Page 29

Its narrow beam immediately confirmed my fears that anything worthwhile here had long since been removed. I backed out of what had been a small store and spotted a concrete structure behind it. The walls were still mostly standing, although the roof had collapsed sections.

Xandros had disappeared into the dilapidated old warehouse to my left, and I headed for the concrete building—a storage structure? It was hard to tell, but it had a large door at one end.

There were cracks in the walls, but I would have to bend low to use them. Instead, I went to the door. It was an overhead type, already up about two feet off the ground, and I leaned low to shove it higher.

It creaked and groaned, but it slid, sort of. When it was up about four feet, it stopped moving. I bent to shine my light inside.

Catching a glimpse of boxes and crates, my pulse accelerated at what sat amid them. Miracle of miracles, an ancient landhopper. It had been gutted of its engine, but the wings would be perfect for our needs.

And then, something growled. There was movement in the shadows—just a flash of fur and fang.

A huge body slammed into me…

The impact drove me backward, and I hit the ground hard enough to drive all the breath straight out of me.

The weight was there, and then gone. I rolled to my side and froze.

About ten feet from me stood a creature with six legs, covered in fur that looked mottled in the gathering darkness. When I met its gaze, it flattened its ears and growled at me, lifting a lip to reveal a very sharp canine.

My cloak had parallel tears from its claws. Luckily, they hadn’t penetrated through to me. The animal wasn’t huge, about the size of an average German Shepherd. But it wasn’t alone. Behind it ranged another six of them.

Not all were focused on me. As we stared at each other, the two at the back suddenly decided to express themselves in another manner altogether.

Maybe humping was a stress reaction?

It was clearly a pack of carnivores. Even the two otherwise engaged had their bright yellow eyes focused on me.

Suddenly, they weren’t. Their gazes lifted and widened, and from overhead came a subterranean sounding rumble.

Xandros moved to stand over me in dragon form—his lips peeled back to show every one of his huge teeth.

It was no contest. The pack had to know it, but their growls took on a hint of desperation, and they didn’t move away. Although the humping seemed to gain almost a frantic quality.

Definitely a stress reaction .

“They have young,” Xandros said.

Well, if they spent much time reacting to their environment by screwing, then babies would be the logical fallout. “Are you sure?”

“Look at me. Look at them. They are protecting offspring.”

Protecting or procreating? I did, however, sense the truth in his words and in the sudden relaxation of my muscles. Was this the precognition thing kicking in? It hadn’t warned me of the animal’s initial attack… but I’d been distracted by my find.

Clearly, I needed to get in touch with my new inner dragon.

“What else is in there?” Xandros rumbled.

“Nothing much.” I shook my head, slowly. “Just the metal we need.”

Xandros cursed softly. “Can you mount me?”

My face flushed as his jaws opened and closed again.

“Get up on my back.” He snorted, lowering his head.

The entire pack stiffened as I crawled in place. They snarled as he walked to the door, hooked his talons into it, and then wrenched the whole thing right off the track.

As he threw the door aside, my precognition instincts prickled. “Watch them.”

“There is nothing they can do to me,” he stated.

The pack leaped around him and made odd, frantic yipping noises. One lunged at Xandros’s exposed flank, but he used his long tail to swat it away, before he crouched and crawled into the building.

The pups were standing in the shadows of a crate—I could barely see them in the darkness. Five tiny pudgy bodies that scurried for cover when we entered.

The pack followed, and two of them ranged between us and the pups. Their teeth glinted white in the darkness.

The other four were reacting to the stressful situation in the way of their people.

Geez. No wonder there were so many pups.

“Do not look at them,” Xandros rumbled as he moved up alongside the landhopper. “Cut the welds. I will wrench that closest wing right off, and carry it out of here.”

Keeping one eye on the pack, I stepped out onto the wing. I pulled out the second flashlight—who knows where the first one had gone—and examined the welds. Then I donned the goggles, and got to work.

The entire time I was cutting, Xandros kept his back to me, and faced the pack. They alternated between paced restlessly and humping, which must mean they were deeply unhappy with us being there. But they wouldn’t leave, and the pups were far too tiny to travel any distance.

