Page 6 of The Wild Prince’s Favorite (The Dragon Empire Saga #3)

She smiled in relief, and as she could sit and take a break, she carefully unveiled more flowers. Luckily, they had just been covered by snow not too long ago, so they were still perfectly fine. There were plenty of them too. That dangerous trip had been worth the risks...

Alezya quickly collected them, making sure to leave what it needed for it to regrow some more later as she’d keep that place in mind for emergencies.

Now, her basket was full enough. Those flowers grew in patches and were of medium size too, luckily for her.

The Healer would be able to get enough medicine from all of these.

In a way, Alezya was doing this more for the children of the clan than for her cousin.

She may have been resentful toward the adults, but as a mother, she couldn’t bring herself to make the children suffer for their parents’ mistakes.

She didn’t care about her cousin’s hypocrisy or the Healer being cruel; she was able to find a good reason to do this despite them.

Hence, with her basket full, Alezya came down that plateau, feeling genuinely glad.

She had found the flowers quicker than she’d feared, and it wasn’t late either.

All that was left was going back down. She didn’t even try to rush, instead making sure to have a smooth and safe descent.

Except that she didn’t have as much time as she thought.

While she was changing rocks to step on, a faint spot of color appeared in her peripheral vision. She would have mistaken it for the setting sun, or one of its glowing streaks, if she hadn’t already watched it fall behind the horizon.

At first, Alezya thought she’d dreamed it.

However, it flashed a second time, this time out of the corner of her eye, and a chill immediately ran down her spine.

She turned her head, worried already. She had never seen anything orange flying in the skies, but her gut feeling told her it was no bird, no star.

She could tell. That thing was far, but it was big.

.. monstrously big. It was like a burning fire in the dark skies, both beautiful and terrifying.

After forcing herself to look for a couple of seconds, just to be really sure, she felt her stomach drop.

It was a dragon.

Rather than staying frozen by fear, she moved quickly, her head full of questions.

What was going on? She’d never seen that creature as orange before, was it the same dragon? Or a new one?

She was trembling at the idea of another dragon flying in those skies.

One giant beast was already terrifying enough!

The one she had dared to peek at a few times was definitely black as coal, so what was happening?

Had her clan seen that thing too? It was like a bright fire illuminating the night sky, her father’s sentinels wouldn’t have missed it. ..

Right now, she had to focus on her own safety and hide as quickly as possible. From the size of it, she hoped that thing was far away, but she was still hanging on the side of a mountain, vulnerable and exposed.

It was the worst situation possible.

Alezya accelerated her descent, trying to stay careful while getting back down as fast as she could. It would mean nothing to escape a dragon if she was to break her neck...

When the growl suddenly thundered, she froze, stifling a scream.

She had been out once or twice when the dragon had appeared, but never this close! This was all because she had to go out so late and so far. She couldn’t even believe she was in this situation; It was like her worst nightmare had come true.

Fighting back tears, thinking of her daughter, she hurried down, trying to calm herself by breathing steadily.

With a bit of chance, that thing hadn’t seen her, or it was too far away. She was wearing light-colored clothes in the midst of a lot of snow, perhaps that would be enough to hide her from that creature.

Another growl suddenly filled the skies, and Alezya stopped, closing her eyes hard to suppress the tears and fear.

She wasn’t going to die now. She had a daughter to care for.

She waited, listening. The dragon sounded…

different. She’d heard it plenty of times before, and this time, the growls were higher-pitched, stretched longer.

It was a little like thunder compared to the sharp crack of lightning.

Maybe it was just her fear making everything worse, but something about it felt new. And somehow, more terrifying.

When her feet reached another plateau, she stopped to catch her breath.

She had gone down faster than usual and was a bit lost, not on the same path she had climbed up.

Her palms hurt, but that was a minor detail.

She tried to figure out which area of the mountain she was on, where the closest opening was.

She knew she’d reached the area her clan lived in, but she had to find an entrance to the inside of the mountain, quick.

.. She tried to brush away some of the snow around her to find a familiar spot.

