As the creature screeched above her, she saw it happening...her life flashing before her eyes.
Her mother. Her father. Her brother. First kisses and misses. Things left undone and a whole lot of experiences she hadn’t even gotten the chance to encounter.
With tears now seeping from her eyes, she screamed as the creature gripped her tighter. Her entire body, from her shoulders down to her legs, was restrained, and as she beat against the scaly black body with her free hand, she turned her head away from the horror of its face.
She couldn’t look.
She couldn’t look as it devoured her.
But that one movement, just that turn of her head, saved her, for just as she turned her head, something slammed into the sand beside her.
Song’s eyes widened to see a long appendage sticking from the nester’s mouth right into the sand beside her head.
Holy. Shit.
It was long, dark, and fleshy. But there was obviously some hardness to it because it had pierced the sand beside her head with a force that told her it wasn’t just a tongue.
In her daze, as her eyes gathered tears and her breath came in chokes, something glinted on the sandy floor.
It took her a moment to focus.
The knife.
It was close.
Closer than she’d realized.
If she could only reach it.
As the thing retracted its mouth-spear, it shook its head and Song took the one opportunity, acting on basic survival instinct rather than her mind.
With all the strength she had within her, she jerked to the side, causing her body to shift just a little along with the creature holding her down.
The thing screeched, rearing its head in the air as its long neck swung from side to side.
The little bit they’d moved to the side was just enough for her fingers to touch the blade of the knife and as she squeezed the blade between her middle and index finger, her fingers trembling as she pulled the weapon toward her hand, the blurry form of the creature in her peripheral vision had her choking back sobs.
It was rearing to strike again.
It was going to hit her this time if she didn’t reach the—
As she pulled the knife within grasping distance, she grabbed the handle.
She didn’t need to think.
Her arm swung up, blade pointed, as she buried the knife deep into the creature’s torso.
A screech left the thing’s mouth, one very different from the other screeches she’d heard it emit and, for a second, it went silent, rearing its head once more as it thrashed from side to side, shaking her body along with it.
But before she could rejoice in her little victory, an indescribable pain hit her in the side.
Song inhaled deeply as the pain seemed to go through her entire being.
It made her gasp, her eyes widening as her body arched against the creature with a deep inhale.
As her eyes fell to the source of the pain, she saw it.
The creature’s tail.
It was embedded in her side.
As she fought for air, pain seemed to build from the wound in her side to the rest of her body.
But as the world suddenly grew dim, another sound reached her ear.
It was the undeniable sound of large wings descending and with it came a roar, one so tortured and vengeful that it hit her deep even as her eyes fluttered closed.
23
Power, anger, and fury radiated through his very skin.
“Song!”
He’d been leading them away but there’d been one, just one, that hadn’t followed the others.
His vision was a blue haze as his hearts pumped blood frantically to curb the distress flooding his veins.
The nester had its head reared, its legs having already closed around her small body. It was ready no doubt to bury its piercing organ into her skull and feast. But something was wrong, and even as he brought his blade down, slicing the head of the nester clean from its neck, he realized the creature wasn’t moving.
It had been frozen in mid-animation. It was only as he took a second to breathe that he saw it.
The blade.
It was sticking out from the thing’s torso, purple blood running down the nester’s dark scales.
She’d killed it? His little, delicate, Song had killed it?
Even as he moved automatically, slicing at the nester’s legs as he worked on freeing her, a surge of pride went through him. Not wanting to focus on the fact that she wasn’t moving, wasn’t speaking, he focused on releasing her from the creature’s grasp.
That’s when he saw it.
The hooked tail.
“Song?” her name came out as a choke.
The poisonous hooked tail.
It was piercing her side.
“Oh, Polvrak.” the words came out as a whisper as his hearts shattered.
Dropping to his knees as he freed her, he gathered her into his arms.
Song.
His Song.
Rocking back on his heels, it felt as if the world had suddenly gone dark.
He’d failed her.
Nothing, not even the sound of the other nesters that were converging on them could bring him out of the ache that was pulling him down.
If his eyes could leak, they would be leaking right now. Instead, the feeling that was coursing through his mind and body manifested in his wings, as tremor after tremor ran through them.
Her eyes were closed, her mouth slack, her body limp.
The pain.
The pain that was hitting him was real. It made the tremors that ran through his wings shake his entire body.
She wasn’t moving. There was no response and when he glanced back down on the slain nester that had stung her, the rage that coursed through him almost manifested itself as a separate being.
He was angry at the nester.
But more so, he was angry with himself.
He’d failed to keep her safe. The one thing he’d been hell-bent on doing.
He was airborne in a second, flapping his wings hard as he pushed forward through the sky.
He knew what he had to do. He had to fly. Regardless of his injured wing blade. He had to fly.
It was the only way
