I looked back to see that lights had sprung to life in the main building below, and figures were rushing out.
“Crap. We should—”
Caz had already shifted and dropped his wing at my feet. I climbed up it, and seconds later we were flying as low to the ground as the dragons could manage until we put some distancebetween us and any pursuers.
Only once we started to climb higher did I breathe a sigh of relief. We had done it.
We had rescued one of my friends.
Twenty-Seven
Anna
Casimir flaredhis wings to catch a blast of warm wind, and we settled down onto the grass-covered edge of the plateau with the tiniest of bumps.
I immediately looked over at Ella to see how she was doing, but for the moment the awe of flying had taken the edge off what she’d gone through at the hands of Yarl and his associates. We hadn’t had a chance to discuss it yet, but if they put slave collars on everyone at the estate, it wasn’t for a positive reason.
“This is a bit more exposed than I was thinking,” I said to Caz, leaning forward and resting my body against his neck, listening to the slow exhale of his lungs and the deep, sonorous beat of his massive dragon heart.
A heart he wanted to give to me, if I would just let him.
I bit my lip. Could he feel my heart against him? Did he know just how much of it he had come to occupy in a short amount of time?
“What were you imagining?”
“Some sort of bunker or rock fort inhabited by flights of dragons?” I patted the side of his neck. “But I’m sure you did your best.”
Caz snorted, and I was launched six inches in the air from the effort. Laughing and having prepared myself for something along those lines, I gave his scaled neck a few more pats.
“A large bunker is hidden under the cabin,” he explained. “But up here, seclusion is going to be the first line of defense. Few people know it exists. Even fewer know I own this land.”
I glanced behind us, where the plateau dropped away sharply. The sheer cliff face that surrounded three sides of the large flat area were no joke. No lip, no slope. Level ground one step, death fall the next. The grass grew up and over the edge as well, providing no break to help see it coming.
“Maybe,” I said, getting up and heading for the wing Caz now extended for me. “But calling this acabinis a bit of a power move.”
The building in question was four stories tall with sharp sloped roofs to dump the snow that piled up and massive whole timbers used as the foundation pieces. Each one had to be four feet across easily. The brellwood didn’tneedto be that thick to support such a construction, but it added a rustic charm that wasn’t unappreciated.
“You should see some of the other properties I’ve inherited from prior tyrants. If you thinkthis is gaudy …”
“It’s not gaudy,” I said, staring at the front wall, made of mostly of glass to provide the best view. “But calling it a cabin downplays the size of it. This has to have, what, ten bedrooms? Twelve?”
“Sixteen,” Dirk grunted as he approached with Ella walking a foot apart at his side, keeping a strict distance.
“Yeah. This is a … compound,” I said, settling on the word.
“No, compounds have walls, I think,” Ella said, shaking her head and sending her brown hair flying. “This is a chalet.”
“A what?” The rest of us turned to look at one another in confusion.
“It’s, um, a term humans use,” Ella said hurriedly.
Dirk frowned at her, but I knew better. Ella didn’t talk about it much, but she’d spent the better part of a decade on the surface, living among humans on the run. Milly and I had broken her free from the hunter that had found her and brought her back.
“Well, thischaletis lovely. All that wood, it’s gorgeous, and so is the view.”
“There’s a pond so large it’s almost a lake out the back,” Dirk said, pointing to where we could just see water lapping against the shore at the base of huge needled trees that jutted high into the sky.
In the distance, behind the trees, a cliff face rose high in the sky once more, vertical and windswept. From what I had seen, the only way in or out was by air or mountain climbing.
