With that thought in mind, Ilith bared her teeth at the interloper.
The other dragon-ridden from before, still in his human shape, crossed behind the rose-gold dragon, shepherding the dragonlettes away from the other dragons.
Good. At least one of you has enough common sense to make sure the children are out of harm’s way.
Ilith barely paid her any attention, the claws of her front and back paws sinking into the soft stone of the courtyard.
Blaise’s wings rustled as he bounced forward a step. This was a dragon’s way of saying, ‘Let’s play.’
A low sound built in Ilith’s throat. The kind that would raise the little hairs all over a person’s body and send their stomach crashing to their feet.
The rose-gold dragon cocked its head and grinned.
Tate’s sigh accompanied Ilith’s headlong rush forward. She leapt, tackling Blaise.
At least, that was her intention.
Blaise didn’t go down. He lifted onto his rear paws, batting her in the nose with one paw as his wings spread wide to give him balance.
Ilith reared back and shook her head, her eyes smarting from the unexpected pain. She roared, spinning and slapping her tail into his side. How did he like that?
Neither dragon paid any attention to the statue beneath them. Their paws trampling it further until it crumbled into fist-sized pieces of stone.
Ilith’s movements were a little awkward at first. It had been a long time since she’d fought another of her kind, and the memories from several lifetimes ago were slow to come back to her.
Gradually, she got the hang of it, her movements smoothing out until they felt natural.
Blaise’s dragon, being bigger and heavier, relied mostly on brute force, an effective strategy against Ilith’s smaller size.
She wove back and forth, using her quicker speed and more flexible body to gain the advantage.
She’d just sunk her teeth into the rose-gold dragon’s shoulder when a thunderous roar came from the building.
Ilith froze in place as a murderous aura surrounded her. She slowly unlatched her teeth as Blaise’s dragon held still, his gaze focused on the presence behind her.
Ilith backed away, placing each paw precisely until she was facing the person capable of creating that heavy feeling.
A dragon in human form glared at her.
He was tall with short, sandy colored hair. It wasn’t until you looked in his eyes that you saw the dragon contained within. Centuries of existence lurked behind those eyes. Trials. Sorrows. Difficult choices that still haunted him.
Until Ilith, he’d been considered the oldest living dragon-ridden and it showed. Not in wrinkles or signs of age but rather in the aura he projected.
Blaise’s dragon edged back several steps, his head lowering in submission.
Ilith didn’t move as the human dragon observed the destruction of the once beautiful courtyard garden.
Marks that could only be attributed to Ilith’s claws were carved in the cobblestone. Those flowers and hedges that hadn’t been crushed were unearthed and tossed to the side. The statue Ilith crashed into was no more than dust at this point.
Ilith and the rose-gold dragon flinched as Thora’s gaze snapped toward them. Ilith wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t. Really. The elderly deserved to be humored. That was all.
The silence deepened as Thora stared at them. The tension growing until it saturated the air.
Abruptly, Ilith retreated, leaving Tate to deal with the fall out.
* * *
Pain thrust Tate to the forefront. She came to herself crouched on the remains of the statue, her footing uncertain.
