CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 22
A woman's voice reached her first. Not words, but a cross between a scream and a howl. Illaise. Wolves poured into the clearing and the air around her filled with the scent of wet fur.
Pourtus staggered back as three, and then five, of the beasts fell upon him, forcing him to change. Even in his dragon form, he was outnumbered. The wolves were fierce, snarling and leaping, working as if of one mind. In all Gayriel's calculations of her odds, she hadn't figured in the Shifters.
Pain brought her near the edge of consciousness, as her arms were gripped by an unseen force and jostled.
“Sorry, Lady,” Scet apologized from behind her. A bow was set at her feet, the weapon that saved her from Pourtus.
Her arms wrenched back, inducing pain that hurt like a firebrand, and then her limbs were free. She whimpered as she pulled them forward, cradling the red gash across her wrist.
“I would love to have the killing blow myself,” Scet grumbled as he came around her front, his eyes narrowed at the white dragon. Blood dripped from gashes along Pourtus' side. He snapped at a wolf that drew too near. As he did, a second beast leapt for his throat. Planned, like the thefts of street gangs.
Scet pawed at Gayriel's injury, pulling at the skin delicately. Her awareness faded slightly, black spots formed in her vision.
She was losing her sense of self. Soon she would lose consciousness. She blinked at the swell of blood his ministrations caused and he hissed. A pool was collecting on the ground, the scent of iron invaded her nostrils. That was her life she smelled, drifting away.
“A minute earlier and I might have prevented this,” he muttered. He forced her chin up. His face swam before her eyes, but for the second time, he was looking directly into them.
“Dynarys is going to kill me,” he shook his head. “You are losing blood fast, Lady, I hope you are more forgiving than your mate.”
She didn't respond, couldn't. The ground began to spin and her stomach threatened to escape.
Bleeding. She was bleeding out. Just what they had wanted, and it was a trap. The Quatori would come.
“Dynarys,” she whispered. She had to tell him. He had to know about the Master. And she had never said...never told him...hells, she hadn't even admitted her feelings for him to herself.
Scet lowered his head, warm lips placed right against her wound...and licked.
A shock of awareness raced through her blood at the contact. Not sexual awareness, this was something else. She could hear each beat of her heart and feel the tissue that he had touched. It was knitting. A strange sensation of pulling and drawing, like a needle and thread through a torn skirt. Muscles joining back together and vessels repairing the break. Somehow he had healed her. But it was more than that, too. She could hear breathing, his breathing and she could feel him blink.
Then she knew, as if she could read his thoughts. He had taken a liberty, one punishable by death.
“You mated me?” she whispered. “Oh, Dynarys is going to kill you.”
Noted. Scet's dry thought raced into her mind, unbidden. But I could save your life no other way. The bond will fade, Gayriel, eventually. So long as we do not complete the ritual, it is not a true mating. Gayriel could feel the truth of what he said, but he hesitated and she knew there was more.
“What?” she asked out loud, uncomfortable with the idea that he would be able to read her mind as she read his. She would just ignore that fact until it went away, she decided.
“Breaking the bond is painful, you might wish I had let you die.”
She still felt like she was dying. She took a deep breath. A snarl of wolves fought throughout the clearing. The Dragon Lord that bound her so tightly lifted off on great wings into the night. She could not make out Kurath, or his wolves among the others, but Pourtus she could see.
His wings hung, tattered by his side, his hind leg useless. Still, the Shifters did not go in for the kill. They waited for word from the Alpha. From Dynarys.
At last, she understood the intricate relationship. He had tried to refuse the position, but that was not how Shifter society worked. Dynarys was alpha of the Amber Aerie Shifters, his mother alpha of the free pack. And without the actions of his beta, Scet, Gayriel would not have survived the night.
And she was grateful, she decided. This mistake had cost her deeply, but it might have been her life, Dynarys's life. Instead, she would be submitted to some discomfort. A fitting punishment for her actions.
The corner of Scet's mouth rose slightly in approval. You will make a fine Alpha's mate, he told her.
“Where is Dynarys?”
He lures away the Quatori.
He said no more, but he did not have to. The image of her mate slicing his own skin to smear a dragon's blood among the trees pronounced itself.
She wobbled.
“I need to sit down,” she whispered weakly.
She didn't get a chance. The sky darkened and five forms landed within the clearing.
Gayriel pulled forth the remains of her concentration. The blackest of the shadows veered toward her, landing above her with a solid thump.
Then he was there. Her mate, her love, and she was in his arms. Suddenly, the tears came. The hurt and the guilt and the worry all ran from her eyes and she sobbed into his chest.
“Gayriel,” Dynarys whispered, she looked upward. His throat worked in convulsions. He pressed his face into her hair, and froze.
She found herself whipped backward, the sudden motion overwhelming her battered senses. Had she not been held aloft, she would have collapsed.
Furious amber eyes met hers and a roar built in his chest. The chest where she had just laid her head. “Where. Is. He.”
Gayriel looked around. In her distraction, she had missed Scet slinking off. Good thing he did. It didn't look as though Dynarys would stop his dragon from tearing the Shifter apart.
“Dynarys,” she touched his chin. “Can't you smell my blood? I know your anger, but he would never have had to do it if it weren't for him.” She flung her arm toward the white dragon.
It lay on the ground, battered and barely breathing. Her energy was waning and she had a hard time dredging up the anger she should feel toward him.
“Pourtus and Grim. They were going to bleed me out, to lure the Quatori in...a trap for you.”
Dynarys was breathing hard. The muscles on the surface of his skin rippled and twitched with tension.
“If Scet hadn't tended my wound,” she showed him her arm, an angry red scar had formed, but even that faded as she watched. She should have been more surprised, but she felt numb. “I'd be dead by now, Dynarys, and I wouldn't have the chance to tell you,” she swallowed and looked down.
No more wasting time.
Once, she had wanted freedom. Nothing more than the freedom to make her own decisions and answer to no one. Well, she was making a decision now.
She wanted him.
“Dynarys, I love you.”
There. It was done. She had chosen her own path. Relief sucked the rest of her strength from her. Coupled with the loss of blood, it should have been unsurprising when the ground rose up to meet her and darkness took her mind.
A new emotion crossed Dynarys's face as she faded, just before he scooped her up into strong arms. Something tender, and vulnerable. Something both he and his dragon agreed upon. And then, darkness took her mind.