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This was real.
“Yeah,” Ben said, as if hearing his thoughts.
“This is real.”
He cleared his throat.
“You might want to hand those back to me for safekeeping unless you have a pocket somewhere underneath your scales.”
Reluctantly, Shai opened his claw, and Ben quickly snatched up the items and shoved them in a leather pouch and into the back of his pants.
“Now, it’s probably least conspicuous if we can ride you back to the rendezvous point with our other friends who can teleport us to the human realm. It’s a good thing you have functional wings, unlike some earth and sea dragons. Otherwise, this getaway would take a good deal longer traveling on foot.”
Where is my Heba?
Shai couldn’t help asking, even though he knew they needed to move.
How is she?
He extended one wing down to the ground as the three men climbed onto his back one by one.
“Sleeping like a babe,” the man called Ere said.
“Park those thoughts until we get out of here. I have a feeling the JE isn’t going to let us go without a fight.”
As soon as they secured their seats on his back, Shai flapped his massive wings, made a run for the edge of the mountain and dove off.
Ben gave him directions on where to go. He flew as he’d never flown before. With an urgency and speed that made his heart nigh beat out of his chest.
The riders somehow kept their seats, showing that this wasn’t the first time they flew this way. Good thing too, for they would have been hurled off of his back by the blustery wind as he blazed through the sky like a shooting star.
Down there!
Ere communicated the direction through his mind, pointing to a small clearing amidst a dense forest. The two people who stood there waiting for them were only dots in the distance at this point, but Shai saw them.
According to these men, their friends possessed the power to transport him to wherever Heba was. He homed in on them like a beacon and dove as fast as he could.
But just as he did, a shock of agony gripped his entire body like poisonous flames.
“Shit! The shadow dragons!”
“They’re on our six. Spreading out. Must be a dozen of them!”
Shai didn’t understand all of the words, but he got the gist. He could feel their dragonfire incinerating his scales, the tongue of the flames probing into the vulnerable flesh beneath.
He dove harder, twisting and rolling as he did so, trying to evade the worst of the onslaught. But he didn’t pull back to fight the shadows. He had one aim and one aim only—
To reach the clearing and pass through the portal that was already starting to form.
But the collective fire power of the shadow dragons was immense, and their flames surrounded him, choking him. Making his muscles weak, blinding his eyes. Stabbing into him like a thousand blades, roasting him alive.
He closed his eyes to protect them, flying blind now, just on instinct. The clearing appeared in his mind’s eye. The doorway to where Heba was.
He had to make it.
Hewouldmake it!
Suddenly, two weights lifted off his back. He could feel two of the men transform, the mighty gusts of their wings coming between his body and the enemy’s dragonfire.
