Page 120 of Royal Captive
We went down a stone path that led outside and wrapped around the side of the castle. People milled everywhere all over the grounds, making the castle nearly unrecognizable. Across the way I even spotted the balcony where I’d first met Ellis.
“Is Ellis not staying in the palace?” I tried again, since it was clear we were heading away from the castle.
“Technically, he isn’t in the palace, but he’s at the palace,” Viana finally responded.
That didn’t clear up anything at all.
And for being at the palace, we were still walking away from it. The road stretched out before us, woods on either side. We just reached the stone bridge over the small creek when Viana stopped short in the middle of the road.
“All right. Turn back around now.”
“Viana, what the f—”
Baffled, I turned around, and immediately saw it. Him. It?
My jaw dropped at the massive silver and gold dragon that was curled up on the highest roof of the castle, its wings draped over half of the west wing like two massive curtains.
“Is that—”
Viana put two fingers to her mouth and let out a sharp whistle.
The dragon jerked, eyes opening as it twitched and shook its head back and forth. With a groan and grumble, it lifted its head and dropped down to the stone parapet, using it to launch itself into space.
“Easy now. He hasn’t quite mastered landings,” Viana mentioned casually, as though having a dragon race at you was an everyday occurrence.
“Ellis? Oh …Ellis.”
He was beautiful—all flashing scales and deadly power, until he tripped over his own feet in a childish attempt at a landing, and somersaulted ass over tail and flopped to a stop right at our feet.
Silver eyes tinged with green blinked at me sheepishly.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
He clambered to his feet, rising impressively above both of us. He snorted through his nose, and Viana grabbed me and threw us both to the side as a fireball shot out at us.
Ellis whined and lowered his snout to the ground, covering his eyes with his claws in apology.
“He appears to be fine. There are some kinks to work out,” Viana muttered, helping me to the feet and brushing the dirt off my breeches.
I think I was still in a state of shock.
Ellis was a dragon.
Dragons were real?
“Is he stuck like this?” I whispered. An ache bloomed in my heart. Ellis and I had never really had a chance to be together. Our time had been spent surviving. My heart broke, emotion wrapping around my throat and squeezing.
“I don’t know,” Viana admitted sheepishly. “I was going to give the refugees time to settle in, then see what full-blooded fae were left to consult.”
Oh. Right.
Feyanna was dead.
Fallon.
Shyllon.
Alihandro.
