The Warrior King (Inferno Rising #3) - Abigail Owen Page 0,71
palm and wrapped herself around the slimmest digit, the skin there more like leather, the scales starting farther up around the base of each talon.
“Ready?” he asked. Odd that the telepathic communication sounded so clear in her head. She almost expected to feel the vibration of the noise through his body, but he was utterly still.
With no way to vocalize without risking giving away their position, she patted the digit she held on to.
“Hang on.”
Samael extended his wings to either side, then gave a massive push, wind buffeting her and scattering small rocks across the surface of the ground. Good thing her clothes had dried from earlier. He rose, dipped, and then another downstroke, and up he went another twenty feet or so. Another dip. Another beat of silent wings until he cleared the mouth of the caldera. Still, he continued to lift them slowly from the ground, one stroke at a time until they hovered above the rocks. Even in early spring, the mountains were still blanketed in snow, the air cutting through her clothes and, since her own inner fire was spent for now, immediately freezing her to the bone.
Only she couldn’t say anything. So Meira gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering and held on tighter.
With a move that reminded her of a roller coaster dropping to gather momentum, Samael changed their trajectory. Like a shot, they flung forward. At the same time, he raised his legs, lifting her up until she lay almost on her stomach with her back to his belly, still surrounded by her taloned cage.
To cut the wind, she realized. The way an airplane pulled its wheels inside.
Also, against his belly, the warmth of his inner fire kept her slightly less frozen, allowing her to unclench her muscles. Not that she relaxed.
Like flowing ink, black against the only slightly less blackness of the sky around them, he set a steady rhythm of soundless strokes of his wings. After the initial shock of speeding through the air over the ground under the canopy of dragon wings, Meira closed her eyes and let herself simply feel. Gods, this was glorious. Total freedom. As though nothing, not even gravity, could contain them. Kasia was nuts for fearing this. Meira wanted to climb up Samael’s leg to stand on his back and fling her arms wide. If she fell off, she had every confidence he’d catch her before she hit the ground.
Silly and fanciful.
“They’re behind us.”
The gruff warning tumbled her out of the beautiful space where she was safe and free, and Meira instinctively grabbed onto him tighter and turned as much as she dared to glance behind them, but his tail, with the flat, mace-like barbs at the end pointing in the direction of the wind, blocked her view.
Behind them where? Too close? Not close enough?
This entire gambit depended on how they timed this. They needed to be followed, not so close that they didn’t have time to get away. But close enough, drawing their attackers away so that Rune and all the others could get out through the main entrance to their mountain. According to Rune, their attackers had blown it wide-open.
“Here we go.”
The wind tearing against her increased in violence as he put on a spurt of speed that made the mountainside blur beneath them. Or perhaps just made her eyes blur as tears naturally welled up to keep them from drying to dust or freezing to ice cubes in her head.
How much farther? Gods, she wanted to call out. Were they close?
“Almost there,” Samael said, no strain to his voice, utter confidence. This was where he came alive. It was obvious in the almost casual way he used his body. He was meant to fly.
A roar split the night air. Way too close. Practically on top of them.
“Are we going to make it?” she dared to ask softly.
He said nothing, his quietness an answer all by itself.
Suddenly, an answering roar blasted, but from far away, almost like a faint echo of the first one.
“Rune,” Samael said, voice grim.
The black dragon shifter—now in direct violation of her orders—seemed determined to make himself into a martyr. Not if she had anything to say about it.
She opened her mouth to scream or call out to alert those following that they were on the phoenix’s track, but Samael gave her a warning squeeze, cutting off her sound. “They’re far enough away, and we could use a few extra seconds.”