Page 27 of Lies That Bleed
A whoosh of air rushed over me, and a second later her talon ripped through my back. I screamed, falling to the ground, as panic washed over me.
Blood was drawn.That meant I had to fight.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
With a growl, I rolled on my back and lashed out just as the creature tried to bite a chunk out of my arm. My sword slashed across her face and she shrieked, reeling backward. I used the space between us to pop up onto my feet.
This was really happening. After all my years of training, I was now in a bonding fight with a freaking Talanagi!
If I survived this, which wasn’t likely, Elaine was going to kill me.
The creature’s nostrils flared and her beak opened to reveal a mouth full of sharp, serrated teeth.
Awesome.
Some candidates survived their bonding fight but were missing an arm or leg. I was really hoping this wasn’t the case here. But I had to show her that I was strong enough to be her equal; otherwise she would continue to try to kill me.
She opened her mouth and a stream of fire shot from it. I yelped, ducking and rolling to the side. The blast of heat hit my back and was gone as I moved out of the way. By the time I popped back up, she was onme again, relentless. She flew up into the air, trying to dig her talons into my shoulders. I managed to nick her leg with my dagger and draw blood as I rolled out of the way, but it barely stopped her.
An explosion of colored lights pulled my attention about twenty feet to the right, and shock ripped through me.
Kohen?Was he actually alive and bonding the dragon?
Before I had time to focus on the thought, the firebird smacked me in the face with her wing and I went down, ears ringing.
My vision went double, and that’s when something inside of me snapped. That feral need to survive bloomed in my chest like it did with every candidate when you reached a certain point in your fight that you thought you might be losing.
I needed to stop thinking so much. I needed to react on instinct.
With a warrior’s cry, I charged forward, slashing out with my sword left and right as the firebird deftly flew zigzags out of the way, breathing fire at me once more.
I tucked into a ball and rolled at the last second, but felt the burn of singed skin along my back. The fresh cuts she’d made with her talons were raw, but I was running on adrenaline. She was fast,toofast, and at this rate I knew this fight wasn’t going to lastlong.
I sheathed my dagger, keeping my broadsword out, and reached down to get a fistful of dirt. The next time she snapped her beak at me, I tossed the dirt into her face. She blinked, turning away, and I used the distraction to drag my blade along her wing, ripping some of those beautiful feathers out. It felt criminal to try to destroy an animal as stunning as she was, but I knew I had to get her to submit in order to start the bond or I was dead. The creatures of The Wilds lived in a kill-or-be-killed mentality. Their resources here were limited, and they were constantly fighting each other over them.
Her right leg shot out and swept my feet out from under me, knocking me flat on my back. Then her talon locked on to my leg with an iron grip. The razor-sharp claws cut into the meat of my calf, and before I even knew what was happening, I was being hauled into the air, upside-down.
My first thought was to tighten the grip on my broadsword.
I did, and even though she was flying up with my body hanging upside-down fifty feet over the jungle of The Wilds of Luska, I knew I had her. She had no idea that I’d done a hundred sit-ups a day hanging from a device that forced me to be upside-down in my father’s gym.
I pulled myself up so that I could kiss my knees if I wanted, and pressed the tip of my sword against her throat.
She peered down at me with surprise, the intelligence in her gaze very apparent.
“I’ll do it,” I warned. If I killed her, it would kill me too. A drop from this height wasn’t survivable, but I’d do it just to prove I won the fight.
I felt something knock against my chest, an invisible force boring its way into my heart.
The bond?
Then the colors burst from her back, raining down and curling under me. I had a wild thought that we must look like fireworks to anyone peering upward at that moment.
Everything they told you about the bonding in school, about the instant closeness you would feel for your creature in that moment, it paled against reality.
In a single second I knew almost everything there was to know about Liana. And she knew nearly everything about me. I knew her name, I knew that she’d had many children who were now gone, either passed on or… not here. It was hard to explain. I knew she was over a thousand years old and that she didn’t like snow but longed to see it. I knew that her mate died a decade ago and she’d been empty ever since, a hollow shell waiting for her own end, but her end would never come. I knew she was immortal, the only type of Talanagi to achieve such a thing, and only because she was female. Male firebirds like her mate did not have such magic. I knew she longed to leave this place, that this enclosure called The Wilds was a prison for her and every other creature, but they could not survive outside without the bond of a human. Even her. Even an immortal. She needed me. She wanted me. She’d been biding her time, craving an end, and now I was her way out.
In that same instant, she knew I was the emperor of Amersea’s daughter, an impossible role to fill. That Jace was the first guy I ever loved and trusted and he betrayed me. She knew that I hated broccoli and loved the rain. That Tetra was my best friend and I would do anything to protect her. It was hard to explain such a detailed sharing of instant information, telepathic in a way, but I felt when it started to fade and the bond began to seal itself.
