“Should we vent gases and descend, sir?” Gerry asked. “If the captain is up there, she’ll have passed out already. Altitude sickness is nothing to play around with. We can try to pull the Intrepid out of the jet stream and head for a safe spot to moor, although I’m not sure how smoothly we can descend into slower air without Captain Fairweather’s help. The ship might be damaged, and crashing into the Green definitely wouldn’t be pretty....”
Secrets and problems danced through Nicholas’s head between one moment and the next. Over the last few minutes as the three men scurried for the ship’s upper levels, Zach’s tablet had read off a slew of details about the jet stream, so Nicholas now knew that the Intrepid was traveling quickly enough that their enemies must have already been left far behind. They’d be heading nearly due east and jet-stream velocity meant they’d reach Steph’s goal—the ocean—far faster than originally anticipated, a major boon given the female dragon’s sensitive condition.
In contrast, dropping to a lower elevation without a wind witch’s assistance would risk the health of both pregnant women currently aboard while also potentially crashing an expensive and important piece of equipment into the relentless Green. Of course, damage to life and limb might occur anyway if Nicholas failed to recover the captain in time to use her magic on the eventual descent. Still....
Sabrina is tough, he told himself, ignoring the flutter in his chest. It wasn’t disloyal to elevate the importance of ship and passengers over their own captain’s safety. After all, wasn’t that exactly what Sabrina herself would have chosen...and had indeed focused on the day before?
Forcing himself to consider the issue rationally, Nicholas shook his head. “No, stay the course.” Then, gazing into Zach’s pleading eyes, he made a promise he didn’t know if he could keep. “I’ll bring your sister back alive.”
Choice made and mind cleared, Nicholas spent thirty long seconds planning out the upcoming maneuver. He’d have to be both fast and smart to make this work. A mere human wouldn’t survive long outside, but a draconic body should allow Nicholas to beat back brutal, high-elevation conditions with relative impunity.
The trick would be keeping a close eye on his own dwindling energy reserves. Because at some point, even dragon wings would become too weak to fly...and too weak to save the woman whose mere presence brought a smile to his lips.
Nicholas allowed a long quiver of anticipatory nerves to rack his body, then he shook out every last worry and embraced the challenge instead. It had been too long since he’d fought a battle that wasn’t a foregone conclusion. And as much as the shifter craved safety for the people of the Aerie, he had to admit that the simplicity of their recent lives had left him a little bored.
Nicholas was ready and willing to stretch his wings.
Opening his eyes, the shifter now saw that this particular hatch was motorized...which was a good thing because a hinged door would have slammed out of his hands and blown away the instant Nicholas opened the portal between ship and deck. As it was, he still heard motors straining as he sprung upwards through the gap.
Shifting as he rose, his draconic tail was nearly trapped in the closing door. But Nicholas didn’t notice. Because wind streamed by so quickly it felt like he was forcing his way through the heart of a hurricane. He could hear nothing above the roar of moving gases. Meanwhile, the cold was so intense that tears froze even as they were whipped away from his tremendous, slit-pupiled eyes.
Blinking, the dragon forced himself to focus on the deck before he could be dragged off course. And for a moment, massive wings stopped working as he surveyed the seemingly empty expanse.
That single moment of inattention was enough to flip Nicholas’s body sideways, battering him against a line that Sabrina must have replaced earlier in the day. Shifter flame burned through woven plastic before the dragon could rein in his fire, and he felt rather than heard the balloon shift subtly above his head as one rope snapped.
He couldn’t find it within himself to care about the wellbeing of the ship, though. Not when Sabrina was nowhere to be found.
And then, when Nicholas thought his heart would stop beating entirely, he saw her. A tiny huddled shape curled around a distant railing, nothing but a chance orientation with back to the wind holding her onto the otherwise barren deck of the ship. Sighing with relief, the dragon allowed himself to slip outside the ship’s airspace and drift to the back of the gondola before beating as hard as he could to reclaim lost ground and catch up to Sabrina’s comatose form.
