“I am.”
I dip my head before she can argue more, press my lips to the wound, and suck.
It’s bitter. Wrong. The taste coats my tongue like rotting fruit mixed with copper and death. I spit blood, black and oily, onto the dirt. Do it again. Again. Her thigh twitches under my hands, and she hisses through her teeth.
“Fuck, Kragna, that’s not?—”
“Quiet.”
Another mouthful. Another spit. I feel the venom scraping against my gums like shards of glass. My stomach twists. My vision blurs for a moment. My blood doesn’t like this shit.
I ignore it.
“You’re gonna poison yourself,” she breathes.
“Worth it.”
The last draw burns worse than the rest. My fangs ache. I spit it out and slump back onto my haunches, panting, sweating, tongue thick and useless in my mouth.
River’s pale but still conscious.
“You good?” I rasp.
She nods slowly. “For now.”
“Good. Because we’re not alone.”
I feel them before I hear them—shifts in the air, the press of ancient instincts buzzing under my skin. I lift my head and call.
Not with words. Not with voice.
With memory.
With bond.
First, the ground trembles.
Then a shape lumbers out from behind the trees. Massive. Hulking. Covered in moss, scars, and scales. Bruce. My favorite dino-beast. One of his tusks is chipped, his eyes half-lidded like he’s just woken from a nap he didn’t consent to.
“Yo,” he rumbles. “You bleed loud.”
“Missed you too,” I say, forcing a grin.
Next comes a hiss like gas escaping a pipe, and a ripple of fog slithers through the trees. Harriet slinks out, all scales and necks—six of them tonight, coiled and twitching. Her breath smells like rotten eggs and death. One of her heads sneezes, and the moss around her sizzles.
“Did someone poison the girl?” she asks, too sweet.
“I handled it.”
“Pity. I love a good corpse.”
Then, as always, last and loudest?—
Charen crashes through the canopy, wings wide and glinting, body curled like a drunken serpent. She lands hard, then stumbles upright with a cackle.
“Someone call for the cavalry?” she croons, grinning with far too many teeth. His eyes are wild, his breath thick with the stench of fermented fruit and maybe fire.
“Keep it down,” I grunt. “We’re being hunted.”
