Page 119 of Catastrophe

“I’m sorry.” Dralie apologized as the green dragon dived closer to the fires to get away from us.

“Not your fault.”

It seemed focused on getting back somewhere, desperately trying to lose us through the smoke, the fires, the falling trees.

To Fafnir? If we follow, will we find out where he’s hiding again now?

We were keeping up, but we were still new to flying, and our wings strained with each new obstacle we expertly avoided.

“Great work, Dralie.” I applauded as we dodged yet another stream of flames headed toward us.

“Thank you.” He replied with a happy trill as we righted ourselves and continued surfing the clouds behind the green dragon. “I can feel familial bonds.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” My blood went cold with the thought.

“It means we have a connection to him,” Dralie explained. “Would you like me to contact him? Perhaps we can discuss this like reasonable drakorians?"

“Like telepathically?”

“Yes.”

“Absolutely the fuck not. I don’t care if he wants a chat. We aren’t responding. Hear me? Please Dralie. We’d probably get a disease or something.”

Elizabeth always assumed Fafnir would control me because of some dragon magic. Familial bonds sound like a way that could happen and that definitely wasn’t on my calendar for the day. Fuck that.

“I don’t think that would be the case, but I have to admit this abomination unsettles me.”

“You’re telling me.”

“I am telling you, yes.”

“Okay Dralie, we’ve still got a long way to go before we’ve got the slang down, but we’ll get there.”

“Our mate is very quiet. Do you think she is awed by our flying?”

Clawdia hadn’t made a sound. If I couldn’t feel her weight between our wings, I’d have forgotten she was there. Occasionally, her legs would clench and her grip on my scales would tighten. But I didn’t think it was awe. Probably terror.

The green dragon seemed to realize that we wouldn’t lose them so easily as it glanced up to see us hovering just above the smoke, following. I wanted to know why Dralie was calling it an abomination.

Was it because he could sense that it was an unnatural hoard? Like magic? As Fafnir does? Or was there something else I was missing? It didn’t seem any different to our dragon shape? Maybe it had mixed blood?

But, I couldn’t ponder that for long. Instead of shooting flames at us, the dragon heaved its great wings and shot up toward us, claws out for the attack.

Clawdia screamed as we tumbled from the sky, smoothly avoiding the dragon’s attack and now leading the race out of the smoke.

And then I felt something slimy crawl over me. It wasn’t a physical sensation, but one over my mind. Like a sticky, slimy, slug worming around me, it distracted me and Dralie must have felt it too because he said, “Charlie, the bond … don’t touch …”

But I couldn’t hear him anymore. The slug seemed to have taken over my mind and confused me. I wanted to get away from it, but I was trapped. I could hear Clawdia’s screaming in the distance, but I could no longer see and my connection to Dralie was cut off.

Is this the familial bond from the other dragon? Why does it have to feel like a slug? Slugs are gross. I knew this fucker was diseased.

Despite the fear and the disgust, I was curious to find out who the dragon was. Dralie called it an abomination, a male, but I didn’t know any other male relatives, since the family would have killed them.

Was it just a coincidence that Fafnir found another one?

Hesitantly, I reached for the bond, and then the strange whispering started. It wasn’t words exactly, more like ideas and there were flashes of images, a dragon, Fafnir, the witches, the compound, a knife, a collar. I had no clue what any of it meant, but it consumed me. I felt hypnotized and unable to look away.

Until Clawdia’s voice cut through. “Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, come back to me. Come back, my love. Stop listening to whatever he’s saying. You aren’t like him. You and Dralie are different. You don’t have to do what he says. Just listen to me. Listen to me and come back to me.”

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