Page 446 of Kingdoms of Night

“Little dragon,” he called out, his voice echoing through the cavern. “You cannot hide from me. I know what you are.”

He spoke the words slowly, calling them out as though she didn’t speak his language. But she did. She’d heard those words before in the memories her dragon friends had left. She had hoped they wouldn’t know dragons could turn into people, but this man knew of their second form. Had her brothers or sisters tried to hide in the same way she did?

Tanis tried to control her breathing so he wouldn’t hear the ragged sounds of her breath. She hunched behind a tall crystal in the far back of the cave, making sure she didn’t brush up against it in case it flared bright.

“Dragon,” he called out again.

She heard his sword scraping on the stone. He taunted her as he hunted, and that made her hate him even more. How dare he? How dare he think he could hunt one of her kind?

If she were a braver dragon, a crimson or a gold, then she might have turned back into her true form and eaten him. But Tanis ached. Her entire body hurt and her heart squeezed in her chest with fear.

She was not a fighter. She had not been born to battle with men for the right to be alive. From the moment she was born into this world, she had known a love of history and memories. Who was she to believe she could ever fight a man like this?

The scraping of the sword paused, and she heard a footstep to her right. “You’re hiding from me,” the man rumbled. “You know I’m going to find you. And when I do, I’m going to enjoy the look on your face as I plunge this sword into your belly.”

She curled her hands over her stomach. Though she had no significant connections to the eggs inside her, she hated to think of losing them. Tanis simply hadn’t had enough time to think about them. To consider that they were little beings inside her who deserved to see the sunlight and to reach out into the world with their own thoughts and abilities.

Now, they were potentially the last who would ever see the sunlight. The very last dragons who would bring about a new age. Or perhaps save their kind.

She couldn’t risk them. Not now.

The first death on the beach hit her straight in the skull. She flinched as she felt the screaming dragon soul retreat to the crystals, where it would deposit the rest of its memories. The last ones that it had held dear to its heart until the very last second.

Then another soul.

And another.

“I hear you,” the warrior behind her called out. “I can smell your fear.”

All those dragons were dying on the beach and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Every time they died, the crystals cried out in sadness because it was another soul taken far too soon. They glowed, one by one. Leading the warrior on a wild chase, most likely. He would never know the glowing was in respect for the souls that now coiled inside them.

“What is this trick?” the warrior shouted. “Do you think you can hide from me with paltry magic?”

It wasn’t magic. But these dragon souls were keeping her safe for a few moments longer. Their deaths might even save her life, but she could not find happiness or hope in that knowledge. They never should have died.

Rage made her chest ache and her fingers curl into fists. She wanted to impale this man upon one of the crystals and let the souls drink of his blood. He should die for all that he’d done, but she didn’t have any weapons on her.

Booted feet hit the ground in front of her with a loud strike. She let out a shriek and lifted her arms over her head.

The warrior had found her.

The tip of his sword sliced through her wrist as he placed it underneath her chin and forced her to look at him. She’d never forget that beard or the anger in his gaze. He hated her. Hated her so much that the mere thought of her existence made him angry.

“Did you really believe I wouldn’t find you?” he hissed. “Dragon scum like you ate my family.”

“We don’t eat people,” she whispered.

“I don’t care for the lies.” The tip of the sword dragged from beneath her chin to her mouth. A straight line that parted around the sharp tip and left warm blood trickling down her neck. “Such horrible words to come out of such a pretty mouth. Maybe I’ll put that to good use before I kill you.”

She’d sooner die.

Tanis opened her pretty mouth to tell him exactly that, but paused as he coughed. Blood dripped down his own chin, and he coughed again.

They both looked down at his torso to see the wicked point of a blunt blade which had been thrust through his back so hard it came out of his belly. He dropped his sword, likely because his hands had gone numb. Then he tried his best to grab onto the sword before it was wrenched sideways, throwing him to the right and onto his side. He would die from that wound.

She stared at the man who stood behind the warrior. Rowan breathed heavily, his brows furrowed in anger and his teeth bared like an animal.

But then he looked at her and all that anger disappeared. He lunged forward, grabbing onto her hands. “Are you all right?”

---