Page 58 of Court of Secrets and Flames

The female dragon swoops closer, her sinuous form blotting out the sun.

My fingers claw at my tunic while a burning, humming sensation builds to a crescendo beneath my skin.

As the ground races up to meet me, some primal instinct forces me to roll my body.

I squeeze my eyes shut and pray.

Ziva, keep me…

Just like that, the excruciating pressure between my shoulder blades pops, and the pain vanishes. An air current snatches my body, slowing my descent and jerking me sideways as I flip through the air like a feather in a windstorm.

A foreign image invades my head.

Once I understand it, I almost burst into relieved tears.

The image is of me. With wings. Huge burgundy and gold wings stretching wide from both sides of my body.

Holy shit.

A torrent of dragon emotion follows. Joy. Pride. Relief. Acceptance and—oh wait, apparently one of those fire-breathing jackoffs finds my deadly plunge amusing.

Oversized asshole lizard.

My former mount soars beside me, and I meet her piercing gaze. Understanding blooms in the back of my mind.

She didn’t betray me. She must have sensed my wings and decided to give them a little push, like dropping a child into deep water to teach him to swim.

Hopefully that means she would have intervened and saved me before I hit the ground, but who knows. Dragons don’t suffer weaklings, so it’s equally possible she would have shrugged my death off as a sign that I’m undeserving of the dragoncaller title.

Shock propels my wings outward, broad sails catching the currents. Air buffets against their span.

The female dragon shifts, aligning her flight with mine. Her young have yet to fully develop and hatch, but she’s willing to guide me through my first attempts at flight long before she can teach her own younglings.

Following her example, I cup my wings and catch a thermal before coasting through wisps of clouds. The female’s bugle slices the skies, and I can’t help but laugh in return.

As far as apologies go, I suppose this one works.

I am flying. Truly flying. On wings that are irrefutably mine.

Chapter Twenty

My gaze darts to my wings, an extension of my very self, yet still so alien. They blend with the hues of my hair, but the dark brown feathers also gleam with strokes of burgundy and gold under the burgeoning sun.

I’m a smaller, more chaotic version of the mighty creature who—coincidentally?—shares my new palette. Dame’s, as I’ve dubbed her, red-brown scales shimmer with the same colors that now grace my back.

I wish I had even a tiny bit of Dame’s flying skills to go with the matching shades. My wings don’t want to work together. My flapping, rather than smooth and natural, is choppy. And when I focus even harder on recruiting the correct muscles and balancing, my left side drops and I start tipping in that direction like I drank too much whiskey.

Oh, and there’s the little issue of my legs. As in, what in the three hells am I supposed to do with them?

They’re supposed to trail behind, graceful and still, but they keep tangling with my wings, creating a cacophony of motion.

Dame glides alongside me, her powerful wings cutting through the air with breathtaking precision that leaves me green with envy.

“Show off,” I mutter.

Through it all, her emotions pulse down our connection.

Pride. Anticipation. Even a bit of…amusement.

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