Freedom's Fall Read Online Free PDF Page A

tried to picture her American friend with a cricket
bat in her hand, but the image wouldn’t come.
    Sorcha laughed but didn’t get a chance to reply because
Fellescend ran out of patience. He snorted, enveloping the women in a cloud of
smoke and sending them both into a coughing fit. By the time Tansy had recovered,
Fellescend had his neck and chin stretched out on the sand, and his nostrils were
practically resting on her toes.
    Sorcha got the message and gestured her forward. “They like
full-body contact. Just lie along his muzzle, wrap your arms around his cheeks
and rest your forehead against his.”
    Tansy blinked. She was tall for a woman, at almost five
nine, yet if she did as Sorcha suggested it would only just bring her to eye
level with Fellescend. She shuffled forward, tried not to think about his
razor-sharp teeth, and plastered herself to his hard, scaly head.
    “Just relax,” Sorcha said, as if it were nothing more than a
matter of willpower. “Close your eyes and imagine you can see the natural
barriers you have around your mind.”
    This was all sounding a bit woo-woo to Tansy, but she stuck
with it. Pushing aside her healthy skepticism, she did her best to tune in to
Sorcha’s voice and make like a believer.
    “Your barrier might look like a wall or a fence,” Sorcha
continued. “It might be metal, stone or wood. It might even be pure energy.
Whatever it is, it will be unique to you—yours to hold
and maintain, yours to lower if you wish.” Sorcha was silent for a moment, and
when she spoke again her voice was much quieter. “Tell me when you see it.”
    Tansy kept her body relaxed, timing her breathing to the
dragon’s inhale and exhale as it brushed by her feet. She did her best to feel
Fellescend with her emotions as well as her body, and then she went searching
for her walls. To her utter amazement, she quickly came up against a high,
impenetrable barrier of solid steel. “I’ve found it.”
    “Good.” Sorcha’s quiet voice was full of approval. “Now I
want you to concentrate on Fellescend, the feel of him and the texture of his
personality. Then I want you to make a tiny door in your wall. A special door,
security coded so no one but Fellescend will even know it’s there. Only he can
open it, and only then if you let him. Tell me when you have the door ready.”
    Tansy was so deep inside herself now that she didn’t even
feel self-conscious. And she was so tuned in to Sorcha’s voice she simply did
as she was told. She created a door, coded to Fellescend’s DNA, and then she
cracked it open.
    “He can come in now.”
    She hadn’t even finished the sentence when the rush of
Fellescend’s energy blew her right out of her trance. She jumped, drew her head
back and looked into his sinister yellow eyes.
    Pet? Pet, can you hear me?
    She grinned like a crazy woman. Yes, I can hear you.
    Finally. I’ve been calling and calling for weeks but you
wouldn’t listen.
    I’m sorry. I didn’t know I could. I wasn’t shutting you
out on purpose.
    He harrumphed deep in his throat. Well, you didn’t know
any better but you do now. He nudged her away with his nose. Now it’s
Zenbaylan’s turn. Hurry up.
    Bloody hell, from excited to imperious in two sentences
flat. She figured she’d just got her first taste of dragon arrogance…and dragon
impatience as Zenbaylan muscled her way in.
    Sorcha gave her a shit-eating grin. “Second verse, same as
the first.”
    Tansy rolled her eyes and flung herself over Zenbaylan’s
nose, resigned to creating another chink in her defensive wall.
    Zenbaylan’s touch was softer and more patient, but when
Tansy made a door for her she pushed it open and just kept on coming. Steady,
inexorable, making room for herself and establishing her place with an
unsettling degree of permanence.
    Thank you, pet. You did well.
    Bloody hell. Tansy had thought Fellescend sounded imperious,
but Zenbaylan could rival an Egyptian pharaoh. She turned to Sorcha. “What