I stared in shock as I recognized what I was seeing, a chill running down my spine as my mind flashed back to a nightmare I had just experienced the previous night. A nightmare in which I stared into a mouth of death, with no hope of escape.
Instantly, the horror lunged towards me until it was all I could see, my face barely inches away from the gory inside, its teeth curling around me.
My breathing halted.
My heart stopped.
Time froze.
All the sounds around me disappeared until I could hear nothing more than a low roaring in my ears, somehow finding myself focusing on it despite seeing the ribcage slowly closing in on me. The noise was methodical, like the flapping of a bird’s wings, only a thousand times more powerful.
Just like my dream.
‘Dad,’ I pleaded desperately in my thoughts. ‘Help.’
My heart restarted with a powerful pulse, and I tried to fall back away from my death. It was still coming for me, but extremely slowly. No one else around me had even reacted, not a single one having moved. Kain was still staring forward at the spot where this new monster had just been.
I tried flipping around, attempting to crawl away. But I felt like I was stuck in mud, like my body just wouldn’t move without an extreme amount of effort. Like being buried in sand, and the harder I tried, the more my head began hurting again.
“Dad!” I cried out desperately, panic gripping my chest.
But no one heard me.
I was screaming into a void. No one reacted.
The roaring in my ears was getting louder, but the monster was getting closer again too. I shrieked when I felt something grab my ankle. I turned my head to see that the mouth was even larger, and close enough again that I could stick my hand out and be inside of it. A grotesque clawed limb was trying to hold me still.
In the corner of my eye, I noticed a yellow glow pulsing brightly – the hideous wolf-dragon chimera was still using its sealing spell even now, even when on the brink of death.
I fell back instinctively again against the cobblestone underneath me, trying to put more space in between me and the death now looming over my body, only to catch a flash of red in the sky. In a panic, I focused my gaze past the edge of a row of ghastly teeth, desperately hoping I hadn’t imagined it.
I hadn’t.
A brilliant red beast was just now diving from the sky, coming to save me, but it was too far away – he’d never make it in time.
Desperately, I reached out towards him with all my might, pleading for him to come to me. To save me.
At the same time, I shoved my left hand out into the monster’s body, trying to will it to go away. Gory tentacles began slowly swarming out of its mouth, like twenty bloody tongues, wrapping around my wrist and climbing down my arm.
I couldn’t make it stop.
I closed my eyes, tears slipping out as my bottom lip trembled in terror.
I didn’t want to die.
I didn’t want to be eaten.
Unexpectedly, a sharp pain sliced right through my left forearm, severing my hand and wrist off completely. I gasped from the unanticipated pain, seeing that a massive pair of jaws had just closed in front of me.
Except it wasn’t the jaws I was expecting.
The ground underneath me began to shake violently as a crimson behemoth landed in the street, slowly thrusting away a pair of nearly severed legs and a grotesque arm, which was all that remained of my assailant. My own arm was nowhere to be seen, lost behind a row of the brilliant white teeth surrounded by vibrant red scales.
All at once, time returned to normal as my father rapidly whipped his head away from me, his slitted blue eyes infuriated, only for his mouth to be forced open as the thing inside grew massive to the point of almost breaking his jaw.
The red dragon was forced to spit out the monstrosity as it warped and twisted into a new form, rapidly taking on the shape of a dark blue dragon.
Everyone was suddenly shouting and screaming all around me.
I felt someone grab me underneath the arms, dragging me away in a rush, a trail of my blood left behind from my half-missing arm. A massive red tail whipped over our heads as my dad avoided the claws of the other dragon.
The enemy missed, prompting my father to attempt a swipe back, only to have the blue monster lunge at his side when he was off-balance. The red dragon instantly folded his wings and rolled backwards, barely missing one of the guards as he crashed into a house, and kicked the blue dragon into the air with his hind legs.
The monster used the opportunity to take flight, rapidly flapping its charcoal wings to ascend high into the sky. My father rolled over and leapt into the air too, attempting to chase it. But he was at a disadvantage being so much lower already.
The beast dove for him, slamming into his body and barreling him straight back down into the street. They both slammed into the chimera’s head, crushing it underneath their weight.
“No!” I shrieked as the monster began clawing at my father beneath it. Rage boiled in my blood, seeping through my skin. The pain in my head completely dissipated now that the chimera was truly dead.
Unexpectedly, my entire body erupted in agony, prompting whoever was dragging me to let go and jump backwards. I fell onto my back, screaming in pain as the torment immediately shifted to my severed arm.
I then shrieked again, flopping uncontrollably over onto my stomach, my spine exploding with fire and my shoulders beginning to snap.
Fighting against the unbearable pain, I dug my black claws into the stone, all ten of them – my missing hand having abruptly regrown, as the blistering torment became unbearable.
I could hear my clothes tearing.
And then it was over.
Though the rage remained.
I sat back on my heels and looked down at my humanoid hands – both of them – burning brightly in dark purple flames.
