Battle Bond: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons #2) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,87
time to see Zav go flying backward into two tanks. Dob pushed off, wings flapping madly. He hurled another attack, not at Zav but at the back wall of the building. It blew outward as if he’d ignited explosives.
He was escaping.
“No, you don’t.” I raced toward the new exit, hoping to cut him off. I jammed Fezzik in my holster as I ran—the bullets had done no good—but I kept Chopper.
Dob banked right in front of me, struggling to navigate in a facility that was cavernous to humans but cramped to the great dragons. I leaped and slashed at his foot, lamenting that I couldn’t reach a more vital target.
The blade glowed a fierce blue as it cut through one of the dragon’s toes. Dob screeched and glared back as he flew. I dropped flat to my belly as angry power blasted toward me, crackling over my skin like wildfire. It didn’t strike me full on, but the force was enough to send me skidding ten feet and rolling onto my back.
The next time we meet, Dob’s words thundered in my mind, you will die.
“So much for him wanting to screw me,” I muttered.
Black wings flapped past above me. Zav was giving chase.
“Get the bastard,” I yelled after him and sat up.
Don’t get in the way again, Sindari warned me, coming to my side. Or maybe to stand on me if I got up. He was distracted when you screamed and the silver knocked him back.
It wasn’t my fault Dob attacked me.
You were shooting at him.
Yeah, ineffectively. Zav asked me to help if I could. It’s not like coming with him was my idea. He—
I halted and gaped as green lightning streaked up from the pavement outside the exit hole Dob had blown. Dob had already escaped, flying out of my sight, but the lightning caught Zav, wrapping around him and crackling with power that held the sun’s intensity. Even from a hundred feet away, I felt it, like a swarm of wasps attacking from all sides.
Zav crashed down, hitting the pavement like a wrecked airplane. The pain assailing me faded, and I pushed myself to my feet.
Outside, Zav lay crumpled on the ground. I swore. If it had felt like wasps from a hundred feet away, what had it been like to be right in the middle of it? And what if Dob came back to press his advantage now that his trap had sprung?
I ran for the exit, my body aching from my harsh ride across the hard floor. With Chopper in hand, I envisioned protecting Zav from an attack. As if cutting off the tip of Dob’s toe had actually done anything.
When I reached Zav’s side, my blade raised as I scanned the gray sky, a soft mist fell on my warm cheeks but nothing more. I didn’t see the silver dragon. But I kept my sword up. Dob could be above the low cloud cover, preparing to swoop down.
He is fleeing to the south, Zav spoke wearily into my mind. I can sense him now.
He spat weakly and the black onyx oval—and a chunk of Dob’s chest—tumbled out onto the pavement.
“Gross,” I said, though I was relieved that he—and I—would be able to sense Dob’s aura now. “Uhm, will you be all right?”
Concerned that Zav wasn’t making an attempt to get up from the pavement, I stepped close enough to rest a hand on his cool side. Guilt crept into me. He was only injured because Dob had attacked me and Zav had paused his own attack to protect me.
I hated that I’d been used as a pawn in this, hated that I’d been someone’s weakness to exploit. Not once but twice that bastard had used me.
It didn’t matter that me coming along had been Zav’s idea, not mine. He’d probably expected me to be able to take care of myself or at least do enough to be useful. I remembered him asking what powers I had beyond my charms and weapons and having to admit that I had nothing. Only a sword that was death to dragon toes. Maybe it could hurt more than a toe if I could ever reach anything higher. How did the knights that slew dragons in stories do it? Trampolines?
I knew there would be traps, Zav admitted, not answering my question. He had days to work on them. But in the bloodlust of the hunt, I wasn’t thinking. I should not have charged out recklessly.