Only she wasn’t comatose. Without meaning to, the dragon’s flames licked out to touch the captain’s dangling palm. In response, Sabrina’s eyes opened, a goofy grin spreading across her face.
“Let’s fly,” she said. Or at least those were the shapes he thought her lips took on before the wind witch wriggled out from between railing uprights...and fell like a stone toward the earth below.
Chapter 17
Sabrina giggled as the big red dragon pulled in his wings and plummeted downward in her wake. She didn’t blame him one bit. Falling was fun.
Playing tag midair sounded even more amusing, though, so the witch pursed her lips and whistled up a wind. The sound almost failed to come, but there was no hesitation before air did her bidding. Sabrina was nearly gaseous herself by that point, so of course a breeze swept up beneath her, jolting human body sideways just when dragon talons would have swiped her out of freefall.
Not so clever now, are you, you big old lout?
In response, the dragon rolled, turning with an effort so his huge dark eyes bored into hers. Nicholas was furious—definitely a poor loser.
For some reason, Sabrina found that realization hilarious, and she doubled over as belly laughs wracked her descending body. Only when claws overlapped around her waist did she realize her mistake. She’d been caught at last.
“Tch tch,” she said, shaking one finger at the dragon’s face—or rather at his chin since that’s all she could see from her current vantage point. Words whipped out of her mouth and disappeared into the distance as quickly as they’d come, but still she babbled on. “No fair snatching when I wasn’t watching.”
The third and final words almost rhymed, and this time Sabrina lost an indeterminate amount of time trying to decide whether it was better to force snatch to rhyme with watch or vice versa. “I’m a poet and I don’t even know it!” she crowed, breathing in a gulp of the warm air that enveloped her dragon like a cloud.
Cat-like eyes turned to stare back at her, and Sabrina cocked her head in sudden interest. That’s right, this was a dragon. She was flying with a dragon. How cool was that?
It would be way cooler to dance on his back.
As quickly as the thought occurred to her, Sabrina had wriggled out of her bearer’s grasp and was pushing her way up across Nicholas’s shoulder. Tough hide quivered beneath fumbling fingertips, and she paused to stroke the warm scales. Hard and soft at the same time. Just like an armored kitty cat.
Then a fiery tail came out of nowhere, nearly knocking her from her perch. Ooh, right! They were playing tag.
“Nuh uh uh!” Sabrina taunted, legs twitching as she forced them into a sprint. Soon, the tail that attempted to grab her was a distant memory as she flirted with the wind, leaping and dancing along the dragon’s spine.
Then the same tail had returned...but beneath her instead of before her as she raced down Nicholas’s back. This was heaven—wind not quite as strong as it had been aboard her ship but flowing in a completely different direction. Sabrina’s braids stuck straight up and she couldn’t resist releasing the hold she’d taken on the tip of the dragon’s tail to see if her limbs would fly upward too.
They did! Wow!
Oops. Was that the dragon now out of reach on her starboard bow?
A flare of flame, then Sabrina was abruptly clasped in entirely human arms. Nicholas’s hands bit into her shoulders and she leaned forward to rub her cheek against his pecs. Those were hot.
Literally hot and metaphorically hot. Now that was gonna have to find its way into her poetry. Her poem was getting better by the minute. It was a masterpiece.
“Sabrina. Sabrina. Listen to me.”
Pesky old shifter shook her, jolting her teeth together so they nearly took off the tip of her tongue. Heady exhilaration abruptly faded, morphing into pain. Such a spoilsport. Maybe Sabrina should fly on her own for a little while.
Well, not fly, fall. Sabrina wasn’t so sure she had enough energy remaining to push her body upward or horizontal. But falling was fine. Falling was fun. Ooh, maybe that would be the punchline of her poem.
Did poems have punchlines? Or was that sonnets?
“Sabrina.” She watched a tear fall down her bearer’s face and sizzle against his wings. How odd. Startled, the witch held still for a moment and tried to focus.
