Sword of Darkness by Kinley MacGregor

deftly dodged it…as he always did.
    Blaise made no comment.
    Kerrigan sighed. “I used to enjoy being evil. It wears thin, doesn’t it?”
    “Not really. Better than being good. At least here the people are far more entertaining. You never know when one of them is going to run at your back, trying to kill you…well, for me that’s true. They’re too damned scared of you to try it. Maybe that’s part of your problem, my king. You’ve made them too scared of you. But either way, good guys never fight dirty. You always know what to expect from them.”
    There was truth to that. Even now, he wondered what mischief Morgen planned for both him and Seren. For there was no way that she didn’t have something in the works. Her mind was ever plotting new evils.
    But whatever she had planned, it would turn out the same. He would attack and she would back down.
    Kerrigan cocked his head as he heard a whisper of movement from his bedchamber.
    Could it be Seren moving about? Nay, not likely. The spell he’d given her should have her asleep for hours.
    Again he heard the faint noise.
    He opened the door to his bedchamber with his thoughts, then flashed into the room.
    Seren turned from the window with a gasp to face him.
    Kerrigan had barely opened his mouth to castigate her when the shutters behind her shattered.
    Before he could react, a talon came through, coiled around her, and snatched her from his room.

Chapter 5
    Seren wanted to fight the gargoyle who held her as the vicious winds whipped around her, but she refused, since to do so would be extremely stupid. It was a long way to the ground, and she held no desire to become a splotch of color on the dismally gray landscape.
    The gargoyle who held her was huge, at least ten feet tall and twenty feet in diameter, and as black as pitch, with gleaming silver eyes and horns. Truly it was a fearsome sight that she would have preferred to remain ignorant of.
    Suddenly she heard the sound of more wings flapping. Please, tell me it’s not more of these . Twisting in the gargoyle’s hand as a great shadow fell over her, she saw a dragon nearing them.
    It took a full heartbeat before she realized the knight in black armor astride the dragon was Kerrigan.
    Fire blasted out of the dragon’s nostrils, shooting dangerously close to the gargoyle who held her.
    “Release her!” Kerrigan’s angry voice shouted.
    “Oh please don’t,” Seren shouted as panic consumed her. If the gargoyle did, she would surely die.
    She watched as the dragon dipped below, then shot up to rise before them.
    The gargoyle darted to the left, then went tumbling through the air. Seren groaned as his grip tightened on her. It was so tight now that she swore she felt her ribs starting to break. Fire blasted at them again. The heat of it burned her skin even as the gargoyle recoiled.
    The next thing she knew, he let go of her.
    She screamed as she fell haphazardly through the air, toward the rocky ground below.
    Just as she was sure she’d die, something grabbed her and scooped her into cold arms. She glared at Kerrigan. “You bastard!” she shouted before she hit him on the arm, which only succeeded in hurting her hand since he was dressed in his black armor.
    Kerrigan was aghast at her actions. “What is wrong with you, wench?”
    “Me? What is wrong with you? Did you not see how close I came to dying? Why would you attack something that was holding me so far above the ground?”
    “Because you were in danger.”
    “I was in greater danger falling toward the earth than I was being held in his talon.”
    “She has a point, my king,” Blaise said in an even tone as they glided effortlessly back toward the tower.
    Seren gaped at the sound of the familiar voice coming out of the dragon’s mouth. Certainly. Why not? Why should that be impossible given everything else she had seen in this cursed place?
    It only stood to reason that the dragon would be Blaise. The very sky could yet turn out to be