Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129584 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129584 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Before Ravi could come up with any kind of plan to escape this new mess, his heels hit the dirt hard, causing him to skid forward. Dirt and dust were flung into the air in every direction, creating a small cloud around him and the plane. But not nearly enough for him to hide in. He might not be a large dragon, but he was big enough that his shining blue scales showed bright against the silver metal and vibrant green grass.
When he and the plane had come to a complete halt, Ravi carefully balanced himself, leaving his wings half-unfurled as he regarded the gathered people. No one moved. If he hadn’t known better, he would have said they were all props, mannequins. Except for the fact that several of them were holding up their cellphones, recording everything.
Ravi lifted his head and looked into the cockpit to find the human who was sitting there, looking stunned and utterly confused. But his chest was rising and falling rapidly, and he blinked a couple of times. Good. Still alive. At least he hadn’t given the poor guy a heart attack.
He waggled his claws at the human and tried to smile, but the man just got paler. But then, he seemed more focused on Ravi’s enormous teeth than his friendly expression.
Not that humans were good at reading friendly on a dragon’s face. Cameron had teasingly said that dragons either looked like they wanted to eat you or were bored. Right now, the pilot looked like he was reading eat you on Ravi’s face.
Sighing, Ravi slowly moved to where most of the humans were gathered on the grassy field. He stood there for a second, wracking his brain. Nothing really useful was coming to him, so he waved one talon-tipped hand at the people.
“This is not the dragon you were looking for,” he said in his most hopeful tone.
One woman’s mouth fell open, and she lowered her phone a little. “Did—did you just try to do a Jedi mind trick on us?”
“Did it work?”
“No.”
Ravi’s shoulders slumped, and he gathered his wings tighter against his body, trying to pull together as much dignity as he could muster, considering the mess he’d gotten himself into.
“Damn you, Obi Wan. You made it look so easy.”
No one seemed to know what to say to that.
Ravi gave them his best puppy eyes. “Could we keep this whole little thing just between us?”
Someone else on the ground barked out a high-pitched laugh. “No way. I’m livestreaming this on Instagram.”
“Facebook,” another woman chimed in.
“TikTok,” a third person added.
“Scheiße,” Ravi cursed under his breath. Alric was definitely going to kill him. With a little wave of his hand, he mumbled an embarrassed, “Sorry for disturbing your movie. I thought the pilot was in trouble.”
And then he launched himself back into the air.
He didn’t care about fog, clouds, or trying to hide himself in any way. It was too late for that. Now he was just a blue blur in the sky as he raced toward a secluded spot. He needed to warn the other dragons back at Burkhard.
The kilometers raced by below him, and he didn’t stop again until he was in an uninhabited area well past Dover. That had been his original plan, to stay away from civilization until he reached a library.
Now he didn’t know what he should do.
In what looked to be a lonely stretch of woods, Ravi set down and shifted into his human form. His heart was pounding, and his throat was painfully dry as he dug his cellphone out of the little bag he was carrying. He hesitated for only a moment, trying to decide who to call. He knew he should call Alric or even Baldewin. As the head of security for the clan, Baldewin would need to know about this mess he’d made.
This was so, so much bigger than his usual antics. It wasn’t a matter an apology and doing dishes for a month could make up for. He’d just outed his whole clan. Possibly implicated the ice dragons as well. Like, how many years of dishes would this take?
And were people even ready to come out of the closet? Alric and Rodrigo had been talking about it, debating pros and cons, but no one had arrived at a conclusion yet.
Yet. Ha, that was funny.
Funny because Ravi had taken the option out of their hands.
Alric might lock him in the dungeon with Gunter for the rest of his life. Ravi couldn’t think of a worse punishment than being confined to the dungeon, researching until his eyes crossed. He shuddered at the image.
No, there was only one person who could help keep his king from going through the roof.
“Ravi,” Cameron’s sleep-rough voice groaned in his ear the moment the call connected. “I thought I told you not to call me before the sun was up.”