Page 81 of Lies That Bleed
‘What smell, Liana? We have hurt people down here. Tell Kohen.’
‘Cigars, whiskey, burnt ember, and cheap musk cologne. The people who tried to keep us from bonding. And I don’t want to distract Kohen from the fight.’
My head snapped to the sky and my jaw unhinged.
The fight?
There were two other flying creatures above us, as well as Liana and Onyx, which made four. I couldn’t see from here, but one was definitely a griffin.
A Talanagi.
‘Come get me!’I told her.‘I can help.’
I peeked my head into the train car and peered right at Alek. “We’re under real attack. It’s not the simulation. My best guess is the Luskins. Prepare for imminent conflict.”
The color leached from his face, but he wasted no time in turning to the other leaders. “Triage the injured! Every able-bodied person outside with me. We are under real attack. This is not a simulation. I repeat, this is a real attack!”
Panic descended on the train cars, screaming cadets scrambling for their weapons, but I couldn’t stay. Kohen needed me.
I spun just as Liana landed, and then we were flying.
‘Luskins?’I asked Liana.
As we flew higher, fear washed over me at the sight of a blue dragon locked in battle with Onyx. Luska’s version of The Wilds was called The Forbidden, and it was clearly teeming with Talanagi. Luskin soldiers had a higher concentration of them in their ranks, but I’d never seen it for myself since I’d never been in battle.
Kohen threw a fireball at the rider of the blue dragon, and now that I was close enough I could see a blonde with a typical Luskin braid that ran atop the crown of her head. But she wasn’t wearing the Luskin army-issued military uniform, so this was all confusing.
Something moved in my peripheral vision and I jerked my body that way, careening Liana with me just as the older male rider atop the brown griffin threw some kind of energy wave at me. It knocked into Liana and I, and she rolled sideways in the air. I gripped the handholds of her harness and tightened my thighs at the same time in an effort to keep from falling off. I was still a little shaken after the train derailment and so my grip wasn’t as tight as I had hoped for—my right wrist snapped with the sudden jerking motion. I cried out at red hot pain that splintered along my wrist and shot up to my elbow.
I slid to the side, but managed to stay on.
‘Are you okay? I’m sorry.’Liana’s voice was filled with compassion.
I had definitely just broken my wrist, but there was no time for dwelling on that.
‘Fine,’I told her.
The moment Liana righted herself, I pulled up my bolt shooter that had been hooked to Liana’s harness with my uninjured hand and fired off one of the serrated arrows. It sank into the rider’s shoulder but he barely flinched. He was an older man in his fifties, and before I could reload, he tossed another energy wave at me, this one shaped like a net, glowing blue, just like the one used to trap Liana that night in the barn.
Liana dove out of the way, dodging the net, and popped back up in front of him.
At this confirmation that he was the one involved that night, rage filled me and my skin began to smoke.
This bastard tried to keep me from bonding to Liana! The heat simmered along my nerves, and a scream built in my throat.
‘Get me close to him,’I ordered.
She flew right for him, crashing into his griffin and locking talons with it just as I exploded into a ball of fire. Heat and steam engulfed my face and skin. The orange and yellow wall then dissipated, the rider screamed in agony as he and his griffin flew away, on fire. They left a streak of smoke trailing in their wake.
A female grunted to my right, andthen screamed. I snapped my head in that direction just in time to see the blue dragon falling to the ground, Kohen’s dagger imbedded in the rider’s chest. She hit the ground with a thud, her body contorted and bent at all the wrong angles, dead.
My gaze went to her creature in anticipation. Once a human bonded died, the creature had only minutes to return to the habitat of The Wilds before…
The dragon slowly lowered to the hillside and I looked up at Kohen. He was panting, bleeding from a cut under his left eye, and watching me with a wild expression. I was holding my right wrist to my chest… and it dawned on me: this was the injury he spoke about that I would have when the school was attacked.
We descended to the ground as the blue dragon creature began to gasp for air. It made strangled choking noises as it stumbled forward, lying over the dead body of its human bonded.
The dragon’s back heaved slowly and I looked away. I couldn’t watch.
