Page 37 of Firebird (The Fire That Binds #1)
XXXVI
MALINA
Somehow, I summoned the strength to crawl out of Ciprian’s home. I’d watched from the base of a tree in his side garden while Julian ripped him apart. His red dragon was a monumental beast with black horns and black-tipped wings. His golden eyes promised death to all who opposed him.
And yet, I did not fear him. He was my dragon, my protector.
Ciprian had sliced my tunic down the back and was entertaining himself with the blade and his foul taunts. I’d been falling into despair that I’d been outwitted by someone as despicable as Ciprian, but then Julian came. He’d heard my call.
“All is well,” I whispered, stepping naked over stone debris from Ciprian’s crumbled house toward my dragon, my beautiful beast. “I am well,” I told him, raising a palm toward him.
He crouched his body to the blood-spattered terrace, Ciprian’s headless corpse roasting in Julian’s fire beside him. Julian purred deep as he lowered his head at my approach.
Nude and still dizzy from the drugged wine, I stumbled toward him and wrapped my arms around his giant snout, laying my cheek and torso against his warm, smooth scales.
“I’m all right now,” I murmured.
Even as I felt listless and weak, there was a new strength inside me, and I knew instantly what it was. Our bond. Mine with Julian and his dragon. We were one, and we were mighty together.
He rumbled a growl, and I realized I was nearly asleep, resting against him.
“All right.”
I stood straight and looked into one of his narrowed, golden eyes blinking slowly and contentedly at me, reminding me of a cat warm in the sunlight.
“Time to go, I know.”
He kept very still while I managed to climb upon his clawed paw, slipping a little on his bloody scales, until I was finally atop, near the base of his neck, farther away from the spikes that lined his spine. I had nothing to tie myself to him this time, so I gripped the coarse hair that grew down the column of his neck.
“I’m ready,” I murmured low, but somehow he heard me.
He beat his wings softly, swirling the fire and smoke that had engulfed Ciprian’s home into a maelstrom, orange embers floating higher. Julian lifted off gently into the air, taking care not to jostle me, and circled over the conflagration he’d made. The flames licked and hopped through the boughs of trees to the next house, where the neighbors ran out onto the cobblestone street.
They looked up and pointed. It seemed as if this was a dragon’s way of gloating, circling his destruction, making sure everyone knew it was his. Staring down, I could see dots of people all along Palatine Hill, some running toward the fire to see what had happened and some running away.
Of those running away, I noticed two figures—a slim one with blond hair holding the hand of a larger man—Rhea and Doro. I smiled as I watched them turn a corner toward the Aventine.
As Julian made a wider circle, drifting farther away from the firelight, something caught my eye. A pull on my tether drew me to the faint outline of a transparent figure towering high as a mountain, looking down into the flames. My breath caught as she spread her nearly invisible dragon wings wide, gilded by the inferno’s glow. Then she looked at me, her eyes nothing but lavender starlight and wonder. And she smiled.
Julian lifted higher into the night sky so that I had to twist around to look back. But the goddess Minerva was gone. Nothing but flames burning along the Palatine hillside of Rome and stars twinkling in the clear night sky.
Every person on the streets of Rome stopped where they were and looked up, watching us fly away. I wondered if they could see the naked woman flying atop the red dragon. I laughed, for I could hear my sister Lela saying to me now, you’re so reckless .
I didn’t feel reckless though. I felt mighty and strong… and free.
My red dragon roared up into the night, certainly proud of the destruction and death he’d left behind, before he turned away from Rome and flew west, the moonlight guiding our way.