I then focused on the new sensations behind me, my demonic wings stretching out, making me feel like I’d been maimed all my life and not realized it. My thin tail swayed above the ground impatiently, my ears flinching as I registered all the sounds around me.
A multitude of gasps, hundreds of heartbeats, the sound of wings beating…
The fight had taken to the sky again.
I met Kain’s shocked gaze for a moment, realizing he had been the one dragging me, before ignoring him entirely. Without even looking back to see how the fight was progressing, I leapt to my feet and bolted as high into the sky as I could. I was far above the roofs of the buildings around me before my wings automatically took over – instinctively, like I’d had them all my life.
I had nothing holding me back now. No monster to seal my magic. I could fight without reservation.
This shapeshifter was as good as dead.
The blue dragon caught notice of me immediately, and dove straight in my direction, its mouth wide open.
Perfect.
I held out my hand, a massive bolt of black lightning piercing the sky, briefly darkening the world around us. The blue dragon abruptly thrust out one of its wings, spinning it out of my line of fire. My father attempted to use the distraction to barrel into our enemy, his teeth aiming for its neck, but the blue dragon evaded again.
I chased after them, finding myself much slower than they were in the air. I didn’t understand why, because even if they had larger wings, they were also a lot heavier. It took me a moment to notice that they both had waves of heat radiating from them. I wasn’t sure if heat mattered, but when I tried using my own magic to produce heat, I was shocked to find that I suddenly had a lot more control over my flight.
If I poured enough heat out underneath my wings then I could abruptly ascend higher without even flapping them – and if I did flap them, then the distance I was able to move was significantly greater, making me faster.
I was sure I could also hover in the air without moving my wings using this method, though I wasn’t about to try right now.
&nbs
p; Because right now, I needed speed.
As I rose high above them, I attempted another bolt of black lightning when the blue dragon was distracted, this one missing due to my aim and careening into the ground off in the distance. The earth erupted where it struck, appearing as if the dirt was water boiling over. There had been nothing there except trees anyway.
Now there was a massive crater.
It was obvious that the blue dragon wanted to go after me again, but my father was forcing its attention on him. Every time it attempted to make a move in my direction, my dad had anticipated it and done something to make him dodge instead. It was almost as if he was just fast enough to keep the blue dragon on the defensive.
My anger and impatience only grew as I watched the fight, feeling helpless in the air. There had been times on the ground when I had moved instantly, yet I couldn’t seem to mimic the same effect now. I didn’t understand why.
Not to mention, I couldn’t attack without risking a hit on my dad because of their proximity, which was partially why I missed the last time, being afraid of hitting my dad by mistake.
Unexpectedly, just as the two dragons began falling from the sky while thrashing at each other, hundreds of vines erupted from the forest on the outskirts of the city. Instantly, they were both ensnared, wrapped up to the point of being unable to extend their wings.
Desperate to save my dad from this new threat, purple fire rapidly began swirling in my hand, a ball of hellish flames ready to shoot away from me. However, just before I released it, I saw the vines on my father loosen, allowing him to break through and ascend again.
Contrarily, the shapeshifter crashed into a building on the edge of town, having fallen at full speed.
I didn’t want to destroy any homes, but I was afraid of missing this opportunity to land a lethal hit on the shapeshifter.
As the flames in my hand dissipated, I pointed out my index finger, attempting to weaken the bolt of lightning coming out of me. It erupted into the same location where the dragon had fallen, leveling all the surrounding houses in the process.
I prepared to move closer for a second attack, but I was unexpectedly scooped out of the air by a massive clawed hand.
I gasped as my father shifted my flight direction, his own powerful crimson wings overriding mine. I quickly folded my extra appendages, knowing I didn’t have the same prowess in the air to resist him. Within a matter of seconds, we were zooming away, back towards our home.
“What are you doing?!” I cried out over the wind. “If we don’t kill it now, then it’ll just come back again!”
My father shook his massive crimson head, but otherwise didn’t make any attempts to communicate to me. I wasn’t even sure if he could speak in a language I’d understand while in his dragon form, so instead I resigned myself to scanning the area we were fleeing, attempting to see any signs of the dark blue dragon taking flight again.
But I saw nothing.
Was it dead? Did it try escaping?
I wasn’t sure.
My father landed in the forest not long after, snapping several trees as he did so.
However, instead of actually landing close to our house, we ended up a fair distance away from town. My dad let me go and began rapidly shrinking in size.
Watching him transform back into a human wasn’t nearly as grotesque as I was expecting, given what I’d seen from the other shapeshifter. However, I quickly averted my eyes when I realized he was naked. That should have been obvious, but it wasn’t on my mind at the time.
I still caught enough of a glimpse to see that he had shallow scratches all over his body, especially his torso. I felt bad that he had gotten hurt, but even more confused and annoyed that our enemy had gotten away.
“Why did we let it go?” I demanded, refusing to look at him even though he had his hands covering himself up now.
“Alyssa, you need to go home immediately and start packing. We’re leaving.”
I winced, finally meeting his gaze. I knew this was coming, but I still couldn’t help feeling disappointed.
