Ryan wasn’t far behind me.
Chapter 5: Getting Sucked Through a Hole
MOISHE RAN past us up the stairs, heading toward Mama’s office. I knew he’d keep her safe.
Tiggy and Gary had already burst through the doors of the brothel. Ryan and I followed behind them, skidding to a halt over the cobblestones, almost crashing into Tiggy’s back. The sunshine was warm and blinding after the low candlelight of the brothel. The people of Meridian City stood stock still, eyes trained toward the sky.
“What the fuck—” I started but was interrupted by another loud roar coming from somewhere above us.
I looked up in time to see Kevin flying over the walls of Meridian City, facing toward the Dark Woods. Bright lights burst around him, as if spells were being shot up from the ground below. They glanced off his scales, exploding like fireworks. He reared back in midair, his gigantic wings flapping, and I heard him take a deep, guttural breath.
“Uh-oh,” Tiggy said succinctly as people around us began to whimper.
A great blast of fire shot from Kevin’s gaping maw. It hurtled toward the ground on the other side of the wall, where it exploded in a fireball quickly chased by a black plume of smoke that began to rise toward the sky.
“I forget sometimes that he can do that,” Gary said faintly. “Do me a favor and please ignore my erection.”
“Gross,” I said. “And it’s hard to ignore when it’s right there.”
?
?Don’t look at it! You know I’m shy.”
“Bullshit.”
“Yeah, okay. That was a lie. Look at it all you want. Jealously, of course.”
“Maybe not the time,” Ryan pointed out.
“…he said jealously,” Gary muttered under his breath.
I took a deep breath and pulled my magic toward me, the green and gold skirting along the edges of my vision.
“Ungh,” Ryan said, eyes slightly glassy as he watched me. “I forget sometimes that you can do that. Do me a favor and please ignore my—”
“What the hell,” Gary snapped. “We’re obviously in the middle of a crisis, and you’re popping boners? Good gods, Ryan. Sam! Control your bitch!”
“I like all of you,” Tiggy said.
“Aww,” Gary and I said.
And then from above came an angry scream of pain. I looked in time to see arcs of blood falling from a ragged hole in Kevin’s left wing. I didn’t know how it’d happened, as dragons were impervious to most kinds of magic, but Kevin was struggling to stay in the air, his left wing folded against his side, his right one flapping strenuously. He was sinking lower and lower in the air, and I was pissed. I remembered his story about how men had come to try to take his blood, how a tattooed man had come for one of his hearts. He had been scared then, because he didn’t have anyone. He’d been alone.
But here he was, fighting for us, and he’d gotten hurt because of it.
That wasn’t okay. At all.
And apparently not for his ex-husband either, as Gary shrieked his name and took off down the streets of Meridian City, heading toward the front gates. Tiggy chased after him in wide strides, the cobblestones cracking beneath his feet.
Ryan had his sword drawn before Kevin sank out of sight on the other side of the wall. I was about to lead the way when Morgan and Randall came out of the Tilted Cross behind us.
“Kevin’s been hurt,” I told them. “Outside Meridian City. Gary and Tiggy are already headed that way. We have to—”
“Take Ryan,” Randall said to Morgan. “Make for the gate. Sam and I will flank them. Don’t tarry.”
“What?” I snapped. “We don’t have time to reach the back gates. It’ll take too long!”
“We won’t be going to the back gates,” Randall said.