The Dragon's Kiss

The Dragon's Kiss - Chapter 31 - THIRTY ONE: The Man Under The Mask

Huff! Huff!

Kel’s labored breathing drowned out the shouts behind her as she sprinted through the maze of streets behind the Seven Lions Inn.

With the register safely tucked away and her mask and cloak still in place, all she had to do was shake off her chasers and make it to the meeting place.

Similarly to the way her previous conviction that nabbing the register would be easy had turned into a curse, she soon found herself screeching to a halt in front of a stone wall.

She had cornered herself at a dead-end.

“Curse this empire and its nonsensical street layout!” she exclaimed, kicking a nearby crate.

Wait, a crate!

Kel took a quick look and found, in total, four crates lining the alley. Of those, three of them looked sturdy enough to climb on.

Immediately, she got to work dragging and stacking the boxes against the far wall. She was struggling to heave the last heavy crate on top when she realized the voices chasing her were much closer now.

Too close.

“Come on!!” Kel grunted, lifting with all her might. Perhaps, she’d gone too long without proper physical training after all; though, this wasn’t the ideal situation to reach that conclusion.

As if in answer to her inner plea, the box finally moved. It practically leapt out of her fingers into place.

Without so much as pausing to admire her handiwork, Kel reached up to push herself onto the stack. She had to get over that wal-

FWOOSH!

Her body hurled itself out of the way as a knife struck the crate she had just been reaching for. Jumping back to her feet, she suddenly realized the reason why both the box and her body had moved so easily.

A masked man who looked like he also came from the party was standing directly between her and the attackers.

Using nothing but his hands, the man easily fought off the first wave of armed men. Kel stood in awe watching, until her ears picked up the man’s grunts.

I know that voice, she thought immediately. I know those movements.

As the masked man knocked the final attacker to the ground, Kel reached around from behind and ripped his mask off.

Light brown hair fluttered down to his shoulders, swishing across an unmistakable jawline. Even without seeing the rest of his face, Kel’s suspicions were confirmed.

“What are you doing, Dash?” she yelled, gripping the man’s shoulders and pulling his face toward her.

“We don’t have time for this,” he called back, shrugging her hands off and instead, pulling her close to his body. “I’m here to save you!”

Kel jerked away. “I don’t need you to save me!”

Dash rolled his eyes and wrapped his large hands around Kel’s waist. In a series of fast movements, he had thrown her over his shoulder and climbed over the wall.

Instead of letting her down once they landed safely on the other side, he gripped her legs tightly and began to run.

“Put me down!” Kel yelled, smashing her fists against his back.

“Ouch! Will you quit that?!” He shouted aggravatedly.

“Only if you put me back down!”

“This literally isn’t the place to argue about this right now!”