Page 25 of Fated to the Grumpy Dragon
Then there was the other question ofWhere would I go if I didn’t stay?
I hadn’t come up with a single option when the sea below me suddenly changed. It darkened abruptly and stilled.
“Rhyse? What’s goi—”
A coppery blue dragon burst from below the water, wings spread wide as it soared high into the air. Water streamed down its flanks in a glittering display as the terrifying creature rose into the air less than thirty feet away, its belly exposed to me for a horrible eternity. Claws half as long as I was tall were attached to paws tucked tight against the scaled lizard body, a powerful message of the damage such a beast could wreak.
Then it was gone, gliding past high into the air.
I stared after it, trembling.
Fear at the most basic level had coiled itself around my brain stem, digging in deep, rendering me frozen as panic tickled my nerves and turned my stomach upside down.
At some point, I started screaming.
Rhyse was there in a moment. Holding me. Trying to protect me. But doing so pulled my shirt, his shirt, aside, revealing once more the scale. His scale.
Because he was a dragon.
Images of dragons soaring over human cities, unleashing bouts of flame poured into my brain. Buildings exploding as fireballs shattered them. Lines of melted vehicles as streams of flame were vomited forth by the mythical beasts. Screams and cries.
And silence. Eerie, eerie silence. Nothing but the stench of burning.
“Emma! Emma!”
The insistent calling was paired with an impossibly strong sense of concern.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered, the present abruptly snapping back into focus.
The edge of the bluffs. The sea beyond.
Rhyse’s arms wrapped tightly around me, holding me to his chest. Again. It was a position I was winding up in far too often for my own liking.
“Do what?” he asked, still rocking me back and forth.
I caught a glimpse of the scale,his scale, adhered to me.
Squirming out of his grasp, I took several steps away. Looking at him, all I could see was the wave of destruction in my mind. Dragons destroying everything.
“I can’t stay here,” I said. “With … with dragons. I can’t do it. I have to go. I need to leave.”
Rhyse frowned. “What happened?”
“I can’t remember!” I shouted, fingernails digging into my temples as if the pain might jog more memories. “I just … I just see destruction. Fire. You people destroying everything of mine.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that,” Rhyse said tightly.
“It doesn’t matter!” I shouted. “You’re one of them.”
The concern trickling through our link was washed away by the red-hot touch of anger.
“You have two options,” he said, stiffly moving to the table to gather up the plates. “One, you can either come inside, finish eating, and we’ll talk again tomorrow after you’ve had a chance to sleep.”
“And the second?”
Rhyse jerked his head past me. “Have fun heading somewhere else.”
I looked behind me to see the storm clouds moving in swiftly. Lightning was flickering in their depths now. It wouldn’t be long before the island was awash with rain and wind.
