clearing. With a thought, she shifted from human to dragon and took to the air. She’d barely gotten off the ground when another set of strong dragon arms wrapped around her from behind, blocking her wings from fully extending.
“Got you!”
She went to spit out a spell until she saw midnight-blue scales on the arms that held her. Shalin looked over her shoulder and started in surprise. “Ailean?”
“I can explain everything.”
What kind of greeting is—
Her eyes widened. “This is your fault, isn’t it?”
“Why assign blame here?”
“Wait. What?”
“No time for answers, dragoness. We have bigger problems at the moment.”
Northland dragons bursting from the clearing and heading straight for them proved him right.
Ailean pushed her away. “Fly, Shalin! Toward Kerezik. Go! Now!”
Shalin did as ordered, turning away from Ailean—barely noticing that the dragon had on his battle armor—and heading toward the land of Kerezik. Although what waited for her in Kerezik, she had no idea.
The first blast of lightning hit him dead in the chest, knocking Ailean back a hundred feet. Thank the gods for his battle armor. The breastplate protected him from the power of their attack. At least until they went for his head.
They sent out another blast and Ailean spun to his left. As the purple bastards took in breaths to assault him again, he unleashed a line of flame, hitting the one in the front. The dragon flew back right into the range of Arranz, who hit him with a breath of flame that shoved him into one of his kinsmen. Bideven swooped up from underneath and took aim at the weakest spot on any dragon, the underbelly. While Ailean’s armor protected him from that, the Lightning dragons wore no armor. Probably because they’d felt safe coming into Dark Plains territory at the behest of the princess.
Too bad Ailean had never been known for following the dictates of anyone but himself. Hence why his time in active duty in the Dragon Queen’s Army had been short-lived. He was too good a fighter for them to take his rank completely, but he was only called to battle when they needed him. Otherwise Ailean had been too much trouble to tolerate among the general rank and file.
The Lightning dragons screamed in agony as Arranz circled around them, his battle sword drawn. “Go, little brother. We’ll follow.”
“Are you sure?”
“Go!” Arranz ordered before unleashing another blast of flame.
Ailean turned and followed Shalin.
Not far from Kerezik, Shalin waited until the blue dragon passed beneath her. Ailean hadn’t told her everything, and waiting until he’d come up with a satisfactory excuse didn’t sit well with her. Besides, she was angry and felt the need to take it out on someone.
Eyes narrowing, she dived into Ailean, crash-landing on his back.
“What the—”
“What did you do?” she demanded, grabbing handfuls of his hair and yanking.
“Ow! Have you lost your mind?” Ailean bellowed, angering her more for some reason.
“What did you do? I know this is your fault!”
She yanked again, knowing how much Ailean the Wicked prided himself on his hair. True, it was shinier and more beautiful than most, but that only made Shalin want to rip every hair from his head!
Ailean headed toward the land below them but, tricky bastard dragon that he was, he waited until the last moment before flipping onto his back. Shalin slammed hard into the soft lakeside dirt, the weight and speed they’d been going pushing her until she slammed into ancient trees half-circling the lake.
Yet even after all that, Shalin still refused to release his hair.
Ailean scrambled off her, not wanting to crush her. She was small for a dragoness and he was bigger than many dragons. Add in his armor, and he could easily crush her.
But still…his hair!
Yet when he went to stand, he realized she still held on to his hair with both claws and kept yanking. Not only did it hurt, but he could feel hair ripping from his head.
Mad cow!
“Release me, Shalin!”
“Not until you tell me what you did! I’ll rip every hair from your enormous head if I have to!”
To prove it, she did just that, strands of hair tearing right from his scalp.
Snarling, Ailean slapped at her claws. When that didn’t work, he grabbed hold of her wrists and slammed her forearms to the ground, using his weight to pin her into place. Startled, she released him, but he knew she might go for his hair again if he didn’t calm her.
“Shalin, stop this. Now!”
“Tell me what you did, Ailean the Whore!” she spat into