Page 365 of Hunters and Prey

“Anya!” Bran threw another black disc my way.

It glanced off the fingers of my right hand, but I caught it with my left, using my thighs to hold on to the Wyvern. Yeah, thighs of fucking steel. Below me, Bran and Dante and Helgi played pass-the-Blood while being chased by two out-of-their-mind Wyverns. Jets of mucus spattered the ground, missing the Skins by mere inches.

Using my fingers as hooks, I pulled myself up the creature’s body and slammed the disc home before rolling off onto the ground. Pain lanced up my shoulder and jarred my teeth, but it was worth it. The Wyvern was down, and I was back on my feet.

It was four on one now.

“Anya!”

I turned in time to catch the child Helgi threw at me. The final Wyvern was right behind my friend, almost on her, its attention on the Dragon Blood child in my arms. And then the ground opened and swallowed the venom-spitting beast.

Silence.

Absolute deafening silence, so thick it was as if someone had wrapped my head in a blanket.

I raised my head slowly to look up at the faces staring down at me—pale smudges against an azure sky. Then they rose like a rippling wave, their cheers and applause a deafening cacophony of sound that burrowed into my brain and made my head spin.

My legs gave way and my knees hit the dirt. Tentative arms wound round my neck.

Someone somewhere was shouting a name. “Larson, Larson. Oh, God!”

The child was torn from my grasp.

“Anya, it’s over.” Helgi took my hand and hauled me to my feet. “It’s over.”

“Yeah. For now.”

---