CHAPTER 40
We have lunch, then Silas leads me outside with Matitus and Dragus.
Silas and Matitus start stripping off their clothes and I pull my coat off, the winter chill making me shiver, Dragus rubs my arms trying to warm me up.
I only have a cami on underneath and even though the sun is out, the breeze is ice cold.
Matitus walks over to me butt naked, the air around me suddenly heating up, and I know he is manipulating the heat in the air.
“So, let’s see them,” Matitus says, looking at me expectantly.
“Um, I… Ah, how?” I ask, not even sure what I’m asking.
Which sounds silly—asking a Dragon how a Fae uses her wings.
I didn’t do anything last time. The wings just happened, then before I knew it, they were gone.
“You don’t know how to use them?” Matitus chuckles.
I shake my head. Am I expected to know everything instantly? Sure, they are a part of me. This is as new to me as it is to them.
“Fine, fine, we’ll just go and figure it out later,” Matitus says, moving away from us and shifting.
Dragus walks up Matitus’s tail, climbing between his big shoulders.
Silas’s golden Dragon nudges me in the belly with his snout playfully, wanting me to climb on.
Walking to his side, he drops to the ground, and I use his leg to climb up, settling between his shoulders.
Both take off, running before spreading their bat-like wings and jumping, their wings carrying them higher and higher toward the clouds.
I should have grabbed my cloak. By the time we reach the top, I’m covered in goosebumps, my teeth chattering loudly.
They soar through the sky, wings slicing through the clouds as they race and taunt each other.
Dragus, standing between Matitus’s shoulders, looks quite content.
Then he suddenly glances at me, a devious smile spreading across his face.
Silas and Matitus, flying side by side, slow down.
“You want to know how I learned to swim, Elora?” Dragus calls over to me. My head snaps to him wondering why he is talking about swimming; I feel Silas chest rumble like he is laughing.
“Yeah sure,” I tell him.
“My father chucked me in the deep end and told me to kick.”
“Okay? Why are you telling me this?” I ask confused.
“Because that’s how we’re going to teach you to fly,” Dragus says with a laugh. I stare at him wondering what he meant when suddenly Silas spins so fast and I have nothing to hang onto.
I hear Dragus scream out to me. “Fly love, flap those wings.” The air rushes past me as I plunge toward the ground, the air whipping my skin as I scream. If I survive, I am going to fucking kill them.
Silas turns, and I can’t help the laugh escaping me at her horrified face as she starts to fall.
What better way to learn than to fly then to fall?
“Fly love, flap those wings,” I call out to her as she screams. Matitus chuckles underneath me.
We watch as she continues to fall, falling through the clouds tumbling towards the ground below.
“Any minute now,” I tell them, and Matitus chuckles underneath me. Silas, eyes trained on her, starts dropping height.
“You sure this was a good idea?” Silas’s voice flit through my head.
“She will be fine, what Fae can’t fly when they have wings?” I ask, staring into his golden eyes. She continues falling at an alarming speed, and I am quite impressed with her lung capacity. She can really scream.
“She is still falling,” Matitus says, growing alarm in his voice.
“Shit go get her, and we will try again!” I scream over to Silas, who dives down toward the ground.
“Going to be cutting it pretty close,” Matitus says, his voice echoing in my head. I can’t watch my heart pounding in my chest as she gets closer to the ground.
“He got her,” Matitus says, and I let out a breath of relief, then hear her hoarse voice yelling profanities.
“Oh, she going to kill you,” Matitus sings out through the link. Silas moves through the air back toward us. Elora looks ghostly pale, almost green in color.
“I’m going to fucking murder you, that wasn’t funny I could have fucking died.”
“You’re alive,” I announce before cringing away at the evil look she gave me.
“Practise makes perfect,” I tell her.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” her words are cut off as Silas spins again, only this time she grabs hold of his scales, digging her feet in.
“Nice try,” Elora says triumphantly. Silas growls playfully, throwing his head toward Matitus who nips his neck.
Elora sticks her tongue out at me.
