A Pet for the Dragons

3. & 4.

Chapter 3

ARIKA

As I slowly started to surface from the nightmares that plagued me regularly, I noticed pain. I mentally searched my body to find the source of pain but couldn't. However, the pain was there. It was just that I couldn't quite locate where it pained precisely, but I was in pain.

Too much pain. I'd never been in this much pain, in this kind of pain.

I breathed, trying to ease the pain, but it only seemed to get worse the more I became aware of the pain. The more I became aware of the pain, the more I became aware of my surroundings.

It was unnaturally cold, and I shivered. I wanted to curl up and rub my feet together for warmth, but I couldn't move my body. The pain was holding me down, keeping me from surfacing from the nightmares.

I groaned... or tried to let out one.

I tried to remember why I was in so much pain. However, I couldn't. All I saw was white, and the sound of sea waves crashing filled my ears. That soothed me for a second.

The sea always soothed me the same way it daunted me. But for now, I imagined a calm sea and some seagulls flying in the distance, the dolphins dancing in front of my ship's bow— I tried to imagine all the things that calmed me down to divert me from pain and for a moment, it helped.

I sighed but felt something move beside me. I tried to open my eyes to see what had moved, but all strength seemed to have left my body suddenly. Just the mere task of opening my eyes to see felt too much.

However, I sensed more movement and some growls that reminded me of wild animals. A shiver ran down my spine. I wasn't used to hearing growls like that. I was more used to hearing whales' calls and the sea's roar. Growls meant I was somewhere on land and in the woods—I hated woods.

I heard more growls, and this finally made me force my eyes open. At first, I didn't see anything. My vision was blurry, but I saw patches of colour. I had been expecting a shock of green in my vision, but instead, I saw patches of grey, darkness, and something dark greyish that seemed to move.

I blinked a couple more times until my vision finally started to clear up. I could see more blobs of colour and even make out some objects. I could make out a human-like figure lingering above me, and another one stood a few places away, staring at me.

I blinked several more times to clear my vision. As my vision started to get clearer and clearer, I noticed that the human I was staring at had an odd grey tint to its skin. When the blur was finally gone, I realized it wasn't human.

No. It looked like a human, but it wasn't one—the horns and scales on his forehead and neck were a dead giveaway.

A dragon. A Drakkon!

My eyes widened as I studied the creature in front of me. He had horns that curled towards the back of his head and was covered with thick, long dark hair.

The forehead and the rest of the face were framed with scales of a strange grey tint, and his skin had the same grey tint. However, it wasn't the scales nor the horns that made my heart stutter.

No. It was the eyes. The he-dragon I was looking at had a deep set of eyes that seemed to possess a strange inner glow. I wondered if it was because they were dragons or if it had something to do with the snow dust they consumed.

Whatever the reason behind his glowing eyes, they had a piercing intensity while analyzing me.

"She's awake," another voice said and lifted its head. I realized that the strange weight on my chest had been someone's head—another dragon. But what was he doing there?