Page 72 of Mama Si's Paradise

“I am here with an offering for the rulers of the Evernight Court on behalf of the Blood Burrow,” Mama Si said.

Absolute silence followed the seconds after her voice echoed and disappeared into our ears.

Then I was pulled forward by the arm so fast my neck almost broke.

“And these are their willing offerings!” the sirens sang in unison, their voices the most beautiful melody I had ever heard, as they showed us, the humans in their arms, helplessly swimming by their sides, to the dark cloud that covered the Whispering Woods.

“Wait…” I said, but my voice was so low that even I barely heard myself.

Wait, I need a second to breathe. Somebody, please tell me what happens next!

But the words remained inside me, and three things happened at once.

Sedelis’s fishtail wrapped around my legs like a giant fucking snake, and held me up in the water, almost perfectly motionless.

Screams came from my side—terrified screams of those girls who had been no doubt trapped by the sirens as well. I’d have joined them if the fear hadn’t paralyzed me so thoroughly.

And the third thing that happened was the creatures that flew right out of the darkness of the Whispering Woods and shotfor the sky, flying straight up like they couldn’t even see us there.

Five of them. There were five creatures with wings, all of them black, some smaller and some bigger—one barely a dot in the blue sky while another as massive as those dragons flying over Dragons’ Den.

I was too stunned to look away from them as they spun around like bullets into the sky, like they meant to get all the way to outer space. Too stunned to say a single word still, and I didn’t even feel the scales of the siren’s fishtail wrapped around my legs anymore. I was thankful for it—if she wasn’t holding me up right now, I’d have drowned.

And then the beasts in the sky turned downward.

In those moments, I knew I was going to die, but there was no time to have flashbacks, to think of the happiest memories of my life, to regret anything or be thankful for anything—there simply was no time. The beasts grew bigger and bigger the closer to the surface of the ocean they came, and they weren’t birds—no, they were all some kind of a dragon, each in a different size and shape. But the scales and the horns and the tails and the claws gave them away. Even the smallest one, as big as a cat, had a really long, really thin tail with a sharp tip that glistened under the sunlight like it was made out of metal.

They came and came until the other girls screamed again. My mouth was wide open, but my vocal cords were still frozen solid.

The beasts didn’t slam onto us. They spread their wings and suspended on air about three feet over our heads, and then they flew around us, around each other, in a perfect circle for what must have been the longest minute of my life.

If someone had cut my head clean off, I wouldn’t have even bled. My eyes refused to blink as I involuntarily took in details of the bodies of those beasts. They had black scales andhorns and claws. Only their teeth and their eyes had white in them, and their bellies were a slightly lighter grey. Maybe they were made out of that same dark cloud that shielded the Whispering Woods from our view. At this point I’d readily believe it.

They spun around in a circle seven times, beating their wings, causing ripples in the air that nearly drowned me.

And then they stopped.

Then, they roared.

My eyes squeezed shut and my heart skipped a long beat. My instincts kicked in.Finally.My arms were moving, and I was trying to swim away to the other side of the boat, all the way to the Paradise—except I’d forgotten the siren who was holding my legs tightly together with her fishtail.

More screams in my ears. I was going to scream, too, and I was going to claw the siren’s face off if I had to until she let go of me.

Except something was flying right over my head.

It was a dragon, one of the bigger ones, possibly the size of an SUV. I looked up and small grey eyes locked on mine. My heart didn’t beat at all as he came for me with those huge wings, those black scales, those fucking teeth that were as big as my fingers…

Then something else, something much smaller flew right under the dragon’s talons and reached me first.

It was the smallest one that had wings for arms, a long, sharp tail, and big black eyes. Even though he was tiny in comparison, he still looked vicious. He still had his jaws wide open, lined with a million sharp teeth.

Sharp teeth that were suddenly on the side of my neck.

I screamed.

The SUV-sized dragon still flying over me roared like the sky fell right on his fucking head.

Sedelis squeezed my legs with her fishtail until I stoppedscreaming. I could do nothing but choke on thin air and endure the pain from both my legs and my neck as the small dragon bit me.

---