imagine falling instead of flying. In the battle between gravity and injured Cooper, it was all too possible for gravity to win, for one person’s struggle not to make any difference.
But not today. Cooper fought his way upright again, propelling their way up the sheer rock face of the mountain with a combination of wing beats and brute strength.
The dragon lunged at them, and Gretchen’s mind almost whited out with rage. It thought Cooper was completely vulnerable right now, since he was wounded and fighting for their lives? Well, Cooper had a partner, and his partner had a gun.
The angle was horrible, but Gretchen managed to draw her sidearm and keep her shaking fingers locked on it so that it didn’t fall immediately out of her hand and down into the valley below. As she took aim, a familiar coolness fell over her, steadying her hand. This was part of the job, and she knew how to do the job.
She fired twice, sending the dragon spinning backwards through the air. Gretchen wasn’t sure if she’d hit him or not, given all the jostling of Cooper getting them to safety, but she’d at least driven him back.
And that had given Cooper enough time to finish hauling them up the mountain. Even with all his injuries and all his exhaustion, he didn’t collapse until they were on solid ground again.
Gretchen dismounted and stroked his sides, feeling him tremble beneath her touch. His fur was soaked through with sweat, and his chest was heaving unevenly as he fought the pain. Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked at the marks left by the dragonfire and the claw-slashes, and she was almost glad that her vision was blurred. Seeing his wounds in more detail wouldn’t make them look any better. He needed help, and he needed it as soon as possible. It wasn’t something that it would be easy to get when they were in the middle of nowhere.
The dragon’s shadow fell over her now. It breathed out little puffs of ineffective, weak flame. Its strength was mostly spent, at least for now. And it didn’t seem willing to risk another head-on, close-up charge while she still had a gun trained on it.
They still had a chance. Maybe.
Unless it decided to just hover there until its fire returned. If this was Phil, and if he could work out that facing them in human form was too much of a risk—and he probably could—then maybe they had no chance at all.
She leaned against the broad, darkly feathered expanse of Cooper’s shoulders and felt his wings ruffle around her, wrapping her in a kind of embrace.
“Can you still heal if you change back?”
He looked at her with his gold-bronze eyes and nodded so solemnly that she had to swallow down another lump of unshed tears.
“Good. Because not that this look doesn’t work for you, but on the off-chance that we’re going to die here—I want to be looking at your other face.”
He melted against her, the solid, wounded strength of his griffin’s body dissolving into the tense, wounded strength of his body. Gretchen herded him back into the crack in the mountainside before the dragon could make a move on them. It was only a temporary shelter, but it was better than nothing, and it gave her at least a minute or two to look over Coop.
She loved his griffin, but she loved his human shape even more. All else aside, it was only like this that he could really and truly hold her back.
He hugged her close, his embrace so tight it made her breathless. She knew he was hurting, but he still gave her all his strength and held none of it back for himself. She didn’t know how anyone could have ever thought he could be selfish enough to trade his honor for money.
“We’re not going to die here,” Cooper said against her hair.
Maybe they would. Maybe they wouldn’t. Gretchen realized that, as little sense as it made, she wasn’t afraid.
She was sorry for the time together that they might lose, sorry that she might not get the chance to say a real goodbye to her family and her team, and even sorry that she’d never have another bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream again—but she wasn’t scared. Not of any of it.
Cooper had given her enough certainty to face down death—or any other future—without fear or regret. Because now that she had him, now that she really knew him,