Page 8 of The Wild Prince's Favorite
She heard it growl when her body reached the safe shadows of the tunnel, and it leaned its head farther. Worried it might change its mind, Alezya retreated farther into the tunnel, where it was so narrow and far from the opening the dragon couldn’t reach. She heard it growl again, a bit louder this time.
Alezya shivered and turned around, running away from that opening. She heard another furious growl, but she was already far away.
It took her a couple more minutes to stop running, and she actually fell on her knees, all strength leaving her body.
“...What was that?” she mumbled to herself.
She had no idea what had just happened.
For the dragon to have let her go made no sense at all. That thing had her in its clutches and it didn’t attack? What in the world?
Alezya felt like she had dreamt the last few minutes. It felt so surreal, how close she had been to that dragon and survived. Something was odd in that new creature’s attitude. The fact that there was another dragon was already weird enough, but for it to spare a human...?
She didn’t believe for a second that her begging had worked, or that this beast could be capable of pity. Perhaps it was smarter than they thought, but then why spare a clanswoman instead of having a meal...?
She took some long, deep breaths to calm herself down, and unloaded the basket of flowers from her bag. Sadly, it had been partially crushed by the dragon’s claw. Her basket she had spentages weaving was badly damaged, and she had lost about a third of the flowers she had struggled to gather... Well, so be it.
She wasn’t going to go out there anytime soon, not after this. Right now, all she wanted was to see Lumie again and hug her.
That was all she needed.
Tired, slightly shaking, but glad to have survived, Alezya walked back into the tunnels leading to her clan’s living caves.
The few people she crossed paths with gave her confused glances: her appearance wasn’t usual. The clothing on her shoulder that had hit the rocks had ripped, and had a visible bruise, with even a bit of her skin grazed. Her hair had become a mess, she had snow covering a lot of her clothes, and her lower lip was bleeding from how much she’d bit her dry skin. From the pain on her right cheekbone, she could guess another bruise was there. However, Alezya couldn’t even feel mad, she was just so relieved to have survived her encounter with the dragon, her pain was nothing compared to the death she had foreseen just minutes earlier.
Still in a daze of disbelief over what she had lived through, she let her instincts take over and guide her body back to her cousin’s home, another cave, to get Lumie back.
She heard the cries of her nephew long before she arrived. The baby was screaming his lungs out and had cleared all the nearby tunnels. Her cousin was walking in circles, nervously trying to calm him down until she spotted her.
“Alezya! Finally! What took you so long?”
Alezya answered with a glare, fed up with this errand already, but her cousin didn’t even seem to notice. Instead, she almost jumped to grab the basket, immediately showing disappointment over the content.
“...That’s all you could get?”
“I had more,” Alezya retorted angrily. “I had a basket full, but that was before I almost got killed by a dragon!”
Her cousin’s expression immediately sank.
“...What? The dragon spotted you?”
It did more than spot her, but Alezya didn’t feel like correcting Zenia.
“Yes. And it wasn’t the usual black dragon, it was another one. ...An orange dragon.”
“Orange?” Her cousin frowned. “...There’s never been word of an orange dragon. There used to be a silver and a yellow one a while ago, but orange?”
“I don’t care whether you believe me or not, the spotters will have seen it too. Where is Lumie?”
“At the back,” her cousin simply pointed behind her.
Alezya walked over quickly, inviting herself into her cousin’s living space. It was much more spacious than the hole she and Lumie had to hide in, at least ten times bigger. Her cousin had a large living space, a pretty kitchen, and even a full area for her baby.
She found Lumie there, sleeping in a large basket on a fur bed. Alezya immediately relaxed at the sight of her daughter, safe, sound, and peacefully asleep. She leaned over her, finding relief in the soothing sight of the baby girl’s sleeping face. Lumie had no idea of the troubles her mom had gone through, and that was alright.
Alezya carefully lifted her to not wake her up. The baby made a grouchy sound, but immediately grabbed her clothing, and went back to sleep on her shoulder. Alezya put a kiss between her white curls.
“Good girl, my Lumie.”
