Page 16 of Smoke and Blood

Her heart beat fast, and excitement filled her veins.There was air in her face, and the wind whipped her tight coils around her head.It felt wonderful.

Kai watched the ground fade away below them as they began to soar over the treetops.She could see for miles and miles.There were other dragons off in the distance to her left and right, and she knew most of them were patrols keeping an eye on the borders.

She took in the beauty of the many hues of the rich lavender sky around her, holding on to the final hour before the blackness of nightfall.She knew from old pictures that the sun used to have a more vibrant yellow that illuminated a blue sky, and at sunset, the colors were a wonder to see.However, this was her world now, and she would not bemoan those things of the past with sadness and loss as her parents and other older humans who remembered did, but she would accept and take in the breathtaking sight as it was now.

And the purple rainbow deserved to be admired and appreciated, especially from such a height.

They flew in silence across miles and miles as if Mckenna didn’t want to disturb the experience of her first flight.

Kai noted that the trees were so dense in some places she could not see the ground, while others were wide, flat fields of dirt, not a single bush or blade of grass.When they passed over an old, abandoned city, she saw buildings razed to the ground, a pile of twisted metal and cement, while most of the ivy climbed up and smothered others that still stood.There were more than a few towns that were nothing but piles of rubble and ash, or worse, underwater, with only the roofs of houses or the steeple of a church crested above the surface.

She tried not to think about how many people lay under the water and ash.Living among the vibrant existence of the Drahk, it was easy for her to forget that barely a tenth of the population on the Northern American continent made it into the underground city.

The dragon banked right and set them on a new course.

Oh, my.Kai could not believe the breathtaking sight before her in the distance.She had never seen water that wasn’t coming out of a fixture.However, now, before her, was a body of water, so formidable in its movement that it appeared to be as alive as the dragon that held her.

The water seemed fierce and angry as it rolled and crashed with high, glorious white-capped waves against red rock—trapped and bracketed within.It went on further than she could see.

What is that?Why does it look so majestic and angry?

The ocean.It is in some parts of the Gulf of Mexico, but mostly, the Pacific Ocean consumed the Canyon.

Kai tried to remember all the images of the Pacific coastline she had seen that stretched from California to Alaska.She couldn’t merge what she remembered into what was before her now.It didn’t look like this in pictures.

Because the part you are seeing used to be called the Grand Canyon.

Her gasp was loud, harsh.Confounded, she shook her head.That can’t be.They’re over twelve hundred miles apart.

Until the global catastrophes of earthquakes were so vicious and devastating, they split the seas and caused Tsunamis so great that the colossal waves devoured coastal states and countries all over the world.

Kai sat speechless in his grasp as the Mckenna continued to fly them along the new coastline.The terrain changed, but the water continued to roll and crash over the land.She watched until it became so dark she could only hear the sea.Soon, even that sound faded away.

Oh, how has this world changed?

~YH~

We will stop to eat before returning.

After a few moments, they descended and landed.The ground rumbled under the heaviness of the dragon, and dirt popped up and pinged a little around them.But the landing wasn’t as rough as she would have thought.

In the blackness surrounding them, Kai couldn’t even see her hand in front of her face.She forgot how dark the land got at night since living in the central section of the Drahk territory.It was well-lit among the businesses and homes.

When the dragon uncurled his massive claw, she climbed down until she could plant her feet on the solid ground.It amazed her how, in his grasp, she felt both strong and delicate.Always being the one to care for everyone else and always a woman with more than her fair share of curves, it was rare for her to feel so expressly feminine in such a way.Before she came, she had been on the collection team with so many men out in the junk and waste field between the Consumer Providence and the Dispatch District who did what she had done, tried to provide for their families.None of them ever offered her a hand lifting old metal frames or machinery parts.Hell, when she was sixteen and went to the employment center about one of the three openings for the job, the supervisor had looked at the groups of twelve women and two men.He kept the men and called her out of the women—the rest he dismissed.

Too happy to have a job and to earn money on her accounts to help her parents keep a roof over their heads while they battled through the illness, Kai never questioned why he’d given the position to her.But she knew.They saw a thick girl and thought, ‘big-boned,’ she could handle it.However, she struggled every day she worked that job.After each shift, she went home with cuts, bruises, quivering muscles, and the reality of her weakness.Her intellect got her through it; she had to learn how to use stuff to counter the weight of things instead of using her might in the way the men did.

With Aodh, the dragon, everything was different.She was a woman in his heart and claws that he cherished and treated with tenderness.

A shimmering flash in the night happened, and all the dragon's mass was gone, soon Aodh touched her shoulder.“Stay right here.I’ll start a fire.”

“I won’t move.”She wasn’t crazy enough to try and stumble around blindly in the dark.She didn’t know where they were.

She heard Aodh moving around her, creating sounds like he was either gathering or dropping things.Then, there was the whoosh sound she’d grown accustomed to hearing before the sight of flame bursting from his mouth brightened the night.

Finally, she could see.

Aodh lit a pit fire of multiple heavy branches.He stood beside it, dressed in his regular pants and vest attire.The man was so damn gorgeous.She never tired of staring at the intense eyes, powerful aquiline nose, and strong, wide jawline.His short jet-black hair made those features more prominent.However, just like the beast, the man was a tower of power to behold.Aodh’s big, thick muscles were always on display because of the vest the Drahk men seemed fond of wearing, which made her hands eager to touch and hold.

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