Page 8 of Samuel
I moved through the trees, careful to keep my injured side from brushing against any branches.
The scent was getting stronger, pulling me forward like an invisible thread.
My dragon’s instincts were roaring in my head, clawing at me to move faster, to find the source.
When I finally broke through the trees and into a small clearing, I froze.
There, lying on the ground, was a man in his early twenties. His chest heaved with ragged breaths, blood soaking his torn clothes.
His dark hair was matted with dirt and sweat, and his body was riddled with fresh wounds.
But it wasn’t his injuries that held my attention. It was the scent. His scent.
Something inside me snapped into place. My dragon let out a low, possessive growl, and I knew in that moment—he was mine.
It took me a fraction of a second to realize he wasn’t alone.
Two large wolves circled the man lying on the ground, their fur and muzzles slick with blood—his blood.
Anger surged through me, a raw, unrelenting fury that I couldn’t fully explain.
There was something wild, almost feral, about these wolves, the same kind of reckless savagery I’d encountered in the rogue dragon earlier.
What was it about this area? A rogue magnet of some sort?
It was like the land itself was drawing out every unhinged, lost creature it could find.
The wolves paused their circling, their bloodshot eyes locking onto me. They seemed to assess me, their postures lowering, hackles rising.
I growled low in my throat, a warning, but I was already ready for the fight.
The first wolf pounced, launching itself toward me with deadly precision.
I couldn’t shift again tonight—my body was too worn out from the earlier battle—but I wasn’t defenseless. Far from it.
I opened my mouth and unleashed my fire. The flames exploded from my throat, scorching the air between us.
The wolf let out a pained yelp as the fire engulfed it, its body writhing in agony before collapsing to the ground.
The second wolf froze, its gaze flicking from its dying partner to me. It didn’t need much convincing.
With a quick snarl, it turned tail and bolted into the forest, vanishing into the darkness.
For a moment, I considered chasing after it—eliminating the threat completely—but something held me back.
There were more important matters. Like the tasty human lying on the ground, covered in blood, breathing shallow and uneven.
I knelt beside him, my chest tight with unease.
There was so much blood, staining his torn clothes, soaking into the ground beneath him.
I could feel my dragon stirring inside me, restless, anxious.
This human’s scent... it was intoxicating, pulling me in with an almost magnetic force.
But that wasn’t what drove me. It was the raw need to protect him, to keep him alive at all costs.
The man’s eyes fluttered open, dazed and unfocused, but when they finally settled on me, they were a shade of blue that caught me off guard—gorgeous, piercing.
