Page 45 of King of Fire and Scales

It was Pyralis. And he had Thalia in his claws. She was screaming, and it echoed into the chambers of his sore, aching soul.

Drake ran and shifted as he leaped up into the sky, bursting out of his human skin like a thin suit. He jolted upward, trailing behind Pyralis, and narrowed his body into a slim length. He sailed through the damp air, his scales cutting through the plummeting rainfall like a sharpened blade.

Thalia was howling and attempting to pry herself from Pyralis’s grip. He admired her even more, watching her fight for her life, and his chest began to feel hollow.

They slashed through the clouds. Thalia saw him, though, he couldn’t quite see her. He could feel her.

“Drake!” she bellowed through the atmosphere.

Pyralis flapped his wings and took a short glance over his shoulder, releasing an insipid growl toward Drake.

Pyralis’s tail flapped in front of him like a string. Drake snapped at it, vigilant to not knock his beloved out of his talons from such a height. He spotted her attempting to bite through the leather shield of his scales and implored her in his mind.

Thalia, stop! You won’t survive the fall.

She stopped as Drake caught a fraction of Pyralis’s tail between his teeth. She clung to the talons tightly as her captor screeched and spun around with the elegance of a dancer.

Drake couldn’t send him tumbling to the earth as he did Zendel. So he fought him in the air, nearly breaking through the airless ceiling of the azure.

Pyralis snapped at him viciously, and the king easily dodged his wide jaws. Drake slashed, hitting him in time with rumbling thunder. The slap lacerated his cheekbone, antagonizing the failed scholar enough to gather smoke inside the opening of his ancient throat.

Drake swerved as fire slashed through the air, dipping below Pyralis's belly. Thalia had nearly gone limp, her eyes rolling back.

Stay with me!

But she couldn’t. His mate was slowly sliding into unconsciousness.

He tried to swat at Pyralis’s clenched fists in an attempt to loosen them. He managed to strike his underbelly, a long thin, mutilating line spread red in a sensitive spot.

Pyralis was getting frustrated. And frustrated dragons made mistakes. Fatal ones.

The old dragon summoned his breath again as Drake circled him like prey. The fire he emitted the second time was pitiful, but it blocked the king’s vision temporarily.

That was when the bastard went in for a despicable move.

Pyralis clamped his jaws down onto the nape of the king’s neck. The fangs were long but too dull to cut through. Drake kicked the spot where he had separated the scales with a guttural blow.

Pyralis folded inward. His hold on Thalia was instantly broken, and she fell at a pace so brutal, the king nearly singed the flesh of his own throat as he roared.

He abandoned Pyralis and blazed downward. Thalia’s body spun around in hysterical circles, her hands clawing at the air for some invisible ladder. Tears burned in the king’s eyes as he foresaw a future void of his beloved mate, one of relentless futility and never-ending despair.

Drake used everything within his dragon’s ability to speed up, narrowing his body once again and folding his wings in between his shoulder blades. He dove low toward the ground, barely coming under her tumbling form, ignoring his own potential demise.

I have you!

It was a promise the king kept.

He slammed hard into the unforgiving earth, skidding through the spilling of blood and rainfall. He felt Thalia land on his back and sink into him like a pile of pillows.

Disregarding his own pain, Drake rolled onto his side, clutching at the ground, and caught Thalia with his open claw as she slipped off his back. She was breathless and stared up into the pale red sky in shock.

In his distress, the king shifted back into his human form, shrinking down to the position of holding Thalia in his arms. Her back was pressed against his chest, and the two of them panted, the way they had after blissful lovemaking.

She turned over shakily and gazed down at him. He was naked and soaked in the rain.

“Drake…”

He kissed her hard and never looked back again.

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