Beating my wings hard to gain needed altitude, I glanced over at Magnus. “He’s close by. Isn’t he?”
“My gut says so,” he rumbled. “How it knows when I don’t, I haven’t figured. Could he have been sitting on a rooftop and watched us fly?”
“Jesus, maybe.”
Angling my head around on my long neck, I gazed over my shoulder. Against the starlight flew a great black body. Smart enough to not flame, Arnaud paced us, his wings beating up and down in an almost lazy fashion. The moon lit his eyes, gleaming coldly in the early winter night.
“He’s behind us,” I hissed. “He thinks he can take us both.”
“He might succeed if we don’t make a plan.”
“So what’s the plan?”
Magnus grinned, his lips curling back from the ranks of his long sharp teeth. “Lead him over the Atlantic. As far out to sea as we can. Then drown the mother fucker.”
Magnus led the way, flying faster, heading east over the broad city of Washington, DC toward the mighty Atlantic. I kept pace easily, just as Arnaud also maintained the same distance. Every glance I took over my shoulder showed me the same thing – Arnaud doggedly on our tails.
We flew fast over the harbors, ducked under the radars of the military bases and airports, our wingtips dipping into the ever restless ocean. Within minutes, only blackness appeared below. Above, only stars. Should a passing ship observe flames in the sky, hopefully they’d never associate them with dragons.
“I go left,” Magnus muttered. “You go right. We bank around, catch him between us. He’s tough, he’ll fight. You’ll get hurt, but don’t get killed. I want you to have my babies.”
“Is that all I’m worth to you?”
Grinning, I shot my forked tongue out to lick his muzzle upon seeing his stricken expression. “Don’t you die, buster. My kids need a dad.”
“Go!”
I banked hard to the right, dove, and came up under Arnaud, flaming with everything I had. Perhaps taken by surprise, Arnaud shrieked, and banked hard away from me. Right into Magnus’s path.
“Hiya, Dad,” he yelled, then burned a swath alongside Arnaud’s flank.
Arnaud screamed. “I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you, you bastard.”
He folded his wings and dove, aiming for the sea, forcing Magnus to follow him.
“No,” I yelled, “don’t. It’s a trap.”
Magnus heard me and snapped a hard left, banking around a fraction before Arnaud twisted in mid-air, exchanged his tail with his head, and rose with his flames seeking his son.
Who wasn’t there to burn to ashes.
“Fuck,” he yelled, chasing Magnus across the sky. “Come here, you little shit. You need a spanking.”
As I’d flew hard on Magnus’s tail when he dropped, Arnaud’s broad and exposed back lay open to me as he chased Magnus. I hit him with all my weight, my jaws latching onto his neck, my talons digging deep into his flesh.
“Bitch,” he roared. “I’ll fucking kill you and rape your corpse.”
My jaws on his neck didn’t allow much laughter, but I managed a giggle. “Gud uck wi’ dat.”
He bucked, he twisted, he swore, he flamed, but none of that dislodged me. Arnaud dropped straight toward the ocean below, perhaps thinking that might frighten me off him. Except I loved to swim, even as a dragon, and had practiced it often.
We hit the water with a tremendous splash. The waves closed over our heads, me still attached to his neck. Arnaud used his four limbs to stroke down, deeper and deeper, bubbles popping from his nostrils.Drown, fucker. You’ll drown before I will.
Unfortunately, Arnaud came to that same conclusion.
Turning, he swam for the surface, his blood in the sea enticing predators. He and I broached the surface, Arnaud sucking in deep gulps of air as he beat his wings uselessly against the Atlantic. He couldn’t rise and fly with me attached to his back and burying my teeth deeper and deeper into his neck.
Soon, I’d reach his jugular.
