Arthur scrambled to Gawain’s side, dreading what he would find. Just as Arthur reached him, the dragon roared again, then thrust its head through the trees toward Arthur. He scrabbled for Excalibur, but it wasn’t needed. The dragon simply wanted to mock them now.
“This match goes to me. Have a worthy army waiting for my return, and bring reporters so that they can sing the song of my victory.”
“Reporters?” Arthur repeated the word with confusion. What did a dragon know about the human press?
He didn’t get a reply. With a huff of smoke, the dragon drew its head out of the trees and turned its back to the forest. Then it broke into a thundering run across the grass and unfurled huge leathery wings, each spine tipped with a glittering claw. The wingspan was enormous, blotting out the light. With a thunderous flap, Rukon Shadow Wing sprang into the sky, beating hard until the long, twisting form soared above the wild landscape.
As it rose higher and higher, a bright spiral of light appeared in the clouds. It was no bigger than a coin to Arthur’s sight, but he knew it was a rift into another realm—a doorway no dragon should have been able to create. Rukon dived through it, and the light winked out. The sky was suddenly empty of anything but the coming rain.
Gawain moaned and rolled onto his back. “Did I ever mention dragon breath smells like old barbecue?”
“How badly are you hurt?” Arthur asked, helping Gawain as he struggled to sit up.
The knight paused before answering, as if doing a mental check of his bruises. “Hitting the bushes hurt the worst.” He peered at the sleeve of his leather jacket. The fabric was scarred by the dragon’s fangs, but not torn. For some reason, Rukon had spared him.
Arthur clapped his friend on the shoulder, unable to speak. Relief had closed his throat with a burning ache. They had survived, but he had a feeling their good luck had just run out. Too much didn’t make sense. How was the dragon traveling between realms? Was Rukon really so hungry for glory—for the chance to kill Arthur before the cameras of the human media—that it was willing to risk starting a war with every magical creature that preferred to hide from human eyes? And why hadn’t it butchered Gawain?
“Have you ever heard of Rukon Shadow Wing?” Gawain asked.
“No,” Arthur replied, getting to his feet. “And I’d remember if we’d met.”
Arthur picked up Excalibur and scowled at the blade. The strike against the dragon’s scales had dulled the edge. He slammed the sword back into its scabbard and paced the loamy ground, anger and confusion prickling along his nerves. What was going on and, more to the point, how could he stop it?
Both men jumped when Gawain’s phone rang with the sound of a tiny fanfare. The knight was still sitting on the ground, but he unzipped his pocket and extracted the smartphone in its shockproof case. “Hello?”
Arthur watched his friend’s face pucker in confusion. He knew most of Gawain’s trademark scowls, but this was different. The knight held out the phone with a faintly dazed expression. “It’s your wife.”
The clouds picked that moment to unlock their downpour.
Copyright © 2017 by Naomi Lester
ISBN-13: 9781488031199
Her Guardian Shifter
Copyright © 2017 by Karen Whiddon
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, M3B 3K9 Canada.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com
Her Guardian Shifter Page 28