A Beautiful Evil (A Beautiful Book. 1) #Wattys2015

Chapter Sixteen - First Kiss

The Frost dragon purred in response, tugging her tail tighter around her hunches, as if getting cozy.

"What is it you need?" she crooned. The boys jumped at the sound of her soft, yet rumbling voice. I smiled harder, my heart clenching a little. I really, really missed her.

When my father had banished me, the main reason I had refused was because... where would she go? At the time she was allowed to breach the surface once in a great while. To spread her white, feathered wings and let the cloud's mist kiss her scales.

Dragon's are predators - it's in their blood. Normally she'd leave for a week or sometimes two, on these long hunting trips. She'd fill her giant belly up with as much food as she could, and then turned straight around to come back home to me.

Considering Alkaia was a Frost dragon, it was hard to conceal the snow and little flury's that tended to appear when she was near. It would be a little odd in the middle of summer if snowflakes start falling to the ground, and sticking, don't you think? So in result, Father decided that Alkaia wasn't aloud to leave her lair until the Winter Solstice. It crushed her, to stay down here for months at a time. And destroyed me to see her like that. It was also somewhat of a struggle to hoard enough food for her to eat. I wondered what she would do now, being concealed from the sky 24/7. It's not like we could just set her loose when the first snow falls. I didn't even think we could send her to Antarctica. Humans inhabited that, too.

But when I left, for some unknown reasons, Alkaia went into a deep slumber for over five hundred years.

For a brief moment, all the events of the past days swirled around me, urging me to move faster. So, skipping straight to the point, I asked: "Do you know anyone named Asmodeus? Have you heard anything that might give us a clue on where he's at?"

She regarded me for a long moment, her eye's not missing a beat. "You were gone," she said. Not a question, but an observation.

"Yes... Yes I was."

"For a very long time."

Avery gave an exasperated sigh, and I gave him a sharp look. He bluntly ignored me, walking up to my side. "Look, dragon, I don't have anything against you, but we're kind of on a tight schedule. Do you mind saving the sappy stories for later?"

Alkaia snarled, the large ice spikes on her spine bristling. She rose, her monstrous form blocking any light from the torches, casting a dark shadow that engulfed Avery and I completely. Spreading her wings and lowering her neck, she hissed and bared her fangs in Avery's face. "You dare speak to me, demon? Don't think that I don't know who you are, Horsemen of Famine. I know what you are, and what you've done. Especially to my Anima Autem Nimis. You'd better watch your tongue."

All the color drained from Avery's face, making his skin chalky and pale. I don't know what possessed me, but I somewhat felt sorry for him. Alkaia turned her attention back to me, but still glared daggers at Avery from the corner of eye, her pupil dilating with annoyance.

"Why did you leave?" she asked, bringing a taloned forepaw into the light. She flexed her fingers slightly, as if counting each individual claw, and clinking them together. Her transparent eyes found mine. I always got lost in those eyes, so blue, yet they lacked color all together. They resembled diamond, no ice. They looked like fractured ice.

"My Father banished me."

"Why?"

"The reasons are unclear-"

Raising her muzzle, she glared at the Horsemen behind me. "Everyone, out." Charles mouth opened, bound to utter some type of protest, but my glare shut him up. "Horsemen of Famine, you stay." I didn't think it was possible, but Avery got even more pale, growing almost translucent.