Page 207 of Scourged

“If you want me, little goddess,”Kol taunted,“you must go where dragons dance.”

Mariah lifted her lip. Spread her wings across the gardens.

“Mariah—”

Her Armature’s desperate cries were lost in the great down sweep of her wings. She shoved against the ground, lurching into the air.

Muscles she’d never used screamed in agony. Instinct took over as air filled and grazed the sensitive membranes of her wings. She clawed against the sky, releasing a mighty roar. She was off balance, but she surged up with each great flap of her wings.

Above her, Kol hovered. “You are bold, little goddess. I will give you that much.”

Mariah snarled, urging her wings faster. He grew closer with each burning down beat. Almost there?—

She opened her jaws, lunging again for his neck.

He dove, nimbly swooping away from her despite his size. A laugh echoed in her mind. “Do you want to know why those lords let you go?”

She twisted, fighting the wind, muscles in her back barking in protest. Kol banked below her, a slow-moving shadow, and she tucked her wings and dove.

He again snapped away, moving too fast for her to even react.

“I suppose it hardly matters to you,”he murmured. He sounded almost relaxed, as if she wasn’t fighting her body and the winds to claw him to pieces. “But when I first gave the order to have you captured … I thought you were already ascended. Only a queen could shift, you see. And I very much needed you to shift.”

“Fuck. You.” Her lungs burned beneath her ribs as she again bent her body in the sky, scanning the clouds.

There. A massive shadow lazily cut in and out of the bright rays of the sun. She snarled, pumping her wings.

Kol sighed into her mind. “Imagine my disappointment when you arrived here. Just a single bonding short!”

Mariah was beneath him now, catching her breath on an updraft, focused on the soft scales of his belly. Just one good lunge, and if she got her claws there …

“That’s when I ordered you released. I needed to give up my little plaything to do it, but … we all make sacrifices for what we want. Isn’t that right?”

She shook her head. His voice had a way of wrapping in her mind, circling and looping her thoughts.

Enough.

She gathered her body, and with a great beat of her wings, shot through the clouds.

Mariah slammed into his underside, a surprised roar sawing from his chest. She sank her teeth into his leg, her own claws flipping, desperate for purchase.

Beneath the rays of the setting sun, its fallen god screamed. Hot blood, like liquid shadow and brilliant flame, burst across her tongue. She clenched her jaw tighter, trying to crunch the bone.

A furious, burning pain tore through her abdomen. Her jaw loosened, wingbeats faltering.

Far below, an agonized bellow echoed.

Kol twisted away from her, hissing in pain as his leg leaked blood. Mariah tried to hold herself aloft, fighting against the wind.

But thepain.

With her own desperate cry, she plummeted to the earth, her wings catching her at the last minute. She slammed into the ground, talons sinking deep, as she heaved breath into her lungs.

The pain, the pain, the pain …

She swung her head, searching her body, but … she was unharmed.

“Feran!”That same cry rang out again. Mariah’s blood cooled.