Free Mate Of A Dragon Villain (Skeleton Key) by Skeleton Key, Mandy Rosko Page A

immediately felt better, and decided to take the risk and pull her face away from Hargreave’s chest.
    The wind on her face was cool, almost cold with the height they were at and the speed they soared. Amanda looked back at Hargreave’s wings, noting the spines and spikes in some places, the red scales, and the black leathery look of them. They were beautiful.
    It was also when she realized he wasn’t flapping them like a bird anymore. It seemed he’d only needed to do that to get high up into the sky. They were locked tight, allowing Hargreave to glide. Amanda still felt that up and down motion that turned her stomach as they hit currents of wind, and she had to close her eyes again, get her bearings, and then open them up one more time.
    She could see Eldric’s castle fading away in the distance behind them, and in front of them, the horizon, the green fields, and even a flock of some kind of bird.
    It was the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen in her life. If Amanda had a camera, she would have taken a photo and made it her desktop background image. She really would have.
    Amanda searched out for the blond dragon and spotted him. He was somewhat behind Hargreave to the right of them. Olga still looked frightened, but the red flush on her face looked anything but angry. Maybe Amanda had humiliated her with the screaming fit.
    Now she was embarrassed.
    “Where are we going?”
    She almost had to yell her words. The wind was louder than she would have thought up here.
    Hargreave smiled that mischievous smile that made his eyes sparkle and dance. It made him look young and handsome and almost carefree. “Home.”
    Amanda didn’t ask anything after that. It didn’t seem like a good time to have a proper conversation about anything, and she figured, with the way Hargreave continued to signal to his men, that they still had to watch out for Eldric’s men to make sure they didn’t get attacked.
    Amanda had written about the distance between Hargreave’s and Eldric’s castles. It was supposed to take at least an hour to fly between each one, but since she couldn’t transition between scenes, it felt longer to experience the flight for herself, and in that time, Amanda discovered she could get a little nauseous in the air like this.
    She couldn’t even spend the hour thinking up questions she wanted to ask Hargreave when they landed. She was too busy focusing with all her mind and body on the power of not vomiting.
    Please don’t get sick. Don’t let me get sick. I don’t want to puke.
    Amanda could just picture some poor squirrel or deer down below, minding its own business, and then getting hit with a wet load of her vomit.
    She wasn’t a comedy writer, so that didn’t sound the least bit pleasing to her.
    Amanda squeaked when she felt another change in the wind, and when Hargreave started to come down for a landing. She hung on tighter, letting the killer butterflies in her gut get used to the feeling of descent.
    “Hold on, sweet.” Hargreave laughed almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth. “Not too tight. You choke me.”
    She was holding on a little too tight, but Amanda couldn’t for the life of her force herself to give Hargreave any slack. No matter how tightly and securely his arms were under her legs and around her waist, if she let him go, she somehow just knew that death would be waiting at the end of a long fall.
    Hargreave went down incredibly fast and Amanda really did think they were going to hit the ground hard before he pulled up at the last second, his feet touching the ground as he landed almost at a run. The rest of his men did the same. Amanda was sure that if she had been watching the landing from somewhere else, she might have thought it was graceful, but all she wanted in that moment was to get down.
    She pushed against Hargreave’s chest. “Let me go.”
    His expression changed, concern in his eyes as he did as she asked, but Amanda didn’t have time to tell him he