The Mating Game: Dating a Dragon(34)

Cynthia arched one delicate eyebrow and looked down her nose at Cadence. “Icicle spears will work – against humans. They’ll bounce right off a dragon’s scales. They’re not going to cause harm unless you’re lucky enough to get one in the eyeball, or if its mouth is open but not blasting out flame.”

Cadence rolled her eyes. “I assume you had me flown up here for a reason. What else are you suggesting I can do?” she demanded.

“This.”

Cynthia crouched down, seized Cadence, and lifted her high. Then she hurled her off the cliff edge.

Within seconds, she shifted and dove after her.

Cadence was falling, falling, not shifting… Still in human form… She appeared to be completely limp…

Damnation.

Time for the backup plan

Nikolai was crouched on a crag below the cliff, and he shot out, his red scaly body twisting, his mighty wings beating as he raced to catch Cadence.

Then there was another flash of brilliant red as a female dragon shot out of the cliffside, and Cynthia’s heart stuttered in her mighty plated chest.

It was Viola. Viola, who’d been banished to the far side of the Garrison property, who’d been bitterly complaining about how poorly Orion had treated her.

She’d been hiding out in one of the mountainside’s many craggy folds. How long had she been waiting there? Possibly days, or weeks. Waiting because she knew that Orion loved to take Cadence up to the mountaintop.

Viola sent out a fire blast at Nikolai, and he disappeared in a ball of flame. Of course, flame couldn’t hurt him, but it disoriented him, and he slammed into the mountainside so hard that the mountain shuddered. Cynthia thought she heard a crack – had one of his wings broken? Yes. He started to plummet to the ground, madly flapping his one good wing. They were hundreds of feet in the air. A fall from this height could kill him.

Her son or the mother of her grandlings?

Cynthia had to make a split-second choice.

She dove after Cadence.

Panic seized her, and she flapped her wings frantically, but she knew she wasn’t going to make it. Cadence was falling too fast. She’d hit the ground and die; every bone in her body would shatter.

About fifty feet from the ground, Cadence’s human form vanished and there was a mighty white beast in its place, enormous leathery wings beating the air. Viola headed straight for her, and directed a stream of flame that Cadence barely dodged.

Cynthia changed course, diving after her son. She slid underneath him and supported his weight, slowing his fall. They both landed on the ground with a hard thud, and he rolled off Cynthia and staggered, disoriented and groaning.

His wing hung limply. He wouldn’t be able to fly for weeks.

He shook his mighty head and glared at Cynthia.

Cynthia hung her head and closed her eyes tightly. She’d screwed up really, really badly. She’d nearly killed her son and Cadence both.

Then she heard a whistling sound and saw Viola plummeting from the air.

Viola, covered in a thick coat of ice, her wings frozen solid, fell from hundreds of feet high and hit the ground so hard that Cynthia felt the vibration running through her feet. She lay shuddering and twitching in her death throes.

Cadence landed near Cynthia in the meadow and shifted into human form. She stalked up to Cynthia, who was also human again now. Nikolai was still in dragon form, shooting looks of pure rage at his mother.

“You idiot!” Cadence screamed, fists balled. “I fainted when you threw me off the cliff! How the hell am I going to shift if I’m unconscious?”

“Wait!” Cynthia wailed, holding up her hand. “I had a backup plan! There was me, and then there was Nikolai! So I had two backup plans.”

“Yeah, that didn’t work out so well, did it?” Cadence spat at her.

Before Cynthia could answer, Cadence hauled off and punched her in the nose. Pain exploded in Cynthia’s head as her nose shattered and blood flew everywhere.

“That is for throwing me off a damn cliff!” she yelled. “If you ever do anything like that to me again, I will freeze you into a giant corpsicle!”

Then she shifted into dragon form in mere seconds, lifted into the air, and flew back towards the castle.

“Worth it,” Cynthia muttered through the blood that dribbled down over her lips.

Nikolai let out a blast of flame in response that singed her hair and blackened a patch of grass.



When Orion got back that afternoon, everyone excitedly directed him to the south meadow – where he was greeted by the sight of an enormous, beautiful white dragon. The dragon had blue eyes blinking at him under white lids, and lay curled up waiting for him, tail wrapped around her body. The tip of her tail was spade-shaped, almost like a heart. She glittered like an ice sculpture in the sun.