Page 48 of Centaur Bolt

His crossed legs and peaceful energy had irritated the hell out of me. Then, suddenly, he wasn’t alone. A small, furred form crept out from a hole in the wall and onto his shoulder.

I’d recognized the danger right away, and froze. Knew how damn venomous the Webspinners were. Yet Ace just spoke without even opening his eyes.

“She’s not going to bite me unless I get nasty with her.”

She? How the hell had he known it was a she? He was always pulling bullshit like this. Acting like he was connected to the bloody universe.

“You aren’t a fucking Unicorn,” I’d growled at him. “You twitch, and she’ll bite you.” I wasn’t worried the venom would kill him because our healing ability could handle it. But it might dull his reflexes right when we needed them sharp.

“She’s hungry,” he had stated. “Why don’t you see if you can round up a bug, and lure her off my shoulder?”

His eyes opened, and I peered suspiciously at him. “This isn’t another one of your projects, is it?” He had always been trying to improve me. Like I needed improving.

“How could it be?” he’d said reasonably. “I didn’t know she was in there.”

“She can catch her own damned bugs,” I growled.

“Havoc.” He’d said in that tone. The don’t-be-a-stupid-bastard tone.

I sighed and did for him what I would do for no one else—I got down on my hands and knees, and searched for a blasted bug.

I’d found one amid a bunch of debris in the corner, a fat beetle that promptly buried its jaws into my thumb. I winced and approached Ace. Neither my brother, nor the Webspinner, moved.

“Hold it out for her,” he instructed.

He couldn’t be sharding serious. But one glance from him had told me he was. I gritted my teeth and crouched about three feet from him. Extended the squirming bug pinched between my fingers.

I’d been totally unprepared for her to jump from him to me. But she did, landing not on any remotely horizontal surface, but on my chest instead. Pink hair exploded into the air as she scrabbled and flailed…

I did my own inglorious imitation of it, hopping around and trying to extricate her—but her little claws hooked into my scales and hung on. I poised with my hand prepared to squish, and she raised impressive fangs aloft from beneath her head.

“Havoc!” My brother had barked my name in a manner that he rarely used but had an immediate effect on me—I froze, my neck craned uncomfortably as I met the beady little eyes on the Webspinner. A stray hair drifted up my nose, which twitched wildly, fending off a sneeze.

The Webspinner had taken advantage of my momentary lull to scramble across my chest and up beneath my hair. I sensed the warm fuzzy body press against my neck. It shook.

So had I. Me, who was afraid of nothing, was unnerved by a pink striped fuzzball with fangs. But those fangs were now right next to my neck… I carefully grew a few scales between her and me and creatively cursed the Dragon who’d been born thirty seconds before me.

My brother hadn’t moved throughout this entire spectacle, but now he leaned over and picked something up off the ground. The beetle, who at some point had gotten partially squished, weakly clacked its jaws at him.

Ace rose and held it out along my arm. I stopped cursing and stayed very still.

The shaking had diminished from the form pressed to my neck, and she emerged from beneath my hair. The tiny claws on her fuzzy feet gripped my scales as she moved closer to the morsel. I rolled my eyes to watch.

Only then had I seen just how her skin hung loose on her little frame—as though she didn’t get enough to eat. And when her sticky tongue shot out toward the beetle, I got the first inkling of why.

She’d missed.

She was less than a foot’s length from it. Should have been an easy score for her, but she totally missed. Ace moved it a little closer, and this time, the edge of her tongue caught the beetle. Good enough that she was able to get it back to her mouth and crunch happily.

Then, before I had even blinked, she scampered back up my arm and beneath my hair. And from the warm body pressed against my neck, came a purring sound.

“She can’t stay there,” I’d protested.

Ace lifted a brow. “Whyever not? She’ll starve if we don’t take her with us.”

It was true. But I wasn’t in the market for a pet. And if I was, it wouldn’t be a half-blind furry multi-legged critter with venom that could drop an army.

I’d opened my mouth to say as much. Met my brother’s eyes, and the words died on my lips.

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