Page 75
Story: City of Smoke and Brimstone
Three.
Loren jolted awake with a ragged inhale, his name a frightened cry on her lips.
And Darien broke down in tears, right there beside her, as the galaxies faded, returning him to the here, the now.
Life.
He wound his arms around her, scooping her into his lap and holding her tight and sobbing uncontrollably into her hair.
“I heard you,” she gasped, hugging him back. Gods, it felt so good to be touched by her, held by her. “I could hear you, Darien.” She clung to him as if she were drowning. “I followed the sound of your voice.” Her words were shredded apart by gasping, shaking sobs. “I followed you home—I followed your voice. Thank you?—”
“I’ll never give up on you,” he vowed, pulling her back just far enough to look at her face, cupping her cheek with a hand. He rubbed the tears off her skin with his thumb, smearing blood. “No matter how many times you try to die, I’m not letting you go, sweetheart. Ever.”
He gave her brow a hard kiss, and then rested his forehead against hers as more missiles struck home, the city a bloody war zone behind shut eyes.
But as life was blown to bits all around him, all he felt, all he saw?—
It was all her. Justher.
23
Aithne
YVESWICH, STATE OF KER
Shay stared blanklyat the dark road before her. Her heart was beating out of her chest, her white-knuckled hands squeezing the steering wheel.
That was a close call.Waytoo close.
She drove in silence for several minutes, determined to get the hell out of Aithne—a secluded Red Zone in East Yveswich. A place where only Wyverns and the foolish who didn’t know any better wandered.
Try as she may, she couldn’t slow her heart. Couldn’t relax her hands. Not even when they finally left Aithne and entered neutral territory. She still felt like a live wire—ready to burn through anything in her path. Ready to burn through herself, even.
It wasn’t a good feeling. She felt…unpredictable. Unstable. A force of nature that could not be contained.
“Why don’t we pull over for a minute?” Tanner’s voice, though gentle, startled her out of her deep pocket of concentration, and she felt more electric currents skitter between her palms and the steering wheel, causing her hands to vibrate. She’d almost forgotten Tanner was here.
“And do what?” Shay’s question crackled with exhaustion. “They could be behind us.” Her attention flicked to the reflection in the rear-view. The winding, forested road was mercifully empty.
For now.
“They don’t have a vehicle.”
Shay frowned. “What about Sybil’s car?”
“You hit it with your lightning.”
She blinked. “I hit acar?”
“I don’t know why you’re surprised. You also fried that one Wyvern like an egg.”
The laugh that bubbled out of her suggested she was dangerously close to dissolving into hysterics. “Okay, so they may not have a car, but they do have wings.” All it would take was for those three jerks—two, if Sybil stayed dead—to shift and take their search efforts to the skies, and they’d be found in no time. Found and likely torched like the trees before they could sayWyvern.
“Shay, you’re swerving,” Tanner said, his tone fraught. “We managed to survive all that insanity back there, and I hate to say this but I’m already questioning my safety again.”
Shay squeezed the wheel, thumbs dragging across the leather. “If we stop, they could find us. They can fly, Tanner.” Not for long, though, she knew—just like the bracelets that gave members of the Riptide the gift to breathe underwater, the magic in the Wyverns’ rings had its limits. They couldn’t stay airborne forever. But her knowledge of this hardly lessened her concern.
“Let’s stop over there, then,” Tanner suggested, indicating to a heavily treed side street up ahead. The gnarled boughs of the ancient oaks arched above the road, creating the perfect shelter. “They won’t be able to see us there if they’re looking from above.” Gods, she hoped he was right.
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