AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Its skin was greenish-gray and roughly pebbled. And its jaws, though not as elongated as a gator’s or a croc’s, were wider and filled with long, shining teeth which stuck out of its lipless mouth like a bristling yellow necklace.
“That’s the Guardian,” I heard Avery saying to someone from the safety of the bridge which I couldn’t reach since the massive head was between me and the wooden structure. “It only guards the castle—it never eats anyone.”
That’s right—it doesn’t eat anyone—doesn’t eat people, I reminded myself, though my brain felt almost as numb with fear as my body did after being submerged in the cold, inky water. It doesn’t want to eat me—it probably just came to see what all the commotion was about!
But then the wide black nostrils flared and inhaled—so strongly I could feel the pull of them, like a vacuum cleaner sucking. The Guardian’s eyes—which had been a dull bronze when it first surfaced—turned suddenly blood-red.
And then its jaws parted.
“Oh my God, Avery—do something!” I heard Emma shriek. “I don’t care what you said about it not eating people—it’s about to bite Kaitlyn right in half!”
“Give me something to poke myself with!” Megan was shouting. “Or wait—Griffin, where are you? Don’t jump in—bite me and help me work some magic!”
And then all of them were drowned out by a claxon-roar which came from above.
A vast black shadow blotted out the sun and the Guardian—which had been swimming towards me with its huge mouth open—suddenly froze, its red, slitted eyes rolling upwards.
I looked up too and saw an enormous black shape with wings like sails blotting out the sun. I couldn’t see much else because of the dazzling sunlight behind it, but when it extended one huge, taloned claw and reached for me, my paralysis broke and I screamed and tried to swim away.
I dived under the water again but the enormous appendage found me anyway. A long muscular arm with a claw-hand that had fingers as long as my forearm plunged into the black water and wrapped around my waist. It pulled me up and out of the water and I heard the flat sound of the vast wings flapping as it rose into the air and headed for the bridge.
I was sobbing now, with pure undiluted terror, and my heart was beating so hard it felt like it was shaking every part of my body with each terrified thump. Through my tears, I saw that all my friends who were standing on the bridge had awed looks on their faces. The flapping of the vast wings was blowing their clothes flat against their bodies—they looked like people standing beside a running helicopter. Megan and Emma’s long hair was being whipped all over the place as though they were standing in the middle of a hurricane.
The enormous claw-hand that held me extended towards them and I saw fear on their faces but not a single one of my Coven-mates backed away. Instead, they all reached for me and caught me, just as the talons released their grip.
I tumbled into their arms, sobbing, and they caught me. Megan and Emma held me close while Avery and Griffin seemed to be saying something to the beast—to the Drake?—which had grabbed me.
It answered in that alarm-claxon voice it had, though I couldn’t’ tell what it was saying, and then flew back out over the lake, where I heard it roaring some more—presumably at the Guardian. The Guardian seemed to be roaring or growling back, though again I couldn’t understand the words.
I was too mentally unraveled to process any of what was happening at the time. All I could do was cry and shiver as Emma and Megan held me between them. I was cold…so cold and so tired I could barely move. The sudden dunking in the lake and the terror that had followed seemed to have used up the last of my reserves.
I remember thinking, I wonder if you can die of just being too tired and too scared to go on.
And then everything faded to grey and I didn’t remember any more.
27
Ari
The minute I saw what was happening, I couldn’t hold my Drake back. Hell, I didn’t want to hold it back. The Guardian is related to my kind, though it is one natured, not two, and lives always in its water-Drake form. It isn’t supposed to want to eat humans or Others but the moment its eyes turned killing-red, I knew that for some reason it had forgotten itself and it intended to eat Kaitlyn.
I leapt from the top of the West Tower, my Drake bursting out of me in midair as he roared a warning at the Guardian below. The creature looked up at me, its eyes confused and clouded by unreasoning hunger. It made a lunge for Kaitlyn but by then she had seen my Drake and was trying to swim away in terror.
