Page 32 of Until the End of Ever
Sure, I’d prefer to have Kleos watching my back, but she would stab herself in the heart before becoming a protector. I knew my best friend would never have joined the Guard in the first place if it weren’t for me. She would likely have let her mother turn her into a mini Zenya, joining a temple just so she could read all day. Thankfully, the Guard had the Archives. Yes, I was selfish for making her apply to the same institution as me, but frankly, someone had to save her from herself—and her mother.
And Irwin… was Irwin. It was a miracle he hadn’t peed his pants already. His father was a protector, so Irwin had applied to the Guard. The fact that he’d been accepted was a proof of rampant nepotism. He’d do just fine in the Archives with Kleos. If he survived until then. Sending him on a dragon hunt was insane. Unless someone up there wanted him dead.
“Silver, one of them got you while you pushed Irwin out of the way—I looked back. The beast’s fire blast hit you full-on. And the only thing that got singed was a bit of your hair.”
“A bit!” I protested, grasping a fistful of my formerly hip-length hair. Formerly meaning this morning. Most of it was gone.
“Shh—” Isla snapped.
Right. Dragons.
“My point,” Alden continued, “is that you’refine. I say we keep following at a safe distance. We need to know what they’re hunting, where they’re going—and if their prey is our responsibility, we need to get it to safety.”
I grumbled under my breath, wishing he hadn’t made such a good point. Coming back emptyhanded and with no information was going to leave an awful mark on our records. It might not matter for people like Irwin or Barron, but for me, it might make the difference between a protector assignment and being sent to the inquisitor squad. I was too good to end up a runner, but the protectors only took the top percentile straight out of training. Typically, most people had to score a few years as inquisitors before getting bumped up to protector.
I sighed. “Fine. But send Irwin back to the transport. He should go home.”
“And me,” Barron was quick to add. “I’ll…err…make sure Irwin doesn’t get lost on the way.”
Sadly, Irwin absolutely was the kind of guy who would.
“Fine. You two, go, and tell them we need backup. No trainees,” Alden added quickly. “Unless Valesco’s back.”
I grimaced at the thought of Kleos being here. I mean, she’d help. She might prove more useful than Barron, Gideon, or even me. But boy, she would literally whine for days about it.
The thing with Kleos was, she was fully capable of kicking serious ass. She simply preferred not to. I smiled, thinking about my friend.
“Never mind Kleos. I’d want Lucian,” I grumbled.
“Lucian?” Isla repeated. “As in LucianRegis?”
So, maybe I bitched about him a time or ten before getting to know him. I shrugged. “He’s competent. Plus, he brings snacks.”
“Oh, man,” Gideon grumbled. “Look what you’ve done. I’m thinking about his tiny little sandwiches right now. You think he’d bring some if I pushed his emergency button?”
I stared. Isla stated. Everyone stared. If looks could kill, Gideon would have been burned to a crisp faster than my hair.
It was Alden who ended up breaking the heavy silence full of disbelief and fury. “You have an emergency button?”
“So, what about it?” He shrugged. “We’re not in an emergency.”
“We are surrounded by dragons!” Irwin whisper-shrieked hysterically.
For the first time in for-literal-ever, everyone agreed with Irwin.
“They’re all the way over there.” He waved towards the flock of circling beasts. “The only casualty is Silver’s hair. We’re just fine.”
That, naturally, was when talons landed right on top of the boulder providing us with cover. A snout the size of my entire body lowered itself to us, thick smoke expelling out of it with each breath.
All right, all right. Don’t panic.
Alden had a point. The dragons only attacked when we were too close to the flock. They’d otherwise left us alone. Plus, regardless of the fact that they were currently the size of a plane, they were just people, shifted into beasts. We could reason with them. Ask them what they were doing, and whether they could do it in another bloody world. That was our job. The job of protectors. Safeguard people from threats they couldn’t handle.
“Yaaaaar!”
With a scream, Irwin stabbed the dragon’s nostrils.
We were all going to die. But first? I was going to murder my colleague.
