Page 16 of Hexual Healing
“Easy for you to say,” I stopped.His eyes had one hundred percent gone gold this time.And his hands where they held me were warmer than they should be.“Baz?”
“She's here,” he growled.His voice had gone rough.Animalistic and feral.So.Fucking.Hot.“Stay behind me.”
The front door exploded.
Not knocked open.Not broken down.Exploded.Wood became shrapnel became tiny splinters became dust, in a massive surge of heat that should have incinerated everything in a ten-foot radius.
But it didn't.
Because Baz was already moving, pulling me behind him as his body began to change.Not fully.Not into whatever animal he was.But enough that his shoulders broadened, his hands grew claws, and when he roared?
I damn near crapped myself.
Through the smoke and debris, Illanya stepped into view.She looked the same as always.Devastating.Tall and lean, with scales that caught the light like rubies along her arms and throat.Her hair was the color of fresh blood, falling in waves to her waist.Her eyes?Dragon eyes of swirling silver, gold, and green, with vertical pupils.They latched on to me immediately.
“Hello, little spark,” she purred.“I've come to take you home.”
Then her gaze fell on Baz.On the way he stood in front of me.On the tooth hanging around my neck.
Her expression went from confident to confused to utterly, completely enraged.
“Who,” she said, smoke beginning to curl from her mouth, “the fuck are you?”
Baz smiled.All teeth.Not a nice smile.
“I'm hers,” he said simply.
And that’s when all hell broke loose.
ChapterThree
Illanya moved first.
Not with magic.Not with fire.With her fist.
She crossed the threshold faster than thought, faster than I could track, and slammed her knuckles into Baz's jaw with a resounding crack that made my teeth hurt.He took the hit, rolled with it, and came back swinging with big-ass deadly claws that hadn't been there a second ago.
“Mine,” Illanya snarled, ducking under his swipe.Scales rippled across her skin like armor.“She's MINE.”
“Not anymore,” Baz growled back, and the sound that came from his chest wasn't remotely human.Deeper.Older.Something that knew how to fight dragons and could possibly even win.
They collided in a flurry of feral growls and claws.
Illanya's talons raked across Baz's chest, shredding his shirt and drawing blood.He grabbed her wrist, twisted, and threw her into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster.She laughed.Actually laughed.
“A bear?”She pulled herself out of the Illanya-shaped dent, brushing drywall dust from her shoulders.“You left me for a fucking BEAR?”
“I didn't leave you for anyone,” I managed to say, though my voice came out shakier than I wanted.“I left you because you're psychotic.”Her eyes snapped to mine, and the temperature in the room jumped twenty degrees.“Psychotic?I LOVED you.”
“You tried to burn down my apartment!”
“It was an accident!”
“An accident when we were arguing about you trying to burn down my PREVIOUS apartment!”
“That was also an accident!”
“That was the third time!“