Page 32 of Dragons' Mate
Kit
Panic grips me as I’m yanked upwards, the ground receding at an alarming pace. My body dangles in the dragon's grip, its sharp talons digging into my flesh through the thin uniform. The wind screams past, cold and ruthless, whipping my hair around my face. The harsh buffet of the dragon's powerful wingbeats echoes in my ears, overwhelming the natural sounds of the world below. Everything but Cyril’s call. Somehow I still hear that.
My captor banks a sharp right, and my stomach churns, my heartbeat erratic as the terrifying ascent evens out. Beneath me, the world is reduced to an abstract tapestry, the vibrantly green forest and the stone citadel blurring together into a whirl of colors. At this height, I don’t dare thrash about lest the beast decides I’m more trouble than I’m worth to carry.
Through my terror riddled mind I register that the scales around the talons holding me are a rich brown color, not midnight black. It’s not Geoffrey then. But it could still be someone from his pack or one allied with them. If that even matters. Dying is dying.
I draw a breath, surprised to find that it goes inside my lungs. I'd somehow forgotten that I can breathe. Then another thought occurs. I've actually been in this position before. Well, not this exact one, but probably closer than any other human has and lived to tell the tale. Now that I feel the unforgiving bite of the brown dragon’s talons, I realize how careful Hauck had been when he’d carried me. Still, I’m alive. Which means this dragon doesn’t want me dead. At least not yet.
Maybe he wants to share me with his packmates for breakfast.
Closing my eyes, I yank the bond Quinton and I share and then shout for Tavias with my mind. The communication has always been one way, but I’ve little to lose by trying. My mind races. Cyril saw me being taken, I remind myself. He’ll come after me. He’d tell the others.
Unless he is hurt. He’d been fighting two dragons at once. Those weren’t good odds. How long until—
We are coming.Tavias’s mind voice sounds too calm for the raging wind.Stay put.
Relief rushes through me, followed closely by absurd indignation. Stay put? Where does he think I’m going to go?
A laugh I’ve no control over bubbles from my chest.
The dragon twists his massive neck, his slitted eyes giving me a confused glare.
“Tavias just told me to stay put,” I tell the dragon. “Solid advice, don’t you think?”
He snaps his jaw, barely missing taking my foot off at my ankle.
“You’ve got no sense of humor,” I inform him. Actually, the dragon probably has as much of a sense of humor as I have a sense of reason.
I’m still contemplating this—which is better than dangling in frozen terror—when an ear piercing shriek fills the sky. I recognize the sound even before I see three forms shooting toward us, Quinton’s silver dragon in the lead.
Three. Quinton. Hauck. Tavias. Where is Cyril?
Relief floods through me when I catch sight of blue scales flashing in the sun’s rays, Cyril’s dragon beating its great wings to catch up to the pack.
“We have company,” I tell my ride.
The talons holding me dig tighter into my tender sides. I wince.
Quinton roars his fury, making the very air around us shudder. For how controlled Quinton keeps himself in his fae form, his dragon sways the other way, the primal rage emanating from him consuming everything. The pressure of it rushing through the mating bond makes it hard to breathe, much less think. We are really going to have to do something about that.
Quinton’s dragon calls out again, the pack gaining on us. That part I like. The part I’m not so solid about is what in all the realms is supposed to happen when the four of them catch up. Attack the one being that’s keeping me from falling to my death? And for that matter, what is Mister Brown Dragon intending to do with me? The moment I’m no longer in his possession, his life is bound to turn toward the shorter side. But what’s the alternative? Ferry me around indefinitely? To what end?
Blinking against the wind, I try to take stock of where we are.
We are… still very high up. Below, the trial grounds roll by in a carpet of trees and mountains and valleys that would be beautiful if they weren't so far away. Ahead, the very air itself flashes with a strange rune.The marker noting the edge of the trial grounds, no doubt. The one that will kill me if I go past it.
Shit.
Wait. I force another breath into my lungs and remind myself that if Brown wanted me dead, he could have dropped me a hundred times over by now. He hasn’t. So he is after something else. That, or I’m the equivalent of his new dog toy, with no plan beyond that.
The beating of the dragon’s wings quickens, our trajectory never wavering from the barrier. My certainty that killing me is not the plan waivers. A lot. Whatever Brown’s plan had been originally, it might have changed now to simple escape. Use me as a shield against getting shredded on this side of the barrier, then go past and keep going.
My heart quickens.
The flashing barrier comes closer with each wing beat.
I scream.
