Page 107 of Dragon Me Through Space

Scout chirped her affirmative sound and flew out from behind my ear to land in his palm.

“Don’t break her while I’m gone,” I ordered him.

He smiled. “I promise to take care of her.”

Scout chirped again.

With one more look at them, I walked off the platform and headed to the area where fifty male and female Dragonkin stood, waiting to start the obstacle course race part of the Games.

A few smiled at me, many gave me a wide berth, and many others glared at me.

One female in particular looked at me like she wanted to tear my head off. I would need to keep an eye on her.

The High King gave a speech that I didn’t listen to, then he released a roar that started the first round of the Games.

I jogged in the center of the pack, watching as most hopped over the first, short wooden wall. A few had to climb over, not able to make the jump.

I vaulted over it with a hand on the top and resumed my jog, moving my way steadily towards the front.

As I went to jump over the next obstacle, a slightly taller wall, the male participant next to me elbowed my side. Had I been a human, it would have likely knocked me over or hurt significantly, but I continued on as if he hadn’t touched me.

His disappointed growl behind me made me smile and push myself faster.

The next obstacle was a twelve-foot wall with a rope that many were using to hold onto and walk up the wall. A few Dragonkin jumped halfway up, grabbed the rope, and finished climbing, earning cheers from the spectators.

Squatting down, I took a deep breath, then jumped as high as I could, my fingers brushed the top of the wall, but I couldn’t grab it. As I started to fall back down, I grabbed the nearest rope and pulled myself up and over the wall.

“What in the fire? She can’t be a Caltyrelan if she cleared that jump,” someone snapped behind me.

The next obstacle was to crawl under a net through shallow water. Some swam through instead of using the net, but a few used the net to pull themselves along.

As I neared it, I noticed a few of the ones who had glared at me waiting near the obstacle, but not going through.

Could they be any more obvious?

I opted to face upwards and pull myself along with the net to be able to see around myself easier. And it was a good thing I did, as not even two feet into the obstacle, one of the female Dragonkin dramatically fell onto me, trying to keep me pinned beneath the water.

Since we were underwater, my punches weren’t very effective against her, but with a few sharp pinches and twists of sensitive skin along the upper back of her arm, she reluctantly moved away and I was able to finish the course, gasping for air as I surfaced from the water.

I didn’t bother to wait for her to exit and instead took off, running as fast as I could to get to the next obstacle, which was yet another wall to scale. This wall had handholds and footholds, and was well over twenty feet tall.

As I climbed, I noticed a female keeping pace with me, her eyes full of fire as she glared at me. “You’re not worthy of them,” she spat as she kicked me in my side.

Seeing what she was about to do, I gripped my handholds extra firmly and tightened my core. The kick hurt, but it didn’t knock me off, thankfully.

“Neither are you, you jealous bitch,” I spat as I continued my climb. Part of me wanted to retaliate, but I knew that would just make me look bad to the royals and spectators. Instead, I would do everything to show that I was playing fair while these others were the ones playing dirty.

I heard a few boos from the spectators when she kicked me, so hopefully I was accomplishing my goal.

On the other side of the wall, there were more handholds and footholds. Smiling wide, I glanced in the direction of the royals, winked, and dropped down, landing lightly on my knees.

The spectators gasped in shock and I could practically hear the eyerolls from my guys.

With a small laugh, I took off at a run towards the next obstacle.

So far, there were only about six competitors in front of me. Many of them were fighting with each other, trying to pull the others down and prevent them from going first.

Their distraction worked to my advantage as I vaulted over several of them and started the crawl on my elbows and knees under what appeared to be a spiky bush. My hair got snagged a few times, but I kept going. As I was about to exit, someone grabbed my ankle and jerked me backwards. Instinctively, I kicked back at them and they made a shocked sound of pain before releasing me.