As she neared the top, a loud noise, like a lion’s roar or a drunken man’s snore, curdled the air. The sound brought on a shudder and left her insides churning. What the hell was that? She pressed her back to a cluster of sizeable rocks and stepped around them. Before she realized what was happening, she lost her footing and a split second later she found herself dropping through the air and falling into a hole that seemed to materialize out of nowhere.
She thrashed about and grabbed for stability only to end up with a fistful of thin air. Her heart raced, and her mouth grew dry, barely able to comprehend what was happening to her. As fright stole her ability to breathe, she took big heavy gulps, but still couldn’t seem to fill her lungs. Her descent continued, taking her deeper and deeper into a dank, dark pit, and as the mouth of the cave grew smaller, and smaller she feared she’d never make it out alive. Tears blurred her vision and strands of hair whipped against her face like a leather strap and hindered what little ability she had left to see. Unable to right herself as she struggled for balance, she sailed farther down into the pit of the cavern. Her life flashed before her eyes, and she opened her mouth to scream but no words formed.
With a deafening thud, she surprisingly landed onto something fairly soft. She remained motionless, hardly able to believe she was alive as she worked to force oxygen back into her collapsed lungs. A sliver of light from the full moon cast a narrow beam downward, providing only a modicum of illumination. She gave herself a long time to adjust to the fall and to fight down the post-adrenaline rush before she tried to find her way out. Once her heart settled back into a steady rhythm, she mentally checked herself for broken bones, pleased to discover none as she silently berated herself for ending up in such a dangerous predicament.
Below her, the ground shifted. Startled, her lids flew open and she forced herself to her feet, only to lose her balance under the moving floor and fall backwards. This time her fall wasn’t nearly as far, and her landing not nearly as soft. A heartbeat later a loud roar reverberated off the cavern walls. Chloe pressed her hands to her ears, fully aware that she was in very big trouble, very big trouble indeed.
With her heart racing like she’d just run a marathon and her throat practically closing over, she narrowed her eyes and tried to sift through the dark. Her efforts weren’t necessary, because in that instant flames danced over the walls and lit the room up with noonday brilliance. The heat from the flame played over her skin. But it wasn’t the flames that frightened the hell out of her, it was the beast that made them.
The…thing…before her looked like something straight out of a fairy tale. A wedge-shaped head with slanted eyes and giant nostrils led to a small mouth, with lips drawn back to expose razor-sharp teeth. It had an elongated body and a thick neck, with two twisted horns protruding backwards from its deformed skull. From the back of the shoulders reaching all the way to its massive tail was a pair of fiery red wings. Short limbs with four digits ending in claws brought it closer and closer to her.
Oh. My. God. The legend. The dragon.
7
As Chloe gathered her wits, her blood drained to her feet and her body went icy cold. The Ryuu dragon really did exist and she was going to die before she could tell anyone. Eaten by the ferocious fairy-tale dragon in its own lair. She squirreled backward until she hit the cold stone wall, which seemed to drain the last vestige of heat from her body. Her head spun to the left, then right. Trapped. With nowhere to go, she began scurrying along the wall, frantically looking for an opening, some small crevice in the stone so she could escape.
Out of the path of the moonbeam and barely able to see anything in the dark, her foot hit a rock and her ankle twisted. Wincing, she fell to her knees. As the beast approached, its powerful tail hit the wall, sending chunks of rocks hurtling downward. The ground shook, and she instinctively shut her eyes in response.
“Stop,” she murmured in a low voice meant to calm and relax, a task most difficult under the circumstances. Even though the dragon was much larger than any other animal she’d ever come across in the wild, she refused to go down without at least trying to soothe the beast, using the same methods she’d seen Jared use earlier that day.
“Stop,” she repeated gently. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Her words seemed to trigger a reaction from the dragon. She inched her lids open and noticed that it had halted its forward approach. Fire trickled from its wide nostrils as it stood there, hovering over her like a predator sizing up its prey. The flames died as it put its nose close to her, inhaled, then inched back slightly and let out a deafening roar. Her mind raced, sorting through matters as she studied its behavior, and the way it seemed to withdraw from battle, yet keep its muzzle near her in a nonthreatening way. Perhaps dragons weren’t as ferocious as all those fairy tales led everyone to believe. After all, it could have attacked and eaten her by now. Hell, it could have taken out the whole island if it wanted to. Figuring nothing ventured nothing gained, she gathered her bravado, touched its muzzle and gave a gentle shove. “Go.”
What happened next caught her completely off guard. Something that sounded like a bird’s wings fluttered and protectively
