Page 164 of The Wild Prince's Favorite
“Lumie!” Alezya called in the commotion.
She felt the familiar gust of winds whisking waves of snow left and right, throwing many flat on the ground. There was mayhem around her, and yet, pushing through knees and snow,Alezya managed to get somewhat on her feet to get a glimpse of the situation.
Kein hadn’t landed, and to her surprise, the dragon seemed unwilling to, its silver eyes scouring around the confused crowd of humans as if looking for where to go. The orange dragon wasn’t willing to harm those humans, she realized. It wanted to get to her, but it wasn’t sure which humans it could harm, or so it looked like to her.
She had seen Kein attack humans countless times, but now, she realized the dragon was far smarter than she had given it credit for; how else would it have known to spare humans at the camp but attack those who peeked out of the mountains? To suddenly attack the ones who harmed her amongst humans it saw every day? Lorey had told her many times how smart dragons were, but only then did Alezya truly understand.
The dragon was hovering just above the crowd of panicked humans, but soon, they would go from panic to revolt, and Alezya could already see many of them shouting orders, taking out weapons.
“The baby!” she screamed to Kein before remembering to switch tongues. “Take the baby! Take the baby to Kassein! Baby, Kein! The baby girl! To Lorey! Please! SAVE HER!”
Alezya, out of breath and still fighting the man who was trying to drag her, tried to see if Kein had heard her and hopefully understood her words. She saw the dragon’s silver eyes move away from hers to scour the crowd, easily locating the little dot of white skin amongst them seconds later. Kein let out an angry growl at the sight of the crying baby, and Alezya’s heart stopped.
What if it misunderstood her? What if Kein misunderstood her and attacked her baby?
It was already too late. She watched, terrified, as the orange dragon dove toward Lumie and the man who was holding her.Unable to endure not seeing what was happening, Alezya finally grabbed the man who had been pulling her, violently bit his arm, and as soon as he let go with a pained scream, ran away from him.
She ran just far enough to get lost in the crowd and locate the man who had taken Lumie. Surprisingly and thankfully, her father’s henchman hadn’t dropped her in his panic; instead, he was running away from the incoming dragon with a horrified expression stuck on his face. There was something nonsensical about running away from a dragon whose wingspan covered half the area, but the man still ran, holding the crying babe in the bundle of fur, Lumie’s screams barely audible above the gusts of wind, the adults shouting, and Kein’s grunts.
The orange dragon chased the man with annoyed growls, but as its claws came close, the man escaped by taking a different direction at the last second. Alezya could only watch from afar, but she was fairly certain the man would already be dead if that had been Kein’s intent.
Instead, the dragon was chasing after its prey, not needing to see Lumie to know it had to follow the bundle of fur. Her heart pounding, Alezya witnessed what looked like the longest hunt in the world for a dragon. Kein tried twice to take the baby away, but every time, its claws somewhat missed their grip, closing on snow or barely scratching the man’s clothes.
Alezya realized the dragon was trying to take the baby away without killing the human, and all of a sudden, she didn’t care who died or who lived but her daughter.
“Kill him!” she shouted angrily, forgetting to switch languages. “Kein, hunt him and take the baby away! Save the baby!”
She would never have thought she would one day send a dragon to kill a man, but right now, she was thinking like the mother she was, desperate to save her child. Alezya knew theywere out of time; the clans, who had also begun to realize the dragon was unwilling to kill, were gathering and beginning to throw weapons in its direction. They were too far to aim well but too close for her to think Kein would remain unharmed for much longer, and she did not want to try to direct a furious dragon.
As if it had been waiting for her order, Kein let out a deafening growl and dove even faster onto the man holding Lumie, leaving him no chance this time.
But, to Alezya’s horror, Kein attacked head first, its large maw wide open, all fangs out.
“No,” she whispered, far too faintly for the dragon or anyone to hear. “No, Kein, don’t hurt her–!”
If the dragon heard her, it didn’t stop its attack.
Alezya felt her heart sink in her chest as she watched, helpless, the dragon’s mouth close around the bundle of gray fur. Blood flew, and a man’s horrifying scream erupted.
Alezya watched, all blood draining away from her face, as the man who had held Lumie fell back, half of his arms ripped away and bleeding. Kein had ripped everything from his elbows to his hands away, and Lumie with it. Alezya felt nausea swirl from her stomach to her mouth, and she fell to her knees, numbed by the horror of what had just happened.
It was still chaos around her, but she had gone deaf, her vision tunneling on the dragon’s blood-covered maw. Lumie was gone. Kein had just...
“No,” she heard herself mutter. “No, no.”
The dragon had stopped growling, and it took off, visibly searching for her and finding her in seconds. Alezya knew she should have crawled away, tried to retreat from the monster that had just eaten her baby, but she was stuck to the ground, incapable of moving. Not a single one of her limbs was willing to move, stunned by shock.
She still didn’t move when Kein tried to land in front of her.
The orange dragon was flapping its wings, sending gusts of snowy wind left and right, its large claws a man’s height away from the ground. Kein couldn’t land, but it was maintaining its flight right in front of the shell-shocked woman. Then, slowly, it opened its mouth.
“No way...”
Alezya gathered just enough strength to get up and, with shock, peered inside the dragon’s bloody jaw. A baby was crying.
Alezya almost couldn’t believe her eyes and ears, but Lumie was there, still perfectly fine and wrapped in the fur coat, nestled on the dragon’s tongue, right behind the barrier of bone-breaking fangs. The baby girl didn’t enjoy being tossed around, and she was squirming and crying under the covers, but she was fine; Kein had simply grabbed her the only way he could to tear her from the man without harming her...
Alezya was in utter disbelief but relieved beyond measure.
