Fragile Fury - (Glass Angels book one)

Fragile Fury - Chapter Fourteen

'DRAGONS ARE THE FASTEST WAY TO TRAVEL.' THAT WAS WHAT Jordan had told Anna when they were on the mountain. It had been beautiful up there. Jordan had pointed out and named each part of the Hidden World after she had woken up. He told her she had fainted and hit her head, not knowing that Anna remembered the look of fear in the vampire prince's eyes as he smashed against the cupboard. When they landed, she would be having words with him.

'. . . and that's the castle,' Jordan said, 'where your father lives, and where Pandora's Box is,' Anna had wanted to ask him about it - the box - Damon had asked her about it too, but she didn't know. The mountain and trees - like none Anna had ever seen before - were dusted with snow. Jordan had pointed out tracks along the floor, made by paws the size of dinner plates. Lycanthropes, Anna had found out, were not just werewolves, but all manors of animals.

The wolves ran in different packs across the world, but Italy was where the largest was. The last time anyone had counted, the pack was sixty strong, the one in New York; well . . . they were only thirty.

"Are you cold?" Anna shook her head of her memories. She hadn't been cold before, but now - come to think of it - she was freezing. The icy wind was biting at her skin like needles. She tightened her hands around the leather saddle as Damon's arms tightened around her. She didn't feel safe on the back of a dragon, when she couldn't see the floor.

Looking sideways, Anna saw the vast stretch of a rough black scaled wing, and beyond that, she saw blue sky, and white clouds. Beside Damon's dragon, flew Jordan on his. A small green dragon, named Clancy. He had flown through the trees landing behind Anna and Jordan while they looked out at the horizon, needless to say, Anna had screamed rather loudly. Jordan said he would do no harm, and he acted more like a husky puppy, than a fire breathing dragon.

Damon's dragon was different, it wasn't calm or like a puppy. It was deadly looking, with dark purple eyes that watched every movement you made with the gaze of a predator. Shadow was huge, at least thirty feet from the tip of his snout, to the tip of his arrow spiked tale. Anna told Damon the dragon looked like it would eat her; he chuckled and reassuringly said . . . he probably will. And I am going to ride him, Anna thought.

"We're going the wrong way for Atlantis!" Jordan yelled, though his voice was distant and broken by the wind whooshing through her ears.

"That's because we're not going there!" Damon yelled back, "I said Italy, so we're going there."

"The Fallen said Atlantis!" Jordan pulled on a chain rein; Clancy dipped his wing down flying closer to Shadow, "we will die if we defy him. We have his daughter, and he will go mental if he loses her!"

"We're going to Italy. Case closed!" Damon yelled through clenched teeth, Shadow swung his huge head towards Clancy, snapping his jaw shut as fire licked between his teeth.

"Don't hurt him," Anna whispered as she closed her eyes, "Don't hurt him Shadow," surprisingly, the dragon swung his head back round, and flew silently forwards.

Anna lost herself in the gentle sound of the dragon's wings beating. Clancy weren't the only ones there, there were eight others flying behind them, red ones and green ones, blue's and purples. As they flew they looked like a living, fire - breathing rainbow in the sky. The Shades were there, all of the brothers, the vampire royals, and a few other people Anna didn't know.

The silence was cut short by a grunt, and what Anna could only describe as a dragons scream. Opening her eyes, Anna say Jordan and Clancy falling through the sky as if someone had grabbed hold of the dragon's stomach and pulled his down. He thrust his wings, clawing his forearms towards the sky, but whatever had hold of him, was to strong, and it wasn't letting go.

More dragons's screamed behind them, the beating of their wings became frantic, as they neared the ground, falling through the clouds. "Hold on!" Damon yelled, in Anna's ear. She tightened her fingers even more around the saddle. Damon's arms pressed her closer to his body, moulding his chest around her back and wings around the rest of her.

He pulled a chain, Shadow threw his wings wide and in one thrust, threw his head down following the falling dragons threw the sky. Anna screamed as he lurched down, suddenly grabbed by whatever had the others. Anna watched the dragons around her crashing into the darkness, throwing their riders away from them. Their heavy scaled body's tearing holes in the dirt as the skidded forwards. The tree tops closed around Shadows legs, and Anna knew they were next.

Shadow's head he hit the floor first, his body followed throwing Anna forwards into the dirt. Damon landed on top of her, making her back strick a tree, before her head struck the floor. And then . . . she blacked out.