He quickly continued. “I’ll follow after you, but you can run much faster than I can. Now go, and I’ll catch up.”
“Just tell–” I began.
He quickly cut me off, his expression tense. “He’s dead. Your attack got him – your magic is very lethal. One hit was all it took. But there’s obviously another mage in the forest, which means it wasn’t safe for us to stay in the air.”
I gawked at him. “How do you know it’s really dead?”
I couldn’t bring myself to call that thing that attacked me a he, even if it technically was male.
My dad sighed heavily. “I have heat vision in my dragon form. I saw your attack hit him, and I saw the outcome of what his body looked like afterwards.” His expression then softened some. “But the details don’t matter right now. I need you to grab what you want to keep, so we can go. The entire town is going to know about you within a matter of hours, and I don’t want to put you through any more stress than you’ve already seen. If I had realized something like this might happen, then we would have left yesterday.”
I nodded somberly, sighing as I turned on my heels to flee back home. There was really nothing else to say, so I just took off without another word.
Despite the distance, it barely took me a full minute to reach the edge of the trees in our backyard. However, much to my surprise, I caught sight of Jasmyn rapidly slithering my way. She sped up when she saw me, her brow furrowed with worry, her arms outstretched towards me.
I knocked into her with enough force to send us both tumbling to the ground, her tail unexpectedly wrapping around me from the waist down.
“Oof,” she exclaimed as she lost the air in her lungs, before taking a deep breath. I was lying on top of her now, in her arms. “Maybe not so hard next time.” Her brow then immediately furrowed again as she examined my wings folded behind my back. “What happened?!” she exclaimed seriously. “I thought I saw two dragons fighting in the sky off in the distance. And then I saw you being carried by the red one – I assume that was your dad?”
I nodded somberly. “The other one was a shapeshifter,” I explained. “It had some weird creature attack me in town, and then when I was weak from the fight the shapeshifter tried to eat me.” I grimaced as I spoke, already loathing the recent memory.
Jasmyn gasped. “It was after you all this time,” she whispered with wide eyes. “Not me.”
I quickly shook my head. “We don’t know that. It might have initially been after you, but then decided I was more valuable.” I buried my face against her neck. “I don’t know,” I whined. “But now we have to leave.”
Jasmyn rubbed my back in between my wings, her hand running against my gray skin since most of my shirt was in tatters. At least the front of my shirt was intact, not that it mattered since I didn’t really have a chest to hide.
“Well, at least I’ll be coming with you,” Jasmyn reminded me.
I nodded with a heavy sigh. I did at least have that going for me, and if I was being completely honest then I’d have to admit that life here wasn’t that great. A fresh start might be the best idea. It just sucked because this was where I grew up. I liked our house. I liked my room. I liked the forest here. I didn’t want to leave it all behind.
Granted, having a normal life again was assuming I could look normal again. Would I have to cut off my wings and tail? I shivered at the thought, remembering my recently maimed arm.
After a moment, Jasmyn uncoiled her tail around me, and then righted herself while keeping me in her arms. It still surprised me sometimes how strong her snake body was. She might as well have been holding one of my wooden dolls with how she moved with me in her embrace. She then slipped one of her arms underneath my knees and started carrying me like a baby.
“I can walk,” I complained when she started heading back to the house.
“And I can carry you,” she retorted, as if both required the same amount of
effort on her part.
I sighed in reservation, deciding to tease her by wrapping my tail around her waist while I still had one. She gasped in surprise, stopping to look down for a moment, her cheeks flushed red.
“Is that weird?” I wondered hesitantly.
She quickly shook her head and continued on towards the house, her sky-blue tail zipping side-to-side underneath her as she moved forward, while the rest of it trailed in its path.
“No,” she finally answered, her eyes staring straight ahead. “Not weird at all. I just didn’t realize you had magically grown a tail too.”
Chapter 13: Aftermath
When we got back to my house, I began begrudgingly putting together the few possessions I wanted to take with me. I had never really realized how little I had to begin with. I’d certainly have to leave some clothes behind, since there was no way they would all fit in my pack, but otherwise I didn’t have a lot.
One of my most prized possessions was the necklace my mom had given me, which now contained an empty metal encasing where the onyx pendant had been. I still had the delicate gold chain even though that’s all that was left. I also had a notebook that I had occasionally sketched in, but otherwise I didn’t have a lot of things that I’d feel bad about leaving behind.
Alternatively, my dad had a ton of stuff, both in his room as well as in the form of books. I wasn’t sure how urgent our departure was, or whether we would be leaving by land…or air. If he decided to fly us away from here, with Jasmyn and me on his back, then he would have to leave the majority of his small library behind too.
My dad burst through the door a few minutes later, sounding out of breath. He called out for me to close my bedroom door so he could get some clothes on. I saw the slight amusement in Jasmyn’s eyes when she also realized only after the fact what should be obvious, but the expression didn’t reach the rest of her face since she was worried about my own somber posture.
She was examining my demon form intently, watching my every move as if she thought I was going to fall apart any moment.
Magicbound to a Snake Girl Page 16
