“Where the fuck are you?” Zyion demanded. “Aria? Answer me, woman!”
“I’m on a fucking dragon! Oh my god. Get me the fuck down! I’m going to fall, Zyion. There’s nothing to hold on to. What the hell do I do?” I demanded as tears threatened to choke off my words, which was sad considering they were in my head. “How do I get down from here?” Panic was overwhelming me, which was causing my breathing to be erratic. I was on the back of a dragon, being dragon-napped! How was this my life? A year ago, I hadn’t even known dragons existed, and now, one was stealing me and Ember was cheering the beast on!
“Unless you can fly, Aria, you stay the fuck on the beast’s back. I’ll find you.”
“Zyion! I’m going to die!”
“If they wanted you dead, you’d be dead already. They want you alive, which means they won’t drop you. Don’t piss them off before I can get to you, princess.”
Chapter Seventeen
Aria
I was flying on a dragon! It was my only thought as I clung to the large scales with a death grip. When the dragon dropped without warning, I screamed so loudly it burned my throat, but the wind snatched away the sound. I wasn’t sure if the beast was pleased about tossing me onto its back, but its flight with me on it wasn’t reassuring. A smaller, light blue dragon flew in its path, and the dragon I clung to veered left. Then I was screaming again as it aimed its large, wicked-looking snout downward and dove toward the ground.
I desperately clung on, but then the dragon rolled, dumping me off its back and sending me into a freefall. My arms waved futilely at my sides, and the wind bit at my skin forcing my eyes closed as I fell faster and faster in an uncontrolled tumble. My mind refused to focus on anything other than the quickly-approaching ground and just how dead I’d be when I hit it. On the heels of that truth, a strange sense of peace flooded my mind. As if colliding with the ground wouldn’t be the worst death to experience.
The air that had been slamming into my face, ceased, which forced a whimper from my lungs. My eyelids parted gradually as fear slithered through me, revealing an emerald green dragon, which wasn’t the one who’d taken me. Several more were flying in V-formation below us. I’d torn the skirt of my dress in the gales of wind I’d unleashed, which left my legs naked as I hung from the beast’s deadly claws. Lowering my head, I stared into the crimson irises of the black dragon. The green dragon flipped without warning and sent me flying onto the back of a sapphire dragon.
Pain from landing on the hard scales burned my side as I struggled to right myself. My skull was still buzzing with piercing discomfort, which left me gasping for a reason. Placing my palm against my head, I found it covered in warm liquid. That explained the pain, at least. It didn’t explain the blurry vision or inability to move without feeling as if I’d drank an entire bottle of tequila.
“Still with me, princess?”
“Who the fuck are you?” I demanded weakly.
“Your fucking savior,” hissed the gruff, scratchy voice.
“Calm down before you give the girl heart failure. I’d hate to explain why she didn’t make it back with us, brother,” another dragon growled, sending my anger rising. “And you, I’d calm yourself because the ground is a long way down.”
“Calm down? You just fucking dragon-napped my ass! In case you missed it, I was fighting just fucking fine before you showed up and damn-near pulverized me beneath your claws. You also almost melted me! Plus, I was fucking winning. You took me without permission, which is kidnapping!” I snarled, which had a few dragons making sounds similar to snorts. “Did you just snort at me?” The question escaped as an incredulous hiss of sound.
“You were not winning. That head wound? It’s laced with enough nulling serum to prevent you from casting anything for days. You were about to be assassinated by your own fucking brother. Do you honestly think that if we’d been offered your death, we’d allow you—a Prometheus—to fly on our backs? I assure you I’d rather do anything else than allow you or your kind anywhere near my back, woman.”
“A what now?” I demanded, fighting against the nausea rushing through me.
“You’re magicless,” one dragon sniggered. “Fucking birds.”
Undoubtedly, he was not a fan of my bloodline, which wasn’t exactly a surprise. No one held a grudge quite like a bunch of dragons and phoenixes, that was for sure. I forced my body upright, peering one way, then another to take in the mammoth sized dragons who’d saved me. Inside me, Ember was howling like a banshee, which meant I wouldn’t hear Zyion if he spoke.
“I’m flying! I love them! Aria, we are flyyyyyyyyyyyyyying! Zooooom. Weeee-weeee-zoooom! I am a freebee. We’re finally flying!”
“Ember, I can’t hear myself think, let alone hear if help is forthcoming. Stop screaming! And for the love of God, stop fucking saying you love everyone! Someone might actually think you mean it.” The dragons laughed, honest to God, laughed at us. “Oh, shit. They can hear us!”
“We can all hear your mind and that of your inner beast. Zyion already knows where we’re taking you, Aria Hecate. He requested we remove you from the current situation unfolding at the palace. We cannot allow you to stay there until your coronation and ascent to the throne. But women are all the same fickle, impulsive creatures. You never listen to reason and blindly run toward danger.”
“Can we eat that one? He’d fill us up,” Ember asked through a bout of rage which shot through me and it was getting harder to focus around the disorientation from whatever they had shot me with.
“We’re not eating a dragon. I’m pretty sure that would stick to my ass.”
“At least something would be stuck to it, maybe even in it,” Ember pouted. “I bet he’d stick to your thighs too. Then we’d have something between them. You’d remember we have a vagina, which is also starving!”
“You didn’t get enough dick when you let Lennox take us in his beast form? Because I’m pretty sure he wrecked my vagina!” The moment the words echoed inside my head my face flamed with embarrassment.
“Lennox?” the grouchy dragon asked. “Lennox Karnavious?”
My stomach sank as the large, obsidian-colored dragon turned red eyes toward me. The oval pupils set in cat-shaped eyes inspected me meticulously.
“Are you a ravenous slut for cock, princess?” he asked, making the word princess sound like a slur.
“Excuse me? I’ve had one dick in my entire lifetime, asshole. I don’t think I meet the criteria to be one. Not that a woman who enjoys dick is anything other than a woman. Why is it acceptable for a man to have sex with thousands of women, but the moment a woman takes more than one lover, she’s slandered and thought of as less for enjoying her sexuality? Women have needs too, which oftentimes aren’t met by men who can’t figure out how to handle her body’s needs. We like getting dick, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Unless you’re stuck inside Aria, who only likes Knox’s cock. To be fair, it’s a really nice cock. And he kissed me.” She sighed dreamily. “Lennox wouldn’t kiss me, but Knox did. I like Knox. I’m going to make him a daddy.”