Page 50 of Dragon's Flame
With a guttural roar, he pulled fire into his palms andburned.
The creatures shrieked—an unnatural, high-pitched keening—as they blackened and shriveled, curling into themselves. The man beneath them spasmed violently, choking on his own breath.
And then he stilled.
Tarian exhaled hard through his nose, watching the last of the parasites burn to ash.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
And then, without another glance at the body, he turned toward Sarah, who’d managed to stand.
“Can you walk? “ he asked, and she nodded quickly.
“You’re—you’re that guy,” she whispered to herself, and then looked down at her own body. She was covered in small piercing wounds. “I don’t have any of those in me, do I?”
It was a valid question. He stalked over to her and watched her brace. He was downwind of her, which meant the priorstench was behind him—and there was nothing, scent or magical or otherwise, that said her personal integrity had been broken.
It was as if all of the puncture words she’d been given were to draw somethingoutrather than put somethingin.
“You are clear,” he said, and watched her sway—he picked her up without a second thought, and started running for the car, against her feeble protests.
Speed was of the essence. Kenna was getting further away, and he could feel it.
43
KENNA
When Kenna woke up, she was definitely inside the helicopter, horribly confused, and things just kept getting more awful.
“How the fuck did a dog get in here?” one of the armed men around her complained.
“You’re worried about that? When we could be chased by a fucking dragon?” another shouted, leaning out of the helicopter to look.
Another reached for Rocky, as if to toss him out of the helicopter, and she shouted, “No!” but this man was stopped by another.
“She’s not ripe yet. Keep him—we may need him to feed the Immortal.”
Kenna did not like a single word in that sentence, but she was relieved when they set Rocky down, and he went to cower underneath a row of seats, while keeping his eyes on her.
She wasn’t completely alone.
She was, however, pretty fucking trapped.
She’d had no idea the thing she’d pulled Sarah from could move so fast—and that it was so sticky, like the end of a chameleon’s tongue. It’d touched her, she’d passed out, and now she was here, unable to free herself, and afraid to move, half in and half out of a...wad?...of it, all hideous white bumps around her, like she’d been attacked by cancerous chewing gum, wrapped up to her waist.
She could still feel her legs, and wriggle her toes, but that was the extent of it. She carefully twisted around, trying to survey her surroundings without drawing more attention of the thing that was holding her—and found that Cliff had survived the altercation, although there were ragged claw marks across his chest. Tarian had gotten him.
But if Tarian had gotten him . . . why hadn’t he died?
How could anyone survive a pissed-off dragon clawing?
Kenna squinted at him under the helicopter’s dim internal lights, watching his torn flesh beneath the shreds of his uniform knit together slowly—while he watched her watching, giving her an incredibly smug look.
The fucker was healing.
And she? She was fucking stuck.
She flipped him off on principle, then crossed her arms, afraid if she put her hands down, the substance around her might claim them too.
