To Love a Dragon - Tiffany Roberts Page 0,76

was louder or more prominent, but because it was so different, so subtle.

Because, in its own way, it was terrifyingly familiar.

It was the beating of huge wings in the air.

Prickling heat coursed down Arysteon’s back, just beneath his scales. He’d experienced that alarming sensation before—it was the instinctual recognition of hostile eyes glaring down upon him, just as so many other dragons had looked down upon Arysteon and his kin in the past.

That prickling sensation intensified suddenly. Growling, Arysteon abruptly altered his course, drawing his legs inward as he leapt through the gap between two huge tree trunks. The other dragon roared immediately behind him.

The forest canopy shook violently, and dozens of branches snapped almost simultaneously. Something hard and sharp raked down Arysteon’s back, rending his scales and producing a flare of pain just before the pair of trees shook with an immense impact. Wood cracked, boughs broke and fell, and the other dragon howled in pain and anger.

Somewhere in the cacophony, Leyloni cried out Arysteon’s name.

Though the pain was distant, Arysteon knew in that moment what Leyloni must have realized the first day he’d seen her, when she was being chased by the monster she’d called a treelurker—there would be no escape. He could not outrun this foe, not when he was so disadvantaged by being stuck on the ground.

He pumped his legs harder, putting more distance between himself and his temporarily grounded pursuer. A fury unlike any he’d ever known blazed at his core, pushing his spark to impossible intensity, further building the pressure within him.

The other dragon had clawed Arysteon’s back. Had the attack come a moment sooner, it would have been Serek and Leyloni beneath those claws, it would have been their blood spilled rather than Arysteon’s.

Arysteon snarled.

The open wound on his back grew unbearably hot, and he felt his lightning sparking from it, felt that power crackling out over his scales, smelled it burning the air. There would be no more running. There was only one resolution to this situation.

Arysteon spun to face his foe. The other dragon was larger than Arysteon, and his body was wedged between the trees. He was clawing his way out from between them, shredding the trunks in the process. His bronze scales gleamed in the sunlight, and his eyes—intense, glowing amber—blazed, fixing on Arysteon with all the rage and hunger that had been evident in his roars.

“Slide off,” Arysteon growled as he dropped onto his belly and glanced back at Leyloni and Serek.

Leyloni lifted her head, meeting his gaze with wide, fearful, uncertain eyes.

“You must go! Now!” Arysteon’s voice bore a hint of rumbling thunder. Time was short; he could not have her nearby when he clashed with his foe.

Face paling, Leyloni swallowed and nodded. She clutched Serek closer, scrambled off Arysteon’s back, and dropped to the forest floor, barely maintaining her balance under her burden.

“Flee, my heartsong, as fast as you can.” Arysteon returned his attention to the bronze dragon. “I will find you soon.”

He felt the brief touch of her fingers on his scales, and then she was gone.

With a snarl, the bronze dragon burst through the trees that had caught him, crashing heavily on his belly. He raked his claws over the ground to drag his hindquarters through the gap.

Arysteon felt Leyloni—felt her portion of their shared spark—moving away from him. Despite everything, part of him was desperate to chase her. That part was brimming with Heat, but his desire for her ran far, far deeper than that. She was his, plain and simple. Her place was at his side.

And he would destroy anything that tried to take her from him.

Gritting his teeth, he coiled the muscles of his legs and curled his tail, bracing it on the ground. A lightning storm of rage blazed in his chest, threatening to consume him.

He did not resist it.

“You face Pavoss, groundling,” the bronze dragon barked as he raised himself on all fours, spreading his wings. “Lord of the Northern Woodlands, the Inferno of—”

“You face Arysteon, Lord of Lightning,” Arysteon roared, launching himself at the larger dragon. He crashed into his foe head on, knocking Pavoss backward in a tumble of claws and gnashing teeth.

The dragons crashed into the pair of damaged trees, one of which snapped beneath the combined weight and force of the battling beasts.

Pavoss’s claws bit into Arysteon’s sides, and his tail lashed Arysteon’s back, but the pain was far away and unimportant, lost in the thickening crimson haze that had fallen over Arysteon’s mind.

Arysteon gave