Mated Girl (Wolf Girl #4)(27)

Back in the room, Sawyer handed the key to Walsh next and started to inspect Luka’s back. “Oh shit, is that a bone sticking out?” Sawyer yelled loudly, looking at Luka’s perfect, muscled back, covered with tattoos and zero bones sticking out.
“He’s a vampire. He’ll heal. Break it up!” A fey guard pushed off the wall and walked over to Sawyer, gun raised.
Back on Pearl, I shook myself. Shit was going to go down and we needed to do this, now.
“Fly me as close as you can to that window and be ready to scram the second I get them out!” I yelled to Marmal, who sat in front of me.
She nodded, and directed Pearl over to the far window on the very top floor. There was a tiny ledge, maybe six inches in depth. Nothing I could stand on. The closer Pearl flew to the window, the more I could sense the magic at work in the protective shields. It was like a rainbow sheen of oil or bubbles suspended in the air.
“She can’t get any closer or her wing will hit the shield!” Marmal shouted.
Frick. I was a good ten feet away from the shimmering shield. But it was now or never. I was so close to getting Sawyer out and I still had Sage to worry about.
“When I start to fall, catch me!” I shouted. “I’m going to jump and bring down the shield.”
I held up the fey blade and Marmal’s eyes widened. She was quiet a moment, but then nodded.
I looked down, barely able to see the river as we were over eight hundred feet into the air.
Please don’t let this be how I die, I sent up a silent prayer to whomever might be listening, and then I plunged the fey blade into my palm. A slice of burning pain radiated along my hand as a thick line of crimson blood pooled into my palm and saturated the knife.
I mumbled the incantation that Star had told me, and the knife glowed with a sickly green hue.
Well, that was something at least. I was fully just going to have to trust that this spell worked, and the second I drove the blade into the protective shield … it would break.
“Old magic. I have old magic and that’s good, it’s going to work,” I ranted out loud, trying to psych myself up for this jump.
My wolf pulled on my attention and I snapped my focus to her just in time to see Luka headbutt a security guard in the face, and then Sawyer roundhouse kick another.
Oh shit.
Okay.
Here goes nothing.
“One.” I stood on Pearl’s back, teetering in the air as she flapped her wings to try to keep me steady. “Two.” I gripped the blade tighter in my fist. “Three!” I shouted.
And then I leapt. Out into the air, stabbing with my blade hand into the protective shield, sending a ripple of pain up my elbow. There was a cracking noise … and then I was falling.
Oh fuck.
Freefalling from eight hundred feet is probably the most terrifying thing I could ever imagine, and I’d been through some scary shit. Even knowing Pearl would try her best to catch me did nothing to quell my nerves.
‘Demi!’ Sawyer screamed. He must have picked up on my emotions and felt my terror. I ignored him, just focusing on breathing and not passing out when Pearl materialized just beneath me.
“Here!” Marmal shouted and I reached for her. With surprising force, I slammed onto Pearl’s back, sending her jerking to the left. Marmal latched onto me, planting both arms onto my shoulders to steady me. We nearly both fell off, but then Pearl was able to right herself.
Reaching out, I stroked her scales. “I’m so sorry if that hurt.”
Marmal looked at me with a halfcocked grin. “She said it felt like a deep tissue massage.”
I frowned. How the hell did an ancient dragon know what a deep tissue massage was? Shaking my head, I forced myself to focus. “Get me back up there. We might only have minutes before they get the shield back up.”
“You got it!” Marmal instructed her and then Pearl flapped her wings maddingly as she careened closer to the building now that the protective shield was gone. As we drew closer and closer, I readied myself for what was likely to be the most painful part of this process. Smashing the window open with my body. From what Sawyer said there was nothing heavy or dangerous inside that could be used as a weapon. No free weights or anything. That left me, hurling through the air like a ball—
“Do you want Pearl to smash the window with her tail?” Marmal suddenly asked, breaking my thoughts.
I looked back at Pearl’s tail. At the tip were six knobby horns of various sizes.
Oh … that was a better option. I wanted to facepalm myself but refrained. There was a crazy prison fight going on inside and I needed to help.
“Yes please!” I shouted, and seconds later the sound of shattering glass rang through the air.
Sawyer!
I sensed him before I saw him. Looking up from Pearl’s back, I pivoted and there he was, standing in front of the broken window, fingers curled deep into my wolf’s fur as she stood at his feet. Blood trickled down his neck from a wound at his ear and his chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. But even still, he gave me a full panty-dropping grin, complete with dimple.
Holy fuck, I’d missed that smile.
“Demi!” he screamed, opening his arms.
I wasted no time. Standing on Pearl’s back, I jumped from the dragon in one leap, trying to keep all my shit together so I didn’t break down into sobs. It had been so long since I held him, smelled him, tasted him. We had a fucking baby together and he didn’t even know until recently. The second I crashed into his chest, his arms came around me like a vise.
“Holy hell, woman,” he rasped as I wrapped my legs around his waist, trying to get closer to him. His breath shuddered against me as I released the sobs I’d been keeping in. He squeezed me so hard it hurt, but I didn’t care because on some level it felt good. Being held so tightly against his shirtless body was the best damn feeling I’d had in a long time.