It was hard paying attention to his words, though. They drifted in one ear and out the other, leaving little understanding in between.
But then Nicholas released her with one arm. Using that same hand, he tipped her chin back so she faced the sky.
Well, they were in the sky. But the sky went on and on and on forever.
Wow, that was deep. Or, wait, what was the opposite of deep? High? Was the sky high?
Ooh, that rhymed too! Now it was Sabrina’s turn to allow tears to stream from her eyes...only in her case because she was laughing too hard to hold them in.
Only, Nicholas wiped watery obstructions away from her vision and she finally saw what he’d been trying to point out. There was an airship in the air.
An airship in the air. What a coinkydink! Or, wait, maybe the air was named after airships, so it wasn’t a coincidence after all?
The thought was fleeting, not quite catching a toehold in her brain before it too wafted away.
“That’s the Intrepid. The Intrepid, Sabrina. We’re going to lose your ship if you don’t work with me here.”
Lose it? She couldn’t lose her father’s ship.
Swiftly, Sabrina paddled one arm after the other to swim closer to the retreating structure. Oops, had she whacked Nicholas in the eye in the process? Well, what did he expect if he kept hugging her while she was trying to swim?
“Sabrina. I need you to lie still. I have to change back into the form of a dragon if we’re going to have any hope of catching up with your ship. Will you do that for me, Sabrina? Can you just relax for five minutes until I get you back on board?”
Relax. Like on that nice lady’s couch Frank had brought her too when she was so broken-hearted about her mother’s death that she did nothing except cry for one solid month after another. It had felt pretty darn good to release every hint of sadness into the air, to just spill her guts and let ‘er rip.
Maybe she’d try it again. Maybe it would be good for her poetry.
“Did I ever tell you what dear old Daddy did for cash?” Sabrina started, staring into her dragon shifter’s deep, dark eyes.
***
She’s drunk on air, Nicholas reminded himself. Well, either that, or the high altitude had messed with Sabrina’s brain. Either way, it was no better to allow this usually buttoned-up airship captain to disclose her carefully shielded secrets while under the influence than it would have been to drop a roofie in her beer and drag her away for a night of non-consensual sex.
And yet, despite all that...it was startlingly difficult to force himself to pull out of Sabrina’s clinging grasp. It was hard not to bend his head and sniff at the sweetness of his passenger’s hair while allowing the woman in his arms to tell him all about her father’s business.
For once in his life, it wasn’t the secret that drew him closer, though. It was the secret keeper herself.
And even as Nicholas realized that distinction, a protectiveness surged within his chest that had previously been reserved for mother and sister. The thought of Steph and Sarah gave him the strength he needed to release his treasured burden and fly sideways until it was safe to shift. Only then did he scoop the captain back up in draconic claws and wing his way toward the rapidly receding ship.
Sabrina will regret this entire episode in the morning, he thought, trying to ignore the melodic jumble of sounds that whipped out of his passenger’s mouth and into the wind. Most utterances were lost to the air, but a few exclamations pierced a register high enough to cut through the auditory fog. “...Little girls,” she shrieked, and “what a surprise” and “couldn’t believe he’d do such a thing.”
Nicholas tried not to listen. Really he did. He flew faster and harder in the attempt, thrusting through the air until wind roared past his ear holes and wiped out all other sound.
But, eventually, he was forced to pause. To hover for a moment and regather his wits as he neared the jet stream that was pulling the Intrepid further and further away with each moment that passed.
The air was thinner here but a dragon didn’t really need to breathe, relying instead on ambient energy to fuel his flight. Still, Nicholas felt fire magic spiraling away from this body, felt his shape shrinking as he lost priceless warmth to the elements at an elevation where dragons weren’t meant to fly.
“I didn’t know,” Sabrina was saying, her words carrying easily now that he’d bent his massive head down to shield her from the bracing wind. “How could he have done that on my ship, right beneath my feet?”
And then she was crying. True tears, not the desperate lubrication an eyeball might produce when faced with cold, whipping wind. This time, around, Nicholas hesitated and second guessed.