She was trying not to think about how close the dragon could be by now, or how scary it was when she couldn’t hear its position. ..

There! She recognized her clan’s markings on the rocks, telling her exactly where she was.

The closest opening was only seconds away, she just had to get down to the next plateau and make her way down on the left.

With a gleam of hope, Alezya forced herself not to look back and quickly moved. She was so close to safety!

She took one step down, and then she heard it.

A flap of some very, very large wings that couldn’t belong to a bird. Alezya’s blood went colder than the ice around her. It was close.

A chill ran down her spine and she closed her eyes, trying hard to convince herself not to move and not to look back. How close could that thing be? How big was it? She felt the air freeze in her lungs.

She could jump down to the plateau. It was risky but doable. Then, she’d be right in front of the opening, and one step away from safety. She had to decide. To stay still, or make the jump. She tried to calm down.

Her only objective was to get home safe. She trusted herself to make that jump, she didn’t trust the dragon to not try and kill her. ...She had to move, fast.

Alezya took a deep breath, visualizing the jump, doing everything she could think of to increase her chances. She shifted her weight to her right foot, moved her shoulders forward, and then...

Then, a gigantic paw suddenly appeared on her left, and violently pushed her back against the mountain.

The air left her lungs before she could scream.

She felt her right shoulder brutally hit the rocks while the strange heat of large scales rubbed against her left one. She shivered, and unable to resist, turned her head to see the beast.

The orange dragon was right there, staring at her with one of its eyes.

It was a big, dark gray eye, shiny like obsidian, polished as a mirror. She could see herself in it, while well aware of the gigantic iris moving. The beast’s breathing was sending wide waves of hot air against the flank of the mountain, making its whole body slowly move along.

Alezya tried to choke down a cry of pain or fear.

That thing could eat her at any second, and her mind was blank with no idea what to do. Tears were just forming in her eyes as if her body knew before her the fatal outcome of this.

After a while of her staring into the dragon’s eye and the dragon staring back, she started to come back to her senses. The pain was numb, manageable. The fear too. Her will to survive was starting to take over, and her gaze hardened.

“...Let me go,” she suddenly mumbled through her lips.

The dragon answered with a strangely weak growl, but enough to make her whole body shiver in fear.

Still, Alezya bit her lip and repeated herself.

“Let me go, Dragon,” she hissed.

She had no idea if it could hear her, let alone understand. It sounded like it was listening, but she had no clue what that gigantic monster could be thinking of its prey trying to order her freedom. It didn’t matter.

Right now, Alezya was gathering all of her bravery to stand against that predator, to not give up.

“...I have a daughter,” she muttered. “I have a baby girl, and without me, she won’t have anybody. If you kill my child’s mother, I swear, Dragon, I will curse you, your parent, and the next ten generations after you.”

The dragon growled, a bit louder, but this time Alezya didn’t flinch.

She just glared back, as if defying it. She was scared, but she was even more scared for her daughter’s life. She just knew Lumie would be condemned without her, and she couldn’t have that. She would have died to protect her baby, but this time, she had to survive.

“Release me,” she cried, both an order and a supplication. “Release me, Dragon.”

The orange dragon didn’t move at all, but it strangely moved its head, as if tilting it. ...Was it actually listening?

Alezya’s heart was beating fast, hoping, praying she could survive this.

She decided to try to move. She was pinned against the mountain, the dragon’s palm against her, but its claws were dug into the rocks. She could move a bit. She tried to wriggle her way out of its clutches, slowly but surely.

The dragon growled a bit but, strangely, it didn’t move, only watching her do so.

The tiny human in its grasp trying to free herself was perhaps entertaining, Alezya had no idea.

Moreover, she quickly found out it was worth nothing: she was tightly held, the bit of movement she could make was useless.

Frustrated, she kept pushing against the warm orange scales, trying to get even an inch closer to that entrance; the dragon was taking its time before eating her, and she wasn’t going to stop trying in the meantime.

This time though, it seemed as if the beast understood what she was doing.