The Dragon Bride | ✔️

Chapter Seven

Kora's POV

I gasp.

"You... You did what?"

Bob shrugs. "Not that big of a deal. Anyway, here's the bear. Come on, let's go home. I have scratches everywhere and my hand's bleeding from where that tramp tried to prise open my claws,"

I frown. The scratches – and the blood – look bad. Really bad. I suddenly feel guilty, knowing it's my fault. If I never insisted on returning Raindrop to Lu, he wouldn't be wounded so badly. In fact, my own knee is bleeding from where I tripped and fell when I ran after Mr Gumfrey and Bob.

I still can't get over the fact that that's his name. It just doesn't feel right, but who am I to say?

"So... Are we going home now?" I ask. I don't really feel like going back to the palace. The idea of being stuck there again makes me queasy.

Bob takes a look at me, deep in thought. "No," he says finally, "I have a pit-stop. Let's go there first,"

I gulp and look to his back, where his beautiful wings once sprouted out from.

"Calm down. By foot." he grins. I sigh in relief, but really there is a slight hint of disappointment. It was magical, after all. And for no other reason, I tell myself quickly. Of course. What other reason would I have to want to fly up into the air with a crazily good-looking dragon and cling onto him for dear life?

Pfft. Obviously.

So we begin to walk away from the Elf cave and south-east, toward a jungle.

What is Bob thinking, taking us there? It looks dangerous, but that doesn't seem to have any effect on me lately.

It takes us half an hour to reach, but eventually we're entering the thickets of the jungle, crouching under vines and jumping over fallen branches, overgrown with soft green moss. There are omniflies everywhere but they don't harm us.

Omniflies are creatures descended from fireflies. They live in jungles like these, and although they look quite normal in daytime, at night they light up, similarly to a lightning imp, except their lights simply change to any colour – mimicking the magiks of woodland creatures.

But there are also fracko frogs here, which are extremely dangerous. Fracko frogs were bred by Vampires, used in a war that happened between the Vampiric country of Ampiria and the Werewolf Republic of Weregild.

These frogs were released into the swamps of Weregild and they intoxicated the water, making it blood-red and toxic to drink. Not only do they poison water but their skin is highly venomous too, and if you get too close they can bite you with their very Vampire-like fangs.

They don't often attack, though. In fact, the Vampires made a mistake when breeding them, because they made them quite peaceful creatures when intended to be highly hostile.

Even so, Ampiria won the war.

"Just through here," Bob says to me now. He moves some vines out of the way, to reveal a beautiful clearing in the stiflingly thick jungle, a river just opposite it, and next to it is a cave.

"Oh- wow! It's beautiful! Do you come here often? How do you know about this place? Hasn't anyone else found-"

"Shhh!" he says, looking impatient. Wow. Rude. "We're going in that cave."

I look to where he's pointing. "What? Why? But it looks so murky,"

He looks to me, an unreadable look in his eye. "We'll see about that,"

What the hell is he on about? I know he acts like an uppity old man, but has he really gone senile? Even so, for some mad reason I follow him anyway all the way up to the cave.