“So glad you’re enjoying yourself,” I said dryly. “But we’re a little pressed for time, so if you wouldn’t mind hurrying?”
“Did she always nag like this in the cells?” he asked, his gaze sweeping over the kids before coming to rest on Jace. He offered the kid his hand. “You’d be Jace, then?”
Jace nodded, his face solemn. “You’re Egan’s brother?”
“I am. And he had a lot of good things to say about you boys.” He looked at Carli, and knelt down. “And you’re even prettier than he said.”
Carli giggled and pressed lightly against my leg. I smiled, and knelt down beside her. “Trae’s going to make you a seat in his claws, and fly you across the lake. You think you can handle that?”
She looked at Trae, then Jace and the boys, and doubt crossed her features. “You’ll be safe,” Trae said, “and Jace and the boys will be right there with us.”
“We will, Carli,” they piped up in unison, before Jace added, “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She studied him for a moment, expression solemn, then nodded. “Okay,” she said softly.
“Okay.” Trae rose and glanced at me. “They’re going to spot me the minute I change, so perhaps the boys better shift shape first.”
I looked at them. “You ready?”
They nodded. Sanat and Tate closed their eyes, their expressions ones of fierce concentration, while Jace, Marco, and Cooper simply reached for the magic in their souls. The haze of changing swept over their bodies, shifting, remolding, and lengthening their forms, until what stood on t
he roof was a hue of dragons as colorful as the rainbow. Silver, brown, green, blue, and red. They spread their wings, fanning lightly.
“Good lads,” Trae said, then glanced at me. “You be careful going back in for your mom.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You’d better be.” He took several steps back, and the haze swept across his body, until he was no longer a man, but rather a glorious gold and silver dragon, his scales gleaming like polished copper in the sharp firelight.
“Wow,” Carli said, echoing what I was thinking. I doubted I’d ever get tired of seeing his dragon form.
Trae lowered himself down and cupped his front claws so that they formed a chair-like structure. “Ready?” I said to the little girl.
She looked up at Trae, then nodded solemnly. I led her forward, and helped her get seated. Trae gently closed his claws around her, so that she was locked in tight.
I kissed her cheek, then said, “You okay?”
Again she nodded. There was fear in her brown eyes, and perhaps the glitter of tears, but she gave me a tremulous smile nevertheless.
“I’ll see you soon, okay? Enjoy the ride, Carli. It’s lovely, flying right up there with the stars.”
She looked up at that, and her smile blossomed. I touched a hand to Trae’s chest, and he looked down at me and winked. I stepped back, well out of the way.
“Get going, everyone.”
Wings swept into action, pumping hard. The boys lifted off somewhat shakily, but soon they were soaring high. Trae glanced at me, blue eyes bright in the darkness, then sprung skyward after them.
Carli’s delighted laughter seemed to linger in the air long after they’d disappeared.
There were shouts from below, indicating they’d been spotted. I waited for several precious seconds, scanning the sky and hoping there were no hunters about to spring into the air and give chase. No one did, and relief slithered through me. But it was short-lived. I needed to go rescue my mother, before the scientists got the fires under control and I got trapped.
I turned and ran for the stairs.
The journey downward took a quarter of the time, though I was sweating and breathing heavily by the time I took off the old lock and swung the gate open. The corridors were shadowed and silent, and I prayed to the Gods of sea and lake that they kept that way. I ran down the hallway, my feet slapping against the cold stone, the sound echoing lightly across the silence.
I grabbed the still unconscious guard from the cell, and once again carried him down to the next lot of cells, the muscles in my back and legs on fire. In the second cell along, I sensed my mother.
I flopped the guard against the wall near the scanner, holding him upright with one hand as I wiped the sweat from my eyes and sucked in great gulps of air. I was shaking so hard anyone would think I’d run a marathon—and I suppose in many ways I had. A marathon of fear. Fear for Trae, fear for the kids, fear that I’d be back too late to free my mom.