Mikhail must have felt it, as once again his muscles tightened, but then, quite suddenly, the mate bond opened and there he was in her mind, not open and clear the way she’d experienced it before, but tight as a pinhole, as if he wanted to hide his pain. She felt the effort it took. Bird! Run!
Not without you.
Bird, he will kill you without a thought. Or worse—he’ll use you against me, and I cannot bear that.
Guilt churned in her at that, but she fought it fiercely. She would not let her own fears defeat her before this traitor could.
Mikhail, you wouldn’t leave me, she thought desperately. I’m not leaving you.
Cang laughed again, mocking, and Bird saw the twitch of shoulder and pivot of foot that indicated he was turning. She ducked back, hoping the shadows hid the end of the chain.
Cang seemed to be concentrating on Mikhail’s face as he uttered another threat, one hand lazily taking in the mural.
Mikhail’s thought came, That chain is caught under me. I’ll do my best to distract him. If you can get one of my hands free, I can do the rest—then RUN.
Mikhail said something that made Cang laugh as he waved at the mural again. The red dragon seemed delighted that he’d found something that bothered Mikhail. He turned to the mural again, looking for another spot as Mikhail said something that sounded very much like the equivalent of “Stop it!”
Cang pulled a knife from the sleeve of his coat, and began scraping at the wall. That was Bird’s cue.
Once more on her hands and knees, her heart thumping in her throat, she turtled over the rocks, until she crouched behind Mikhail. He made an effort that she felt in her bones as he sat up, effectively hiding her.
He shouted something at Cang, as Bird bent low and began tearing at the chains. Her fingers touched Mikhail’s arm, and she got a sudden, vivid image of what had happened
Mikhail and Cang, in human form, had been walking side by side to the Oracle cave. Then Cang stepped back to let Mikhail lead him over the rubble at the entrance. And once Mikhail had his back turned, the red dragon put on a pair of armored gauntlets hidden nearby for the purpose, grabbed a length of the shifter silver chain, and snapped the end around Mikhail’s right wrist. It wrapped several times as Mikhail stiffened, then staggered as the effect of pure shifter silver hit him like a blast.
Cang had yanked Mikhail’s arm behind him in a vicious tug as Mikhail fell to one knee. He looped Mikhail’s left with another coil of chain, and threw a scattering of links around Mikhail’s chest and body as he toppled. Then he’d quickly draped the rest over Mikhail’s legs before backing away and throwing off the gloves, as though he’d felt the effect of the shifter silver through them.
Bird blinked away the image. She knew where to start now. Mikhail’s left arm was loosely bound with just that one loop, so she began there, fisting handfuls of the chain in order to keep it from clinking. She yanked it down, and Mikhail’s left hand was free. As the scrape scrape scrape continued at the mural, Cang still talking in that mocking voice, Bird eased the chain to the ground as Mikhail flexed his fingers, then flattened his hand and indicated the crevasse.
Bird understood: he could now shift his weight so she could pull at the other end of the chain from the relative safety of the other side of the crevasse opening. She threw herself back behind the rubble a heartbeat before Cang turned again. He put one fist on his hip, the other brandishing the knife as he began to advance on Mikhail. Bird watched in horror.
Mikhail’s left hand ripped the chain in an arc.
Cang’s eyes went wide. He danced back out of range, and Bird yanked with all her strength on the chain end. This time it came free. A mass of chain fell from Mikhail’s body.
He leaped to his feet, shaking the last of it off. At last, Mikhail was free.
In a flash, he became a dragon and lunged.
Cang shifted a heartbeat after. The two massive dragons filled the entire chamber. The ground trembled, and rocks tumbled.
Mikhail shot overhead, followed instantly by Cang. Bird knew that Mikhail was drawing the enemy away from her.
She began to run, stumbling in complete darkness. Then the cave beyond lit up with a blue light that reminded her of lightning. It was followed by a sinister red flash that turned everything to shades of black and gray for a split second. That second was enough for her to see the widening cracks all through the cavern. The entire place was about to come down around her ears. She began to run.
As she did, terror stabbed through her when lava worms began seeping out of all those cracks overhead, in the cavern walls, and in the ground. Weird light filled the outer cave, outlining the shape of two great dragons, one silver and one red, locked in combat. Lava wyrms began oozing their way toward the silver dragon.
“No,” Bird whispered.
What could she do? Nothing. This was way beyond her skills, her experience. For one second the old sense of futility seized her, but she fought it off. There had to be something she could do. She’d come this far—she’d helped Mikhail get free of—
The chain!
What worked against Mikhail would work against that red dragon—wouldn’t it?
She was going to find out.
She turned to the crevasse, which was now utterly dark. Ignoring the horrible streams of grit filtering down from overhead, she felt her way back and back, until she bumped painfully into the rubble. She crawled over it, ignoring bangs and scrapes until her fingers encountered the cool links of chain.