Page 55 of Dream Reaper

She worried the inside of her cheek. “I need you to ask Jerrid something.”

Dragon twisted his neck to glare at her suspiciously.

“I need to know if there is any benefit to stitching you up as a dragon or a man. I mean, do you heal faster or anything?”

Dragon blinked at her, steam hissing from between his teeth. “It will hurt less if you do it now. I’m stronger. At least I won’t whine as much.”

A few seconds later, he barked a laugh, flashing his teeth. Ava could only assume that Jerrid had found some choice words to share with him about that last comment.

“I’m not really worried about the whining,” Ava said, forcing a smile so that she appeared as relaxed as possible—while she felt anything but, currently. “I’m more concerned about you biting my head off or roasting me alive.”

He chuffed and rolled completely onto his side to allow his long neck to lie flat across the ground and wrap it around her kneeling body. “I won’t bite you.”

The words sounded surprisingly soft, coming from a dragon.

A little heat filled Ava’s cheeks, but she chose not to respond. Hopefully Brynja wouldn’t take too long to return with those supplies.

The heat from Dragon’s body warmed her as she kneeled and waited. She could even feel his labored breaths. His entire throat vibrated as his lungs forced the air in and out. He might be putting on a show, because if she were any judge of his condition…which she was…he was in more pain than he was letting on.

She licked her lips and shifted so that she peered down at his angular head. “This gash looks deep and kind of strange. I, uh, was wondering how you got hurt.”

His body stilled. Ava swallowed and looked away, staring at the wad of cloth in her hands. She peeled it back again to peek at the gaping hole in his side and the blackened flesh.

“You stabbed me,” Dragon said gruffly without opening his eyes. “With a flaming dagger. I can only assume that you thought you were stabbing someone else. I thought you and I were starting to be friends.”

Ava’s heart thundered in her chest. She remembered distinctly the feeling of the invisible dagger in her hands…and the unusual flare of heat as she plunged it downward. How the flames had she conjured a magical knife? She had never in her life been able to summon magic of that power.

“That isn’t possible,” she whispered, staring at her hands as she pressed Brynja’s shirt against the wound again. “The most magic I have ever been able to manage is a flicker of flame to start fires. My magic is very weak.”

Dragon grunted. “I beg to differ, Meat Pasty. There’s a hole in my side.”

“It couldn’t have been me. It must have been the nightmare!” She shook her head violently, unable to believe it.

All her life she had longed for more powerful magic, something to make her strong, to make others see her as strong, to do good. Instead, she had always been less than she wanted.

Always too weak. Always behind her classmates. Always behind the other apprentices at the palace. She had worked twice as hard as the other healers to become Glamren’s right hand, to be allowed to serve the royal family instead of just the other occupants of the palace.

“I don’t know if the nightmare had anything to do with it,” Dragon said, opening an eye at last to squint up at her. “But it was dark elf magic that stung me, Meat Pasty. And you were the one wielding it.”

Ava gave another helpless shake of her head. “But that’s not how elvish magic works. We don’t conjure weapons.”

That thing in her head had put an actual blade into her hands.

“Well, whatever happened, it would have been a glorious thing if I wasn’t the one being skewered.” He paused for a moment. “Jerrid says it hurt like the blazes, thank you very much.”

Ava could hear him saying it too, in that gruff but wry tone of voice she had already come to expect from him. “I’m sorry.”

It was all she could think to say.

As Brynja’s footsteps began to echo through the shadows, Dragon nudged her thigh with his snout. “It wasn’t me you were attacking, Meat Pasty…was it?”

“Flames, no. I thought I was attacking a monster. It was choking me and holding me down. I couldn’t breathe, and for some reason, it popped into my head that I wished I had a dagger, and then…then I guess I did.”

Dragon leaned away from her to make room for Brynja. “You can blame Jerrid for some of that. He was holding you down. You were yelling good enough to bring down the mountains. Such a loud voice you have for a tiny meat pasty.”

Her lips curled down. She wished he would stop referring to her as a pie. Not only was it far from flattering, but she hated how he always reminded her that he thought of her as food.

It was disconcerting to say the least.