Silver - By Kailin Gow Page 0,49

could s e e whether they were keeping up with the dragon, of course. She was pressed tightly to Fal on, which meant that she was facing away from the direction at which they were travel ing at such speed.

Briony turned her head, craning her neck in an effort to catch a glimpse of the creature ahead of them.

She saw it, only a little way ahead, though further up.

It was heading for the woods, a golden flash against the blue sky. The rush of the oncoming wind was too much for Briony, though, and she had to turn her head back towards Fal on.

Scenery flashed past below them, and then around them as each leap from Fal on came to its end. The houses of the town were there only briefly, which was probably a good thing. Briony didn’t want to know what the people of Wicked would make of a chase between a dragon and a flying vampire holding onto a young woman.

Next came trees. Fal on skimmed the tops of these, springing off them and leaping from treetop to treetop in a way that scared flocks of birds from them. Briony risked another glance forwards. The dragon was stil there. Better yet, they seemed to be gaining on it.

yet, they seemed to be gaining on it.

They half flew, half leaped their way onward, over trees and woodland paths, past streams and over smal clearings. Once or twice, Briony thought that she saw people looking up at them, but right then, it didn’t matter so much. They had to catch up to this shifter if Briony was going to get some answers.

It was almost a shock when they stopped. They had been travel ing for long enough that Briony had become used to the rhythm of it, to the rush of air past her head, and the brief sense of explosive force that came every time Fal on touched down. When it stopped, it took Briony a second to disentangle herself from Fal on’s neck and look around.

She recognized the clearing they were in instantly.

Even though there were other clearings with streams and wildflowers spread around the area, this was definitely the one that held the gate. The stream was too large for it to be anywhere else. Somehow, Briony had known that they would end up here.

The dragon was back in his human form, the young man standing over by where the gate had formed when Aunt Sophie had gone through it, leaning on one of the trees that blossomed throughout the clearing.

Briony moved forward, her palms out in a placating gesture. “Please don’t fly off again. I real y need to talk to you.”

The dragon shifter cocked his head to one side. “I have no problem with talking to you. We should not talk with the vampire here, however.”

“Fal on is my friend,” Briony said. She looked back at Fal on, and couldn’t help a smile. “A very good friend.

You don’t have to worry about him.”

“Ah, I see.” The dragon shifter moved between her and Fal on, lowering his voice. “Let me guess. You feel an inexplicable attraction to him that you cannot shake. You feel as though being with him is the most natural thing in the world.”

Briony nodded.

The dragon shifter sighed. “It is inevitable. Your kind and his, you are like reflections of one another. What you feel comes from that.”

Briony started to shake her head. She wouldn’t believe that what she and Fal on felt was no more than an artificial connection between two not quite human creatures. Yet she couldn’t quite say it aloud. After al , hadn’t her attraction to the vampire seemed more than natural on occasion? Hadn’t it cut through what she felt for Kevin, even when Briony was determined to be committed to only him?

And it raised one obvious question. “You know what I am, then?”

The young man nodded. “Of course. Do you have your fangs yet?”

“You knew about those?” Briony wasn’t sure whether to be happy that he did or annoyed that he hadn’t said anything in the brief moments when they had met before.

“What do they mean? Am I…” she had to ask it “…am I some kind of vampire?”

The dragon shifter took hold of Briony’s shoulders, suddenly earnest. “You are something far, far better than one of those abominations. They are no more than twisted parodies of what you are, turned by their own violence into demons that can never enter our land.”

“Right. Um…”

“Archer. They cal