“Yes.”
“We’re not going to give up if you hork a couple of times,” he said sternly. He yanked her close to hug her fiercely. “You haven’t eaten for a helluva long damn while. It may take some doing to get your system to accept anything. We’ll keep at it.”
She put her arms around his waist and leaned on him. “Agreed. We can even try giving me blood intravenously if I can’t stomach it.”
Some fifteen feet away, Grace said in a rusty-sounding voice, “I sure hope you got everything you needed from that session, because I’m cooked.”
They turned to find the human on her knees. Carling pulled out of his arms to go over to Grace. “Are you all right?”
“I think so.”
As Carling helped the human to her feet, Rune collected the flashlights and wrapped the gold mask in its protective cloth. He asked, “Do you remember what happened?”
“No. I feel like I’ve been hit over the head with a blunt object.” Grace squinted at them.
Carling said to her, “It was a very Powerful, very strange session, but hopefully we learned what we needed to.”
“Good, because I don’t think I can do that again in a hurry,” said Grace as she pulled away to stand on her own. She moved as if every muscle in her body hurt. “Let’s go.”
They climbed the tunnel, moving more slowly than they would have otherwise in deference to Grace’s halting stride. As they went, questions and doubts began to crowd out Rune’s relief.
Hasn’t she died yet?
His blood began to pound in his ears. What were they missing? What piece of the puzzle had not yet formed? Or had Python just had one of her little diagnostic moments? He managed to keep from growling but he wanted to lash out at something or someone. He wanted to do some damage in the name of something good.
They helped Grace tuck the things back in the Rubbermaid cabinets. Carling pushed open the door to the gray light of a warm, humid summer predawn. She stopped so abruptly Rune ran into her. Then he saw what had brought her to a standstill.
A great bronze dragon the size of a private jet dominated the meadow. His gigantic horned head lay on his paws with the appearance of relaxation, except that his Power was a smoldering volcano and his eyes burned with hot gold.
Dragos had found them.
Rune put his hands on Carling’s shoulders and tried to ease her back inside the tunnel. She dug in her heels and refused to budge, keeping her body between him and the Lord of the Wyr.
A whippet-slender woman with a long blonde, disheveled ponytail leaned back against the dragon’s snout. She wore cargo pants, high-end running shoes, and a cherry red tank top. Her arms were folded across her chest, and she had one foot kicked over the other. At their appearance, the woman met Rune’s gaze and shook her head.
“I’ve got to hand it to you, slick,” the blonde woman said. “You’ve really pissed him off this time.”
TWENTY
Carling felt Rune’s energy spike with adrenaline and aggression. She felt his grip on her shoulders tighten, the fingers lengthening into claws. He picked her up bodily and shoved her back through the doorway. She didn’t have a chance to resist. She fell into Grace, who had been right behind them, and both women went sprawling. The human woman made a muffled sound filled with pain.
Carling sprang around as Rune grabbed hold of the door. She didn’t bother wasting time on trying to get upright. Instead she thrust out her foot. She managed to get a boot wedged in the opening before Rune could slam it shut.
“Goddamn you,” she said between her teeth, so furious she could hardly see straight. She twisted to grab hold of the edge of the door with both hands. Rune couldn’t shut it now without hurting her, and he couldn’t both guard her and at the same time waste energy on fighting with her to get her inside.
He realized it too and gave up. She leaped to her feet and pushed outside to find the golden monster standing between her and Dragos and the woman.
The dragon had lifted his head. Both he and the blonde woman with him were staring at Rune. The blonde woman’s wide gaze was stricken with dismay. “Oh God, you didn’t,” said the woman.
“I did,” Rune said. He was growling, a low menacing sound that warned them off.
The blonde woman said to the dragon, “You’re too much of a threat to him this way. You have to change.”
Dragos considered, thoughts shifting behind his huge, fierce gaze. Carling put a hand on Rune’s shoulder as she stepped to his side. She watched the dragon carefully as she brought her Power to the ready. She may not have studied which spells would work best against a gryphon, but she had studied spells to use in battle against a dragon, because she and Dragos had not always been allies. It appeared they were not allies now either.