Page 2 of Exquisite Monster (Dragons of Viria #2)

CHAPTER TWO

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KATALENA

I fell for a very long time.

So long that time seemed to stretch and bend around me.

Voices emerged from the wind.

Helena, my grandmother, and even my mates whispering in my ear that they loved me.

There was nothing but darkness.

At least I wouldn’t see the end coming.

Tiny claws pricked into my side, and I gasped. Varí had been so still I hadn’t even realized he was still with me. He shouldn’t be here.

“Fly, Varí .”

His claws gripped me tighter.

“Please.”

I felt the gentle bump of his head. A clear no .

Emotion hitched in my chest. I didn’t want to die. I’d never wanted to, and I certainly never wanted to take anyone with me.

Please let it be quick.

But it wasn’t.

We kept falling.

Was this what eternity felt like?

Maybe.

The air thickened and warmed. The cold mist from the water falling with me shifted to muggy steam, and suddenly the piercing claws of the wind felt like hands dragging at me, slowing me down, cradling my fall.

Which was impossible.

Wasn’t it?

Pain rolled through me as I hit something hard, and then again.

I felt pelted as I fell, like I was hitting…

rocks? The walls around this eternal hole glowed faintly with lavender light, and in that light, I saw the shapes of pebbles and rocks hovering in the air like the laws of the world meant nothing.

And still we fell, though it felt more like floating now. I could control my body and turn this way and that. I managed to flip myself over and stare down into the dim, lavender-coated darkness.

More than just stones hovered in the air. There were weapons and shields. Shoes and other human clothes. What might have been a tangle of flowers brushed past my cheek.

Anxiety clung to the inside of my ribs. If I weren’t to die dashed on the bottom of the world, then what would happen to me? What was this place, and was it worse than whatever afterlife death could have afforded me?

“ Varí ,” I whispered. “What is this place?”

He moved, slowly climbing my dress until he was on the outside and could move up my body once more, eventually reaching my shoulder. He perched on my back, staring down into the abyss with me. A small chirp was my only answer, and I sensed that he didn’t know any more than I did.

Something shimmered down below, roiling and moving like?—

The rushing sound reached me a moment later. All the water that fell from Evrítha was below. A tumultuous sea I couldn’t sense the end of. Maybe this would be the end after all.

My body jerked to a stop in the middle of the air, bouncing as if attached to a string. We floated together above the seething water, close enough to touch the mist off the surface and feel that it was warm .

Your kind does not usually survive to the bottom .

A resonant female voice filled my head. It had sharp edges and felt like the entire world rested inside it.

Varí chirped like he had heard it too.

I opened my mouth, but no voice came out. Was this a dragon? Something worse? My chest ached with the fear and tension of falling for so long.

I will offer you a choice. Be eaten, or drown.

“Wait,” I gasped. “Please.”

Varí growled, that strange language ripping out of him with a fierceness that shocked me.

I haven’t waited for anything in more than a century. And certainly not for a human.

Heat rolled over my skin as Varí unleashed fire into the air with a tiny roar that had me smiling in spite of myself.

“Please,” I said. “Even if you must kill me, spare Varí . The dragon. He’s done nothing.”

It took me long seconds to realize I could no longer move. My head was frozen, staring straight down at the bubbling water, so though I sensed movement and the shape of a creature looming through the misty dark, I could not look to see it.

Deep growling vibrated the air. I wished I could understand the tongue of the dragons to know, because that’s what the creature was. A dragon. The violet scales I could see out of the corner of my eye confirmed that.

Varí spoke back.

Warm steam like breath hissed towards us, and the vast feeling of… annoyance .

The hold on my body released, and we plunged downward. I grabbed for Varí , and he wrapped himself around my arm, clinging to me just in time for us both to crash beneath the warm, bubbling surface.

Before I could even try to swim, an invisible force wrapped around me, pulling me back out and dropping me onto wet black rock. I sputtered for breath, aching with the impact and the reality that I wasn’t dead.

I wasn’t dead.

Sagging on the stone, I hauled in damp, shaking breaths.

I wasn’t dead .

My mates weren’t dead either. Where their bond lived within me had faded, but it wasn’t broken. If asked how I knew, I wouldn’t be able to articulate the words, but I knew.

Varí released me and flopped onto the stone beside me, his little chest heaving just as hard. He blinked at me and closed his eyes.

“Whatever you said,” I whispered, “thank you.”

“He said you were the mate to the Heirs of the dragons and he would defend you until his death, even if that meant going against the Elders themselves.”

Spinning, I saw a woman standing over me.

An old woman. Older than Ellemar with her fabric hoard.

Her hair was silver and braided down her back.

She leaned on a dark staff nearly as tall as she was, and though she was old, there was nothing frail about her.

Her back was straight, her stance steady.

There was no doubt in my mind that she was just as strong as she’d always been.

Her eyes glowed violet in the darkness, power tangible in the air all around us. It shivered against my skin.

Slowly, her gaze rolled over Varí and me, taking in our disheveled state. Her lips flattened, and she jerked her head, as if I was meant to follow her.

“Try not to drip too much,” she said with a scowl. “I still haven’t decided whether or not to eat you.”

She disappeared into the velvet darkness, leaving Varí and me staring at each other before we both scrambled to follow.