Page 19 of To Spark a Dragon's Love
I wanted to say she knew what she was getting into after our discussion the other day, but the emotions coming over the bond for the past few days were much different than I expected.
She was angry.
And she has every right to be, mated to a coward like you.
I closed my eyes.
This was not the plan.
Earth was supposed to burn, taking me and everyone else along with her. I’d resigned myself to that fate and now there was this, what Kieran calledhope.
I wouldn’t do it. Not in good conscience.
I couldn’t subject another being—a child nonetheless—to live the life I’d lived. My father’s deep voice was an echo of the past.
“The sacrifice of one for the good of many.”
It wasn’t the way of the guardian that bothered me. Had I been a guardian in any other lifetime, I would’ve had no problem continuing the line.
But I knew better now.
I’d felt what it was like on the wrong side of history. To be beaten and chewed up and spit out and forgotten. And I couldn’t let anyone suffer this same fate.
No. Better it all ended with me.
My skin drew taut and rippled with the current of the pull before the walls around me began to shake. Shadows gathered quickly to my side, called by a force larger than me.
“I’m up,” I laughed bitterly, staggering to my feet and ripping my clothes off as I went to the open window. The call came on the night breeze, chilling and demanding and urgent as I felt the ground groan beneath us.
Earth was awake.
I climbed onto the window pane and leapt from the second-story ledge, changing to dragon form on the freefall down. My powerful wings caught the night and beat hard against the wind, lifting me toward the west.
Mt. Hood was the closest entry point when flying from Kieran’s territory. Why he chose to live in such a remote region was beyond me.
Earth was shifting and the landscape as we knew it would change, taking regions like this along for the bumpy ride. Down south would be safest for the immediate future. But there were older hotspots that should survive the worst of the change—my own territory included and blessed by Earth herself.
Then again, there were reasons the scribe shouldn’t throw his hat in with me. Our supernatural politics were turbulent even before the end of the world was upon us. The terrain was rockier now.
A mournful roar came from my beast as he circled the cabin below and I watched as a passenger for a moment, curious to see what he would do.
But Earth’s call was more insistent the second time. My dragon roared again as he flew off into the night, watching the small cabin until it was out of view and channeling his rage as we went to do Earth’s bidding.
Static pulsed at my scales and glimmers of moonlight slipped through the ominous gray clouds overhead. The pull of the current grew stronger as I flew over the state park.
Burnt trees swayed in the breeze underneath me. But whatever fire that had come through here had been long since snuffed out. The lack of foliage didn’t provide me any cover as I flew over a human military checkpoint.
Spotlights shone above, illuminating my under belly as I tucked my legs in tight to protect my softer scales from any trigger-happy youngsters.
The older officials and supervisors would know to radio me in as an unidentified flying object, though. Always the hero with none of the glory.
The roots of bitterness were rotten, but buried deep and strong in my soul.
My dragon roared his displeasure as we circled the volcanic peak, searching for an entry point that wasn’t overgrown and caved in. It’d been a long time since I’d visited this particular area and it wasn’t suited for easy access like the more active tunnels and geysers I frequented.
There,my beast grumbled as he found a place to land. Perch was more like it. Boulders slipped down the mountain in a crashing rumble as my talons gripped a precarious ledge and I shifted before he tumbled backward.
You could’ve picked a better path.
