Page 84 of Claimed by the Savage Dragons
‘This is the back way out,’ he says quietly, urging me up the stairs in front of him with a hand on my ass.
It’s a shorter climb than I expected and at the top, there’s a small door which he opens with a metal key.
I’m suddenly in daylight for the first time in weeks. It’s cold, but sunny and I close my eyes, breathing in the fresh air and feeling the natural light on my face.
‘Come on. We don’t want someone seeing us leaving and following.’
I nod and look around the small ledge above the cliff face. There’s nothing up here but us.
‘How are you going to carry me?’ I ask.
He grins at me and cups his hands together into an enclosed ball.
I stare at it dubiously. Tor and Brax weren’t big enough to hold me in their claws that way.
‘Trust me,’ he says. ‘Safe and warm.’
And then he changes, and I step back in awe. He’s huge, enormous. Easily twice the size of the other dragons I’ve seen.
His scales are black with a red sheen. There are spikes along his back and tail. His hands are now the size of small cars. He barely fits on the ledge.
He holds out one massive black claw, and I push myself away from the rock at my back, heaving a deep breath and climbing into the middle of his palm. He closes me in with the other, his digits interlacing so that I’m completely enclosed. It’s dark, but he was right. It is warm and a tiny sliver of light comes from above me where his thumbs aren’t quite together.
I feel us moving and I sit down quickly so I don’t fall as I’m jostled, wondering how long the flight will take. I should have asked, I suppose, but I was sort of shell shocked. I curl my arms around the bump. I still am, but at the same time I’m elated. I want to tell Brax and Tor. By tying themselves to a human, they must have given up on ever being fathers.
Though if Del is right, and I’m their true mate, maybe that was the last thing on their minds.
I try to rest while we’re in the air. It is more comfortable than the pallet. It doesn’t swing around as much, and the only draft comes from the very top. I’m guessing Drey left the opening by design, like an air hole.
I close my eyes, succumbing to sleep easily to the sound of Drey’s great black wings beating through the air.
I look into the pair of golden eyes dispassionately as I wrench one sharp talon out of the dragon sent here after us. I flick the ichor on the tip away with a sniff and my dragon and I roar as one, celebrating our kill, the death of our enemy, of our mate’s enemy.
The roar turns mournful as we think of her, how long it’s been since she was close, since we smelled her, touched her.
‘I fucking knew it,’ Brax snorts, ambling naked out of the forest like he’s on a stroll. ‘I fucking knew it would be Bron. I told you I thought I smelled his stink last week.’
I morph back and grin at my friend. ‘You did. It’s clear he’s the one who’s been killing dragons from other factions traveling through the Borderlands. Fucker. He almost destabilized the entire region with this shit.’
We take a look around the entrance to the cave we found, searching for evidence of what Aziel’s grunt had actually been sent here to do.
‘This makes no sense,’ I mutter. ‘It’s too in the open for Aziel. He must have known that there would be questions if we both died out here, too.’
Brax shrugs. ‘Unless he’s close to making a move and doesn’t care if there are questions.’
I frown at him as I search a bag of rotten meat, throwing it down in disgust when I feel wriggling.
‘Fuck, Bron was a dirty pig. Even my dragon wouldn’t eat meat this far gone.’
I find Brax further in the cave upturning a crudely made chair.
‘How long do you think he was here?’
I take in the bedding and the trash Bron left everywhere. The smell that permeates the air. ‘Weeks.’
‘Here! It’s his phone. There’s orders here. Not a number I recognize. Shit.’
‘What is it?’ I ask, approaching cautiously when I see his eyes glow a little in the gloom.
