Page 51 of Curse of the Midnight Dragon (The Moonlight Dragon #2)
Amaya
“The lizards do seem to be gathering around you, Sky Girl,” Soren said, sounding worried. He reached down and pulled a dagger from his boot. “They aren’t going to attack, are they?”
Celestina frowned at the lizards but didn’t say a word. After several moments, she turned on her heel and walked out of the tent with the green lizards rushing to catch up to her. We all followed her back to the clearing outside of the camp.
She held up her hands and the green lizards, hundreds of them, scurried to surround us. As she drew in a long breath, her indigo eyes started to glow white.
“Become!” she growled.
The air around the lizards shimmered. One by one, the lizards lifted from the ground as they shifted. Their bodies grew larger and longer. Their green color turned metallic. Their tiny front legs transformed into beautiful wings that shimmered like a sky filled with rainbows. And deep red flames licked the ends of their long, spiky tails.
“Our new army,” Celestina said as one of the winged beasts took to the air and coated the nearest cloud with fire.
Soren paled. “We’ve been eating the lizards.”
“So have we,” I admitted as I clenched my teeth. Had we been unwittingly eating our own kind? I felt like I might throw up. No, I was definitely going to throw up.
“Those are wyverns.” Cullen adjusted his glasses. He moved closer to me and started to rub my lower back as if he could sense my stomach’s turmoil.
“They are mine to call,” Celestina said with that strange light still shining from her eyes.
“If my research is correct, they’re not dragons,” Cullen explained. “They don’t have the same reasoning abilities. They can’t talk or transform into people. They’re more like dogs of war.” He adjusted his glasses again. “I never knew they could transform at all—certainly not into lizards. But then again, the books I’ve studied all considered the stories of wyverns to be fables the storytellers had created.”
“They are mine ,” Celestina repeated as more and more of the iridescent wyverns took to the sky. “They will rescue the young princes first and then destroy the rest. I will lead them.”
Celestina started to transform, but Soren caught her wrist.
By whatever bond those two had forged, he had the power to stop the transformation. Or, more likely, Celestina stopped it out of respect for that bond. She was, after all, the superior creature.
“Lead them? You’re not a trained fighter or a tactician. Sweetness, you can’t rush into battle without a plan.”
She snapped her teeth. “I’m going to save you and stop Queen Beatrice from harming anyone else.”
As much as I hated to say this, I couldn’t hold the words in. “I agree with your overgrown warrior. We need a plan. The bulk of Queen Beatrice’s army might be undead, but they’re not brainless. They quickly adapted to my attack. While having more fire-breathing creatures to fight with us will help our side, I don’t want to risk giving Queen Beatrice an opening she could use to escape. The last thing we need is for her to rush off and use her magic to attack our clan.”
“And if you want to save the children,” Raya added, “we need to use stealth.”
Celestina blinked several times before her eyes stopped glowing. The wyverns gracefully returned to the ground and shifted back into lizards. “You’re right. The boys must be protected.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Calling the wyverns made me feel powerful, invincible. I was ready to rush into the enemy camp and rain fire on everyone there.”
“You are powerful,” Soren said, hugging her to his side. He kissed the top of her head. “And fearless. But I’m glad you’re willing to let us mere vampires and humans help.”
We all returned to the central tent where Soren kept his maps. Seeing on paper the location of the two armies drove home how outnumbered the Fein were.
“Her numbers keep growing, especially now that they’re harvesting our dead.” Soren sounded tired as he leaned over the map and pointed to a mountain pass. “Here.” He pointed to another mountain pass. “And here. Those are the places Queen Beatrice would use if she wanted to escape back to Earst.”
“I hadn’t realized how far she’d pushed into Fein territory,” Celestina said as she ran her fingers over the map.
Mary carried in dinner for us. The flavorful stew was nearly identical to the venison stew Celestina liked to cook for the families at the plateau. We ate as we strategized.
I was impressed with Soren’s intelligence. He recounted how Queen Beatrice’s army had responded to their attacks and proposed what we could do to take advantage of the undead warriors’ relentless battle tactics. He suggested that his warriors attack in a way Queen Beatrice would expect. That would be the diversion. The wyverns would then circle around and take the camp, the queen, and her generals by surprise. It was a sound plan.
