Page 2 of Feralheart

And the elite would hunt.

The dragon tipped back its head and shot flames into the sky, nearly lighting the canopy aflame.

The bonewailer keened, close enough the call echoed off the ridge.

I should run away. Tolross needed the herbs as much as he needed me alive and able to work. The dead couldn’t heal anyone. Survival was simple math. This dragon was already dead even if it hadn’t been freed yet to be hunted.

I stepped back toward the woods.

The dragon released a low, rattling sound, more plea than threat.

My mother’s hands had been burned pink to the wrists after she’d spent the last of her strength on the baker’s daughter, trying to save the child from the coughing sickness. Within a week, Mother was coughing herself. Within a year, she was gone.

I’d asked her once why she helped people who couldn’t pay and who made her sick. She’d touched my cheek with her ruined hands and said, because someone has to see them.

The dragon’s gaze pinned me in place. This wasn’t the dull, tolerant stare of bonded dragons, the ones who’d learned obedience so long ago they’d forgotten what defiance felt like. This one tracked me to see if I was threat or prey.

Someone had to see it even if seeing it killed them.

I dropped my gaze to its shoulder and crept closer, angling my body sideways to make myself appear smaller. I kept my hands open, almost feeling the strike of its foreclaws on my skin. The flames that would end my life with one blast.

My mother’s song found my throat before I had the sense to stop it. Hum, breathe. Hum, breathe.

I tore a strip from the hem of my tunic, slow enough to avoid startling the beast, and swung it to the left and the right, giving it my scent. The dragon’s pupils narrowed, following each swing. Its smoke thinned.

The hunters would kill it, and they’d take their time.

I could not allow that to happen.

The dragon’s head snapped up as I got closer, and it shot cinnamon-sweet smoke from its nostrils. A warning. I kept my hands visible and my movements slow. My mother had taught me how to approach an injured beast without triggering fatal panic.

“Easy,” I whispered, the word automatic and probably useless. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

Its lips curled back from fangs bred to rip flesh from bone.

Pausing beyond its reach, I waited for it to burn me to nothing or rip me apart with its talons.

It lowered its head and whimpered.

“Aw,” I said softly. “I know it hurts. Let me help you.”

Its gaze followed me as I got within reach and passed its head that curled around to track me.

When I reached the trap, I knelt beside it. Up close, the damage made my heart sink. The trap’s teeth had crushed scales and gouged along the muscle where the beast had tried to pull free.

My hands trembled as I ran my fingertips along the mechanism. The release lever lay underneath, designed so the animal couldn’t get to it.

I could.

The dragon flinched, and its tail gouged toward me, nearly severing my head from my neck. I froze. If I spooked it now, its claws would open me from throat to pelvis with one slash.

“It’s alright,” I said, my voice hoarse. “I’m trying to help.”

It watched me, its smoke curling between us, sweet, unlike the sulfurous reek of aerie dragons.

I slid on my knees through the bloody mud until the trap’s chain lay between us. The release bar was greasy with blood and rain. I groped blindly for the catch while my other hand stayed high and empty where the dragon could see it.

The dragon’s breath heated the back of my neck in gusts, and goosebumps rippled across my skin.