Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 120974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
At first it was painful—but only for about half a second. There was a bright flash of agony but almost immediately it was followed with a pleasure so intense it made me tingle and throb between my thighs.
That’s your forbidden area—you must not touch yourself there! whispers the voice of guilt in my head. It sounds suspiciously like my old nurse.
I obeyed her orders scrupulously when I was younger but once I was old enough to have my own suite of rooms and a chaperone instead of a nurse, I began to experiment. I know it’s wicked, but sometimes at night, when I’m alone and I know that no one can see me, I have done a bit of exploring.
But nothing I’ve done has produced sensations half as strong as the feeling I got when Valen bit me. I’m still aching between my legs, as though I need something to happen…though I don’t know what. While he was biting me it was as though I was climbing some kind of hill and I felt desperate to reach the summit…but before I could, Valen withdrew his fangs.
I can’t help feeling shamed and angry…but also intrigued, against my will. I try to push those feelings away. I remind myself that I swore I would do anything to get the cure for my mother. I’ll just have to deal with these strange feelings when he drinks from me.
What else can I do?
We fly all night for what feels like hours but near dawn the dragon starts climbing again. The air gets colder, and I shiver and pull my cloak closer around myself. Even so, it’s freezing.
He must be flying over the Poison Desert, I think. I huddle close to the broad back below me. The Drake’s heat keeps me from freezing—he must have a furnace inside him. I’m grateful for the warmth which keeps me from becoming a human icicle, but I wonder how long this part of the journey will last.
How big is the Poison Desert anyway? I saw a map once in my father’s study that showed our kingdom’s borders, and I remember a vast area with nothing marked on it but “poison sands.” But I don’t have a very good idea of how map distances relate to real distances, so I have no idea how long this part of the journey will last.
I dare to lift my head and try to look down, but despite the sun beginning to rise, it’s hard to see past the dragon’s vast body. Again, I feel like a flea on the back of a dog. He’s just so big.
Then I see a swirling cloud off to the side—is that sand? If so, we need to avoid it—the grains themselves are said to be acidic and corrosive to the touch.
But though the dragon’s wings beat faster, the cloud is closing in on us. If it catches us, we’ll both be dead! I watch in horror as it whirls with deadly intent, almost as though it was aiming right for the dragon!
I catch a foul scent on the air and quickly cover my mouth and nose with a fold of my cloak. I must not breathe in the poison fumes! But Valen has no such protection—what if he breathes them in his dragon form and dies in midair? We’ll both go plummeting to the ground!
It’s freezing cold sitting up like this, but I can’t look away. We are now in a desperate race with the cloud. I hold tight to the dragon spine in front of me with one hand and keep my cloak pressed to my lower face with the other. The dragon is straining now—his huge wings beating faster and faster and his enormous lungs pumping like bellows, but still the poison sand cloud draws ever closer.
Just as it seems certain to intercept us, the dragon turns his head and breathes an enormous jet of fire directly at it. I don’t know if his breath is strong enough to divert the storm or if he’s simply trying to burn off the poisonous gases being swept towards us by the swirling winds, but as soon as he finishes jetting flame, he folds his wings and drops like a stone.
I shriek and grip the spine with both hands. In desperation, I wrap my legs around it too. By the grace of the One True Goddess, I somehow manage not to fly off his broad back but it’s a near thing—I can feel the wind fighting to tear me away from the huge beast.
My mind is racing, and my heart is pounding. I’ve never been so frightened in my life! Is the dragon trying to kill us both? What is he doing? Where is he going? Are we going to die?
At the last possible moment just as the ground is looming up below us, his wings pop out again like sails and we transition from a dive to a glide. And then I feel a jolt that nearly knocks me off again…and realize that we’ve landed.