Page 78 of Night's Fall
I just had time to hike up my skirt soIcould straddle his neck and grip tight with my legs, grab the spike in front of me and bend low, beforeAlekseitook one step, two, and then we were gliding, his bulk so huge, his wingspan covered the large gallery, wall to wall, knocking people off their feet, paintings off their moorings, upending sculptures and scattering installations.
He destroyed everything in his path, including—Itucked my chin in my neck before he hit—the plate glass windows and doors at the front that he burst through headfirst, his impenetrable scales taking the brunt of the shattered glass.
I heard the screams, saw people throwing themselves to the ground to avoid his wings, his flight and his massive, clawed feet, and when we got outside andIraised my head,Isaw others running for dear life.
But we were lifting up, up, andup, the wind beating against the satin of my dress, whipping the ponytail out of my hair and chilling my skin to ice.
He was soaring.
I was panting and gripping him with everythingIhad, whimpering with every powerful flap of the wide span of wings that jostled me.
Fortunately, our flight didn’t last long.
He hit uptown, coasted, circled and landed on a landing pad at the top of his building that was designed for heli-crafts such asJetPanthers, not dragons.Butit made do.
When he stopped, he bent his neck low, whichItook as him telling me to hop off.
I did, nearly turning my ankle, not only at having to jump off and land, doing it in my high heels, but because my legs were frozen, andIwas jittery as all heck because, let us not forget,Ijust barebacked a freakingdragon.
“Have you lost your mind?”Ishrieked at the enormous, ferocious creature before me.
He shook his body, wings and scales like a dog would shake off water.
And thenAlekseistood before me in human form, naked as sin (and, no matter the current craziness of my sitch, his body was such, sin was allIcould think about when confronted with what seemed like acres of bulky, defined muscle, not to mention, one particular well-endowed part of his anatomy).
BeforeIcould get my wits about me, he stalked toward me, swung me up into his arms, and prowled toward a door.
“Alek—”Ibegan.
“Shut it,” he growled, no silk or velvet in his tone now.
It was rough, commanding.
Incensed.
“Doors open,” he barked.
The door in front of us opened, he jogged down some steps, jostling me again with this new flightIwas taking under his control, that being, this time, in his arms.Hestrode through another door and into a dark space that had dim lightIknew was created by the city.
I heard the door whoosh closed behind us.
And latch.
“Lights, forty percent,” he ordered and dropped me to my feet with a jarring thud.
I barely stopped swaying whenIwent dead still because his long finger was a hair’s breadth from my nose, and his handsome face transformed to horrible beauty carrying its sheer wrath was right behind it.
His eyes still glowed amethyst.
“You move a fuckingmuscle,Laura,I’llgods-damn chain you to my fucking bed for a fuckingyear.”
With that, he stalked off, leaving me so stunned,Icouldn’t even begin to process the new knowledge that the sight of him nude from the back was almost as good as the front.
I took a breath.
Another one.
I got myself together enough to noticeIwas on a long, wide landing that appeared to be a continuous slab of perfect, gleaming black marble.
