Chapter 61
I’m lying crooked on something hard, but it’s incredibly comfortable at the same time.
For some reason, I don’t want to open my eyes.
I feel so safe in whatever little warm space I’m tucked into, and I don’t want to move from it.
But then I hear movement close by, and I’m forced to peel my eyes open.
It’s dark. Really dark. I see a torch, and behind it, a glowing red ball of fire. No, that’s not right. It’s hair. Rhydra. My sister.
“Break time, I guess.” She nods her head, and I follow the direction of her eyes. Daegan is leaning his foreleg out, signaling for us to climb down.
“Damn. That’s the best sleep I’ve had in a long time.”
Rhydra laughs as she climbs down first.
As soon as we touch the ground, he looks us over with eyes that are bigger than my torso, and then he’s gone. I toss his bag into the darkness, hoping he’ll hear it land nearby. It’s too dark for me to see how the change transpired, but it was fast.
Raef’s massive red form disappears too, and then I hear footsteps approaching us. Rhydra holds out her light, squinting into the darkness.
“Hang on,” she yells before chucking a bag his way.
It’s met with the sound of Raef’s chuckles.
After a moment, both of them begin to emerge from the darkness.
“What’s going on?” I ask them before they’ve fully reached us.
“Needed a break.”
There he is.
He’s finally within the warm light of the torch, his eyes looking dark and exhausted.
He keeps walking until he reaches me and wraps his arms around my shoulders, holding on tight.
I wrap my arms around him in turn, breathing in the lingering smoky scent.
It seems more intense now and I’m guessing it has to do with him having just been in his dragon form.
“Do you need a quick nap?” I ask with my cheek pressed against his chest. “We can take watch for a little while.
“Nah. We need to keep moving. We’ll all go on foot for a bit.”
“What’s wrong?” My brows knit with concern as I lean back and look up at him.
“Nothing. We’re just not used to being in dragon form for so long. It’s tough on the joints.”
I look at Raef, who’s rolling his neck in circles in an almost serpentine way. He grabs at his elbow and rubs it, wincing.
“Sorry. I didn’t know…”
“Don’t be,” Daegan tells me, grabbing my face and pressing his lips to mine.
Neither of us seem to care that Raef and Rhydra are standing right there witnessing it.
With so much at stake right now, it seems stupid to hold back anything.
He lets go and shakes out his long legs that are incredibly thick with muscles. I get why now.
Besides, he did make me orgasm in the middle of a pleasure house. I think shyness is out the window.
Kezra’s signature trail of gold makes its appearance. She hovers nearby with not a word to say. Once in a while she does that, which is weird, because most of the time she has incredibly too many words to say.
She follows Rhydra and me as we take a moment to refresh ourselves away from the dragons. It’s too dark and too secluded for us to go far enough for absolute privacy, but a few paces away is close enough.
When we’re done their torches guide us back to them and we continue the journey.
“How did you guys know which way to go? I literally can’t see where we’re going.”
“Our vision is slightly better at night in dragon form,” Raef answers first. “Also, we have like… this impeccable sense of direction. I think we were meant to be excellent navigators… when we could fly.”
“Makes sense.”
We fall into step with the help of a few torches. Daegan grabs my hand and doesn’t let go, and in that small gesture, out here in the middle of nowhere, I realize how deeply I’ve fallen for him.
I can sense how tired he is in the way he walks, the way his shoulders droop just a little. Most people probably wouldn’t notice, but even with minimal light, I do. “Are you sure you don’t want to stop for a quick nap to refresh you?”
“No. I’m good.”
“What about Raef?”
“Raef is a fucking champion,” Raef interjects. Of course.
I laugh.
“How did you like the ride?” Daegan asks in a hushed tone. I know he’s talking about riding on his dragon back, but his words turn me on anyway.
“Loved it.”
“I know.” His smirk, illuminated by the warm light, melts me to my core.
“I’m an ickle bit tired, but then again, I’ve been awake for thirty days,” Kezra chimes in with a yawn.
“What? Thirty?” The alarm in my voice is thinly veiled.
“Oh, take a deep breath. Even mountains do.”
At the risk of facing her concerns about my hearing once again, I laugh and ask, “What?”
“I think Kezra is telling you to relax,” I can hear the smile in Daegan’s voice. Is he finally coming around to her? He didn’t seem impressed by her antics before. Then again, he was busy brooding and acting upset with me.
“Precisely. Right on the toad’s crown. I can go one hundred days without sleeping if I so choose. It would, unfortunately, be a disservice to my beauty, however.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want that.” Raef is full of amusement.
