19. If They Were to Be My Last Words, I Should’ve Done So Much Better
19. IF THEY WERE TO BE MY LAST WORDS, I SHOULD’VE DONE SO MUCH BETTER
~ ELOWYN ~
“Incoming,” Reed yelled, though I couldn’t imagine any of us had missed the beast so large it blotted out our entire slice of sky as it headed straight toward us.
Finnian, Pru, and Roan shot into the tall brush to either side, joining Reed who was already there. Xeno jerked Bolt’s lead, guiding the horse—and me and Saffron atop him—through dense brambles that clawed at my legs and then into a copse of trees beyond them.
The trees, a mixture of old and new growth, tangled close together, and by the time I was able to turn Bolt around to face the faintly marked path we’d been traveling, Xeno was gone. Only the boots he’d worn remained behind, signaling he anticipated the need to shift into his dragon no matter the state of his wings.
My heart leapt into my throat as I encouraged Saffron out of my arms and alone onto the saddle. But after I dismounted, he scrabbled back into my grip despite my attempts to keep him where he was.
Now was so not the time for his clinginess. But I could already tell it was a fight I wouldn’t quickly win.
“Get onto my back right now,” I ordered in an urgent hush while patting my shoulders.
Saffron wasn’t ordinarily a fan of obedience, but he must have sensed the threat mere seconds from reaching us. As he’d done with Pru during the umbrac attack, he wrapped his legs around my torso and clung on tightly. It wasn’t exactly what I’d call a comfortable fighting position, but it’d have to do.
I drew my longest dagger, told Bolt to “stay,” then crept into the bushes where I could better assist my friends. Concealed behind branches, I spotted Pru, Roan, and Finnian. They were mere hints of hair and skin. But Xeno and Reed had vanished without a sign.
Craning my neck toward the sky, all I managed to make out were vast soaring wings and vicious, arcing claws before the monster snapped its wings against its body and crashed into the treetops directly above us.
Branches toppled with loud cracks; trees groaned under the burden of the beast’s weight.
Gripping my blade, I heard the strain of a string being pulled taut and knew Finnian had an arrow trained on the creature.
It bellowed a roar so loud I caught myself wincing against the volume. Its call rang through the Sorumbra in all directions. Smaller animals scattered in noisy retreat.
From where I crouched, and with the sun minutes from entirely dipping beneath the tree line, the beast overhead wasn’t easy to make out. It was as dark as the inky tar of the umbracs that still clung to us, even though the setting sun cast it in shades of pink that glimmered across its shiny shell. With its wings now folded against its body, it was larger even than any dragon I’d ever seen clinging to the Nightguard Mountains, and they were so big I’d never once gotten up the nerve to approach them, even after a lifetime in their midst.
A tail flicked this way and that before winding around a neighboring tree, squeezing, and crunching the trunk in half.
The top part of the tree fell—blessedly in the opposite direction of where we hid—and slammed against the ground, causing it to shake beneath our feet.
That massive tail began swinging again, presumably to dismantle other trees in the beast’s way.
A serpentine hiss preceded a deep, throaty growl that sped up my heartbeat for a moment before I realized my entire being recognized the warning.
Could it be...? I shook my head as Saffron whined softly behind me. No, certainly not. Not here. It wasn’t possible.
“Get ready,” Finnian announced so that his voice, calm even now, carried. The string of his bow tightened farther.
“No,” I said right away as the creature snapped a second tree and sent it crashing down without any concern for where it landed.
“Have ya lost your mind, lassie?” Roan asked in a low rumble. “We’ll not survive this one ‘less we strike while we’ve got an advantage.”
“No,” I repeated. “Wait.”
Tilting my head this way and that, I attempted to catch more details of the creature. But the pink glow was too rapidly fading into a dull darkness that hid the creases and bulges of its sizable body.
“Dammit,” I snarled. “I can’t be sure.”
My sore heart thumped with a sense of importance, clearly cautioning me—but about what? Was I being foolish by delaying while Finnian had a clear shot, assuming his arrow would penetrate what I suspected was a robust, armor-like hide? Or was the buzz beneath my skin a warning not to hurt the animal because I was meant to protect it?
Again, I shook my head at the absurdity. How was I supposed to do a damn thing to defend a fearsome beast so many times my size?