Was he truly being a gentleman when he worked so hard to evade this desperate secret? Or was he acting like a coward, instead? Whose best interest was being served when he eschewed his own ability to turn perceived weakness into strength?
For a moment, the shifter considered soothing Sabrina and allowing her to cry out her woes onto his scaly shoulder. After all, every other secret keeper had looked so damn relieved after spitting out the secrets they’d previously hidden from the entire world. Men and women alike had straightened their spines afterwards, looked up at him with tremulous smiles that had gradually firmed into a heated, steely strength.
Perhaps Nicholas was merely being selfish, afraid that uncovering Sabrina’s weakness would lessen her ability to walk fleet-footed and confident through his dreams. If so, he realized now that he could relinquish that fear. Because he was even more attracted to the wind-whipped woman knowing that an injured daughter lurked beneath the captain’s hard-hitting exterior.
Despite the fire magic rapidly streaming out of his body and despite the quickly disappearing ship, in fact, Nicholas bent his head lower, forgetting he was a dragon in his attraction to this strange combination of bravery and vulnerability. What would it feel like to kiss the woman in his arms until his inner fire was matched by a blaze of her own?
“You’re warm,” Sabrina said, blue eyes turning to gaze upward as if she sensed his fickle mood. Reaching over, she patted one nostril—the only part of Nicholas’s face that was close enough to touch. The contact sent a tingle running through his entire body, from the snout in question all the way down to each wingtip and on to the sharp point at the end of his tail.
For a moment, Nicholas thought the captain might be emerging from whatever craziness had accosted her out here in the thin air of the jet stream. He caught his breath, imagining his passenger returned to sobriety and discovering a burning desire that mirrored the one growing within his own belly over the last few days and weeks.
As he waited, the captain cocked her head, her brow wrinkling as if struggling to remember something important. Her lips parted, a tiny puff of air darting out and dancing across Nicholas’s scaly skin.
But her words iced over the fire in his gut. “What I’m trying to tell you is that Daddy sold slaves,” she informed him.
There was more to the secret. Nicholas could feel details gathering in the captain’s lungs like phlegm, just waiting to spew forth and ruin whatever connection he was hop
ing to build between himself and the woman in his arms.
Meanwhile, Nicholas’s knack itched at the back of his skull, telling him that this was the perfect opportunity to dislodge the wind witch’s evasive resistance. The perfect opportunity to discover whether the dark past hiding behind her poker face would become a danger to the Aerie and to the people he held dear.
But Sabrina would be pissed if she returned to sobriety and realized Nicholas had taken advantage of her momentary weakness. And he’d be the one pissed if anyone had tricked similar confidences out of Steph or Sarah or even his annoyingly oafish twin.
In the end, there was no contest. Reluctantly, Nicholas straightened his neck and gathered his strength. It would take all the energy he had left to catch up to the Intrepid. Now wasn’t the time to listen in on the captain’s secrets.
Chapter 18
Sabrina woke in her own bed with a pounding headache and a vague memory of being carried down stairs and across hallways while pressed up against a dragon shifter’s deliciously heated chest. And had she really spilled her guts about Frank’s secrets in the process?
She sure hoped not. Hoped that was just another hallucination, like the rainbow she’d slid down and the handful of gold coins she’d tossed up to sparkle through the frigid air. Unfortunately, spilling secrets seemed far more believable than shaking hands with a green-clad leprechaun after he handed over a heaping potful of gold...all of which later dissipated into thin air.
The mythical figure had definitely been a figment of her imagination. The secret spilling? Not so much.
“Captain?”
Only when Charlotte’s timid query joined the even more quiet tapping at the hatch above her head did Sabrina realize what had woken her out of a healing sleep. “Come in,” the captain called, pushing back covers and noticing for the first time that she was still fully clad minus socks and boots. As if someone had carefully slipped her under the covers but had been too timid to remove her jacket or even loosen her belt.
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