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I started to do exactly that but as I began rising into the air, I heard one of the little toy men on the ground shout that I was getting away.
“Don’t let her go!” It was the older Sanchez, bellowing for all he was worth at the four Drakes who had finally stopped shooting flames at me. “Chain her! We must keep her here!”
Before I could move another inch, one of the Drakes threw a huge, heavy chain around my neck. I was weighed down at once—there was something besides metal in the iron links wrapped around my throat. I felt the itching tingle of magic where they touched me and it seemed to sap my strength and make me feel weak and tired.
“Fight it, Kaitlyn!” I heard Ari shouting. Looking down, I saw that he was still in human form. He seemed so small and yet I felt in my heart that he was the most precious treasure I could ever hope to have. His fragile human form had to be protected—cherished and guarded with my life.
Was this how Ari’s Drake felt about me, when I was in human form, I wondered? I didn’t know but I did know I had to save him and keep him safe.
Shrugging at the heavy chain still wrapped around my throat, I reached for him, intending to snap the silly manacles that bound him with a flick of my talons. Though they had seemed so thick and un-giving when I was in my human form, now they looked as easy to break as toothpicks.
But Sanchez saw what I was planning to do.
“Stop her!” he shouted, gesturing wildly at me. “If she sets free the Alpha or the Alpha-to-be and we have to contend with their Drakes all is lost!”
Another heavy chain wrapped around me—this time around the forearm I had reached out to Ari. Again I felt the itching prickle of magic, draining my strength.
“No!” Ari shouted at me, his chest heaving with emotion. “No, Kaitlyn—don’t let them trap you! Don’t worry about me—just fly! Fly out of here and be free!”
As if I could just go, I thought indignantly! We were Blood-Bonded—he and his Drake were part of my soul, now. I could no more leave him behind than I could leave part of my tail.
Oh my God, I had a tail!
It flicked forward, as though I had called it, and smacked Pedro Sanchez in the chest, sending him sprawling.
He got up, scowling—his face as purple as a thundercloud.
“That’s it, you fucking puta,” he snarled and then began to change.
His Drake was green and his scales were rough—not smooth and sleek like my own, I saw with distain. Also, they lacked the royal two-toned sheen—all his scales were the same dull, grayish-green color you saw on alligators in the swamps of my home state of Florida.
When Pedro’s Drake reached his full size, I saw with surprise and satisfaction that I still towered over him. He might be a big bully in human form but as a Drake, I held the advantage.
He reared up at me anyway, despite our size difference, and made a swipe with his talons.
I pulled back, snorting in anger. I had lived with scars in my human form for years—I wasn’t about to let my sleek new dragon hide be marked by his clumsy slashing.
My tail came out again, as though it had a mind of its own, and slapped Pedro’s Drake full in the face. The force of the blow was enough to send him staggering backwards, growling angrily all the while.
“Stop her—stop her!” Pedro’s father was shouting angrily far below my head. “See what she’s doing to my son? She must be stopped—she must be chained!”
More of the magical chains were thrown around my body, my other forehand was restrained and then my right hind leg and my tail. Though I tried to fight the prickling magic chains, they were too heavy for me. I felt myself being dragged down by their weight—a terrible lethargy creeping into my very bones everywhere they touched me.
“Fight it, Kaitlyn!” Ari was shouting at me. “Fight it! Fight the magic!”
But I was so tired and I was terribly outnumbered. Some of the other Chamberlains had taken their Drake forms too—though Pedro’s own father remained human, the better to shout orders at his henchmen. The formerly vast Feasting Hall was rapidly becoming very overcrowded. It seemed that wings and talons and fangs and tails were everywhere and all of them were aimed at me.
In the midst of all this, I was still worried about Ari and his family. They were under the protective shelter of the huge Drake tables but all it would take was the stray swipe of a tail or one misplaced taloned claw to kill any one of them.
For the first time I became aware of how terribly vulnerable the human form was. I wanted desperately to gather the humans who were precious to me—mostly Ari but I felt for his sister and his mother too and to a much lesser degree, his father—and fly away with them. But the horrible magical chains encircling me wouldn’t let me go! In another minute I would be completely overpowered and unable to do anything but give up. But I didn’t want to do that.