Despite all that, I took a risk and called out, “Xeno?”
He was a dragon shifter with heightened senses of all sorts, including hearing.
And yet he didn’t answer.
Where was he?
Another tree smashed against a very tall one in its way, taking both down with a resounding tremble that eventually left silence ringing in its wake.
“We must act now,” Roan insisted, but a partial clearing gaped where none had been minutes before.
The animal lumbered down, pushing the remaining stumps in its path to the ground with more slicing cracks.
And then it stood, nestled among upended trees, large and horribly imposing ... and yet vulnerable, almost as if purposely so.
“Don’t harm it,” I announced urgently, examining the beast for the visual evidence my heart suggested I’d find.
Hitching the cowering Saffron higher up my back, I stalked forward, seeking a better view.
“No, lassie,” Roan hissed. “Don’t!”
Only a few more steps and I rounded the edge of the newly hewn clearing. Dusk was too dim to illuminate much of the creature’s inky form. But I could make out the general outline of a winged body, barbed tail, four strong legs ending in wicked claws, and a massive head crested with what I knew would be scales so thick as to be impenetrable—a male, then. Even if Finnian had released his arrow, unless he’d hit the creature in one of his scant points of vulnerability, it would have simply bounced off, likely enraging the beast in the process.
It was a shape I’d observed many times before, always in admiration of the miraculous creatures.
“It’s a dragon,” I whispered as awe overcame me.
Momentarily forgetting myself, I stood up tall before deciding against the move, and the dragon’s head swiveled in my direction.
A frightened gasp sounded from somewhere behind me—Pru, I thought.
Though it was much too dark to make out the dragon’s pupil-less eyes, I felt them zero in on me. The creature would be experiencing none of my limitations. Dragons possessed excellent night vision.
“Uh, hi,” I offered lamely before regretting it. If they were to be my very last words, I should have done so much better. “I won’t hurt you.”
Remembering the blade I had out, I hurried to stash it.
“Only if it doesn’t hurt you,” Roan grumbled.
His determination to defend me, though admirable, wouldn’t make a lick of difference. If the dragon wanted me dead, I’d meet that gory end. There was little any of us could do to change that.
Suddenly worried I’d been the worst of idiots to plant myself like a damned offering in front of a freaking dragon— one I’d never met before, no less, and who would have no idea I was an ally, that I’d dedicated my life to serving his kind—I swung Saffron around to the front of my torso to ensure the adult dragon noted the youngling, whom I hoped he wouldn’t want to hurt.
Saffron whimpered pathetically, making my heart squeeze, aggravating the still healing tissue, and climbed my body like a tree until he perched precariously on a shoulder, his front claws scrambling in my tangled hair, setting me off balance.
Though he was small for his age, stunted from all the trauma he’d endured, he was still much too large to act like a bird. I tsked and tugged him downward until I once more embraced him with both arms.
Sensing the adult dragon’s rapt attention on me, I looked up, but couldn’t decide whether or not he was a moment from attacking. Despite their massive size, dragons could be frighteningly fast.
Seconds passed by slowly while he merely stared.
I heard the string of Finnian’s bow loosen. The fae surely understood his arrows would make no difference now.
“Saff,” I cooed to the trembling dragonling. “I need you to go with Pru right now. She’ll keep you safe.”
I would have retreated too, but something—a feeling I couldn’t explain but that was as strong as the one that propelled me in Rush’s direction with a punishing desperation—urged me to stay put.
It’s important.
Saffron actually shook his head, burrowing more tightly into my hold.
“Come on, Saffy.” I ran a hand up and down the ridge between his wings. “You gotta go. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
It was, apparently, the wrong thing to say. He gripped me with his claws until they pierced first my sleeves and then my skin.
The inky-black dragon scented the fresh blood in the air?—
I froze.
So did my friends, it seemed.
Yep, I’d been a totally stupid, idiotic, reckless moron. And now I’d die painfully for my mistake.
With renewed urgency, I pulled Saffron away from my chest. But for every inch I gained, he snuggled that much closer.
Resigned, I huffed softly, then brought up both hands to face the larger dragon. As I’d expected, Saffron clung on.
“Whatever you do, please spare him. He’s been through enough.”
Though no dragon I’d ever known understood the spoken language, this one tipped his head in consideration.