“Go faster.” Xandros’s dragon whisper was rather amusing. “They are thinking about picking the pups up. I don’t want to oust them from their home.”

I glanced toward the pack, and saw that one did, indeed, have a pup dangling carefully from its jaws.

The weld I was working on had already ruptured through part of its length, and it wasn’t alone—there were gaps everywhere else along the ship’s body.

It was likely why the vessel had been used for parts rather than taken away.

I had no idea how old it was, but the metal along the wing was still in decent enough shape for our use.

The wing creaked and then dropped a few inches. Xandros placed his big body beneath it, balancing the ship’s wing between his own. It must have been damned heavy.

The last weld gave way, and I rode the wing down onto his back.

The big head twisted toward me. “You good?”

I shoved everything back into the pack, slung it over my shoulder, flattened myself on the wing, and grabbed onto the edge. “Yeah. Go,” I said.

He lumbered past the pack, who cowered against the back wall as we went by. Getting through the door was an exercise in contortion, but he managed to twist just enough to get the wing out.

The weather had deteriorated as another storm moved in. The wind gusted wildly, almost lifting the wing right off his back. I slipped, but clung on. Xandros arched his wings around our find and carried it into the warehouse he’d initially been checking out.

Enough of the walls here were still standing to break the rising wind. They were lined with old crates and empty shelves. Most of the roof was intact, although there were gaps that the air whistled through.

“No one in residence?” I asked, peering nervously into the shadows.

“All clear,” he assured me. “Slide off. We have to cut it up here. It is too heavy for me to fly with.”

“What about the pack?” I figured the critters were destined for a population explosion after our little invasion.

“They are okay now that we are away from their progeny.”

He sounded pretty damned sure of that. His confidence surprised me—in fact, the way he’d understood the pack and dealt with them impressed the hell out of me. I would have expected a Drake to just slice and dice rather than to analyze and ask valid questions.

The thought gave me pause—perhaps it was time I let go of some of my own biases. I’d always hated the Drakes for their oppression of my people, and Tazier Clan was ruled by a vicious bastard. Senaik had certainly lived up to my ideals. But clearly, Drakes were not all created equal.

I slid off the wing, onto Xandros’s neck. From there, to his offered foreleg, and to the ground. His head curved around as I did so, and I heard him inhale.

Startled, I shot him a look. His head was so huge that I could only see one sapphire eye—which regarded me for a moment, and then he swung away. My heart was leaping around like a pack puppy as I stood back to let him dump the wing off his back.

It landed with a clatter on the floor of the warehouse. I peeled the flashlight, cutters, and goggles out of the pack, while Xandros disappeared out into the night.

A few minutes later, he was back as a human. He’d gone out to fetch his cloak, which was now soaking wet. Squeezing the water out of his long russet hair, he twisted it expertly into a knot behind his neck before brushing leaves and other debris off the cloak…

I didn’t realize I was staring until he met my gaze and raised a brow. “Am I accordingly clad for cutting duty?”

“Oh.” I ripped my gaze away, and was grateful that the darkness hid my flushing skin. At least, I hoped it did—who knew, with Drake vision. “Yes, of course.” He was a very big fucking gorgeous hunk of man. Ah, Drake . I reminded myself of that with a vengeance as I handed him the second cutter.

“This planet—it has spectacular storms,” he said. “The lightning out there is threatening. We cannot leave.”

I might have gulped. Or at least swallowed forcibly as I handed him the goggles. His big fingers brushed against mine as he took them, and the tingles shot straight through to something that had no business getting ideas.

Fortunately, he didn’t seem to react as he took them, and he moved to stand on the wing. He paced out the rough length and width we would need, and we began to cut.

It didn’t take long to free a section, but Xandros suggested we cut a second one, just in case. By the end, I was relying on the flashlight to see what I was doing, but he seemed just fine without it.

Meanwhile the wind picked up, so that the old roof rattled, and rain was driven in through the gaps. We stomped to the doorway and peered out.

“Can you fly in that?” I asked hopefully.

“Yes,” he said. “The big sheets will catch the wind, though. Metal in a thunderstorm is also bad.”

Oh. Right. I rubbed my arms beneath the cloak—now that we weren’t working, I was noticing the chill to the air.