Page 99 of Break Out the Girl

Phantom pain or real—I can’t tell. But it makes me falter. For a second my human body flickers in and out of existence.

NO.

If I shift back to human, sixty feet up in the air, I’m fucking fucked.

36: FRANCOIS

Taliesin’s claws hit wood.

Finally.

00:00:36

But there is still too much soil piled on the coffin lid to pull it free. And there is too little room for all the bodies trying to help.

And—

Merde. Aurora.

The connection between us pulls taut and I stumble back and look. She’s locked in a battle with that foul black-winged Harpy-Director. They roll and tumble way above our heads. Too far, too high.

None of us, Taliesin, London nor I, can fly.

Her silvery sylph form flickers for a second. Human Aurora.

She plummets.

Then turns back to the swirling vortex.

Suddenly I realize I can shift into a long and slender form of Basilisk and assist.

Rotating and wrapping around the nearest pine, I undulate through the branches until I’m almost on the same level as the aerial battle.

Send her my way, ma magnifique petite beauté.

Like she can hear me, the tornado drives the harpy closer. The hideous creature spits and claws, her spittle the same poisonous acid as her hounds. Their toxins didn’t affect me. I am a basilisk, I thrive on poison, but the same cannot be said for Aurora.

She flickers in and out of her shifted form once more. Just a split second but enough for the harpy to slash at her neck with her venomous talons. Everything happens in slow motion.

Aurora’s mortal body becomes fully realized, gravity hits and she begins to plummet.

The harpy dives after her, going in for the kill.

And I launch myself from the bough. I’m falling rather than flying, but manage to coil around Aurora before she hits the ground, so she’s cushioned inside my serpentine length.

A beat later, I release her into the mud and strike. My power is lower than I’d like, but my fury and determination is at an all time high. Arcing high, expanding to my fullest, I unhinge my mandible and pounce downward, taking the top of her skull within my jaws, crushing and twisting, pouring the acid from my veins, my core, my existence into this creature that dared to attempt to kill my girl.

My love.

My life.

37: AURORA

Everything hurts—so fucking much.

But there is no time to care. I drag myself onto all fours just in time to see Taliesin dragging an unconscious Sky from the split-open wood coffin.

Sky.