Page 107 of Wild Bond

It took me a few seconds to get my bearings, taking in the chaos that surrounded us as the battle raged. Unlike us, Naasir and Rake didn’t hesitate. Naasir swooped down then shot up from below towards an enemy dragon who had its mouth around the neck of another dragon, knocking it hard and forcing it to let go of its opponent. The blow sent the dragon and its rider careening sideways.

At almost the same moment, I saw Nesenya and her dragon tackle another dragon and shove them into the side of the rocky mountain face. A familiar white dragon flew past, and I watched as Prince Pierce threw a knife and it struck one of the rogue riders in the chest.

Then my eyes caught on the rider from before—the one whose dragon released that first blast of fire. The rider was slim and covered in dark armor from head to toe, including a helmet that covered their face entirely except for a slit for the eyes.

There,I prompted Skye. She knew where I was looking and arrowed towards the rider without a second thought.

Skye banked and spun to avoid the snapping jaws of a much smaller dragon attacking from the side. Skye whipped around, biting into the end of its tail, and yanking it off course. In a show of strength that shocked even me, she flung the enemy dragon into another that was passing us. Both dragons let out sharp cries as they collided and tried to stop their sudden tumbling plummet towards the ground.

Both enemies forgotten, Skye spun back around and continued heading for our target. The unknown rider was still sitting atop what I could now see was a maroon-colored female dragon. The rider hovered above the battle raging below. Something about the way the rider was holding back made me think that they were simply observing the fight—almost analyzing it.

My point was proven a moment later when the armor-clad rider simply watched as one of their comrades was attacked by a Halmarish dragon rider. The dragons clawed and bit at one another while the Halmarish dragon rider leaned far over in the saddle and slew the rogue rider with a single swipe of his sword. The helmeted rider did nothing except watch the rider and dragon fall. It didn’t seem like the rider had any intention of participating.

I was about to change that.

Skye let out a stream of fire as we approached, aimed directly at the helmeted rider. At the last second, the rider saw us coming and tried to duck out of the way. Even over the roar of flames, and another boom of thunder, I heard the feminine cry of pain as the fire burned through part of the armor at the shoulder.

So, the rider was a woman, and her armor wasn’t made of dragonscale or she wouldn’t have been burned. Of course, she was still better off than I was, since I only wore my riding leathers.

But to my surprise, the rider didn’t counter with an attack of her own. Instead, she and her dragon fled, diving downward toward the valley below.

“After her!” I yelled to Skye, but she was already giving chase. It still amazed me how fast Skye was and how quickly she could turn her big body and change direction.

We plunged after the fleeing pair, dodging and twisting to avoid other battling dragons. We quickly gained on the other dragon. I leaned forward as Skye put every ounce of speed into her wings that she could.

I quickly scanned our surroundings for any more combatants that might be drawing close, and that was when I noticed something was wrong. The rogue riders I could see seemed uncoordinated and unskilled, and the ease with which they were being slain spoke to a lack of training. Even their dragons seemed clumsy and erratic in their movements, something that dragons never were. I also noticed that most of the dragons appeared younger for the most part, their sizes making me think they were not quite or just past maturity.

Skye roared, and I once again focused on the dragon rider we were pursuing, dismissing the disconcerting thoughts for now. We were so close.

During the chase, the fleeing rider had flown downward. She began flying erratically in hopes of throwing us off, but Skye was having none of it. Now we were skimming low over the rocky ravine floor, possibly only several dozen feet from the ground. Letting out another ferocious roar, Skye’s head reared back before striking out like a snake. Her entire body shuddered and jerked beneath me as her jaws latched onto the other dragon’s tail.

The other dragon bellowed in pain and flailed, but no matter how much she thrashed, Skye refused to let go.

In a desperate move, the other dragon’s head whipped around and released a shot of flames in our direction just as Skye used her grip on the tail and lashed the other dragon downward. The dragon’s momentum had them careening off course and spiraling towards the barren valley floor. But I was unable to see what happened before my vision was filled by a wall of flames.

The flames wouldn’t hurt Skye, but without dragonscale armor, my fiercely protective dragon wasn’t so sure about me. Her instincts kicked in, and she swerved to avoid the fireball coming towards us.

“Watch out!” I cried, as we barely missed colliding with the top of a large dead tree in our path. Again, Skye’s speed and expert flying allowed us to miss it by mere inches.

Unfortunately, Skye’s maneuver placed us too close to the ravine wall, and she didn’t have time to avoid the large stone outcropping up ahead. Horror filled me as lightning lit up the night, and I saw the wall of stone in our path. Skye roared. There was nothing I could do but brace for impact as we crashed into it.

Therewasahorrible,sickening crunch. I jerked in the saddle before a sharp pain pierced my side and my lower leg was crushed under a large weight. Almost immediately the weight lifted as Skye went limp beneath me. She had intentionally taken the brunt of the impact, and the intense wave of agony that was coming from Skye suddenly cut off as she surrendered to unconsciousness.

My stomach plummeted as Skye’s large body tumbled the several dozen feet to the ground. Luckily—or perhaps unluckily—we scraped and slid most of the way down, rather than a straight fall.

Thankfully my legs were latched firmly in the saddle, and I was able to stay mostly upright without breaking my very fragile human neck.

Worry for Skye pierced through me. When she finally slid to a stop, coming to rest partially on top of a large boulder, I released myself from the saddle straps and rolled ungracefully off her back.

The wind howled, whipping my hair in my face as I scrambled to my feet. The pain in my leg was excruciating as I tried to put weight on it, and I guessed something had to be either sprained or broken. My side ached whenever I took a deep breath, and I could feel warm blood dripping through my fingers when I probed it through the leathers.

I touched my shaking hand to Skye’s flank where she lay sprawled behind me, wings spread wide, head tipped to the side, emerald eyes closed. She was still alive, but because she was unconscious and her mind blank in the bond, I had no way of knowing where she was injured. Dragons were tough but not invincible, and even though I couldn’t visually see anything wrong, I knew there had to be some injury.

I could still hear the yells and roars above us as riders fought and dragons from both sides shot flames into the night amidst the thunder and lightning, as the battle raged on.

I was hardly aware of any of this though as I cried in the bond,Skye? Skye, come on! Wake up!Other than a faint twitch of her head, she lay unmoving.

Everything in me wanted to stay with her, but I had to concentrate on the threat. Spinning around, I pulled two daggers from their sheaths at my waist. The rogue rider and her dragon had crashed as well and fallen not too far away. I faced her as she was getting to her feet, the fall appearing to have done less damage to her than to me, thanks to her full armor. Still, the burn on her shoulder looked bad.

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