I started my windup.
“Three.”
I hurled the branch high, arcing it upwards in the clear moonlight. The dark form lunged. Powerful wings snapped out, pushed downwards. An unbearable stench rolled toward me just as three flashes of light erupted on my right.
Sully: springing, moving, firing.
The dagger snapped into my hand. If he missed, or only wounded it, it would be here in seconds.
A roaring sound. An enormous blot of darkness descending from the air at an unbelievable rate of speed. Wings beating, fingered forelimbs yanking itself through the trees at us.
Sully, firing. “Run!”
He hadn’t hit the jukor’s throat.
I bolted sideways, headed for the thickest brush, hoping it would snag a wing, entangle an arm.
Branches whipped at my face, but the only pounding footsteps I heard were mine.
I stopped, spun about. Saw Sully drop to the ground, roll, come up firing again as the jukor’s barbed wing slashed inches from his body.
Shit! I plunged back through the trees just as the jukor roared and slammed Sully to the ground.
FINDERS KEEPERS
A Bantam Spectra Book / May 2005
Published by
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2005 by Linnea Sinclair
Bantam Books, the rooster colophon, Spectra, and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Published simultaneously in Canada
www.bantamdell.com
eISBN: 978-0-553-90180-1
v3.0