another exhalation of breath, forcing them to drop more speed, his wings back-flapping hard. He clenched his teeth and was about to close his eyes when something else caught his attention.
More people.
Lots more people.
People with cameras and lights and microphones…and was that a catering table?
Big cameras like the ones they use to make movies.
Oh shit…
He thought the pilot had been in trouble and aiming for an empty field in which to crash.
But the pilot hadn’t actually been in trouble at all. He’d been shooting a scene for a movie. And Ravi had flown right into their shot.
Oh yeah, there was no doubt about it now. Alric was going to skin him and mount his head on his office wall.
Maybe it had been a controlled flight before, maybe not, but Ravi had complete control of it now. And he had to focus on getting them to the ground before he really screwed this up. He back-flapped again, and this time he was able to drop the plane the last three feet to the ground.
Before Ravi could come up with any kind of plan to escape this new mess, his heels hit the dirt hard, causing him to skid forward. Dirt and dust were flung into the air in every direction, creating a small cloud around him and the plane. But not nearly enough for him to hide in. He might not be a large dragon, but he was big enough that his shining blue scales showed bright against the silver metal and vibrant green grass.
When he and the plane had come to a complete halt, Ravi carefully balanced himself, leaving his wings half-unfurled as he regarded the gathered people. No one moved. If he hadn’t known better, he would have said they were all props, mannequins. Except for the fact that several of them were holding up their cellphones, recording everything.
Ravi lifted his head and looked into the cockpit to find the human who was sitting there, looking stunned and utterly confused. But his chest was rising and falling rapidly, and he blinked a couple of times. Good. Still alive. At least he hadn’t given the poor guy a heart attack.
He waggled his claws at the human and tried to smile, but the man just got paler. But then, he seemed more focused on Ravi’s enormous teeth than his friendly expression.
Not that humans were good at reading friendly on a dragon’s face. Cameron had teasingly said that dragons either looked like they wanted to eat you or were bored. Right now, the pilot looked like he was reading eat you on Ravi’s face.
Sighing, Ravi slowly moved to where most of the humans were gathered on the grassy field. He stood there for a second, wracking his brain. Nothing really useful was coming to him, so he waved one talon-tipped hand at the people.
“This is not the dragon you were looking for,” he said in his most hopeful tone.
One woman’s mouth fell open, and she lowered her phone a little. “Did—did you just try to do a Jedi mind trick on us?”
“Did it work?”
“No.”
Ravi’s shoulders slumped, and he gathered his wings tighter against his body, trying to pull together as much dignity as he could muster, considering the mess he’d gotten himself into.
“Damn you, Obi Wan. You made it look so easy.”
No one seemed to know what to say to that.
Ravi gave them his best puppy eyes. “Could we keep this whole little thing just between us?”
Someone else on the ground barked out a high-pitched laugh. “No way. I’m livestreaming this on Instagram.”
“Facebook,” another woman chimed in.
“TikTok,” a third person added.
“Scheiße,” Ravi cursed under his breath. Alric was definitely going to kill him. With a little wave of his hand, he mumbled an embarrassed, “Sorry for disturbing your movie. I thought the pilot was in trouble.”
And then he launched himself back into the air.
He didn’t care about fog, clouds, or trying to hide himself in any way. It was too late for that. Now he was just a blue blur in the sky as he raced toward a secluded spot. He needed to warn the other dragons back at Burkhard.
The kilometers raced by below him, and he didn’t stop again until he was in an uninhabited area well past Dover. That had been his original plan, to stay away from civilization until he reached a library.
Now he didn’t know what he should do.
In what looked to be a lonely stretch of woods, Ravi set down and shifted into his human form. His