“No.” Celestina whirled on Soren. “Your strategy puts too many of your warriors at risk. And unlike Queen Beatrice, we can’t simply bring those who fall by the sword back from the dead. There must be another way.”
“There is,” I said, and laid out my plan to destroy Queen Beatrice and her unnatural army.
“I don’t like it,” Cullen transmitted into my mind. “ Your plan puts you in the middle of the enemy camp.”
I smiled at him with my sharp dragon’s teeth. “ That’s where I do best.”
Cullen took off his glasses and growled at me.
“What’s going on between the two of you?” Soren asked.
“Lovers’ spat,” Cullen answered as he bared his fangs at me.
“A disagreement,” I corrected, wishing we were alone so I could show him just how much I liked seeing those pearly white fangs of his.
Gray shook his head. “An argument? You two are just staring at each other.”
“Clearly, they’ve formed some kind of telepathic connection,” Raya said. “And by the looks they’re giving each other, I’m putting my coins on lovers’ spat.”
I snarled at Raya.
“Oh!” Raya purred. “Are you going to include me in your sex games? I do like a three—”
“No.” Cullen cut her off. He kept his gaze locked with mine. “I don’t share.”
My silly heart pounded faster. The selfish monster inside me liked that he wanted exclusive access, especially considering how I’d bite off the fingers of anyone who dared touch him.
“The brats are a priority,” I said.
“The children,” Celestina immediately corrected. “We need to free Queen Beatrice’s sons before we can do anything else.”
After many back-and-forth arguments and disagreements about how we should proceed, the others eventually agreed that I was uniquely qualified to rescue the little human brats… children. I had, after all, already rescued Soren from Queen Beatrice’s camp by turning to air and whisking him and his reckless brother out of the camp while soldiers had fired arrows at us. I was sure I could do it again. As soon as the boys were a safe distance away, I would let Celestina know that it was safe for the wyverns to go in and lay waste to everything and everyone in the camp.
“The commotion I make by taking the boys away from their evil mother will cause any nearby troops to rush back toward the camp.”
“And to follow after you,” Cullen pointed out.
I bowed my head in agreement.
“If that happens, Amaya will need to fly in the direction of our largest number of waiting wyverns,” Soren said. He went on to describe how his warriors would set up a perimeter around the camp to stop anyone from escaping.
“Queen Beatrice doesn’t survive to see morning,” he concluded.
No one inside the tent disagreed. Not even Celestina, who was the least bloodthirsty of us. “I would feel safer knowing she’s gone,” she murmured after a long silence.
It was close to midnight once we’d all agreed on our roles and the perfect time to set the plan into action. “No need to wait for something awful to happen. Let’s go,” I said. I started for the tent’s exit so I could transform into the midnight dragon. Since my dragon form flew faster than I could in my air form, I planned to remain a dragon until I reached a point where Queen Beatrice’s forces might spot me. That was the benefit of being a midnight dragon. My scales disappeared into the darkness.
But before I made it more than a step outside the tent, and before I could transform, Cullen pulled me into a tight embrace and kissed me until I was panting with lust.
“We’re not finished here,” he grumbled into my mouth.
“No,” I agreed. “There’s much I still want to do with your body.”
He nipped my lower lip. “I’m still waiting for you to eat me, Darkness. And if you do a good job, I’ll return the favor and eat you until you’re screaming my name.”
He said that loud enough that everyone in the tent heard him. My cheeks flamed hot. Not from embarrassment, but from wanting to do that now. I didn’t care if the entire world heard how much we ached for each other. Dragons had a long history of lusting after anything with a heartbeat. It would be odd if I exclusively mated with my own kind.
“Keep your wits about you and return to us whole, Amaya,” Cullen transmitted. The calm of his words created a tingly warmth in my chest that I liked too much to be able to dismiss as heartburn.
Dammit . I had feelings for my stupid vampire prince.
And those feelings weren’t hate or anger or any of the other emotions that powered my naturally grumpy personality.
“You’re the one who needs to act with care. If you die, I will use Queen Beatrice’s blood magic to bring you back just so I can kill you myself, you understand me, fang boy?”
“No dying. Got it.” He kissed me one more desperate time before we parted to take down a kingdom.