Series: Charmaine Pauls
Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
I watch, lost in thought, as he continues to gather a bouquet. I suppose what he’s doing is romantic. No man has ever given me flowers, and I am curious about their smell. But it’s not enough to make me forget about what I’ve learned.
A nuclear explosion.
What if something sets him off again?
I swallow and edge away from Aruan, closer to the blueish shore of the lake. I need time to think, to gather my thoughts and put everything in perspective. Or maybe just a private moment to come to terms with it all.
I dig the toe of my boot into the blue sand. It shimmers like sea sand in the sun, like the particles of broken mother-of-pearl and abalone. Does that mean there are shellfish in the water? I’d give anything to scuba dive to the bottom of this lake.
A rustling sounds near the overhanging branches of the blood tree. I turn to face it, and then my heart slams to a stop.
A long beak peeks through the strings of dense leaves. The pointed toes of a claw follow next. The whole tree appears to shake, the music of the leaves like the gentle jingling of a tambourine, and then a quetzalcoatlus steps out, its giraffe-like body throwing a long shadow that swallows me.
“Elsie!” Aruan yells just as the magnificent animal spreads its enormous wings and charges straight at me.
I know what Aruan is going to do without having to look at him. The strange connection that I always feel to him warns me of his intention.
I spin around, shouting, “No!” as I sprint toward Aruan. My heart beats with unfamiliar strength in my chest, fueling me to run faster. “No, Aruan! Don’t hurt her!” Skidding to a halt in the mud, I fall at Aruan’s feet and throw my arms around his legs. “Please don’t kill her. She’s not going to harm us. Look—she’s stopped!”
A quick glance over my shoulder confirms that the quetzalcoatlus has slowed down to a penguin-like waggle.
“It’s Betty,” I cry out when his jaw hardens at the quetzalcoatlus’s approach. “Look,” I say again. “She has a tear in her left wing at the tip.”
He doesn’t take his eyes off the quetzalcoatlus as he replies in a grim tone, “It’ll eat you for a snack.”
“She won’t,” I insist. “I know her.”
Proving the point, the pterosaur stops and tilts her head before lifting her beak as if smelling the air.
I hug his legs tighter. “Please, Aruan. Please. If you care even one iota about me, please don’t harm her.”
An internal battle rages in his eyes.
Sensing the shift in him, I stare up at him with my best pleading look. “She knows me. See?”
“How the dragon would it know you?” he asks through gritted teeth, breaking his stare at the perceived danger to glance at me.
Yes. My begging has the desired effect. His expression softens a fraction.
“She flew past your window,” I say. “She knows me.”
“You’re dreaming. It’ll gobble you down whole.”
“Give her a chance.” I climb to my feet, holding Aruan’s gaze. “She’s not going to hurt us.”
He doesn’t seem convinced. Staring down the pterosaur again, he says, “I’ve seen what these dragons are capable of with my own eyes.”
“Aruan,” I say in a no-nonsense manner.
He glances at me again.
I cross my arms. “If you hurt her, you hurt me.”
He works his jaw from side to side, but the killing rage inside him diminishes. It hovers there, just in case, but apparently, he does care enough to listen to my plea.
When I sense his power retracting, I blow out a sigh of relief.
“Not so fast, mate,” he says with narrowed eyes. “If it shows any signs of aggression, it’s dead.”
“Yes, I know. It’ll take you a millisecond to vaporize her. So just relax for now, okay?”
Despite my flippant tone, I’m worried for Betty, even though she won’t be aggressive toward me. I can’t explain how I know it, but I do.
Betty comes closer.
And closer still.
Aruan tenses behind me, and I sense his power welling up again.
“She won’t hurt me,” I reiterate, my gaze glued to the prehistoric creature that’s now standing over me, staring into my eyes. “Please, just give her a chance.”
Aruan’s power crackles in the air around us, potent and deadly, but to my relief, he doesn’t unleash it. Maybe it’s because he knows he can kill Betty faster than she can do me harm, or maybe it’s because she’s not showing any signs of wanting to rip me to pieces with her claws or to grasp me in her beak and fling me through the air.
I hold my breath as she lowers her head and sniffs me.
Aruan stands like a lethal weapon behind me, ready to vaporize the five-hundred-pound pterosaur if she dares to step out of line, but all she does is tilt her head and… rub against me.