Page 85 of A Witch and Her Dragon
My gaze flicks up to the path ahead.
But it is obscured.
By a dragon.Mydragon.
“Raelan,” I whisper. And before Grandfather can stop me, I leap from the wagon, the heavy cloak billowing around me as my feet hit the dirt.
“Your Highness!” Sir Larsen calls. He reaches for me as I sprint by, but I twist from his grasp at the last moment.
And then I’m running toward the beast that everyone else is backing away from. I break through the front line of knights, and now all that stands between me and Raelan is a stretch of wooded path sprinkled with crinkly autumn leaves.
Like the first time I saw his true form, I am filled with a mixture of reverence and terror. But I don’t let the fear stay my feet. I push myself forward, closing the distance between us one stride at a time.
Raelan rises up, his sharp head reaching the tops of the trees. His eyes glitter with flecks of gold despite the thin moonlight. And when he looks down at me, I feel he sees right into me, like his gaze is tugging at the threads of my heart.
“Your Highness!” someone calls from behind me.
Then Sir Larsen yells, “Don’t!”
I think he’s speaking to me. But then a whistle sounds, the tell-tale sound of an arrow cutting through the night.
My magic reacts before I can think to call upon it. I throw my hands out, and a burst of ice strikes the arrow midair, sending it flying into the woods rather than into its intended target.
Finally, my magic does what I want it to.
Raelan blinks slowly, and a rumbling growl vibrates from his massive chest.
“Let me go!” a familiar voice yells. My gaze is drawn immediately to Raelan’s clawed paw, which is wrapped tightly about a struggling figure.
With little fanfare, Raelan opens his claws and drops the figure onto the cold dirt. I wince as the person hits the ground.
“Shit,” the man says, gasping for air as he pushes himself to his hands and knees and shakes pine needles from his messy hair. When he looks up, my stomach turns.
Tristan.
Raelan brought him back to us. He could easily have ended him with a tightening of his claws, and yet he stayed his paw.
And I wonder, somehow, if he did it for me.
I turn my back to Raelan, putting myself between the company of knights and my dragon. Their hands are on their swords, and some have bowstrings already drawn, arrows pointing either at Raelan or at Tristan, who sits back onto his heels with a defeated sigh.
In the wagon, Grandfather stands. Pushing back the hood of his cloak, he looks upon Raelan with eyes wide and lips parted.
There’s movement behind me. Then Raelan’s head is beside me, his slitted eye easily as large as my hand. More bowstrings are drawn as he breathes warm air over me, like a summer breeze on the warmest of days. My hair flutters away from my face, and my cloak billows softly.
“Raelan,” I whisper, lifting a hand to place it upon the end of his scaled nose. He blinks slowly, like a cat, then casts his gaze to the night sky.
He wants to fly. Of course he does.
And I’m going with him.
“Alina!” my grandfather calls, but I don’t heed him as I turn fully to face the dragon towering above me. There’s a murmuring of dissent amongst the ranks as I walk closer to Raelan, so close I have to tip my head all the way back to look up at him.
With trembling fingers, I reach out to trail my hand across his scales. They’re warm and glossy, soft like silk against my skin. And at the gentle touch, Raelan lets out what sounds like a low purr.
He lowers a wing for me, and with my feet bare, I climb upon it, then gasp as he lifts me into the air. I wobble but don’t fall. Then I’m walking carefully across his wing and settling myself into the spot just between his neck and mighty shoulders.
“Lower your weapons!” Sir Larsen shouts at his knights. “That’s the princess you’re aiming at!”
