It knows exactly where I am.
I have never felt more visible in my life.
The wings fold.
For half a breath, something ugly in me hopes. If I let it take me. If it carries me back inside, I’m close to her again. I can offer them anything. I can still make a deal.
Then I see the shape of the dive, and the hope dies.
A dive to catch something holds back. Leaves room for the grab. This one doesn’t. It’s flat and fast and aimed to hit, and I understand what that means.
They don’t want me back. They want me dead.
A dead woman can’t talk.
A dead woman also can’t trade, or bargain, or buy her sister one more month of being looked after.
The ground shadow is growing. I have a second, maybe two.
My wolf doesn’t wait to die.
She surges forward and takes over, and we’re moving before I’ve chosen anything. Not away, but in, under the angle of the dive, low and fast. Closing the gap to attack is the only card she has.
The hit takes the world away.
A claw catches my hindquarters, and I’m airborne, then down hard on my shoulder. I roll, come up, and get my teeth into the joint above its foreleg. Not deep. It’s all I have, so I hang on and grind. The dragon shakes me loose like an annoying bug.
I land on rock, ribs first.
The air is gone. My chest won’t work. My torn side is screaming, and the sky above me is all wings and neck and teeth, dropping. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever been under, and I know how this ends.
Out here. Alone. Nobody left to look for her.
I scrabble, trying to find my feet. Even though I know my wolf is no match for a full-grown dragon, I can’t give up.
I’m sorry, Ser. I’m so sorry. I—
Something slams into the dragon from the side and knocks the sky clear.
I don’t see where it comes from. One heartbeat there’s only dragon; the next there’s a bear the size of a bus sending the creature somersaulting backward through the air.
And I know him. I’ve never laid eyes on this beast, but it doesn’t matter. The sight of him feels like it’s been in the back of my mind all my life.
My wolf answers without doubt.He’s here.
I want to argue. Tell her that he took us. That he’s not safe.
He’s more,she insists.He came.
The dragon recovers. Its tail lashes, catching Decker across the chest. He rolls with it, comes up inside the reach again, and drives his shoulder into the softer fold under the wing. The impact jars the ground. The dragon’s head snaps down, jaws closing on the bear’s ruff. Blood sprays in a short arc, dark against fur.
Decker wrenches free, fur tearing. He goes low again, under the next strike, and sinks teeth into the same joint I found. Scales split. The dragon roars and twists, fire blooming from its throat in a sudden sheet.
The flame catches Decker full across the back and one flank. Fur blackens and curls. Skin beneath blisters raw. He doesn’t release. The reek of scorched hide fills the air. He drives deeper, hind legs braced, weight pinning the joint while smoke rises from his own burning coat. The dragon thrashes, talons raking down his ribs in return, opening three parallel furrows that well and spill.
Decker’s roar cuts through the crack of bone. He shoves upward once more, driving into the chest wall until cartilage gives. A giant paw slashes in an arc, claws three inches long raking into the crushed chest cavity. The dragon gives astrangled snarl. Its wings beat once, then falter. A gaping hole opens it from throat to belly.
I fight down bile, shrinking back. But it’s not necessary now.
