“Hey, how’s it going?” Elliott asked, lying next to her on the ground, panting heavily. “Miss me?”

“More than you can ever imagine,” she replied with a crooked smile. But the fight wasn’t over yet, and a much as she wanted to lie there and chat, she had to see if her grenade had done the job.

It hadn’t—not really. She jumped to her feet, and off in the distance, she saw Holland’s dragon form flying off into the night. There was a stream of smoke trailing the ...