Page 34 of Deadly Alliances

I nodded once, then continued back the way I’d come, the guards trailing me once more. I wanted to go to my room and just think for a bit.

Hopefully I’d be able to sort through everything by dinner, because there was no way I was going to disappoint my “date.”

Chapter 13

Tobias

It wasn’t the pair of wide hands gripping my shoulders that distracted my flight pattern, nor the hundred-and-eighty pounds I carried on my back—Private Peters was a lithe man, little more than muscle and bone. No, it was the suspicious lump that kept prodding into my spine.

When I met Private Peters at dinner last night, he seemed like an entertaining guy. With his rugged jaw and auburn hair, he was easily more attractive than most of the other soldiers—women included, though that said more about the women than him. He regaled our table with hilarious dirty jokes and was actually very charismatic for a naga. At the time, I didn’t understand why there were so many uncomfortable looks tossed his way, or why Char had warned me about him.

Now that I felt that lump grinding against me in a rhythm that had nothing to do with the movement of my wings, I understood. And I couldn’t be more miserable.

I turned my head to the left to look at the blue dragon soaring a few yards away from me. Char side-eyed me as she flew, making sure the gesture didn’t disturb the passenger she was carrying. I made a show of looking at Peters on my back, then narrowing my eyes back at her in accusation. The side of her scaly lips curled upward, and she winked before pulling ahead of me.

I trapped the growl in my throat. Damn her. She paired me with Peters on purpose. What was this, some kind of initiation hazing? Not cool.

We’d been flying for hours, and the dark sky was bruised by thick clouds that surrounded us in every direction and covered my scales with a frigid mist. I was glad that Char knew where she was going because I had no clue—not that I could focus while I was basically being dry-humped from behind. Yuck. If I wasn’t determined to reach our destination swiftly before, I definitely was now.

An ominous rumble echoed around us, shaking the very air that carried me as my scales stood on end. I snapped my head to the red dragon on my right. His eyes widened as they met my troubled gaze, understanding passing between us.

In the next instant, the clouds above and below us opened up, unleashing a heavy rain to pour down. Icy drops assaulted me like bullets, a cascade of water restricting my range of visibility even further to the point I could barely see the tip of my own wing.

I was determined to keep going. Not rain, nor sleet, nor snow would keep me from getting to Arya. And this was just water. A little rain never hurt anyone.

A crack ripped the air only an instant before a blinding flash sliced through clouds mere feet in front of me, and I was bucked backwards by the electric force of it, nearly knocking Peters right off of me. If my heart wasn’t about to stampede out of my chest, it would have bothered me that the incident made Peters hug me even tighter, digging his damn erection right into my fucking rib. But at the moment, I was just glad not to be barbeque.

“We have to descend!” Specialist Tekashi shouted from Char’s back, though I could barely make out the words over the roar of the rain and the reverberating sizzle that charged the atmosphere. “We can’t risk hitting the equipment.”

She clutched a pack against herself like it mattered more thanher own life. Considering that it contained powerful explosives, it might mean the end of it—of all of our lives.

Char swooped downward, and the other dragon, Private Hennessey, and I followed her. Panic was a heavy metal song in my head as we zigzagged and dove around the bolts of lightning that played wack-a-dragon with us. I’d never flown in weather like this before, and the drills I’d run in the simulation room for stealth flight training was nothing compared to this nightmare.

All I could do was pretend that thiswasa simulation, that it was a test. I had never failed a test before, and I wasn’t about to start now.

After several heart-stopping almosts, we finally broke through the cloud layer, descending lower and lower until we were nearing a canopy of pine trees. My heart continued to race even as we slowed our descent and entered the trees. The branches that whipped against my wings were like a gentle caress compared to the biting rain above.

I landed with my claws digging into the brush and damp earth, more relieved than ever to be on solid ground. The others landed around me and their passengers disembarked. I angled my body to help Peters climb down, but he didn’t seem to be in a hurry to dismount.

Okay, I’m done with this.

In one swift motion like a wild horse, I bucked him off, spinning around in time to see him land flat on his ass. Ah, that was satisfying.

I shifted to my human form and offered him a hand. “Sorry, I had an itch. Let me help you up.”

He readily accepted my hand, and I tugged him up. But he didn’t let go right away, gripping my hand for longer than wasnecessary or pleasant, so I had to jerk my hand away. He just flashed me an innocent grin before following the rest of our team under the sheltering branches of a redwood.

Slimy motherfu—

“Is the cargo intact?” Char asked the rainbow-haired kitsune.

Tekashi unzipped her pack and took a quick inventory of everything inside. “Yes, everything looks fine. As long as we keep it dry, we shouldn’t have any problems.”

“Great job, Specialist,” Char said, patting her on the back. Then she looked to the rest of us. “We’ll have to stay here until the storm clears.”

I ground my teeth at that, frustration and urgency electrifying my insides more than the storm could have. I hated having to pause our journey, hated each second that ticked by without getting closer to Arya. I didn’t care that I was soaked and water was dripping from my hair into my face, or that the wind was forcing a chill over every inch of my exposed—and wet—skin. I just wanted to get to my mate as soon as possible.

But this couldn’t be helped. The storm was absolutely too thick and treacherous to fly through, and I wasn’t particularly keen on the idea of triggering the explosives in a lightning strike mid-flight. I would just have to suck it up and wait it out.

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