Amos was prepared to turn his scales to the poison. It couldn’t harm him unless it got in his mouth or eyes. But a sickening second later, he realized that he wasn’t where the King was aiming.
In his vindictiveness, his willingness to completely and utterly destroy an enemy, the King was willing to destroy his own future. He always had been. That viciousness was one of the reasons he had retained the throne for so long as an older dragon with no heir. He used that viciousness now. And aimed the poison at the wives.
At Lucy.
Amos felt the claws of the other dragons dig into him. One set of them on his shoulder and one on his haunches. But the pain meant nothing to him. It was nothing compared to the thing that was exploding inside of him. The worst, most powerful pain he’d ever felt was rising up in him. He felt it come straight from his belly and up out of his throat. He tasted rage, fear, and mortality in what was ripping up through him.
He tasted the pain he wanted the King to feel. But most of all, he tasted his love for Lucy, and everything he would do to protect her. He opened his mouth to roar and a thirty foot long stream of red hot fire exploded out of him. It incinerated the poison darts in midair. It blew a hole through the rock wall beyond. It instantly hiked the temperature in the hall by thirty degrees.
Amos thought only of Lucy as he turned the spray toward the King, ready to extinguish him from the world.
But he heard Lucy cry out from behind him. He shut his mouth on the fire and turned. The roof of the great hall trembled and quaked as it suddenly was being lifted at the corners. At least ten dragons kicked and clawed, crumbling the roof into the great hall.
Amos locked eyes with a midnight blue dragon he recognized well. Solar.
Amos’s job wasn’t to fight anymore. It was to run. With Lucy. He turned on his haunches and realized he could be quicker in his human form. Transforming on the fly, he sprinted across the hall as a human.
Lucy saw him coming and turned to run along his side, gripping his hand. As they passed, Amos watched Solar land beside Zara and toss one of the velvet tapestries around her so his scales wouldn’t hurt her. He picked her up in his humongous arms and lifted off into the air, that part of the plan complete.
Lucy and Amos sprinted out of the great hall and down a narrow corridor. Lucy had no idea how to get to the portal so Amos shouted directions as they went.
He could hear someone else’s footsteps pounding behind him, but when he looked it was just the Oracle.
“Dude, congrats!” the Oracle yelled.
“On what?” Lucy yelled back.
“On the whole true mate thing!”
“What?!” Lucy screeched.
“I summoned fire,” Amos said as they crashed into the nondescript cellar that held the entrance to the portal. He turned to her and ran a hand over her head.
She nodded. “Which you said dragons can only do to protect their true mate.” Her brow furrowed. She whirled and looked at the Oracle. “Which means I’m pregnant?!”
“I told you that you were fertile myrtle,” the Oracle said, grinning at her and holding his arms out for a hug.
Amos and Lucy hugged one another instead.
“Oh my god,” Amos said into her hair over and over again. But then he looked up, glaring into the Oracle’s face.
“You told me that dragons could only get humans pregnant on the harvest moon.”
The Oracle’s mouth dropped open. “And you believed me?! That’s just some shit I told the King to buy the alliance some more time after Lucy got here.”
Amos and Lucy had twin flabbergasted looks pasted across their faces.
The Oracle covered his mouth with one hand. “Holy shit, have you guys been barebacking it because you thought she couldn’t get pregnant? Wow. My bad, you guys. My bad.”
Lucy put her face in her hands and a little half laugh, a half sob came out. “You know, it’s kind of ok.”
The ground above them shook and a roar from overhead got them scrambling.
“The King,” Amos said, tugging Lucy toward the portal.
“Amos,” the Oracle said. “You’re gonna have to destroy the portal once you’re through.”
“What? I can’t do that! That would destroy the tie between the two realms.”
“Trust me. There’s another one. And if the King gets down here before it’s destroyed he’s gonna come through. And there are more women he could successfully breed with on earth. He can’t get through.”
Amos raked his hand through his hair as the ground shook again. The King was almost there.
“How do I destroy it?” he asked the Oracle.
“With your love fire, baby.” The Oracle grinned and waggled his eyebrows. “I’ll come and find you guys soon. You won’t have to stay on earth forever if you don’t want to raise your little guy there.”