Page 95 of Don't Fae With Dragons

Before I can bark back a response, Mili pushes herself to my side and yells at Aurora, “I’m not going anywhere with you while you’re like this.”

“What?” Aurora snarls. “Powerful? You were always insecure like that, weren’t you? Can’t handle me with a little dignity of my own, huh?”

At that, I snarl and lash out with my claws, but Mili’s grip on me keeps me from actually touching the Black Lady. She cries out, “Cory, don’t!” and I pant as I let her pull me back and away from Aurora.

The Black Lady arches an eyebrow bitterly. “Still putting on this little show? Mili, there’s no need to pretend we care about each other anymore. Let’s not be ridiculous.”

“Why would you come if you really thought that?” Mili exclaims. “I’ve always cared about you. Just not –not the way you wanted me to.”

“What a load of crap,” Aurora hisses.

As the words leave her mouth, a pillar of dark energy shoots out from the trees and hits me in the side of the head. The shock from the impact is so great that I fall, embarrassingly helpless, to the ground before realizing what’s happened.

My vision spins and I hear Mili scream, along with Max and Port howling and snarling as they shift fully into their dragon forms. I try to push myself up, but another dark ribbon flies out from the woods and hits me in the stomach, knocking the air out of me.

I hear Mili shout, “Aurora, don’t hurt him!” and my heart seizes with panic.

The Black Lady hisses, “If you touch me, I’ll kill her,” and Port and Max’s growls turn to choking snarls of panicked helplessness.

“You wouldn’t hurt me, Aurora,” Mili gasps. I realize Aurora is holding her by the neck, almost strangling her –just like in Mili’s vision.

“I’m not Aurora anymore.”

Something in me snaps, then, and I focus on breathing and getting the Realm up, no matter what it takes.

I have to get up.

I’m not in pain.

I can fight.

I repeat that same mantra, over and over, as I slash at the dark ribbons and pillars that fly at me. Slowly, slowly, I stand. When I’m up, I see that Aurora has spun around to face Max and Port, but like true warriors they make no indication of seeing that I’ve risen.

Mili doesn’t seem to know that I’ve stood up, either, and I listen with a breaking heart as she pleads with Aurora for her life. “Aurora, please, I know it’s you,” she says. I can’t help but think that her words fall on deaf ears.

As I catch my breath, I scan Aurora to look for some sort of weakness. She has wings, like a typical faery, but she has four instead of two. The bottom wings look to be the normal size, and they’re light bluish green and purple, colors like the Northern Lights. The top two wings are massive and a dark, shiny black. They’re fitting for the Black Lady – but not for Aurora.

They’ll have to go.

CHAPTER 56: MILI

As I’m begging Aurora to spare the shifters and me, I hear the sound of whooshing through the air. It sounds like claws slicing through the wind –sounds likeCory’sclaws tearing through the sky.

Then I know that he’s going to save me, my dragon man.

The Black Lady lets loose a horrible scream, the scream of Death, and releases me. I throw myself forward and into the arms of the other two shifters, who catch me with open arms. Max immediately buries his face in my neck, but Port stays looking upwards with his mouth open.

I turn around, suddenly terrified of what exactly Cory did to Aurora, and see her curled up on the ground with two large, black wings beside her body. The jagged wounds that seem to have torn them off of her body look like Cory’s claw marks, and I gasp in horror at the thought of him destroying her wings just for me.

No –not just for me. I have to remind myself that this is for Ethelinda. I can’t get bogged down in all the emotions. Cory’s always been better at that than me; I have to trust him to do what’s right for the town, just as he trusts me to do the same.

Still, the thought of Aurora rendered flightless brings me intense pain. She was my closest friend for a time, even a lover.Seeing her lying prone on the forest floor, stripped of her wings, hurts.

A moment later, she stirs, and a smaller, more Aurora-like pair of wings flutter softly.She still has her wings, I think to myself with a gasp. She’ll still be able to fly.

I watch in awe and disbelief as the black in her hair soaks into to the ground like spilled ink, and as she lifts her eyes to Max, Port, and me, her eyes blink out thick, dark tears.

“Mili?” she whispers, confusion lacing her voice.

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