“Hey Silas,” I call as his head snaps to me. I smirk and Elora’s face snaps to mine and the look she gives me makes me genuinely scared to go back to the ground. She looks like she’ll eat me alive. Although I wouldn’t mind the eating part.
“Torpedo,” I say, grinning from ear to ear.
Yep, she was going to kill me, I could think of worse ways to go, I thought to myself.
Silas’s chest rumbles and I can hear him laughing through the mind link when he suddenly starts spinning really fast. Elora flies off through the air as she screams, free falling toward the ground again.
“We are going to hell,” Silas says with a chuckle.
“We are immortal,” I remind him, calling out over the wind.
“Yeah, but hell might be better than her wrath,” Matitus retorts. He does have point, but I am her favorite and she won’t hate me long, I think to myself. I hear Matitus huff reading my thoughts.
Elora’s scream dies out suddenly, and we all look down panicked when we notice her.
Her wings are like a rainbow, the light glimmering through them as they spread out around her.
Each one is as long as her body and truly magnificent, she is magnificent.
She seems stunned just hovering in the air staring at them amazed, she didn’t even get halfway this time.
They remind me of looking through crystal, completely clear with veins of purple, like her magic, slivering through them.
We all watch in awe, amazed, not believing she could be any more beautiful.
Well, until she looks up, her eyes narrowing and her lips pressing in a line.
“Does she look mad?” I ask.
“She looks fucking pissed,” Silas replies. She looks like the avenging angel of death. Her wings move alarmingly fast, so fast they resembled a rainbow around her.
“You’re on your own,” Matitus says, his voice alarmed through the link.
“You can out fly her, she is a newbie,” I tell him.
“Yeah, doesn’t mean I want to cop it when we go home though,” Silas growls, ducking out of the way as she bursts through the cloud beneath us, her eyes on me. Matitus uses his wings to hover in the same spot, and I can feel his amusement through the bond.
“Hey Dragus, want to learn how to fly?” she calls out.
“I’m good, I don’t have wings,” I tell her, as she lands on Matitus, her wings folding behind her and moving over his scales lightly as she stalks toward me.
She truly looks beautiful even on a warpath.
I walk a step back and look over my shoulder and see Silas staring at her.
Her eyes go to him before flicking back to me, her lips turning upwards, and I can see she is quite amused at the position I put myself in.
“It worked, didn’t it, you can fly now. No harm done.”
Her eyes burn purple flickering with her magic, before she charges at me. I gasp as her arms wrap around my waist, knocking me back with nothing to land on but air.
“Elora!!” I screech as I fall backwards.
I hear her laugh, and my heart pounds in my chest. She really did it, she really tossed me off.
Silas roars loudly, my arms flailing in the air as I scream falling to my death.
Relief hits me when I see her dive down towards me, her wings tucked close to her body as she dives, I reach my hand out toward her but instead she grabs my foot with both hands and her wings open, flapping fast while I remain dangled upside down.
“Don’t you drop me!” I scream to her. She smiles deviously, letting me go. I scream only to fall onto something hard and scaled. Rolling over, I see Silas’s golden scales.
“She got you good,” he says, and I can hear him laughing at me while I try to get my heart to beat normally.
She leaves me alone after that, flying beside them or around them effortlessly like she always had wings. Matitus and Silas chase after her as she plays with them, moving around them and ducking underneath them as they try to grab her with their talons.
The sun starts going down, the temperature dropping further.
Elora pouts when Silas tell her we need to head back before she catches a cold.
She is having too much fun to realize just how much she is shivering and how cold her skin is.
Silas lands and I jump off before he shifts back.
Elora drops next to me, her wings folding and moving back into her skin.
She slaps me playfully and I wrap my arms around her. “You’re freezing,” I tell her, kissing her shoulder, she shivers at the contrast of her frozen skin and my hot body heat.
Silas walks over and takes her from me, scooping her up. He cradles her against his bare chest, trying to warm her as we walk toward the castle.
“We should have a talk about what to do with the Dragon situation,” Matitus says, only loud enough for me to hear as he falls into step with me.
I nod, but first we need to know if it was her magic or her blood, because if it was her blood, there is no way we can let them near her and we sure as hell ain’t letting her near them.