Chapter 13
Thirteen
Climbing atop a drake is akin to what I assume crawling all over Falcen would be. Precarious, dangerous, and with a high chance of getting bitten for daring to lay hands on such precious real estate.
The female drake lowers herself enough for me to use the bend in her front leg as a stepping stone, the supple leather of my boots I’d been so delighted to slip on now covered in subterranean goo.
Iridescent, plum-black scales slide off her body if I dig in too hard with my nails, and I bite back a yelp the first time it happens.
“I’d pocket those, if I were you,” Falcen says behind me. “Drake scales fetch a high price in tokens. More, if you’re willing to go to the black market. That is, if the drake doesn’t kill you and feed you to her hatchlings for stealing.”
The drake curves her long neck to regard me.
It’s the only thing that stops me from turning my own neck 180 degrees and leveling Falcen with a glare.
I go still, splaying out my fingers in surrender.
“I’m sorry,” I say to her. “I don’t know how to, uh, climb you.”
She releases an impatient snort, then butts me until I lose my footing and find myself splayed out on top of her snout with a scream.
“Gods, Falcen—!” I shout as she lifts me, those two ethereal eyes of hers on either side of me like sentries until I slide off her face and land unceremoniously on her back.
… covered in more subterranean goo.
Then I make the biggest mistake of all.
I look down at Falcen.
If it’s possible for a hardened, jaded face to go all twitchy with suppressed laughter, that is what’s occurring down there.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” I hiss, righting myself until I’m straddling the area where the drake’s muscular neck meets her back.
I could just kill him if you like, the drake idly offers.
Tempting, but no. I need him, unfortunately, I grouse in response.
The drake reluctantly faces forward at the same moment Falcen quips, “Are you quite finished becoming comrades, or should I give you two a moment alone?”
I glare down at him.
“My apologies, did you want a turn?” I ask him. “Please, be my guest. I’m sure you’ll look positively dashing covered in glowing drake snot.”
Falcen chuckles, the sound rich and maddeningly attractive.
I open my mouth for further insult, but the drake shifts beneath me, adjusting her stance. I scramble to maintain my balance, grasping at her more embedded scales with white-knuckled intensity.
“Careful now,” Falcen calls. “Wouldn’t want you to take another tumble. I might not be there to catch you this time.”
“How chivalrous of you,” I snap as Falcen effortlessly vaults up behind me, the drake’s remaining muscles bunching beneath us at the added weight.
Warn the Elite that if he so much as presses his heel into me, he will die, the drake hisses.
I can’t, I reply. He doesn’t know I can talk to you, and I don’t want to tell him.
That last bit is slightly immature of me, but I’m slimy, cranky, and past caring.
Secrets, secrets, secrets!!! the other drakes chorus, their language audible through their rumbles and hisses.
Falcen’s chest is a solid wall at my back, his thighs tensing around both me and the drake’s winding form. I stiffen at the sheer girth of him outlined against my backside.
“They’re getting much too excited for my taste,” he observes while the two younger drakes circle and nip at each other with feral glee. “We need to move before that excitement turns into a feeding. Of us.”
They’re your children, aren’t they? I ask the drake to distract myself as Falcen rubs himself against me in an attempt to get into a more comfortable position.
She rumbles her acknowledgment. They annoy me, but I am proud of them.
What are their names? Or yours? Do you have names?
That is a gift you have yet to deserve, little soul-wielder.
I barely have time to register the heat of Falcen’s arms caging me in before the drake launches herself forward with a bone-rattling lurch. My stomach drops as we hurtle through the cavernous tunnels, the air whipping past us in a frenzy.
Despite the assault on my senses, I find myself acutely aware of every point where Falcen’s body molds with mine, a bewildering, exhilarating electric current seeming to run between us.
The drake banks hard to the left, and I shout Lux’s name, certain I’m about to be flung off, but Falcen’s arm snakes around my stomach, anchoring me to him.
“If this is enough to put the fear of the gods into you, I can’t wait to see what happens in the skies,” he says over the drake’s thundering steps.
We burst out of the cave and launch into the air, my screams trailing us.