“Holy Fairy,” I quietly muttered in horror. “He’s going to get us caught.”
“Is he doing that on purpose?” Minnie hissed, keeping her eyes on her target. “I know he’s big…but…”
“I don’t think he is doing that on purpose,” I whispered in awed fascination, my mind whirling for reasons. I finally mumbled, “He’s a dragon. He doesn’t truly have to use stealth as we do. So he never has.”
“That is embarrassing.” Then Minnie suddenly choked when he rolled and slammed into a tree. “I am retracting my previous statement. This is justpathetic.”
“Tell him he did an excellent job later,” I whispered distractedly, unable to look away from this horror. It just kept gettingworse. He was missing the guardians by sheer luck alone. “Don’t lead him to believe he needs to train on it.”
“To know his weakness?”
“Exactly.” My emerald eyes widened in shock. “He…did not just climb in that window, did he?”
“Oh my Fae,” Minnie rasped gutturally, observing this shitshow with me. “Oh…there he goes back out the window.”
We watched as the dragon king slammed into the ground and held utterly still, thankfully, covered in his disguise, as a woodland sprite stuck their antlers and then their head out the window with a perplexed expression, glancing all around. Our breath held for a long few seconds until their head and then their antlers disappeared back inside.
This time when the dragon king moved, it was slower, and yet, I could still tell he was sniffing each window—because his Fae head kept bobbing up and down like a flag for all to see.
“I am thinking we will need a new plan to get out of here that does not involve stealth.” I finally sighed in relief when he entered the correct room. “What say you, love?”
As vines began to curl around my ankles, she looked up at me, digging her fingers further into the dirt, and stated bluntly, “We arefaroutnumbered. I think this will be a mess whichever way we play it, and once we have King Athon and our daughter, they’ll know we’re here. We aren’t getting out of here without fighting.”
My brows furrowed as the vines worked their way up my body. “I don’t want you or Trixie hurt.”
“Then start thinking, my king. A plan is needed.”
* * *
“Shh.”King Elonhissedin furious aggravation, and flat-out whapped the back of the dragon king’s head. “What are you doing? Just…get behind us and follow what we do.Please.”
I looked up under my lashes at the fumbling idiot dragon king and simply pointed sharply at the end of our line behind me, my nostrils flared in wrath as he—yet again—had knocked something off a wall. Now I understood why the dragon lived in a barren cave.
Becausethey fucking broke everything!
I was so angry right now that I couldn’t even speak.
Breathing heavily through my nose, I glared at his violent expression as he stalked back silently to where he fucking belonged.
The fact we hadn’t been caught yet was due to our keen observation of the dragon king, watching him like hawks and hurriedly catching everything he managed to bang into.
Standing in front of me, Minnie’s own chest heaved just as much as mine. My lovely soul mate was ready to slice him clean through, and she would have done so by now if we didn’t need him to get us back to our realm.
As it was, I’d had to grab her twice to keep her from stabbing a dagger in his throat—once, an inch away from making an impact. An act the dragon king had not wholly agreed with, resulting in a dead-eyed stare now every time he looked at her.
This…was a Fae damnedexperienceso far.
King Elon peeked around another corner, sneaking a quick look before pulling back. Then he crept around the corner, with my soul mate quickly following. As I moved to shadow their lead, I grabbed the dragon king’s shirt and pulled him directly behind me, not allowing him to stand too close to any wall or door or light or picture or statue or artifact or sign or broom oranything else.
He grappled with my fisting hand in his shirt for all of seven seconds before he sighed heavily in defeat and just let me guide him,growlingsoftly in his throat—an interesting dragon sound, to be sure.
The growl was quiet. It truly wasn’t loud.
But, apparently, it raised the alarms!
Because…Pixies.
Fucking pixies suddenly appeared at the end of the hallway we were in, buzzing in the air like colorful gnats from a distance, disordered and jumbled and excited.
