Page 58 of Dream Reaper

Ava backed away, shooing Dragon with subtle movements of her fingers behind her back. He ducked out and waited for her to join him.

“That wasn’t kind,” she snapped, eyes glinting in the firelight.

He bared his teeth at her. “But it worked.”

Ava had no time for him however, already flitting away to wake up some other howling human.

You have no heart…

He trudged after her, annoyed with Ava, annoyed with Jerrid, and mostly annoyed with all the screaming. Would it ever stop? Or would it go on endlessly, driving the stake deeper into his brain. His head hurt. Oh, how it hurt.

He blinked, and his meat pasty had disappeared again. Which tent had she gone into this time? He growled and sniffed at the nearest tent anxiously, trying to pick up her scent. It was spicier than the human musk that filled the camp. Deeper and harder to detect.

Poking his nose into another tent, he inhaled deeply but only got a shout and something hard upon his nose for his efforts. Backing out, he flicked the boot that had been hurled at his head back into the tent with a wounded sniff.

Brynja called out from behind him, “I can’t wake them up!”

Dragon looked over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of the human girl leaning out of a tent, her expression grim and anxious.

You might as well bellow again and wake them all up, Jerrid muttered. If you’re going to keep my body, you may as well make yourself useful.

They would have words later about Jerrid’s ill-humored opinions of him.

Dragon spun to face the bulk of the tents on his side of the campfire. Bracing his feet, he swallowed back the pain in his head, in his bones, and summoned his deepest reservoir of strength.

His roar shook the ground beneath the camp, so loud it shut out all other sounds in his ears. All he could hear was his own roar.

He blundered by the tents, roaring and poking his nose into tent flaps. The humans hurled more personal items in his direction, and a small dog with floppy ears and a curled lip actually tried to take a bite out of his clawed foot. Dragon shook the mutt off with a warning growl, but it only ran barking around his legs, growling and snapping and making a nuisance of himself.

Dragon tried to back away without squashing the thing, but it was everywhere at once. Jumping, darting, loping in circles. Everywhere he turned, there was dog.

Dog, dog, dog…

And that splitting pain in his skull. Why the shades did it hurt so badly?

I think something’s wrong, Jerrid whispered from the darkness, his voice so low that Dragon could barely hear him over the incessant yapping. You need to let me out.

“We’re being attacked by a squirrel. Of course something is wrong!” Dragon bellowed as he tripped over a cast-iron cauldron and very nearly stepped into the ashy remains of someone’s cook fire.

Not the squirrel—I mean, the dog. Something else. I need to get out. Let me out!

What else was there? Besides the dog, and the screaming, and the pain…

Yes, the pain…the pain…

Dragon stumbled and went down on one knee. The dog jumped against his leg, straining to reach Dragon’s face, barking and snarling and snapping. Yes, snapping. Snapping was a good idea. One good snap and there would be no more barking…

Don’t you dare eat that dog! He isn’t food. He’s a pet— Oh, that hurts!

Dragon had never known such pain, this splintering, rending pain. Pain so great it brought a dragon to his knees. He threw back his head and roared in agony.

Hands grabbed his face and tugged him toward the ground. He snarled, lashing out and wincing away at the same time. But then the hands were there again, cupped on both sides of his face.

Ava’s face swam into view mere inches from the end of his nose. “Dragon!”

When he responded by yanking out of her hands, she came at him again, a hand on his shoulder.

“Dragon! What’s wrong?”