“He’s also the last of his kind, if that means anything to you. It’s especially important that he survive, if his cuteness isn’t reason enough for you.”
“‘Cuteness,’” Finnian said on a disbelieving snort. “Dragons are killers.”
The adult dragon swung his head in the fae’s direction, and Finnian silenced.
Was it possible this dragon actually ... understood what we said? Certainly not...
But… “What ... why are you here?” I asked anyway—again, like an idiot. If he were to kill me, I might deserve it for behaving like an amateur. I was far from a dragon expert, but I also knew more about them than most.
The first rules of dealing with dragons were: don’t approach an unknown dragon, don’t provoke them, and always assume they want to eat you.
Somehow managing to be graceful, the dragon clambered several steps toward me in the tight clearing that didn’t leave enough room for him to move properly.
Pru’s breath hitched, but I forced myself to remain exactly where I stood, now petting Saffron with frantic movements that were somehow meant to calm both him and me.
The only grace was that, if I were actually staring my death in the face, at least I couldn’t make out its eyes—or worse, its teeth, which I knew were likely to be as long as my fingers.
“Do your glow thing,” Reed urged from somewhere.
I started, having completely forgotten about this power I seemingly now possessed.
I could use my magic—or at least attempt to summon it—and it was possible it might save me and Saffron from this dragon. If it had put off an entire horde of attacking umbracs, it might work with the beast so much larger than they were.
But—my instincts held me still, clamored throughout my body that, despite all appearances to the contrary, I was safe.
“Do it, Elowyn,” Finnian pressed.
The dragon stalked forward some more until, even in the twilight, made darker by all the encroaching cover, I began to distinguish a snout, and behind it two big eyes blacker than the depth of a moonless night.
With a snap that signified the flapping of wings, Xeno, in his dragon form, flew overhead, but then wobbled and careened, landing hard between me and the dragon.
His knees buckled and he staggered, but caught himself at the last moment, standing unsteadily.
This was why he hadn’t answered earlier.
From what I could make out of the membranes, his wings were still partially shredded. He’d healed some since I last saw him in his dragon form, but not nearly enough.
The adult dragon reared onto his hind legs before slamming back down onto all four.
The earth quivered.
He opened his mouth, revealing what I couldn’t help but notice was a full mouth of pointy, flesh-ripping, bone-shredding teeth, and roared so ferociously that his breath blew any loose strands of hair from my face. His exhale was hot and scented like charred flesh.
And dragons could breathe fire.
In his creature form, Xeno was perhaps slightly larger than half—not even two-thirds—the dragon’s size. My mouth tightened and my eyes watered at his readiness to die to protect me. He wasn’t even at full strength—not even close!
Xeno positioned himself squarely between me and what he perceived as my aggressor, stood as tall as he reached, and spread his ravaged wings as a shield.
Then he pointed his head downward, probably casting his gaze to the ground as well. He neither roared back nor reared, instead standing completely still.
“Oh my sunshine, Xeno,” I mumbled under my breath.
Once more, the dragon reared, stomped, and bellowed.
Holding his submissive yet defiant position, Xeno didn’t so much as twitch.
Believing these were likely his last moments of life—mine too—I whispered, “I love you, too.”
His wings rose and fell slightly, as if on a sigh.
I might not love him the way he wished, but I loved him with an intensity that was bubbling up my body like vomit I wouldn’t be able to stop.
Fear, I realized. Undiluted fear, was what it was.
I couldn’t lose this man.
Wouldn’t .
Without so much as a steeling inhale, I ducked beneath his outstretched wings, ignored the jerking twitch in his muscles and the quiet gasps of the others, and spread both arms out in front of him while Saffron held on.
“Please,” I uttered up to the other dragon, though it was perhaps the last thing logic would dictate I say. “Let there be peace between us.”
Obeying only the intuition that spoke more loudly than my friends’ desperate pleas for reason, I bowed my head toward the dragon, exposing the vulnerable back of my head to his gigantic maw.
For several long, ragged breaths that pumped through my chest, nothing happened.
Then several stunned huffs circled through the brush.
When more seconds drew out, I finally peeked upward—and glimpsed the dragon, his body bent low over his front legs, his head lowered?—
Also bowed ... toward me.