LIAM (The Rylee Adamson Epilogues, Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

their eggs. They are either strong enough to survive, or they are picked off by other creatures. She paused and a shudder rippled through her. The dragons that are left after the disease, they are mad with fear. They are actively hunting our own kind, their minds broken with what they believe happened. I have heard rumors they are being rounded up by elementals.
    Well, shit, that put a whole new spin on things. Elementals were not supposed to interfere. The fact that Lark (a bad-ass elemental who’d helped us in the battle against Orion) did so on a regular basis was the reason she was anathema among her own people.
    The rest of what the dragon said sank in. Ophelia had been with her three fledglings for over a month, far longer than a single week.
    “I don’t think you are wrong. Things are changing, Ophelia. You don’t have to follow the old rules if they don’t work. We can’t, not if we’re going to survive what’s coming.”
    What do you mean?
    I frowned, trying to find the right words, feeling them on the tip of my tongue. “The world feels like it’s on the edge of something big again. Like the demons were the tipping point, an opening that’s left the world vulnerable to something as dangerous.”
    A sigh rippled through her. I don’t want my children to be weak, Liam. They are some of the last. It will be a struggle as it is to find them mates. But to think I am protecting them only to have them watch the world around us die . . . that feels wrong. Is there nothing we can do?
    It was my turn to sigh. “I don’t know. Nothing right now. Maybe our job is just to hang on and ride the damage out this time.”
    We soared above the clouds, silence except for Levi’s heavy breathing behind me.
    Will you tell me what is wrong with the ogre babies?
    Her words brought the image of Bam and Rut clinging to one another as though they could somehow save each other. I shut the image down before it could settle in my mind’s eye.
    “They need an ogre mother’s milk to survive. Some species of animals are like that, apparently.” I tightened my hold on one of her thick red spines, stabilizing myself as she banked to the left, riding a current of air. Behind me, Levi gripped my coat tighter, leaning into me.
    “I think I’m going to be sick.”
    “Off to the right if you’re going to—”
    His body lurched and he hung to the right. I waited until the sound of liquid splatting down Ophelia’s side and then the subsequent dry heaving subsided before I went on.
    “If we don’t convince another ogre to come and be their wet nurse, they will die.”
    And is there a time limit?
    I did a quick tally in my head. “Less than forty-eight hours now. They don’t have much time left, they are . . . they are wasting away.” I clenched my jaw, hating the feeling of not being able to move. I knew that we were moving, but my body, the drive of the wolf in me, wanted actual physical movement to keep the fear and growing anxiety at bay. I bit back the howl that rose up my throat, clearing my throat before I spoke again. “Two days is all I’ve got.”
    A rumble rolled through her and she picked up speed, flattening out like an arrow shooting through the sky.
    Then we need to give it everything we have, both for their sakes and the sakes of my own children. Her voice was hard as steel, the voice of a mother who knew how to protect her babies no matter the cost. The defiance of death for children who were not her own, but those of who she cared for, was as strong a drive as that to protect her own. Around us the air crackled and thickened with ozone, pressing down on us with a pressure that made my ears pop. I looked up as a whirling band of clouds spun toward us. A sharp wind from behind whipped up and sent the forming cyclone away, driving us hard.
    “Ophelia,” I said, “tell me that’s you.”
    It’s me, wolf. It will take much of my strength but I can pull on the weather to push us.
    I only wished she’d given us