Page 65 of Dream Reaper

“I don’t suppose,” she hedged, “you could just…I don’t know…keep some of your scales on you when you shift. You know. Cover up the important bits, for the sake of the girls.”

His face felt as if it were broiling from the inside out. “I, uh, I don’t know. I’ve never tried.”

“Well, try it next time, please,” she fired back at him. “Because Finnr doesn’t have a wardrobe full of clothes for you to tear through. At the very least, try to take off a few pieces before you shift next time so that we can reuse them.”

Jerrid nodded, but he doubted he had enough control to even attempt it. When Dragon wanted to come out, he came out hard and fast, and Jerrid didn’t usually have enough warning.

“I’ll do my best,” he promised gruffly, “but I don’t usually have enough forewarning to…um, to strip.”

Roar snickered, and even Ava cracked a smile, although she avoided catching his gaze with a studiousness that could only be deliberate.

“I wish I could run around naked like you do,” the boy said with a long-suffering sigh.

His mother cuffed him upside the back of the head. “Oh, be quiet. Go get your father’s spare clothes.”

“Does he have any left?” the boy demanded in something akin to delight. “I hope he doesn’t. Then maybe we could all go around⁠—”

“Get the clothes!” his mother bellowed, and the boy shot off, dodging her hand as he went.

Once Jerrid dressed himself again, he led the way toward the section of forest that Roar had indicated. The child wailed behind them when his mother refused to let him go, but Ava and Brynja followed hot on Jerrid’s heels, ignoring the boy’s demands to be included.

That child…

Jerrid had never met one quite like him, and he’d known his fair share of children back at Fangward. The city was crawling with young scamps getting up to mischief, but Roar put them all to shame.

He shuddered to think what would happen if the boy ever rallied a force of like-hearted scamps to his cause. They’d be a force to be reckoned with, that was for sure.

He sniffed suspiciously at the air in the forest as they slipped between the trunks of the trees.

Thanks to Dragon, he could pick up a lingering scent of the missing girl. It was faint though as it wound between the trunks of the trees. He forced his way through the brittle undergrowth, following the trail of her mildly floral and highly musky smell.

He doubted anyone got regular baths around here.

And they smelled like it.

Not that he could judge. He smelled worse, he was sure, but he was used to his own smell. It didn’t bother him.

Stay focused, Dragon hissed at him. It’s not exactly pleasant in here.

Jerrid lowered his head a little and moved more quickly through the trees. Behind him, Ava’s footsteps crunched loudly through the dead leaves and twigs. He debated calling out for the missing girl since they were already making enough noise to announce their presence to every predator within a mile of their location.

Stop! Dragon hissed in his head at the exact moment Jerrid’s own feet froze, a new scent teasing his nostrils.

He sniffed loudly, turning his head in the direction the smell was strongest.

“What—”

He held up a warning hand, and Brynja broke off obediently. This wasn’t the girl. It was something else, something more primal, more…

Wet fur.

Yes, wet fur. Perhaps a shade wolf.

Too far…from the mountains. Dragon’s thoughts grew more strained.

“Myrk hound,” Jerrid breathed to the two girls behind him. “I think there is a myrk hound nearby.”

Ava gasped, her fingers digging into the back of his tunic. “One of Talos’s?”