Page 31 of Court of Rivals
“Wasn’t it?” I ask, softly.
He licks his bottom lip, his gaze moving from my eyes to my mouth. “We’ve all hit each other plenty of times. In battle, our enemies won’t go easy on us.”
“So that’s why you did it, to prepare me for battle?”
He can’t answer.
I turn away from him. “Ebron says the females are all trying to show that they’d make good mates.”
“Fuck,” he mutters.
“Is that a big deal?”
He sighs. “It just means our dragons are going to be distracted.”
“You’re big, bad dragon riders, I’m sure you can handle it,” I say, flashing a smile.
His gaze lingers on my smile like it’s something foreign he doesn’t understand.What? Hasn’t he ever seen a woman smile before?
Probably not, given his personality.
“On your dragons,” Prince Gareth orders.
Ebron uses his wing to help me up, and then the four of us are on our dragons. The men, I notice, are sitting in saddles of a sort that are strapped to the backs of the females.Man, I’m going to have to get a saddle like that. It’s probably a lot safer.
We take off into the sky, and then more dragons fill the training yard, and more riders climb onto their dragons’ backs. Overhead, we circle the academy, catching the warm summer breeze. I stick my arms out and close my eyes, loving the feeling of the wind rushing around me. It’s strange, up here I feel safer, and more like I belong, than anywhere I’ve ever been in my life. And I love my home.
“Okay!” Prince Gareth shouts. “Formation one!”
The dragons fly, moving to line up behind Ebron and I, then spread out behind us. Prince Gareth’s dragon is directly behind us, Prince Lucien and Prince Alaric’s dragons are next to each other behind him, and all the other dragons are behind them, spreading out in lines that goes wider the further you go back.
“No! No!” Gareth shouts, pointing at me. “You’re in the back.”
“Let’s move,” I tell Ebron, feeling nervous.
He circles around, and all the dragons fly behind him in perfect formation. No matter where we go, they follow behind us, making us the front of the formation.
The big dark-haired human keeps trying to get the dragons to listen to him.Ebron says with amusement.
“And what are the dragons saying?”
The dragons do not speak to him much, but their actions are clear. They follow me. Not him.
“Then what do we do? We’re supposed to be training.”
Then, let’s train.
Ebron begins flying faster and faster. He soars along the coastline, then begins to duck and dive between the mountains. Behind us, the female dragons fly in perfect formation. Whether Ebron slows or flies faster, they follow. He dives down to skim the treetops, then darts straight up in the air. I’m clinging on for dear life, my face chapped from the wind.
“Higher!” I shout as we pass the clouds and come exploding out from above them.
He seems to reach his peak, then simply falls back down the earth, nearly smacking into one dragon after another as he falls down, just barely catching himself before he hits the treetops once more. We dart back towards the ocean. I think I hear Prince Gareth shouting behind me, but I can’t be sure, with the wind whistling around me.
We dive low above the ocean. His wings clip the water, sending mists of water coating my skin. He rotates slightly onto his side, and I take a chance to let my hand skim the water.
“Wooa!Wooa!” I shout, like my soul is taking a deep breath.
We do a bunch of moves that seem weird. But as I watch them, I get the sense that we’re fighting an imaginary foe. We move, duck, dive, never sticking with one movement for long. My thighs are starting to hurt from gripping Ebron so hard, and my hands are sore from holding onto his scales. Dragon riding is hard work. Harder than I imagined. It’s not so much sitting here as it is fighting for your life to stay on.
