he’d sneak into Gunter’s library and reorganize all his books according to size, or maybe color.
Ravi amused himself with thoughts of torturing Gunter when he returned to Germany. He didn’t really mind assisting the effort to find and protect more mages, but he’d always imagined it would be more in the vein of what his fellow retainers and friends, Baldewin and Warin, had done. They were sent to meet mages. They fought the evil Jaeggi clan and protected their clanmates.
They’d also found their own mates in the process, which was a nice bonus.
He wanted action. Not…not…research gofer duty.
He wanted…a plane spiraling out of control?
Wait! A plane was spinning out of control as it headed straight for the ground. It was hard to tell from the thick black smoke billowing out of the engine, but it looked like an old war plane. Really old. At least by human standards. Had someone taken it out for a test and lost control?
Indecision tore at Ravi for a heartbeat. All dragons knew they were supposed to stay hidden. They were safer if humans thought they’d all died after the war.
But this person was going to die if Ravi did nothing.
There was no choice to be made. He had to do something. The pilot wasn’t bailing out. Maybe if he acted quickly, no one would see him and he could disappear into the fog.
And if he couldn’t disappear, then Alric was going to strangle him.
Mentally crossing his fingers, Ravi darted forward, putting on as much speed as he could muster to reach the plane. The clouds of smoke pouring out of it provided him with some cover as he got into position above the plane.
It was older than he’d expected, by the looks of it, but in excellent condition. He tucked his wings close for a moment, trying to match the plane’s speed and timing it so that he could wrap his talons around the nose of the beast.
His claws pierced the outer coating and a horrible, shrill squealing rose up as he used his wings and his own control over the wind to stop the plane’s spiral. As he got the plane well in hand, he threw out his wings to their full extension, catching the wind and slowing their descent. But it wasn’t enough. He was too small, and the plane was too heavy.
Sucking in a heavy breath, Ravi summoned more wind. He drew it deep into his lungs and exhaled, using the gust of wind he created to help slow them further. His heart pounded in his ears above the sputtering of the plane engine, and he thought he might have heard a bewildered shout from the pilot, but he couldn’t worry about the human. He had a new problem.
The ground was still coming up very quickly. Like. VERY. QUICKLY.
And there were people on the ground who might go squish if he didn’t control the descent better. Squishing people was bad.
Ravi mentally talked himself through this, even as he put more effort into slowing the plane down. Perched above it like this, he had no way of landing normally, so he had to slow it enough to gently drop it. Yeah. Really gentle drop, that’s what you need to do, okay, self? Right. And then somehow bounce ahead and not land on top of the plane you just dropped.
Oh, and avoid the people on the ground. That would also be a good step.
Shit, he really could use more space here. There wasn’t a lot of room to maneuver.
Even as all of this went through his head, some part of his brain issued a warning. He was going to be seen. Oh shit, Alric was going to be pissed.
But it was okay. He was saving a life. Alric would understand. Ravi would get the plane safely on the ground, make sure the human was okay, and then he’d get the hell out of there before someone got a camera pointed in his direction.
It wasn’t a great plan, but at least he had a plan in place. For Ravi, that was actually rather amazing.
As he and the plane got closer to the ground, he was relieved that the human at least had enough sense to put down the landing gear. Ravi didn’t want to damage the plane more than he already had with his massive talons.
Muscles strained and his wings trembled with exertion. He was going to be so damn sore later. The ground rose up faster and faster. Ravi slowed them further with