Chapter Twenty-Six
Lilly
“This is a terrible idea,” Torran grumped.
“Oh shush,” Palin said from next to him. “It’s going to be perfectly fine. Your list of contingencies has seen to the safety of this and then tripled it.”
“More like quadrupled,” Lilly snapped, irritated as she fumbled with straps and lines that were far too unfamiliar. “I feel like I’m going to be completely immobile.”
“That’s the point,” Torran stated. “If you’re immobile, you can’t move.”
“That…that is the definition of the word,” Lilly explained, exasperated beyond belief with her mate. It wasn’t that dangerous, not according to Sandy at least.
“He’s just afraid for your safety,” Sandy chimed in as she worked the complicated system of restraints for her friend.
“More like paranoid.”
“I can hear you,” Torran informed her. “Dragon hearing. Verrrryyyy powerful.”
“Too bad it doesn’t bother you if I start yelling.”
Sandy giggled.
“Don’t encourage her, please,” Palin pleaded. “It just means I have to put up with him some more.”
“Shut up.” Torran snapped at Palin in irritation.
“Will you both just sit still and stop moving?” Sandy shouted. “This is hard enough for me to do on my own.”
Palin started to speak but she rounded on her mate. “You should be up here doing this, not me.”
“I have no idea what that contraption does or how it’s supposed to work.”
“It’s a simple harness,” Torran grumbled. “How difficult can it be?”
Lilly slapped his side, growing frustrated with the dragon. “Torran, you’re being an ass, and nobody wants to deal with you right now. Your ‘harness’ has like sixteen hundred safety points and a two hundred-page manual to go with it. This is ridiculous!”
The big dragon raised his head at the end of the long neck, one glowing yellow eye regarding her through half-closed triple eyelids. “What’s your point?”
“That I’m not happy with you right now, and if you don’t do something about it, I’m going to move to being mad at you.”
“Oh shit,” Sandy mumbled under her breath. “You tell him.”
“Again. I can hear you.”
“And everyone can hear you being a child!” Lilly slapped at another of the buckles on the harness.
Torran sagged, nearly throwing Sandy off balance as his body deflated. “Fine. I’ll try to get on board with this, but I still think you should wait until you’ve given birth.”
“People fly in airplanes until they’re much much later into their pregnancies. Heck, plenty of mammas go on ‘Babymoons’ these days just to relax. I want to go on one measly twenty-minute flight on the back of a dragon, and you lose your mind.”
Palin chuckled, an intimidating sound when coming from the mouth of a prehistoric-looking creature.
“I said fine. Don’t make me change my mind.” Torran was more than unhappy.
“Okay, I think I have this worked out,” Sandy said, draping straps around Lilly and starting to fasten them down.
The harness itself draped over her shoulders, around her chest, and through the crotch. There were additional sections that went over her quads and then below where her knee bent to cover the bottom of her legs as well. Ropes were clipped down from various points, until a spiderweb of them ran outward to the saddle that was draped over Torran’s back.
“I literally don’t think I can scratch my nose if I need to,” she complained as Sandy lowered goggles over her eyes, another stipulation she had to agree to. “You are so paranoid it’s irritating.”
Torran just eyed the straps, asking Sandy to tighten a few, and then he finally pronounced it adequate—albeit just barely—to fly.
Lilly watched with jealous envy as her friend scrambled from Torran’s back to Palin’s, trading one green dragon for another via the simple method of walking across the wing Palin draped over his friend. There she secured herself into a much more simple-looking harness. That one strapped her down at the sides and gave her two mounts to hold on to with her hands. That was it.
“Unbelievable. Okay, Sea Biscuit, show me what you got!” she shouted, kicking him in the sides. “Hyah!”
Well, she tried to kick him, to spur him on. It was more like she moved back and forth slightly, like she was on the world’s worst rocking horse. What a letdown.
“I’m going to ignore that insult,” Torran informed her, spreading his wings wide as Palin ambled off to the side. “Simply because I know you’re going to forgive me any moment now for my insistence on this.”
“I wouldn’t bet on—” Her last word was cut off as her voice dropped into her stomach, which dropped out of the bottom of her torso.
With one powerful explosion from his hand legs and a downward swoop of his wings they were airborne.
“WHOOOO-HOOOOOO!” she hollered as they swiftly gained ground. “YAHOOOOOOOOO!”
Her shouts were echoed by Sandy a few moments later. Even though her friend had been out flying before, it had only happened twice, so the experience was still novel for both of them.
“Do you forgive me yet?” Torran asked as he swooped gently to one side and then the other, before beating his wings to gain them more height.
“Hell no, but this is amazing! You’re actually in more trouble for delaying this for so long! It’s beautiful up here!”
“More trouble?!” he blasted. “That is not fair!”
She laughed, forced to cover her mouth so that she didn’t choke on the air rushing by. Her hands could only move that much, but little more. Despite all that, and the numerous arguments it had taken with Torran to get him to agree, it was more than worth it.
Lilly fell silent, content to just watch the world below her. It was tough to see in the growing dark, but when she looked to the west to see the remnants of the sun setting below the mountains, she was greeted with a panorama the likes of which she’d never seen.
“Thank you,” she said softly, knowing his hearing would pick it up. “This is unlike anything I’ve ever done before.
Torran’s face turned back to look at her as he kept his wings moving. The stern, sour look had been replaced by one of delight. As much as he might have bitched against this, if there was one thing he liked doing in the world more than ensuring she was safe, it was making her happy.
And Lilly was happy.
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This concludes Dragon Desire, Emerald Dragons Book 2
Cheryl’s story is up next! To be notified when it’s available and to get a bonus scene between Lilly & Torran, click the link below.
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