BooksBarbecue
Back The Night and Its Moon
Chapters (64)
  1. Front Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  6. Pronunciation Guide
  7. Prologue
  8. Part One
  9. One
  10. Two
  11. Three
  12. Four
  13. Five
  14. Six
  15. Seven
  16. Eight
  17. Nine
  18. Ten
  19. Eleven
  20. Twelve
  21. Thirteen
  22. Part Two
  23. Fourteen
  24. Fifteen
  25. Sixteen
  26. Seventeen
  27. Eighteen
  28. Nineteen
  29. Twenty
  30. Twenty-One
  31. Twenty-Two
  32. Twenty-Three
  33. Part Three
  34. Twenty-Four
  35. Twenty-Five
  36. Twenty-Six
  37. Twenty-Seven
  38. Twenty-Eight
  39. Twenty-Nine
  40. Thirty
  41. Thirty-One
  42. Thirty-Two
  43. Thirty-Three
  44. Thirty-Four
  45. Thirty-Five
  46. Part Four
  47. Thirty-Six
  48. Thirty-Seven
  49. Thirty-Eight
  50. Thirty-Nine
  51. Forty
  52. Forty-One
  53. Forty-Two
  54. Forty-Three
  55. Forty-Four
  56. Forty-Five
  57. Forty-Six
  58. Forty-Seven
  59. Epilogue
  60. Excerpt from The Sun and Its Shade
  61. The Night and Its Moon Playlist
  62. Acknowledgments
  63. About the Author
  64. Back Cover

The beast turned for Gadriel, its attacking maw fixed on his outstretched wings just as Amaris swung for its leg. As she’d hoped, the blow caught the ag’drurath utterly unprepared. The creature screamed, its eyes drawn to the pain at its front left leg. Her wound had been shallow, meant to divert rather than to maim. The black oil of its blood, stinking like the carrion from the beseul, oozed from the wound. Thin, smokelike lines wove their way through its blackened blood, stitching the skin of the creature slowly back together where she had sliced. The action seemed only to irritate the monster, as Hell itself sewed it together before her eyes. The monstrous dragon flapped its great wings, succeeding in knocking Gadriel to the ground with the attack’s rush of wind as the fae’s own wingspan remained outstretched. The dragon’s wings worked against the fae, wielding wind as its weapon.

Amaris’s breath caught in her throat as she saw the dragon’s effects.

For just the barest of moments, Gadriel was on his back.

The creature made another lunge as if to close the distance, but its concentration was snagged by the painful jerk of the chain on its back right leg. The noise it loosed from its reptilian throat in anger was a chilling, unnatural thing. The length of its enraged scream was all the time Gadriel needed to be on his feet. When he drew its eyes, Amaris moved. They switched parts in a dance to the death.

She sprinted for the space beneath the dragon’s belly again, slashing at its tender part. She cried out with exertion as she swung her sword, her sound joining the screams of the crowd and wails from the beast. Her shoulders ached. Tarlike blood splashed from its stomach and soaked her clothes with a dark, acidic burn.

There was no room for pain. They had no time for self-pity.

While one distracted, the other would wound. It was their only plan. They would buy minutes—seconds, perhaps. They gave everything they had as the citizens of Aubade screamed for their blood, watching a reever, an ag’imni, and a dragon battle to the death under the hot summer sun as their wicked queen grinned down at them.

The people, the queen, the season didn’t matter.

Buy time. They were trading mere seconds for a chance at hope.