Page 37 of Lady Dragon
She rolled away and sprinted for the much bigger gateway, dodging a massive wing that cut the air like a scythe to shatter one of the stained glass windows, and fetched up against the crank. As soon as she began turning it, the tall double doors split and widened in moments, and Kirek gathered herself, preparing to transform.
… And nothing happened. She couldn’t change. She was left standing on two legs, staring at a many-hundred-foot drop, and feeling as vulnerable as a human might, if they were considering throwing themselves off a tower.
She turned back to the red dragon, which was screeching pitifully and trying to stand in the utter wreckage of the room, limbs buckling beneath her like an injured thing. If the dragon stayed here, she would break a wing or worse.
“Samansa!” Kirek shouted. At least, she thought it was Samansa, but she had no context under the skies for what was happening here. How any of this was possible: pair-bondingwith a human, the sudden appearance of the red dragon, and now Kirek’s inability to return to her true form. But, somehow, she knew this creature was the princess.
Shefeltit, through the bond—that cursed pair-bond that had no right to snap into place between them.
Perhapsshewas cursed.
She didn’t have long to ponder that before giant, golden eyes latched on to her.
“Come, this way!” Kirek cried, waving at the cavernous opening and the night sky beyond. “You need to fly out of here, or else you’ll hurt yourself!”
The dragon seemed to hear her—or at least came barreling her way, wings already beginning to flap. One caught Kirek across the chest as the dragon hurled herself out into the night—sweeping Kirek out with her.
And then they were both falling.
Oh skies, oh skies, oh skies.Kirek’s frantic thoughts whirled uselessly by as the wind tore at her, but her limbs were moving as if on their own, her powerful hands seizing the edge of the dragon’s wing and latching on to it. With the added weight, the wing couldn’t flap properly… and both of them, dragon and dragon girl, kept plummeting toward the cobbles far below.
“Just… hold on!” Kirek cried, even though it wasshewho needed to hold on. She began dragging herself higher up the wing, tears streaming from her eyes. By the time she reached the dragon’s back and clambered on, her thighs clamping down and her grip finding a hold along the spiked neck, the tops of lower towers were whizzing by them like spears.
And then the dragon flapped her red wings, andthatnearly tore Kirek off the back of her. Skies above, no wonder humansdidn’t ride dragons. It wasn’t just that it was beneath a dragon’s dignity; no human would have ever been able to hold on long enough to stay seated.
Fortunately Kirek wasn’t human, despite appearances, though she had no idea why she couldn’t turn back into her true form. She clung on for dear life as massive sweeps of the red dragon’s wings took them soaring high over the castle walls, above the twinkling spread of the city below, and then out into the dark, stretching hills of the forest beyond.
They landed amidst the shadowy trees sometime later, the towering trunks providing enough cover for even a creature the size of the red dragon.
As strong as Kirek was, her muscles screamed as she slid from the dragon’s back, heedless of the sharp-edged scales that sanded her palms raw. She fell onto the cushion of pine needles—collapsed in a heap, more like.
For a moment, all she could do was lie on her side and breathe. Her burning limbs throbbed in unceasing waves and her chest was on fire.
Something huge nudged her shoulder, and she rolled over to find it was the dragon’s snout. Dragon though Kirek was, she wasn’t used to seeing one from this angle and nearly wanted to shy away.
“Samansa?” she croaked. Her throat felt as dry as a desert.
The dragon keened, low, and a breath of hot air blasted Kirek’s face.
“Be careful you don’t torch me,” Kirek groaned, and then hauled herself to her feet.
The first thing she did—after staring at the red dragon in utter disbelief—was part the flaps of her ripped leather armor to look at her chest. Her skin was angry red, swollen, and bleeding, and the purple stone, well… It was still there, nestled in her torn flesh, but it was somehow a much darker shade, bordering on a deep, midnight blue, and it was indeed fractured in half.
She thought she knew where the other half might have gone. She turned to the red dragon again. Huge, golden eyes stared back at her, as if in equal disbelief.
“Can you understand me?” Kirek asked.
The dragon chuffed again, blowing Kirek’s hair around her face. Kirek irritably swiped it away.
“Why can’t I hear you?” she demanded. “The Heartstone let me understand dragon-speech in this form.”
Maybe it was too broken to do so now. The red dragon only blinked at her.
“Well,try,” Kirek snapped. “Say something to me. Just—use your thoughts?”
It was then Kirek realized the dragon probably didn’t knowhowto use dragon-speech, especially if she’d only so recently been a human. Kirek hardly knew how to explain it to her; it came so naturally.
Still, the great red dragon hunkered down and stared at her, even more piercingly than before. Her eyes were beautiful, swirling molten gold, so lovely that Kirek could have gotten lost in them until—
