*The wind was so loud in Ridley’s ears, she couldn’t hear the protests she was making. The dream of lights and songs had become a nightmare, and she knew she had to fight to get back to whatever lay behind. But how did she battle her captor, nightmare or not, on the back of a flying horse?
They flew through the falling snow, sailing high over the trees. She hung onto the horse’s black mane and squeezed her legs against its slick sides, well acquainted with how to stay on a horse, having ridden many of them in her youth. Of course, none of those horses could fly.
“This is real,” she chanted over and over, trying hard to believe it.
The man…or whatever the creature was that had taken her, held her firmly with an arm around her waist. His cape made a whispering sound that got lost in the beating noise of the horse’s wings. He hadn’t spoken a word since her abduction. Her shouts went nowhere.
She had to think.
Whether or not this was real, were things as simple as this being a case of Dark versus Light? Did that include the concept of Good versus Bad?
She had been drawn to the golden-haired female in Jake’s yard in direct opposition to the trill of fear she had experienced when the dark warrior had appeared.
Her instincts had usually served her well in the past, and warned now that the man behind her didn’t have good intentions. Jake had treated this guy like an enemy. The golden-haired woman had done the same.
What the hell was a Changeling, anyway?
Why had her abductor called her that?
There had been lights and bubbles in Jake’s backyard, along with an interruption of the songs in the canyon. Tonight’s beauty had been dashed, and Ridley desperately wanted that beauty back.
Although it was dark, she knew the ground was a long way down, and that jumping off of this flying animal would surely mean her death. They flew over a few rooftops strung with Christmas lights that not long ago had been a joyous sight for her.
Neighborhoods she recognized passed beneath. The canyon was behind them now, and Jake wasn’t here to convince her that this could be real. She wasn’t even sure Jake was real. Jake Silver and his wall of fire. Handsome, blue-eyed Jake and his unbelievable remarks about her and the possibility of a hidden heritage that was as far-fetched as all the rest of what had happened after she walked through his gate.
Fae? Faeries? Changelings up for grabs?
It seemed to her that her vocabulary had been sorely lacking lately.
Another sound gained traction beyond the swish of the flying horse’s wings. Ridley was sure she heard the accompanying sound of more wings. Bigger wings, swooping through the icy wind.
She didn’t try to search the sky. The smallest movement could serve to throw her off balance. So she closed her eyes and concentrated on the sound of the wings.
She counted the seconds going by. Whereas the black horse’s wings rose and fell every four or five seconds, the more distant wings did the same in ten. The difference in the timing of these wing beats was like comparing the flight of a swallow to that of a hawk.
Maybe this was a bad omen.
In spite of her fears, she told herself to jump off this horse, because none of this made sense. Could it be true? All of it? Everything Jake had tried to tell her? Fire-wielding Jake Silver was actually a creature out of old tales, and she had never really been human?
Like the dragons in those old childhood stories, and without her being a captive princess, would Jake come for her?
She had never wanted to believe anything as much as she wanted to believe Jake was right behind them. She also wished she would wake up now and be at home, safe and in bed.
Her captor was growing concerned about having a pursuer, which gave her hope. He pressed Ridley into a forward leaning position, which left her bent close to the black horse’s neck. Muttering something unintelligible, he urged the horse to a faster pace with a fierce kick of his heels.
Below them, the rooftops had disappeared, replaced by a long stretch of unoccupied, snow-covered mountainside. She might survive a fall here if the snow was thick, but Ridley wasn’t sure she could move. She was frozen stiff. Each intake of breath resulted in an icy shock to her system.
Still, she noticed they were flying lower now, at maybe the equivalent of two stories off the ground. She figured she could either die of the cold as some jerk’s prisoner in this nightmare, or take the chance to get away, however slim that chance might be. If this was a dream, it couldn’t hurt to try.
So she waited until the black horse’s wings sailed downward, and then Ridley leaned sharply to the right, disrupting her captor’s grip. Untangling her fingers from the black mane, she let herself fall.
*
She was going to die. Ridley was sure of it.
She fell so fast, snowflakes couldn’t touch her. So fast, each breath was like swallowing shards of glass.
Plummeting with both arms outstretched, she cut quickly through the dark making sounds that were nothing more than senseless syllables strung together like the melody floating in the air in Jake’s backyard.
The ground got closer. There was only one more story left until she hit the ground. She closed her eyes, waiting for an impact that didn’t happen. Her fall was interrupted by a hard bump to her back. The black flying horse had come up from beneath her.
“No!” Ridley shouted as a gloved hand reached for her, missed her by inches, and the horse’s stiff wing struck her in the face.
