Zan snorts. «Hardly. I’ll barely feel it.»
He’d barely seemed to feel my weight in human form, too—I wonder if this is why.
Regretfully, I stop touching him and back up a few steps—but only so I can get a running start.
I run toward him and flip into the air to land on his back.
Easy.
“I’m ready,” I tell him.
A beat. «You’re not going to sit down? Hold on?»
Straddle him, in this form? I’m flexible, but I wouldn’t have great leverage doing the splits over his broad back. Maybe if I clamped my legs around his neck and held onto his ears while he—
Nope, not thinking about straddling right now.
“I don’t need to hold still,” I tell him. “I need to move.”
With a dragon the wings beneath me.
Zan is silent a beat, and I realize belatedly thatalsosounded full of innuendo, but this time I didn’t mean it that way even if it may also be true.
But then I realize Zan is taking me at my word—trustingme.
As with a powerful flap of his wings, we lift off into the air.
Chapter 10
Flyingismagical.There’sno better way to put it.
Zan soars into the sky, and I match his movement with my kata, dancing on his back with the wind, creating my own gravitational pull towards him.
I have never felt like such a primal magical force in my life.
I am one with the wind, soaring wild through the sky.
My feet never miss their footing, always unerringly returning to Zan, with whom I’m welcome.
My magic my center, as the world stretches out around me, endless in its possibilities.
I have never felt so free or so powerful, and my joy—and my wrath—is fierce.
Thisis how I could be.
Too soon, Zan’s voice sounds in my mind. «Having fun?»
“So much.” After he first asked me if I was okay and I just laughed back at him in utter delight, I know he can hear me even if I don’t shout.
Now I feel him smile, somehow, more than I hear it. «Shall I take another spin around before we land?»
“We’re already here?”
«Yes. There’s a ledge here wide enough for both of us.»
I can have flyingandice cream.
“Okay yes, one more circle, please,” I say.
