When I bring my hand down, exposed to the dim torchlight, my fingertips are stained a deep blue.
Jace follows my gaze upward to where a female body hangs, pinned against the wall with a massive spike through the gut. Thick, sticky, blue liquid slowly, painstakingly rolls off the tips of her boots and onto our heads below.
Blue blood.
Nausea roils in my stomach as I duck out of the way.
“Oh, fuck,” I spit, retreating into the black cave. I’m met with something thick and dense against my back. I turn, my fingers gliding over the cold, slick surface. My hands collide with something hard, like bone. I feel my way up the smooth length as it tapers to a sharp point.
“Serena,” Jace hisses.
I suck in a sharp breath as the thing before me begins to move. It slithers along the cave floor, sweeping me off my feet. I throw my arms around it, trying to gain purchase as it picks upspeed. As I cross into view of the single torch, the moving surface below me is momentarily illuminated.
Deep purple. Reflective scales.
“Oh my god!” I gasp.
I’m being dragged along by thedragon’s tail.
Before I can scramble off, the tail begins to lift off the ground. Fumbling around, my hands find one of the tall, lethal spikes. I carefully get to my feet, wrapping my arms around it. My stomach drops as I ascend, the way it does on roller coaster rides.
A dizzying sense of vertigo hits me as the tail curls deeper, rotating me fully upside down.
I can’t stop the scream that escapes me.
The tail pauses at the sound. Blood rushes to my head as I grit my teeth, clinging to the spike with wild desperation. But my hands grow clammy and slick. Panic twists in my gut as gravity tugs at me and I begin to slide downward.
My breath whooshes out of me as I slice through the air. I land with a thud, wincing as my back connects with something flat, rising steadily up and down.
The dragon’s back.
Then all hell breaks loose.
The deafening roar that follows sends the rocks above us cascading down over our heads. An explosion of blue fire shatters the darkness, kissing the rock walls and turning them a searing white. The wave of heat that blasts through the cavern is scorching. It’s hard to see anything but that blinding fire in the dark.
“Serena!” Jace’s voice bounds off the cave walls. The dragon jostles to her feet, causing me to slide further down her back.
I groan in pain as my tailbone connects with a solid spike. Flipping over, I curl myself against it to keep from sliding cleanoff. A deep rumble comes from below me, and I know what’s about to happen.
“Jace! Look out!” I shout a split second before another round of dragon fire erupts. If I wasn’t so terrified, the colors of the flames would threaten to enchant me. I can’t see anything but the trajectory of that fire. I can’t see Jace—I can barely see my own hands in front of me as they feel around blindly.
The sound of rustling chains pulls me back to the present moment.
Think, think, think.
I push to my feet, following the sound of clanking iron as the dragon shifts, stretching her massive legs beneath me. It’s like being on a moving obstacle course. I find the chain by tripping over it and land flat on her scaled neck.
Her annoyed growl echoes in my bones as I grapple for the corroded links. A heavy wind tosses my undone hair off my face, accompanied by a loud flapping sound. I can scarcely make out the arching, spiked wings as they stretch behind the dragon’s back and begin to beat.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I mutter, grabbing the chain a split second before she lifts off the ground and blasts up from the center of the earth. My body swings through the air like a pendulum, slapping against her hard form repeatedly. Ignoring my straining arms, I hold tight as she drives us higher and higher up the dark tunnel. A loud rumble rattles in her throat before blue fire bursts from her mouth and blows out the entire top of the mountain.
We break through the rock and soar into the skies.
I dare a glance down. My heart drops when I see Jace dangling from one of the tall spikes along the dragon’s snaking tail.
His grasp slips, and I wail, watching him careen toward a crag of flat red rock below. He tucks into a roll as his shoulderconnects with the ground, tumbling a few times before flattening onto his back. I think I see him moving as we disappear into a cloud.
The air pressure is enough to make me lose my grip, but I am determined. I didn’t come all the way here just to fall from a fire-breathing dragon.