The pain of the strike was extreme, but didn’t last. Something sharp grazed her jacket, tearing a gaping hole near her waist that allowed more ice to get in.
Her vision blurred as a blaze of brilliant scarlet suddenly saturated the air to her right. What looked like a pale eye, the size of a baseball, came close enough to gaze at her.
This would have been a good time to faint. And yet somehow she knew what this gigantic red mass was, and who this had to be.
Yes…
It was the dragon.
*
In Jake’s current fiery incarnation, he was three times the size of the Pegasus lookalike, and outweighed it by a good five hundred pounds. But the warrior’s flying companion had better visual acuity at night. So Jake exhaled streams of flame to light the area, hoping the flames would also protect Ridley from the icy coldness of the night wind, and warn off the flying Fae.
The warrior had already caught hold of Ridley’s sleeve, which slowed the speed of her fall. Just ten more feet and she would have hit the ground if the warrior hadn’t clung to her with all his might and Jake hadn’t reached her in time.
I’m here now… Jake would have shouted to Ridley if he had a voice. Yet there was a good chance she wouldn’t have been comforted by that.
He flew closer to her, careful to keep his wings from striking the pale beauty who still wore a dazed expression. He tucked a talon in the tear in her coat and tugged.
The Dark Fae warrior lost his grip and cursed the intrusion. Jake pulled Ridley to him and closed his talons around her, lifting her to safety for the moment, but aware that this warrior was not going to give up so easily.
A silver blade materialized in the Dark Fae’s hand as the Night Horse wheeled to the left. As Jake turned, the warrior flew toward him, prepared to strike.
The blade shivered off the golden armor on Jake’s back, unable to breach his tough dragon skin and the magical wards permanently placed for just such an event as this one. The attempt threw the warrior off balance, but the Dark Fae and their Night Horses often acted as one entity.
The black horse dipped in time to prevent the warrior from suffering a fall. Flying fast, the warrior came at Jake again, still wielding the silver blade.
Ridley was getting her wits back. She gasped when she saw the blade and shouted something that was muffled. It sounded to Jake like she had said “Get that bastard, Jake!”
She had used his name. She believed this dragon was Jake Silver.
With a forceful heave, Jake’s wings spread to their full span. He dropped to the earth and let go of Ridley. Unable to stand, she sank to her knees in the snow. But her expression had changed to one of defiance, and Jake had seen this expression before.
Ridley Stone was starting to believe.
*
Ridley sat on her knees with her face turned to the sky. She had gotten her wish. Jake was rescuing her, but his face-off with the jerk that had tried to abduct her wasn’t over.
In the sky above her, where a snow flurry drifted in the wind, the creepy black horse was again heading toward her. As it descended, the huge red creature she was sure was Jake Silver snared the black horse’s wings with its sharp, curved talons, stopping the horse mid-flight.
The flying horse snorted harshly as it struggled to get free. The warrior on its back shouted a string of oaths and continued to strike out with the silver blade. None of those strikes landed.
Her dragon rescuer shifted his bulk, and a second talon pierced the black wing. The horse’s shriek of anger was matched by the oaths of the caped creature on its back. Though the mighty scarlet dragon could have hedged his bets by doing more harm to the pair on the ground, the dragon soared into the air and disappeared, taking Ridley’s captor and his evil mount with him.
Without the sound of flapping wings the world around Ridley fell silent. The night that had been lightened by the dragon’s exhaled streams of fire again became dark. She was alone, and safe. She was chilled to the bone, but the cold seemed preferable to an alternate outcome.
Taking shallow breaths of the icy air, Ridley got to her feet. There was blood on her coat from the wound on her cheek that had been given to her by the dark horse’s wing, but like the rest of her, the wound was nothing more than a nuisance at the moment since she couldn’t feel her face.
The night wind was bitter. She was shivering so hard, it was difficult to remain upright. Staying in the open on this mountainside wouldn’t be a good idea, even though the snowfall was light. Still, Ridley waited as long as she could for the dragon to return before searching the area to get her bearings.
A twinkle of distant lights far below her and to the east drew her attention. People were down there—people who were just people, hopefully. If she could reach them, she would get away and leave all of this behind. She’d drive straight to the airport and use that ticket to Florida.
After several hesitant steps, however, she paused, suddenly filled with dread. The night again was alive with the sound of wings. Lots of wings. More than just two pair.
The sky grew darker, as if the night had overlapped. She felt a weighty presence and thought she heard the snort of a horse…which was immediately followed by another.
Fear shot through her in a white-hot electrical streak. Adrenaline pumped through her frigid muscles as she began to run.