didn’t budge.
Ferrus screamed her name and ran toward her. Then she was jerked straight up into the air and thrashed about, but the rope held her tightly. When her head smacked a tree limb, she realized she was being hauled up a tree. What the fuck was going on?
She was finally turned in a direction where she could see where the line around her originated. It wasn’t a rope but a thirty-foot-long fucking python. A scream tore from her lungs, scratching up her throat. Her body whipped through the air as the snake slithered from one tree branch to another, trying to escape with its meal. That thought brought another scream for her.
She pounded and beat on the solid muscle around her, but all it did was tighten more. Her lungs crushed in, and she fought for breath. Somewhere behind her and her captor, she heard a herd of elephants tromping toward them. The only thing she could hope for was for them to stomp the snake to death. But being in a tree, that wasn’t going to happen.
Lilah hung midair as the rest of the snake wrapped its dark body around a thick limb. Its head slithered around to her; eyes fixed on hers. Not one, but two tongues slipped out and flipped at her. She would’ve screamed again, but the bands constricted her chest too. She was going to die from asphyxiation, squeezed to death by a giant snake.
The snake opened its mouth wide enough to swallow a cow whole, not to mention the foot-long fangs that dripped with a liquid. A dark weapon of some kind swung up from the ground, slamming into the bottom jaw, knocking the mouth closed and the head back. Another set of dark ropes wrapped around her. Again, not hemp rope, but something else. Something alive.
The python didn’t let her go. Her body stretched in a tug of war that only she would lose as each creature made away with half of her. Then the silverish black arm of the second creature reached forward and grabbed the serpent behind its head. The snake thrashed about, and she got her first look at the second beast.
Again, she would’ve screamed if she had the breath. The animal was a cross between Godzilla and a T-Rex, standing thirty feet tall. She’d seen this being on the doors to the throne room.
Adrenaline raced through her with hope. “Ferrus?” she breathed. The dragon’s eyes darted to her, distracting him. The python stretched its head forward and tried to sink its fangs in Ferrus’s dragon arm. But instead of slicing through flesh, the teeth clanged against a hard-outer shell. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw the point of one of the fangs chip off. Ha. That’s what it deserved.
The steel bands around her loosened, and she sucked in a deep breath. Ferrus pulled her away and then leaned forward in the snake’s face and let out a stream of molten lava just like the magma river down where they melted rock to make swords.
Wait. Was that what covered the dragon’s body, skin made of metal? It would make as much sense as anything else in this world from hell.
Adrenaline and being scared shitless drained her strength immediately. Her body went limp, and her vision tunneled down to darkness.
When she opened her eyes, she didn’t know where she was. The space was mostly dark, with light coming from the ground. The smell of fresh soil was familiar.
“Lili?” She heard her lover’s voice low in her ear. He was here, wrapped around her. She knew she was protected and relaxed the growing panic in her.
“Ferrus,” she whispered. He kissed her neck.
“I am here, love. The tree fae built us a dome to sleep in. You are safe with me.”
She lay her head on the soft ground they were on. “What happened? I remember a dragon puking lava on the head of a monster python.”
His body shook lightly as he chuckled against her back in their spoon position. “You recall correctly.”
“Was that you?”
“Yes,” he replied, hesitancy in his voice.
“You’re incredibly amazing, Ferrus. Your dragon is stunning to see.”
“You are not afraid of me?”
“Of course not. I know you won’t hurt me in that form. I mean, Zee didn’t eat any of us in his scary-as-shit cat form.”
“The forest alpha is a changeling also?”
“Yes,” she said. “Maybe keep that to yourself. I probably wasn’t supposed to let that secret out.”
“No worries, my love. Rest now. The sun won’t be up