The Last Dragon’s Baby

8. Hunted Prey

Unknown point of view

I was looking for them. One of ours caught a scent in this area, in the surroundings of  Penscroft Gardens yesterday. 

The scent of a Golden. 

At least one of them was here and having him alone, we could easily take him and make it one less of them. They were almost wiped off, just six left and if today was our lucky day, I would make it five. 

We were in a silent war through the streets for the last decades. We knew well that direct confrontation wasn’t an option. They were only a few but were very strong, especially their bloody leader. They also knew that attacking us would cause them too many losses and they didn’t have many lives remaining to be lost, so they wouldn’t dare take risks. 

Hence, the silent, quiet war. We were waiting like a predator, to catch the prey in their most vulnerable moment, kill their clan slowly, one by one, until they were gone. Until there was nothing, not even the memory of their breed. 

They who used to be the most powerful, the Golden, the rulers among our species were about to be reduced to ashes. 

But we killed the paws, the knights, the rooks, the uncrowned queen. Now we had to go for the king and the couple of rooks surrounding him. 

We would succeed, patiently, gradually, little by little. Today would be a day of a huge win, in which six would become five. 

I was roaming around the narrow streets in my human form, when their smell, the smell of a Golden entered my nostrils. It was faint, barely there. He was wearing some sort of scent inhibitor, of course. But I still could smell it. 

I knew that Eliot was around and would soon catch the scent of our prey. I wasn’t strong enough to overpower the enemy, but together with Eliot, we could surely do some damage. I couldn’t mind-link Eliot, it was one of the abilities that only the Goldens had, at least for now. 

Guided by the Golden’s smell, I turned a corner. To my surprise, instead of seeing the Golden, I saw two young witches.

I took a lungful of air again, trying to inspect the surroundings and finding the source of the Golden’s odour. 

No, I couldn’t be wrong! I smelled it and it was only getting intense by the moment. The Witches, they were the ones oozing it.

It wasn’t both of them. It was the fire-headed one.

How was it possible? I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I only knew that she had something to do with the Goldens, thus she should die. 

The dark red scales started to break across my skin and my arms elongated becoming claws, as the bones of my back grew to sustain the cartilaginous structure of my thin and light wings. Soon, I shifted to my true self, to my dragon form, in which I was powerful and deadly. 

In which I was truly me. 

I moved fast like a gust of wind, surrounding my prey, teasing it, enjoying the hunt. A hunt was a ritual that should be enjoyed properly, and the fire-head witch didn’t know how much pleasure her death would give me. She would make me and my clan one step closer to eliminate all Goldens, to have their blood and their power.

~*~

Alma

His huge dark-red wings opened, surrounding me, it was dark like a bloody night and I couldn’t see anything around, but the scary and huge creature.

The gigantic reptile flashed me a sinister grin as if he was enjoying it, taking pleasure in my fear and helplessness. 

Dragons were indeed monsters! 

His nostril flared and a thread of fire left it. His fire surrounded me, without touching me, without burning my skin. 

My heart was hammering against my chest as a few tears slid down my face. I was terrified, I was literally looking at the face of death and it was horned and scaled. 

He chuckled at my reaction, was he teasing me? What kind of sick game was it? Scare your prey until it has a heart attack so you save yourself the work of killing it?

“What the hell! Why are there dragons here?” Niki exclaimed looking around.

The creature had a feral look in his eyes, I didn’t even need to think twice to know that he had murderous intentions. He was the predator and Niki and I were his prey.

He hit Niki hard with his wing making her fall on her left arm and let out a pained scream. 

Wasn’t he afraid that the humans would see him and get to know about our magical secrets? I guess that reptiles couldn’t think. 

The dragon had his eyes fixed on me, he circled me with fire, this time it was closer to my skin, scarily close. It even covered me with a thin sheen of sweat because of its intense heat. I could feel my whole body and even my breath trembling violently, almost convulsing. 

Niki stood up fast, pressing her injured arm against her chest. We were totally sc.rewed and nothing, no one could save us. I was certain that we would die, either killed by him or by a powerful heartache. My heart was banging against my rib cage even more frantically, I could hear it beating in my ears

The monster pushed me down roughly, throwing his huge scaled head against my stomach and making me fall on my butt. Niki was trying to kick one of his thick legs. 

“Run!!” I told her, now that the dragon was fully focused on killing me. 

“No!” My friend kept kicking the predator. 

It ignored her completely, keeping his eyes on me. His eyes were unnatural grey eyes, ominous darker slits crossed their center. He roared loudly and stretched his wings before placing a heavy paw on my stomach. His face was leaned closer to me, I could feel his hot breath fanning over my neck and it only added to my panic. 

I could hardly breathe, my lungs were pressed tightly, painfully. I was starting to feel lightheaded when a weird idea occurred to me. 

I just remembered that I still had some potion vials in my purse. I had the plan to rework them, try to make them work properly, of course, it was before my life fell apart. I could use it on the monster, if it exploded on my face twice while I was trying to make it become a sleeping potion it could certainly explode on the reptile.

I struggled to move under his attack, but before I fainted out of air and from the pain of having my ribs crushed, I reached my purse. I took the vials full of bright green liquid from it and threw them on the dragon as well as my shaking arm could. 

Luckily they reached his face and a green thin smoke raised. I was right, the potion exploded on his muzzle. For the first time, my potion really worked! Even though not for the intended purpose.

The dragon moved his paw from me and started shaking his head and his spiked tail in agony. Niki came closer to me and helped me to stand up, while the dragon was still busy growling in pain. 

We ran as fast as we could through some narrow and dark alleys. The sun had set fast giving place to a hauntingnight.

We weren't fast at all, Niki was in pain, her arm seemed to be broken and I was having a hard time breathing properly and containing the piercing pain in my abdomen. 

Soon, we heard a roar, death was coming from us. I looked back and saw a torch of fire being launched in our direction, we barely escaped it. 

“We will become barbecue,” I breathed, as tears slid down my face. 

Niki didn't reply, just ran and pushed me harder and faster with her. There wasn’t much we could do, I only had one more vial in my purse and I had to be close to the beast to throw it on him. Being close to him pretty much meant being killed. So, I didn’t want to try it. Niki was a potionlogist, the only thing she could do besides some simple spells, were potions. I couldn’t even make those. 

“We have to find a place to hide,” she whispered, breathlessly. 

The moonlight doused a little, making everything around even darker and a shiver cursed down my spine. I made the mistake of looking up, the monster was flying over us. But I could still hear the roars and grunts behind me. There were two of them. 

“Let’s try to teleport,” Niki suggested between gasps. 

I knew that we could only manage to teleport a few feet away, we hardly had any chance. But we had to try. I held my friend’s hand tightly and closed my eyes trying to concentrate and she did the same. 

When I opened my eyes, I saw that we were indeed only a few feet away from the death warning coming from the beast’s throat and the noisy stretching and flapping wings of the one chasing us from above. 

We kept running, powered by desperation and fear, knowing that we could hardly teleport again, we were both too tired and hurt to summon the necessary stamina to perform any spell. 

Goddess, please save us. I clenched my eyes shut for a moment in silent prayer, my tired legs didn’t stop moving fastly. 

The flying dragon spat a jet of fire on us, the flames only reached my arm and I winced in pain without stopping running. 

My legs were almost giving up, my vision was almost darkening as bright spots danced in front of my eyes, when we saw a bright door a few feet away. 

Reaching it was pretty much the silver line border between dying or staying alive. 

We just had to make it there without being caught or burned. 

 * 

T. R. Durant / Dreame/ Ringdom/ Innovel / Stary - All Rights Reserved.