Page 60 of Escaping my Dragon

“Grass-fed is best.” Tigger chimed in, rejoining us.

“And if we allied, we could likely ensure our personal humans are kept safe from its hunger,” Persephone noted.

While tempted to agree, my wretched conscience niggled. “My servants would likely be most perturbed with me were they to realize I aided in the massacre of their kind.” Mama especially would shake her wooden spoon and head with disappointment. For some reason, her opinion mattered.

“What is the other option, though?” Persephone queried. “We are much too small, even all together, to fight. It will either bat us down with one swipe or swallow us whole.”

“What if we asked it to leave Earth?” Tigger’s suggestion. Initially, it met with silence before Abaddon scoffed.

“As if it would simply go.”

“You won’t know if you don’t ask,” Tigger pointed out.

I snorted. “Abaddon is right. I doubt it would agree. Why would it depart? Leviathan is an apex predator. The mightiest thing on this planet, who just so happens to be hungry. Can we blame him for doing something we’ve all done? Eating to stay alive.”

“But his version of feeding will destroy everything from the sounds of it,” Alistair reminded. “And don’t be so quick to think of him as omnipotent. I’ve long studied humanity’s weapons. They do have some that might be capable of killing Levithan.”

The blunt statement had us all looking at the water, as if waiting for the mighty dragon to smite Alistair down for his words.

“Don’t worry. He can’t hear us while he’s underwater. The liquid medium disrupts most signals. Even Nessie, who is aquatic by nature, struggles to communicate. It’s part of the reason why she built her castle at the bottom of her loch. Within its walls, we can talk freely.”

“Let’s theorize for a moment, that humans launch their nukes and their planes and everything they’ve got.” Abaddon paced. “What if they don’t work? If we ally with humanity, and an attack fails, I doubt Leviathan will be lenient.”

Tigger blurted, “Malone woke it.”

“No duh,” Abaddon murmured with a roll of his eyes.

“It seems likely, but why mention it?” Alistair crouched to be closer to eye level with Tigger.

“Why wake it unless he had a plan to control it?”

I snorted before anyone else could. “I’m sure his puny little brain thought it had some foolproof plan, but if Malone never managed to wrangle a hatchling, I don’t see how he’d succeed with the mightiest of us.”

“Don’t be so sure. Everything has a weakness.” Alistair muttered.

“What if we fed him some poisoned meat?” Tigger suggested with excitement that had his wings fluttering. “In Hawaii, there’s all kinds of snakes and stuff with venom that’s deadly.”

“And how many does it take before you get indigestion?” Alistair oddly asked.

“I need to eat five yellow-bellied sea snakes before I get the rumbles,” Tigger proudly announced before huffing, “Oh, I see what you mean.”

It hit me a second later. The math involved resulted in an astronomical sum of snakes simply to give Leviathan a tummy ache.

“So, hey, we’re going to see if we can grab a few hours’ sleep,” interrupted the human female, Velma. The nerve. Someone didn’t understand hierarchy. Then again, as Leviathan’s servant, did this Velma outrank us?

She’d better not.

Her male mate added a growled, “We’ll be barricading the doors and arming ourselves, so don’t even think of double crossing us.”

Meaning we’d have to kill him should we choose to offer the female to our ancient sire. The terms were acceptable.

The soft-fleshed group left, and Alistair crossed his arms as he regarded them. “Rest sounds like a good idea. I’m going to find a spot with decent signal to call Davina before catching a nap. Can you be trusted to stay out of trouble?”

“Probably not,” Tigger honestly answered.

“Fair enough.” A faint smile tugged Alistair’s lips. “I remember being young, and I am not sure how much worse this situation could get.”

“If this were a movie, a second giant monster would arrive to do battle.” Tigger could barely contain his excitement.