I dropped listlessly and Nikolai caught me and placed me up on Perdita’s back.
Perdita curled her tail up to rest at my back, giving me a makeshift back rest that I leaned against while Keifer, Blythe, and Nikolai studied the wolf and the man in the basket.
“Do you think the wolf will bite?” Keifer asked.
Nikolai shook his head.
“I don’t think he wanted to bite me in the first place. As soon as the hold the guy had on the wolf broke, he turned on the man instead of on me,” Nikolai explained. “I’m going to take her home and make sure that she gets taken care of and then set free.”Chapter 11Waiters gonna wait. Alligators gonna alligate. Haters gonna hate. Potatoes gonna potate. Sorry, I forgot where I was going with this.
-Text from Brooklyn to Nikolai
Brooklyn
We rode most of the way to the compound in silence.
Keifer and Blythe were riding directly beside us, and there was a third dragon I’d never seen before on the opposite side of Keifer.
Nikolai explained that Declan’s dragon was mated to another dragon. Her name was Story; she was absolutely beautiful.
I could quite clearly see the love between the two dragons, and it made me smile.
All the way up until the point where a field of cows came into view.
It didn’t happen all at once.
We were just riding smoothly along until suddenly we dipped.
I gasped and grasped Nikolai’s hands, leaning back to keep from falling forward and tumbling to my death.
Nikolai grasped me around the waist and pulled me more firmly into his hold, sighing in exasperation.
“What’s going on?” I asked worriedly.
My question was answered in the next moment when Perdita took one final plunge before her massive clawed feet reached out and grasped one of the cows in the field below us, then lifted right back up in the air.
I gasped in surprise, watching as the two other dragons at my side followed suit.
Each of them picked up a cow in their clawed feet and raised back up in the air.
“What are they doing?” I asked worriedly.
Before Nikolai could respond, Perdita did some sort of throw.
The cow went airborne, quite a way above our heads, and seemed to stay suspended for long moments of time before Perdita launched herself forward, and ate the cow all in one single gulp.
I gasped.
I vaguely heard the sound of Blythe crying out in alarm, and turned my head in time to see Declan and Story follow suit with their own cows.
“Holy crap,” I said in awe.
I’d never really put much thought into how the dragons ate…or what they ate for that matter.
I’d never seen Perdita eat before…and to be honest, never really had a desire to do it again, either.
“Well…” I said as we passed through the barrier to the Vassago lands. “That was…interesting.”
The barrier started to tingle on my skin, ticking down the nerve endings of my arm, legs, and spine.
Nikolai felt the shiver and pulled me into his arms, mistaking my movements for being cold rather than the discomfort of passing through the barrier.
I patted his hand.
“I’m not cold,” I explained. “It’s the barrier.”
“The shield?” he asked, an odd tone in his voice.
I nodded.
“Yeah,” I confirmed.
“What’s wrong with it?” he asked.
“It sends shivers down my spine,” I said.
I could feel his apprehensiveness.
“You felt it?” he asked in confusion. “We haven’t gotten to it yet.”
I was frowning now, too.
“Well, what was the thing we just passed, then?” I inquired.
Perdita was listening, and she added her input now, too.
Maybe it was the Heart she felt, Perdita offered.
“The Heart?” I asked.
“Perdita, can you take us by the heart again?” he asked.
Perdita banked hard right as I felt the familiar buzz of something over my skin, letting me know that Nikolai was letting Keifer know telepathically where we were going.
Except when I felt the ‘barrier’ again, it wasn’t the heart we were at.
“This,” I said.
Perdita landed by a fallen down oak tree and gently lifted her tail so Nikolai and I could get off without having to jump the whole way to the ground.
Nikolai helped me down, and I shivered again once my feet hit the forest floor.
“Here,” I said. “Whatever’s right here is making my heart shiver.”
I looked up to Nikolai’s beautiful face and frowned in response to his frown.
“What?” I asked.
“The heart is over two hundred yards away,” he said. “There’s no way you’d feel it until you got within its own protection shield.”
His explanation made me nervous.
“Then what’s right here?” I asked.
He looked around, then let me go to explore.
“Where do you feel it most?” he asked.
I started walking first in one direction, and then in the other when I felt the feeling growing fainter.
“This way,” I pointed.
Nikolai stayed at my side, Perdita stayed at our backs, and we walked another fifty yards when the feeling of utter wrongness started to wash over me.