A faint lightening in the distance heralded what might be a passage out of Abaddon. I stood for a moment, catching my breath before making my cautious way toward it, struggling to control the emotions the dragon shard had stirred in my flight. The hand gripping the demon’s sword was stiff and aching. I relaxed my fingers, flexing them to restore the blood flow as I listened intently for sounds the dragon was near. For the previous fifteen or so minutes I hadn’t heard anything but the normal muted sounds of the shadow world. Perhaps I’d given him the slip.

I looked at the promising light on the horizon, weighing my need to save myself with Gabriel’s request that I find a hiding spot and wait for him. I shook my head as I considered the latter. “There’s no time,” I argued to myself. “Even if he got someone to come into the shadow world to help me, it would take that person too long to find me. I have to get out of Abaddon.”

“I agree. Abaddon is no place for you,” a voice said behind me. I snatched up the sword, whirling around to face the man who emerged from the shadow of a half-tumbled wall. He glanced at the weapon held in front of me, one eyebrow rising lazily. “You have nothing to fear from me, mate.”

“I’m not even going to point out how ludicrous that statement is,” I said, both of my hands holding the sword so it pointed at his heart. Dragons might be hard to kill, but even they wouldn’t run headlong into a sword. “I will warn you that I have no intention of being taken away from Gabriel, nor will I allow you to take the dragon shard.”

The dragon ignored both the threat and the sword as he circled around me, eyeballing me from the top of my head to the toes of my boots. I kept the sword between him and me, turning as he made his objectionable examination. “You are not as finely made as my mate was.” A slow smile made his lips quirk. “On the other hand, there is much pleasure to be had in taking the mate of a silver dragon again.”

“I’m not Ysolde,” I said, wondering if my stab in the dark was going to find its mark. “And Gabriel is not Constantine Norka.”

He lunged at me, snarling out something I didn’t understand. I slashed at him with the sword, amazed as the air in front of me gathered into a blue light that formed itself in a sword. “Do not think that because I will take you as mate means you will be anything but a pale comparison to her. You are merely a female, a means to an end, a lesser dragon and nothing more.”