Page 38 of Dragons' Mate
Kit’s knife glistened, arching toward Bianca’s heart. Quinton saw it. Kit did too. And damn it, she pulled the lethal blow.
Bianca jerked back just in time. A cruel smirk spread over her face. "Too slow, princess." Grabbing Kit’s knife hand, Bianca used Kit’s own momentum to pull her forward. Kit fell to her knees. Her knife fell from her hand.
Quinton gritted his teeth against Kit’s pain, willing her to get up. To fight. To keep going.
Still on her knees, Kit lunged forward to tackle Bianca at her waist. The force pushed Bianca down to her back.
The crowd erupted with opinions, half booing and half cheering depending on whose side caught their fancy. Quinton went still, seeing what the crowd was yet to figure out. Kit didn’t win that round at all.
He watched with impotent horror as Bianca, still on her back, jammed her feet into Kit’s hips. She shoved up. Kit’s lower body lifted into the air. Up. Up. And over the side of the parapet path.
Cheers roared from the stand, a contrast to the horrified silence of the pack. Bianca stood, panting and triumphant. She then turned away from the edge, resuming her run towards the end of the course, leaving Kit's fall in her wake.
Quinton shuddered, the arena swimming before him. Reaching out, he grasped the first arm he could. Hauck’s. “She’s alive,” Quinton panted. “Hurt, but alive.” He felt that much through the bond, along with the pulsating terror.
It was too dark to see Kit in the pit below, but the piranhas were now all gathering around the spot where Kit had fallen. They were dumb and mostly blind, but they could smell food.
Tavias loosed a jolt of flame. In the momentary light, they could make out Kit’s body clinging to the nearly vertical face of the dropoff. Hauck had his hand out, shaking with effort but no vines responded to his plea.
Yet, a part of the dropoff beneath Kit shifted with excruciating slowness. A boulder started to jut out. What in the hell? None of the pack could do that. Quinton's attention shifted to find a pair of red headed brothers from Lee’s pack panting with concentration as magic rippled around them. One male raised his face, sweat rolling down his temples, and nodded.
Just as the ledge grew large enough to be useful, a piranha slithered onto it. Its maw of razor sharp teeth snapped eagerly.
The crowd gasped, the arena filled with the anticipation of carnage.
Quinton's throat closed. Kit was defenseless, her strength focused solely on holding onto the cliff face.
Just as the piranha made itself at home on the ledge forged for Kit, Quinton’s mate did the unthinkable. She let go.
Quinton's world spun. He felt his heart drop with her, only Hauck’s arms around him keeping him from lunging into the barrier again.
A shock of agony in his leg snapped Quinton back to the pit. The pain came from Kit’s wound, not his own, as the girl bounced off the giant worm’s springy body and launched herself up. She grabbed the edge of the parapet, her body still swinging from the force of her jump. With a grunt, she pulled herself up, lying flat on the narrow ledge. Alive and reaching for her fallen dagger.
CHAPTER17
Kit
Everything is a blur of mud and motion, but I force my eyes to focus on the platform that marks the end of the course. I'm half conscious when I climb onto it, every breath aching, but I'm here. I've made it. I’m aware of the stillness around me, of the gazes of hundreds of eyes. The calls and murmurs that are quieting down now, or maybe it just feels that way now that the adrenaline is fading from my senses. The hushed silence is palpable, broken only by the distant cries of the women still on the parapet and the harsh drumbeat of my heartbeat.
Then I hear it. A cheer, raw and thunderous, cutting through the arena. My name. It’s my name on the lips of women and dragons and spectators alike. I can see Autumn clapping and shouting. Fionna too. And even Ettienne. The unexpected welcome pulls me from the precipice of unconsciousness. Somehow, my body conjures one more burst of strength and I get to my feet, using the wall for support.
Lee is there at once, her hand going around my waist to support me from the other side.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
She grins, blood still streaking her bright red hair. “I think your little giant-worm trampoline trick has turned you into a crowd favorite,” she says, shouting over the cheers. “Or it could be that you put yourself in danger to save my life, but knowing this crowd it's probably the former.”
I snort. Because she is probably right.
On the other side of the platform, Bianca glares daggers at me.
“Can’t please everyone,” I murmur to Lee and give Bianca a saccharine smile. It feels… good. To stand here, having faced down a storm and survived. It feels like being a warrior instead of a victim.
As soon as the other women finish—one way or the other—the priests declare the trial over and the dragons are released from whatever restraints must have held them in place. Tavias, Hauck, Cyril and Quinton surround me so quickly that my head spins.
"You did well, wildcat." Tavias tries to pick me up but I shake my head at him, wanting to stand on my own two feet. Well, one foot. My leg still hurts too much to put pressure on it. The males oblige by surrounding me with support, Quinton channeling what magic he can into healing me. The fact that his ministrations do nothing is worrisome, but I know this isn’t the time to question the dragon.
The head priest launches into another of his speeches, something about us having pleased the Goddess Orion and how proud and grateful we should be about that.
