Firefighter Sea Dragon (Fire & Rescue Shifters 4)

Neridia straddled Dai’s broad red-scaled neck in front of him. Overhearing their telepathic communication, she turned her head to catch his eye. She shouted something, but the wind whipped her words away.

John shook his head at her, gesturing between their foreheads. *Mindspeech, my mate. You must learn to become comfortable with it, since you do not yet know our spoken language.*

She grimaced, screwing up her face in concentration. Wobbly and ill-formed, her halting psychic projection brushed against the edge of his mind. *We’re…getting…off?*

*Yes,* he replied. *We must make our own way from here.*

She swallowed hard, her face tight with apprehension. He tried to send her encouragement down the mate bond, but his silent reassurances washed around her without effect, like water swirling around a silent stone.

Last night, their bodies had been as close as it was possible to get. Today, he had the terrible sensation that her soul was further away from him than ever.

She is simply nervous, he told himself for the thousandth time. When she is embraced by the sea, her fears will be swept away. All will be well.

He tightened the straps across his chest, checking that both his sword and his pack were secure. He’d worn his armor, of course—there was no need for human clothes any more.

There would never be need for anything human, ever again.

He tapped Dai’s scaled shoulder. *If you would oblige me by swooping low to the water, kin-cousin?*

Dai curved his head to look back at him. A dragon’s face was not capable of expressing emotion like a human one, but John could tell the sorrow behind Dai’s burning green eyes.

*This is really goodbye, then?* Dai asked.

John laid his palm flat on the red dragon’s hot neck for a moment. *If all goes well, then yes. The Empress must stay in Atlantis, and I must stay by her side. We will not be free to leave the sea.*

*And if all does not go well?*

John shrugged one armored shoulder. *Then I will not be alive to leave the sea, kin-cousin.*

Dai blew smoke out of his nostrils in a long sigh. *Then, much as it pains me…I wish you the very best of luck.*

The red dragon swept his wings back, dropping into a dive. John swung a leg over Dai’s broad neck, holding on with one hand to the curving spines running

down the dragon’s back. With his other, he gathered Neridia close.

“Hold your breath,” he shouted into her ear, not trusting her erratic telepathic abilities. “Are you ready?”

Wide-eyed with fear, she nodded. She grabbed hold of the straps of his harness, clinging to his chest.

Dai’s crimson wings flared. The dragon had managed to swoop so low to the ocean, the tip of his tail cut a furrow through the waves as he leveled out.

Holding tight to Neridia, John jumped.

He was shifting even as he hit the water. Exploding into his true form, he swirled in a tight coil around Neridia, bearing her back up to the surface. She spluttered, spitting out sea water as she scrabbled to sit astride his neck.

Dai’s shadow swept over them. John sang a farewell in his own language, the notes shaking the water, and the red dragon dipped a wing in response. Then he was gone, beating his wings hard to spiral back up into the sky.

He couldn’t see Neridia, perched as she was behind his head, but he could feel her shiver as the wind blew across her ocean-drenched clothes. She huddled against his scales, drawing her feet up out of reach of the waves.

Despite the salt water soaking her to the skin, she was as human as ever.

“Now what?” she asked out loud, looking around at the empty sea. “There’s no one here.”

John hid his disappointment, not allowing even the faintest tinge to taint his mental voice. *To human senses, perhaps. But not to mine.*

In the water, sound was a matter of touch, felt with the whole body. He stretched himself out to his full length, luxuriating in the sweet vibrations whispering along his scales. Only the need to keep Neridia above the surface stopped him from diving and rolling, wrapping himself in music.

Oh, I have missed this. I did not know how much.