Page 107 of The Beast King's Bride

I’d take their swords if I knew how to wield them. I was never trained, prepared for fighting. I need to find more guards, more weapons.

But the dragon turns toward me, I realize, and then Talen moves, swinging his sword downward and forward as the dragon smashes right through the wall and lunges after me.

I have a moment frozen in time when all I see is flames and black scales and talons reaching for me as the dragon moved toward me.

Then, with an inhuman roar, Talen shifts. Black, striped fur rolls over him, claws and a muzzle, tufted ears, a long tail—I’ve never seen him transform so fast, almost in mid-leap as he jumps in front of me.

He screeches to a halt, claws raking across the stone floor, then leaps again, this time jumping onto the dragon, mouth open, claws spread. The dragon hisses flames and snaps at the horned tyger, but Talen is faster, more flexible. He twists and buries his teeth into the dragon’s long neck as the dragon backtracks, wings spreading, breaking more of the wall, knocking over chairs and low tables.

The black tyger hangs grimly onto the dragon’s neck as the giant lizard tries to shake him off, knocking him into the still-standing part of the wall.

“Won’t you two help him?” I yell desperately at the guards who are still cowering, eyes wide in their fine-boned faces, their swords trembling in their hands, their spears forgotten by the door. “Give me that,” I snap at one of them, gesturing at his sword, training be damned.

“I need…” He lets the sword drop to the floor and he turns toward the door. “…my spear.”

I bend and retrieve the sword. It’s heavy, so heavy I can barely lift it—but if they won’t help Talen, then I will. I’ve never held a sword in my hand before, but how hard can it be? All you have to do is aim at a part of the dragon and stick the pointy end into it.

Right?

“Call for more guards!” I yell at them as I stalk toward the fight. “Now! The king is in danger.”

The tyger has managed to sink its claws into the dragon’s wing—but the dragon has swung its massive head down and closed its jaws over the tyger’s body.

Panic grips me, icy sweat running down my back as I step closer and closer.

Too late, a strident voice is saying inside my head, it’s too late, the king is going to die, you’re too late—

The dragon slams a massive, taloned leg on the polished stone floor of the throne room, growling, and with a cry I don’t recognize as my own, I run forward and strike with the sword at the scales, sinking its tip deep, right above the talons, into the dragon’s paw.

It screeches, swinging its head this way and that, flinging the tyger across the room to slam into the far wall. The dragon lifts its paw, the sword sticking out of it, and scrambles back, through the crumbling wall.

More guards finally burst into the throne room, swords raised. I only realize I’ve been walking backward, away from the dragon, when I stumble and almost fall over a chunk of broken wall. I turn to where the tyger is lying on the floor.

“See? I’ve moved on from stones. Talen.” The tyger doesn’t move, a heap of black, striped fur and gleaming horns, and cold fear grips me once again. “Talen!”

I fall to my knees and run my hands over his body, over the great, feline head, the curved horns, the flanks slowly rising and falling with each breath.

He’s alive.

“Talen!” I press my brow to his furred one. “Are you all right? Please, be all right!”

The guards have pushed the dragon out and swords are clanking and scraping as they fight. The dragon groans, a pained sound, then roars. I hear the crackling of flames. A scream.

Blood is seeping into the tyger’s fur. I only realize when I lift my hand and find it wet, dipped in crimson. The black fur seems to conceal injuries and I recall with perfect clarity the dragon’s jaw closing over him.

“A healer!” I shout, looking at the door. “Someone find a healer!”

It’s chaos. More guards are pouring in, running toward the breach in the wall, not even noticing the great tyger sprawled at the far end of the room, a human girl bowed over him.

I don’t know what to do, how to stop the bleeding, how to help him, even as he starts to change, to shift back to his Fae form. The fur retracts, the claws vanish, his mass reduces. Dark hair spills over his head, his naked, muscular body slumping on the floor, bared and bloodied.

A sob almost tears out of me, now that the deep gashes from the dragon’s teeth are made visible on pale skin.

But then a familiar voice calls out, “Ash! And then, Sire?”

Thank all the Gods, Jassin is finally here and he’ll find a healer for the man who holds my heart in his hands.

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