the way by. His velocity took him up and over the peak and he tumbled down the other side in a snarl of limbs and wings, both he and Tineen snapping at each other, going for the jugular.
Pain starburst inside him as one of the black dragon’s talons found purchase at his hip. Tineen flared his wings, gaining the advantage and lifting Levi only to slam him back into the rock once, twice.
The third time he hit, Levi slung his tail into the rock, finding purchase. The makeshift anchor held, slamming them both to a hard stop before flinging the black dragon away, taking a hunk of Levi’s scales with him.
With a grunt, Levi disconnected his tail from the rock and flipped to his belly. Rage had him searching for Tineen, who’d disappeared into the night, even as he knew he needed to get back to his boys at the top. Now.
A roar reverberated through the air. One that didn’t come from the mountainside. Immediately Levi pinpointed a gold dragon grappling with a blue at altitude. Attor.
The kid managed to clash and retreat without getting caught. Then back in with a snap of his jaws and out. Quicker than most gold dragons, with their bulkier bodies, could usually move. He was holding his own, with no one else around him. Levi couldn’t do anything else to help him, so he returned to climbing up the side of the mountain.
“Below you—” Marin’s voice cracked into his thoughts.
What the fuck? Why did Lyndi let him out of the mountain?
“Watch out,” Marin yelled again. Levi jerked down to find Tineen already on top of him.
Except, to the right of the black dragon, a tiny brilliant white form materialized from out of nowhere, bobbling and slipping in the air.
Marin. Holy fuck, the kid had shifted. Too young. Too small, but there he was.
Levi swallowed a roar, needing to keep his kid safe, but he couldn’t get between them. It all happened too fast. Marin slammed into the black dragon from the side.
The unmistakable crack of bone sounded followed by a howl of pain. The two tumbled together briefly, a yin-yang blur of black and white. Then, suddenly, somehow with the gods on his side, Marin managed to disconnect and lifted away—hovering awkwardly in the skies, dropping down in jerks then raising back up—and the boy watched as the black dragon fell. Tineen’s wings flung out, caught at the wind, and inches from striking the mountainside, he flared back into the sky.
“Go,” Levi commanded.
Marin launched away, and soon it was difficult to pick him out of the myriad of glittering stars in the black sky.
Ignoring the pain of the gash in his belly, Levi took off. But the second he was in the air, fire swirled with bile in his gut. The rest of his boys were gone. Not a single one to be seen. Not a damn sign of them anywhere. He reached out with his mind. “Report.”
The silent, lonely peak of the mountain taunted him with failure.
…
Lyndi had every intention of staying deep inside the mountain with Vilsinn and the rest of her boys, still hollowed in shock at seeing her youngest shift for the first time and, against her yelling to come back, shoot out of the cavern on his own.
Levi. Oh gods, keep Marin safe. Keep them all safe. Unable to shift herself, her dragon silent inside her, she’d stayed where she was so that Levi only had to think about himself and their boys. But she just couldn’t sit here and wait.
Hiding in a hole in the ground, listening to crashes that rivaled the thunder gods from outside, and not knowing what was happening to her family.
“Stay here,” she ordered the younger boys gathered in the room with her.
Two of her youngers whimpered, and she pulled them close to her. “I need to see if I can help. Can you be brave?”
Another boom from outside shot through the mountain, like the sound poured down the tunnels to where they huddled.
You have to go.
The thought was her own and yet not. Heart quickening, she closed her eyes and reached for her dragon. Felt for her through the darkness of the void the animal had left inside her.
Nothing.
She listened to that part of herself anyway. “I’m so proud of all of you,” she said to her boys. “Be brave.”
The others jumped to their feet, grim-faced. Not with the eager light in their eyes of boys who’d only dreamed of the glory of