Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Emma
A dragon. An actual dragon was mere feet from me, it’s body massive. Huge.
Monstrously… beautiful.
This beast, monster, creature, whatever you wanted to call it, was absolutely magnificent. And terrifying. And I couldn’t look away, couldn’t even breathe as it stalked toward Bryce. There was no other word for the way it slowly slinked forward, its huge body parallel with the ground, eyes trained solely on Bryce. Its barbed tail was twice as long as my body as it whipped back and forth aggressively, irritably.
Its body was the biggest thing I’d ever seen, seemingly as large as the mountains, just as hard and strong. Just as powerful.
It was covered in scales as it walked on all fours. Reds and oranges, iridescent yellows and whites on its entire body. It sported horns on either side of its head, thick ones that curved back, sharp at the ends and easily able to split someone in two.
And then there were its front and back legs, its paws bigger than my head, dark, razor-sharp claws tipping each of the five points. Its mouth was partially open as it growled low in Bryce’s direction, razor-sharp, serrated teeth flashing white. Deadly.
There were fangs protruding from its upper jaw, nearly as long as my forearm, saliva dripping off them.
And the entire time, Bryce scuttled backward, his legs and arms working in tandem as he tried to get away from the creature. His eyes were so wide there was no doubt this was his first real taste of fear.
I was moving back as well, my brain screaming to go fast, run hard. Get away! But my body didn’t feel actual fear as I watched the dragon come closer… and closer… and closer still.
And when the dragon was close enough to me that I could smell it, I felt myself relax further. It smelled… incredible. Like spice and heat and fire and all the things I didn’t know I’d been missing until this moment.
My body suddenly didn’t feel like my own. I was dizzy although I was sitting down. My heart was racing, yet it had nothing to do with fear. I was breathing harder, but it wasn’t from the exertion of running. I felt like I was drowning, and I wasn’t surrounded by water.
And when the dragon stopped and slowly turned its head in my direction, I stared into twin eyes that seemed as big as the moon, as dark as the night. I felt like nothing but getting lost in those black orbs.
The aroma that surrounded me—the one coming from the dragon itself—grew stronger, more concentrated. It seeped into my pores, and every time I inhaled, I took more of it into me until it was moving through every single cell in my body, every muscle right to my bone marrow, and kept going until it wove into the very makeup of who I was.
I didn’t back away any longer. My body leaned forward as if I needed to get closer.
And then I heard the low, deep thumping sound coming from the dragon. It was like a purr, one that should have frightened me but had the opposite effect. It grew louder, the vibrations slowly sinking into my skin and settling into my arms and legs.
I felt… arousal. Oh my. What’s happening to me?
Reality crashed back into my consciousness, and a small whimper of fear left me. That emotion, that feeling that currently swirled within, wasn’t from the creature but from this onslaught of what I felt.
And still the dragon purred, this lulling sound, coupled with the aroma that I kept taking into my lungs, making me relax further.
I heard Bryce make a startled, fearful sound, and I blinked back into the present, whatever hypnotizing feeling I had washing away as icy awareness poured over me.
The dragon swung his massive head in Bryce’s direction. The man made another terrified sound, but I couldn’t see what he was doing because of the beast’s body blocking everything in front of me. I could imagine Bryce was still trying to escape, and then as if my thoughts conjured it, I saw a flash of movement as Bryce did just that.
He was up and running away, running toward the Pit. Deserting me.
I wasn’t surprised, but that didn’t stop the betrayal I felt. Then again, I’d been running from Bryce because he’d been after me. I should be thankful he was hightailing it out of here.
I saw the dragon crouch, knew he was about to attack, to go after Bryce. It would take no more than one coordinated lunge for the beast to get to him. And I didn’t know what happened in that moment, but a sob tore from me, this cry wrenched from my chest until I felt hot tears skating down my cheeks.
I couldn’t stop the crying, couldn’t stop the shaking. The world was turning, everything going upside down. I couldn’t breathe, and still I focused on the dragon, watching as its powerful body tensed, the muscles under its scales contracting and relaxing. Repeating.
And then the dragon was suddenly facing me again.
I felt no fear toward this dragon even though I was braced for its attack. I started shaking harder, the tears sliding down my cheeks even faster. The sobs were being torn from my chest as it moved closer, its huge head cocked to the side.
I held my hands out in front of me, my fingers shaking. It was almost humorous—I was acting like my hands could stop any of this. And then that purring sound came back, loud, reverberating around me. Everything inside me told me not to be afraid, that it wouldn’t hurt me. I told that little voice to shut up, for how could it possibly know a dragon wasn’t going to have me as a late night snack?
