Page 46 of Mate of a Monster

“I don’t know, but I’m going.”

“At least they will not roast me alive if I’m living inside you,” he muses.

“Don’t count on it. Thyrix is spiteful, and I’m nothing special.”

The climb toward the dragon’s ridge is steeper than I remember, or maybe I’m just moving too fast to feel it properly. Gravel slides loose beneath my boots and I stop short the second the entrance comes into view.

It takes only a moment before the first dragon steps out.

She moves slowly, massive shoulders rolling beneath scales the color of tarnished silver, each one catching the light like fractured glass.

A Pyrite dragon.

Her body is enormous, wider than the cave mouth she emerged from, and the ground rumbles with every step she takes. Her muscles bunch and release with each stride, powerful enough to crush every damn thing without much effort. Scars line the underside of her jaw, old ones, pale against the dull metallic of her hide. She’s seen fights. Won fights.

Her eyes find me. Ringed black, they hold me suspended with the kind of ancient, disinterested awareness that makes my blood run cold. She doesn’t give a fuck about much of anything.

I’ve always found it comforting.

Her head lifts high, nostrils flaring as she tastes the air, wings unfurling in a heavy, controlled stretch that makes the ground tremble beneath my feet. She crouches and launches, the force of it knocking dust and loose stone from the cliff’s edge.

She rises straight up, body cutting through the air like a spear, until she pierces the low-hanging cloud layer and disappears from sight.

Another follows her path.

One by one they all emerge, each moving faster than the last, each different in color and size but identical in their exit.

The last to step out is Thyrix and he doesn’t hesitate, launching straight into the air.

The force slams into me like a physical shove, wind ripping across the ridge as he shoots upward as lethal as an arrow. I step forward without thinking, heart punching hard against my ribs.

“Hellpet,” the Nightkin warns.

I ignore him and keep moving, until I’m full sprint.

“Haide!”

The edge of the cliff appears faster than my mind registers, the ground dropping away in a violent plunge of jagged rock and crashing surf far below. My foot slides on loose gravel, and for one blinding second my weight tips forward into open air.

“Shit!”

Pain erupts through me, tugging at something buried deep in my core.

My body jerks back mid-step, arms flailing as I stumble sideways and slam onto my knees instead of over the edge. The impact rattles up my spine, and I suck in a breath that tastes like blood and salt.

“I said stop,” he snaps inside me.

I shove up onto my feet, fury burning hot in my chest, but my gaze is already locked on the sky.

Thyrix reaches the first layer of clouds, and my heart clenches for some reason as I wait for him to vanish like the others.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, he punches through the thin white veil and then stalls, wings spreading wide and holding. He banks slightly, massive body rotating in a tight arc.

Heat surges up my throat so fast it steals my breath. I open my mouth to call his name, but choke on air, ash puffing from between my lips in a rough cough that burns all the way down.

“Thyrix!” I manage finally, voice raw.