Something rushes toward me from the darkness. I don’t hear it until it’s directly beside me, and I pivot at the very last moment, blocking Daegan from whatever the threat is.
Bright, haunting green eyes with large black circles in the center stare into my soul as whatever it is crashes into me with a shriek that rattles me to the bone. I’m staring into its wide-open mouth when I feel a sharp pain graze against my side, and I fall against Daegan with a scream.
I act slow at first, but I manage to grab my knife that’s already glowing with Kezra’s gold signature, and my hand lashes out like it has a mind of its own.
My blade stabs the creature in its bright green eye as Daegan maneuvers around me and stabs it through the side with his sword.
When he rips the thing away from me a safe distance, he chops its head off.
“Get down!” Daegan yells at me, and I listen.
He charges past me so fast I barely register the movement, and then all I can see is another set of bright green eyes surrounded by darkness. I stand back up, feeling helpless as I hear grunting and tussling. I can’t do much, fearing that I might hurt Daegan in the process of trying to help.
Rhydra and Raef run up behind me with torches and their weapons drawn, and I realize they must have been held back fighting another one. “I can’t see what’s happening!” I yell in a panic, but then I hear another piercing scream of death, and I know Daegan’s okay.
I snatch a light from Raef and run to Daegan. He looks fine, but he’s glancing around on high alert. “It snuck up on me out of nowhere,” I say through heavy breaths.
“I know. I’m going to light this whole fucking area on fire. Smoke them out.”
“Excellent idea,” Raef says, walking up behind me and flexing his fingers.
“Are you okay?” Daegan palms my cheek and looks into my eyes as if he’ll find all the answers there.
I nod my head.
We all look down at the dead creature in wonder. It’s not often you see one of the cursed creatures of the night up close. If at all.
“It almost looks like… a plant person? Like a little… fern-Dothronite mix?” Raef comments. “Small and nimble. It’s almost… cute.”
I give him a bemused look.
“Better watch out for Lemakis. This could be his future.”
I scowl at him, because he’s wrong.
Lemakis is nothing like this. He has a pure heart. Somewhere in there.
“I’ve never read about anything like it.
” I’m going back through my memory, and no, I’ve never read or heard about a small person that seems to be part plant.
Its arms look wispy and green and it appears to have flowing, long leaves growing out of its head in place of hair.
Its skin is an even deeper green. “And it wasn’t cute when it attacked me out of nowhere. ”
“Stand back there really quick,” Daegan orders, seemingly done with examining it.
We don’t have to be told twice. Rhydra and I stand close together and step back into the darkness. Not a moment later, brilliant orange lights up the night, the sound of several more tortured screams cleaving the air.
I wince.
I can see the black silhouettes of Daegan and Raef against the brilliant fires, and I know they’re safe. For now. We should still get out of here, though. As the fires dwindle, we approach them again.
“Time to get out of here,” Daegan says with authority, echoing my thoughts. “You good?” He’s looking at Raef, who nods with confidence. Or cockiness, perhaps?
Daegan doesn’t give me time to argue before he steps back into the darkness. He throws his clothes at us and a moment later he’s shifted. Raef does the same.
Once again, I’m awestruck by the two giant dragons. I put my hands over my hips and look him in one of his eyes. “Daegan, you were exhausted. This isn’t a good idea.”
He stretches out his foreleg, planting his claw just a step in front of me. I don’t move. “You said yourself you need a rest.”
Yes, I’m choosing now to be stubborn, even though we just got attacked by scary, cursed creatures and everyone just wants to get out of here.
He shimmies his claw a little, nudging it even closer to me. I look him in his eyes again with a scathing look.
He huffs, a huge puff of air coming out of his nostrils, and then he leans down and gets right in my face.
The middle of his scaly nose is directly in front of mine as he huffs out another charred, smoky puff of air through his nostrils.
I think this is the equivalent of his stone-cold, no messing around expression that he normally wears, but it’s even more intimidating in dragon form. One hundred times more, actually.
He stares at me, not backing down, then gestures to his back with a very small twitch of his head.
“Fine.”
I follow Rhydra, who can’t hold back a grin, and we settle into our spots again. But this time as he takes off, I have to hold on, because he’s moving a little faster, and the motion is more jarring. It’s still bearable, but different from the soothing, slow rocking from before.
Once my heartbeat begins to steady and we fall back to a slower, steadier rhythm, the pain sets in.
That thing stabbed me in the side with something, I’ve just remembered.