A Match of Monsters

Chapter Fourteen

Elain screamed, but no sound came out past her lips, her lungs had frozen and her heart had sped up until she felt as if it would beat itself right out of her chest. Her hands shook so much that once more she dropped the kit into her lap, and right then she was so glad that she had decided to cross her legs when she'd first sat down.

She would feel ever so guilty if something were to happen to him right after his mother had been killed.

Elain could do nothing but watch as her breath stilled and her heart raced, drowning in silence with eyes that would not close, and a memory that just kept writing itself.

At first her Ladyship froze, not a single noise or movement came from her, with exception to the endless shouts of pain. Then Elain watched as Manasseh began to twist his blackened claws inside her, his muscular forelimbs rippling as they moved from the shoulders while he moved then to needlessly torture the dragoness he held, and as he continued to spitefully deepen the wounds that he had inflicted.

Her Ladyship's screeches became louder, but so too did the growling undertone of every bellow deepen, making Elain shiver as soon as she had managed to quieten herself and hear with so much more detail. She could hear the promise in her Lady's wordless voice, and even though the dragoness was battling so much pain that she was barely coherent, the girl was easily able to interpret exactly what the sound had meant. Again, Elain shrank away from the furious dragon, certain that such a threat could not possibly be idle.

A single, broken flap of her Ladyship's wings was all it took for the dragoness to dislodge herself from Manasseh. Not even the jagged, broken tips that ran along the bladed underside of the renegade second's claws could stop her Lady's momentum for more than a single, briefest possible moment as the she dragon separated her flesh from his grasp.

Elain covered her gaping mouth as she looked on, feeling nothing but horror and a heavy hope that had been tainted with a trace of resignation as to what the future could very well become, for both her and the kit she was to protect and care for.

Her Ladyship held suspended in mid air after she had removed herself from the magenta beast. The dragoness held as still as ice for an unmeasurable number of seconds. So focussed was Elain on the scene slowly playing in front of her that she had not even considered calculating the time. Then the golden wings snapped back to press into the scaled ribs faster than Elain could see. The girl bit her lip so hard that it began to bleed as she desperately contained all the sounds that wanted to leave her mouth. Without the warm air currents under her Lady's wings, to keep her stationary in the charged atmosphere, she began to fall.

Elain squinted, leaned closer, and tilted her head when she realised that her Ladyship has spoken again, as she had not since many hours ago when the battle between the two monsters had startled their battle in the first place. Elain was desperate to hear what her wise ruler had said, for she had never, for she had never heard of a dragon, or any immortal really, that did not say and mean two entirely different things.

"Dishonourable curr."

Elain did not know what her Ladyship could have possibly meant by the words alone, but she could clearly read that it was a painful insult by the expression on Manasseh's proud face.

For a moment, he appeared cut to the very core. The frilled scales along his jawline drooped. And his eyes lowered as they filled with pain and regret. But he was quick to recover, and soon had shielded and controlled his emotions once more. She saw the powerful male visibly shake his head side to side in large, deliberate motions that banished the emotions back behind his mask. As soon as he had, the girl observed in her corner of silence as once more the dragon's eyes filled with a potent combination of anger, determination and malice. His frills became erect once more, and his entire body straightened proudly as he looked on at his falling opponent impassively.