High time I destroyed his.
I flamed as I flew, nearly catching his ass end, his tail, in my heavy swath of fire. He rolled sideways, his wings close to his body, evading the worst of my burst. He responded with his own, his jaws wide as he banked toward me, his red-hot fire singeing my muzzle before I dove for the ground far below.
“I’m on your ass,” Austin screamed, diving right behind me. “I got you, shithole.”
I banked a hard left to avoid his flames.
Something big, something fast, whizzed past me to slam hard into Austin.
Twisting in mid-air, I gaped at the sight before my very eyes.
Lindsey’s black scales gleamed under the starlight. Her jaws clamped hard on Rivers’s throat, she shook him as easily as a cat might shake a mouse, breaking its neck. Strangling, Austin fought to free himself, his talons slashing her chest, her shoulders, her neck. Still, she held on, his blood gushing from under his broken and shattered hide.
I screamed my battle cry, flying hard, flying fast. I hit Austin broadside, my talons raking gaping wounds in his belly, his groin. I bit down hard on his spine just above his tail, my wings keeping me airborne as I chewed down through his scales to his spinal cord.
His blood flooded my mouth. His spine snapped in my jaws.
I slashed his wings into tatters, shattering the delicate bones within them.
His full weight in her jaws yanked Lindsey’s head down.
“Let him go,” I shouted, spitting his blood from my mouth.
Lindsey obeyed me. His corpse, or body, if he still lived, dropped instantly.
Austin fell, gravity yanking him toward the earth and the forest below. I dove, Lindsey at my side, flaming with everything I had. My wings folded, I fell faster than his corpse. As mine did, Lindsey’s intense flames consumed Austin’s body, turning it to ash, his remains flying across the night breeze. Still, we chased his bones, his skeleton, burning them until nothing of them remained, save tiny bits that dropped amid the trees.
Wingtip to wingtip, we soared low over the forest, stiff branches tickling out bellies. I laughed as we climbed high, flaming in my – our – triumph, winging toward the stars with my love, my fated mate. The bearer of my child, my soul’s gift, the one I loved more than my own life.
“Lindsey,” I screamed, laughing wildly. “I thought that explosion killed you. Gawd, I’ve never been happier to be so wrong.”
She buzzed past my muzzle, faster than a falcon stooping upon a rabbit. “I took a chance. That I’d shift before the explosion hit. Dammit, Brody, I couldn’t let you fight alone.”
I dropped fast, seized her shoulders in my talons, and wrapped my neck around hers. Only my wings kept us from plummeting to the ground, slowing our fall. “I’m glad you did. I’d have killed myself in killing him.”
Lindsey’s forked tongue caressed my muzzle. “I love you, dude. I’m bearing your child. No kid of mine will be part orphan.”
My laughter echoed across the hills, my flames lighting the night. “Our baby. The first of many. My love, you’ve made me the happiest of dragons.”
Lindsey broke from me, banking to the right before winging upwards toward the stars. “You know how much I hate to admit you’re right,” she called, flaming, laughing. “But you are. I feel our child within me. Our firstborn son.”
My wings halted. I dropped several hundred yards before catching myself and working my wings to catch up. “Ourson? Youknowit’s a boy?”
Lindsey, in a move I could never replicate, flew upside down, her muzzle, her eyes, fixed on me. “Yep. Our son. Time to argue over names, I guess.”
I lowered myself until I flew atop her, the missionary position if we were having sex. “Past time. I think we should move, buy a bigger house.”
“In a better city, a more tolerant neighborhood. I’m so done with those assholes.”
“You’re letting them drive us out, babe.”
“Who cares? We’re pregnant, Brody. Our kid needs other kids whose parents won’t judge us. I want my children to grow up accepted and cared for.”
“I love you, Lindsey.”
“I love you back.”
Epilogue