“Please don’t hurt me,” I whispered, my vision blurry as my tears came harder and faster. And then when the dragon was just a foot from me, I felt myself hold my breath as it crouched lower to the ground, tilting its head closer.
I waited for the inevitable attack, praying that my death would be quick. I closed my eyes, clenched my teeth, and said a silent prayer to whoever or whatever entity or higher power was listening.
After long seconds of nothing happening, I opened my eyes to see those twin black orbs staring right into my face. Gods, its eyes were so big, each one the size of my head. There were no whites, no irises, just this inky darkness that I felt swallowing me whole.
I could hear the air huffing and puffing out of the massive nostrils on its snout, and the small moves it made, the contracting and relaxing of its knuckles, had the moonlight catching its scales, that iridescent white and yellow almost seeming to glow.
It moved an inch closer, the heat from it searing me but not uncomfortably. Its huge forelegs were now stretched out in front of it, and my gaze dipped down to stare at its paws. I swallowed roughly at the sight of the claws that tipped each toe. Were they called toes? Did it even matter? Because with just one swipe, it could rend me in half.
I was hiccupping again, the tears still falling down my cheeks, but I was a little more stable, a little more controlled.
Why wasn’t it attacking me? Why was it just watching me as if it waited for me to do or say something? It had been ready to tear into Bryce, that deadly warning growl telling me that had absolutely been the truth. But right now it just sat in front of me… watching.
“Oh my gods,” I whispered, afraid to move. Hell, I was afraid to even blink for fear that this thing would take it the wrong way and eat me.
It would blink in slow intervals, this cloudy film covering those human-head-sized black eyes before clearing and looking like giant pools of darkness once more.
And then it rested its head on the ground, its horns so massive, so strange and deadly looking, yet beautiful at the same time. My fingers twitched, and the need to touch this beast, to slide my fingers over the scales, to see how it felt, to see if they were as smooth as they looked, rode me hard.
It huffed out a long, hot gust of breath, its nostrils flaring before relaxing once more. That low rumble still came from its chest, and with it being so close now, I felt the tremors more acutely moving through my body from the sound. The scent that came from it was… intoxicating. Sweet yet wild, masculine and untamed.
And then it spread its wings, and I gasped at how beautiful and terrifying the sight was.
Its wingspan was enormous, blocking out every single thing, even the moonlight itself. They were an inky-black color, but the membrane that covered the intricately bone-like structure was thin. I could see the silvery glow of moonlight piercing through. The dragon had a deadly looking talon that tipped the top of each of its wings, that claw as thick as my bicep, as long as my arm.
The beast gently flapped those great wings, and I felt the monumental gust of humid air move over my body, blowing my long hair away from my face. A gasp of wonder left me at the sight.
For some strange reason, I felt like this creature was… showing off for me, as if it wanted me to see how fearsome it was, how big and strong. And having a thought process that went down that route seemed crazier than what was happening right now.
I felt myself reaching out before I knew what I was doing, my fingers moving closer and closer to that large snout. The dragon didn’t move, its body so still it could’ve been made of stone. I was so close to touching the scales on its face that my fingers tingled. I wanted to move my hand up and curl my fingers around one of the massive horns that flared backward, to see if they were smooth or rough.
But the sound of shouting behind the dragon had my entire body tensing. Instantly the dragon turned and took a battle stance. Its tail started lashing back and forth, that gentle purr I’d heard come from it just moments before now changing to something deeper in tenor, dangerous and violent.
I shrank back, the sound of fear leaving me once more. But I was conscious enough to move to the side and see what was happening. That’s when I spotted a flurry of motion coming directly at us.
Bryce had gotten reinforcements… and they had weapons in hand. Did they actually think they could take the dragon down with spears and torches?
“No. Stop!” I was up off the ground and racing around the dragon, my hands out as I screamed at Bryce and the men trailing behind him. I didn’t want them to kill it. I didn’t know why I felt that in me so deeply, but at the very thought of them hurting the dragon, this sickness filled me.
But the men still came, their weapons and torches all ready to take out this magnificently beautiful creature that could’ve hurt me but hadn’t. In fact, I was starting to think it had saved me… protected me from Bryce.
I was about to race to the men to stop them, to explain they didn’t need to hurt the beast, but all of a sudden, something big and warm curled around my torso, and the ground was rushing away for me. My legs and arms hung forward from the force, gravity pulling them down as I was jerked against a hard, scaled chest. One foreleg wrapped around my abdomen in a gentle yet firm hold. I screamed, my eyes opening so wide I felt the air cool and dry my tears.
The ground kept rushing away, getting smaller and smaller until the people there looked like tiny pinpricks. And as nausea rose up, as darkness started to fill my head, I didn’t stop its cold embrace.
I welcomed leaving reality, even if it was in the form of passing out.