Page 44 of Centaur Bolt

He snorted at me, but when I pointed to the leaves, he dropped the slabs of meat onto them. With a lift of lip over fang to express his displeasure, he paced over to the stones and breathed fire over them.

I wrapped the eel bits in the seaweed before placing them amid the superheated stones. My mouth watered.

A loud rumbling announced that Havoc was also hungry. While they cooked, I had another mission for the Dragon. “Is there crystal dust in this cave?”

The reply was grudging. “Yess. At backs. High up.”

“I need some.”

His copper gaze narrowed, and he blew very hot air at me. I winced but did not back down. “I’d rather not grow my own wings to get it,” I stated, handing him more leaves. “You can bind it up in these.”

He didn’t take them. “Why needs?”

“It helps me retain control over the nasty thing with the big teeth,” I elaborated. I didn’t feel I needed to discuss how there was actually more than one toothy devil inside me.

I am not a toothy devil.

Okay. Feathery one, then.

I was considered a scholar,Iskar stated rather stiffly.

Explains much, actually.

While Iskar did the mental equivalent of sputtering, Havoc regarded me as though he’d like to use me as an appetizer.

“Give the stones one more blast before you go,” I suggested.

The fire he jetted over them seemed a bit excessive. He grabbed the leaves from me, his talons narrowly missing my arm. The first downsweep of his massive wings peppered me with bits of sand and gravel.

I finger-combed the grains out of my hair, coughed out the dust, and moved closer to the glowing stones, enjoying the heat. The red Dragon soared toward the back of the enormous cave, landed on a ledge high above, and vanished.

Watch how far you push him.Iskar sounded uneasy.There is something about him that isn’t quite right.

There’s something about me that isn’t quite right,I countered.Unfortunately, we are stuck here. No way I’d be able to swim past those damned eels.

Point,he conceded.

Havoc was gone for far longer than it should have taken him to scoop a few fistfuls of dust. I suspected he was avoiding talking to me. Which was fine. I didn’t particularly wish to talk to him, either.

We need answers,Iskar pushed.

Yeah. I had questions. Important ones. My last clear memory was of being escorted into Isobel’s hideout. Everything else was a blur of snapshot-like images. Enough to make a few guesses, but that was it.

I kicked around as the eel gently steamed. The cavern was enormous, but along the far wall I found a pile of driftwood, neatly stacked, and signs of what must have been a fire pit. Both wood and pit had a thick layer of dust over the top of them.

Then something caught my eye. Or rather, a collection of somethings. Placed on a large, flat-topped boulder was a selection of stones.

I examined them. Not just stones, shells, too, of all sizes and shapes, and as I blew the dust off, their colors came to life. Tinted green by the phosphorescent light, but I thought in daylight, they’d be quite beautiful. I’d done some work with stone, and I itched to see what these would look like polished until they gleamed.

Who had collected these, and why? Rock collecting didn’t seem like a hobby of Havoc’s. He’d be more likely to collect teeth. After extracting them himself.

I’d just picked up a particularly attractive specimen—it looked turquoise in the glow thrown by the moss—when with a whoosh of air against wing, Havoc swooped over me and landed with a thump on the gravel.

“Puts that backs,” he snarled.

I turned to see his copper eyes flaring like mad. “Whose collection is this?”

“None of your fucking business.” His lips were pulled back, exposing long rows of sharp teeth, and hostility radiated from him.

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