Page 21

Vera

I’m woken by a piercing shriek.

I sit bolt upright, my heart racing. Snickers jumps from the bed, yapping and running in circles around the room.

Erik rolls over and slings a huge arm around me, drawing me back down. “It’s just the wyverns. Ignore them. They probably spotted a snake.”

I hush Snickers, but she won’t listen. The wyverns don’t settle either. When neither of us can get back to sleep, we rise and dress and stumble out into the living area.

Outside, the wyverns are wailing and shrieking and flinging themselves against the netting. The light is gray, and by the door, Erik’s father is pulling on the most enormous pair of black boots I’ve ever seen. He looks up. “Erik. Get your boots and come help me settle them. All hands on deck.”

“Can I help?”

Erik pauses in the act of dragging on his boots. “You know how to ride a motorcycle, don’t you? ”

My heart skips a beat. It’s been so long since I’ve had the chance. I nod excitedly.

“Well the hoverbikes are really just like driving a motorcycle. You’ll be a natural.”

Eriks’s father frowns. “Erik, are you sure?”

He smiles. “If Inessa says she can do it, she can. Trust me.”

“Hurry up!” Erik’s mother thunders in, pulling her long hair into a hasty braid. “What are you all still standing around for? There’s something out there for certain.”

We rush out to the shed where the hoverbikes are stored. After a brief instruction, we start the ignition and the bike lifts into the air. It takes me a moment to adjust to the sensation of needing to keep it steady vertically as well as horizontally. Erik’s bulky weight behind me is another consideration and it’s been so long since I’ve ridden.

I’m rusty.

The other hoverbike lifts into the air with Erik’s parents riding pillion, his mother slinging a long lasso over her shoulder. “Get the queen. She’ll lead the others to the dens!”

What could have set the beasts off like this? I can only imagine a creature terrifying enough to threaten a wyvern.

We zoom toward a small domed entrance to the aviary and hurry inside. Once both bikes are inside the airlock and the outer door is closed, the inner one opens automatically and we race through.

Erik leans forward to speak into my ear. “The queen is the female with the red crest.”

I don’t answer. We’re traveling fast now and the wind is rushing in my ears. I kick the bike up a gear and shoot between shrubs and bushes, searching for where the wyverns are circling, throwing themselves into the netting.

There is a cluster of the dragon-like creatures on the far left of their enormous enclosure, and I make for that group, not sure if I’ll be able to spot the queen.

They’re still shrieking and unsettled. Even I can tell they’re not normally like this.

They’re acting like they did when we first arrived, only more edgy, more aggressive.

A large blue beast swerves midair to bite at a smaller green animal who screams and retaliates with a snap of sharp jaws.

Could there be an intruder?

Erik echoes my thoughts when he leans forward again. “Must be someone on the property. Probably a human. They hate humans.”

But who would come out here to an orc village uninvited?

Of course my mind travels inescapably back to the King of Swords and we drift off course. I have to yank the handlebars around suddenly to prevent us crashing into a small red wyvern who darts in front of us.

“There!” Erik points, his brawny arm thrusting forward over my shoulder at the cluster of wyverns I was making for.

I see her. A female tosses her scaly head, flashing a feathery red crest as she screeches at the others. I make straight for the group of wyverns, completely uncertain what will happen when we get closer. They’re not enormous, but they look highly vicious. The largest of them has a wingspan about the length of my arm but their teeth look very sharp up close.

We’ve lost Erik’s parents somewhere in the huge enclosure, but I don’t stop to worry about that now .

Dodging around a startled wyvern on our left, we close in on the queen.

She must spot us. She launches herself off from where she is hanging on the roof of the aviary and dives, tucking her wings against her body to dart beneath the hoverbike before I can turn it.

Once I’ve maneuvered us around, it takes me a moment to find her again. But the swarm of other wyverns gives her away as they hurry to follow her.

Following, I kick up the speed again, clutching the bike between my thighs, getting a better sense of its balance and torque. This time when the queen tries to escape me, I’m ready for her.

I kill the engine, letting us drop toward the ground, and kick it back on a moment later to swoop toward her as she exits her own drop.

She shrieks at me, gnashing sharp teeth, but I wheel the bike alongside her and Erik tosses the lasso around her neck. “Gotcha!” He yanks the cord enough to tighten it and she flaps wildly, angrily slashing at him with wicked looking talons.

He’s too fast for her. He swings the rope like a yo-yo, flinging her off course and up above the bike, and she has to redirect her energy into regaining her balance.

“That way!” He points to a rocky mass that rises from the grassland to our right and I steer in that direction. As we get closer, I see that there’s an opening in the rock and make for it.

It’s smaller than I anticipated. We’re approaching quickly.

I only have a moment to decide whether the bike will fit through the opening with me and Erik on board, and I decide it will .

It’s a near thing.

I kill the engine as we make it onto the ledge, throwing my weight to the side to skid the bike to a hasty stop just inside the mouth of the cave.

Up close, I can see that there is a metal gate which can be closed across the opening. This must be where Erik’s family keeps the wyverns during extreme weather.

Erik jumps from the bike and hastily releases the queen into the cavern. As soon as he does, he spins and runs for the bike once more. “Quick.”

I don’t need him to tell me twice. The shrieks of the flock following us are getting louder and I start the engine and push us over the ledge and out of the way just as they arrive with a flurry of wings and squawks.

Just then, Erik’s father zooms their bike onto the ledge and his mother leaps from the back to yank the metal gate into place, slamming it shut just as the last wyvern is through.

My heart is racing and I’m breathing hard, but the adrenaline is more from excitement than anything else.

Erik’s mother cracks a huge smile and claps me on the shoulder. “You were fantastic. We could use your help around here more often.”

I let myself smile back, reminding myself that’s a custom in my new home. “I was glad to help.”

“We’d better take a look and see if we can find this intruder,” Erik’s father sighs. “Sometimes human poachers think they can come and steal a crest feather or a talon and sell it. Stupid. Reckless. Most times they get themselves badly injured.”

His mother nods .

I’m starting to see why they might be skeptical about humans.

We get back on the bikes and circle the perimeter but find no damage to the netting, no holes. We also spot no intruders, so eventually we head back to the house and give the wyverns some time to calm down.

Erik’s parents say they’ll need at least a few hours in the dark of the cave.

When we sit down to breakfast my stomach is rumbling as loudly as Erik’s, and so I’m glad when his mother puts a huge spread of eggs and pancakes and bacon in front of us. I would never turn down anything my future mother-in-law served me, but she happened to serve exactly what I’m craving. And maybe all my worry about keeping my figure is for nothing. After all, I’m marrying an orc. Apparently sturdy is more highly prized amongst orcs than slim.

Erik gives me one of his broad tusky smiles. “Ma is right. You were amazing. I think I’ll have to save up to buy you a motorbike.”

I laugh. “Why would I settle for a motorbike now that I’ve ridden a hoverbike? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back now!”

We eat and talk and I almost forget the King of Swords and my uneasy feeling from before.

It’s only when I’m alone later, washing my face in the bathroom, that I think I catch something in the reflection of the mirror.

When I turn there’s nothing there and I tell myself I’m imagining it, but his sharp features go right back to haunting me every still and quiet moment.