am going to shift to my four-legged form.” I gritted my teeth. “Then you are going to ride me.”

His eyes widened, and then, to my shock, the Dragon laughed. A huge, booming chortle that echoed off the walls. Then he rubbed his face, and said, “I am not.”

“You are.”

“Nope.”

“If you want to be free,” I stated, “This is the best way.”

“You’ve already used that argument.” He rubbed at his neck near where the Webspinner had vanished.

“Look, we need a disguise if we are going to walk into a town and try to get a lead on a Watcher. Flying in as a red Dragon clutching a cursing ex-Centaur is going to raise a few eyebrows.”

One of his own rose. “You’d be cursing?”

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