Page 45 of Knotted By the Triad

I shook my head.

Allie touched my arm. “Princess, we should go.”

Yeah, we should. With his injured leg, there was no way he could catch us if we ran. We started backing away. Then the smuggler's body trembled. His shoulders widened as bones cracked beneath his skin.

My stomach dropped as his fingers lengthened and dark scales spread over his body. I'd been so focused on beating his ass and taking his money that I'd forgotten one very important detail. The smugglers were dragons too.

I grabbed Allie’s arm. “Can you shift and fly us away from here?”

“I don't know,” she said, looking nervous.

The smuggler's roar shook the branches overhead as he transformed.

“Try,” I yelled.

“Okay.” She closed her eyes. “Come on, dragon. You can do it. Don’t fail me now.”

I watched her. But nothing was happening. She just looked constipated. I looked back at the smuggler. He was almost done with his transformation. A loud roar escaped him as his neck elongated.

“Princess,” Allie whispered.

I looked back at her, hoping for some progress. There was none.

“We should run,” Allie said.

We ran. Branches whipped across my arms as we raced through the trees. Behind us came another roar, followed by cracking wood and the heavy pounding of the dragon gaining on us. A tree snapped somewhere behind me.

I made the mistake of looking back and nearly stumbled. He was moving fast. Blood streaked his scales, and one side of his face was badly damaged, and he was missing an eye. But the injuries that had nearly crippled him as a man weren't slowing his dragon nearly enough.

“Princess!”

Allie grabbed my arm and yanked me sideways just as a massive claw tore through the space where I'd been. We stumbled down a steep slope, sliding through dirt and leaves before crashing behind a fallen tree. Everything hurt. I looked over at Allie.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She nodded, then winced. “What about the money, Princess?”

I lifted my hand and patted my chest. The envelope was still there.

“I’ve got it,” I told her. “I almost lost my life, but I didn’t lose this money.”

For one ridiculous second, we stared at each other. Then we both started laughing. After everything we'd just gone through, we'd still managed to steal the damn money. I guess we weren’t bad thieves after all.

A roar thundered above us. Our laughter died as the dragon appeared at the top of the slope, staring down at us.

“Do you think he can get down here?” I asked.

The dragon started forward. Well, that answered my question.

“We should run,” I yelled.

Allie and I scrambled to our feet and took off through the trees. Behind us, the dragon roared and gave chase. This shit had not happened in CiCi’s book!

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DAEMIN

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