Page 1 of Cast By Flames (Dragon's Breath)
Chapter 1
Bailey
The massive green dragon lay on its side with its tongue lolling from its mouth, having expelled its final breath moments before. A puddle of blood pooled under its chest. I’d hardly had to try when I killed it despite the fact it likely weighed twenty times as much as me.
The beast and two of its buddies had been chasing down a group of kids, hoping to snack on them. Their prey looked like preteen orphans who’d formed a gang—not all that uncommon after more than six years of living with dragons in our world.
So many people had died in that time.
According to very rough estimates, the Earth had lost at least half its population. Of course, an official census was impossible, but many of us suspected the percentage was far greater than that. Lack of modern medicine, clean water, law and order, changed landscapes, and numerous other factors steadily eroded mankind.
My friends and I had intervened in this latest attack, using magically enhanced bullets and arrows we’d acquired from sorcerers to shoot at our targets and bring them to the ground, but my part in the fight had ended too soon for my liking. Thedragon I’d attacked hadn’t even recovered from its fall before I stuck a sword in its heart. Any true slayer wanted a bit of a challenge before the battle ended.
At least the kids we’d saved had the sense to run away the moment we intervened.
I glanced over at one of my hunting partners, Rayna. “Any trouble with yours?”
“Nope.” She blew a lock of her long, coppery brown hair from her face. She’d put it in a tight braid, but her wavy strands often came loose while fighting. “It’s annoyingly disappointing.”
“It seems like only the weakest and dumbest members of the Shadowan hang around here anymore.”
She nodded with resignation in her hazel eyes.
We were currently on a hunt in south Oklahoma City. As slayers, Rayna and I had to fight at least once a week to quell our dragon-killing urges, but even that pushed our limits if we spent a lot of time around our innate enemies. Considering I was mated to the pendragon of the Taugud—a shifter clan—and lived in his castle with him and our son, I tried not to wait that long.
Rayna lived away from the fortress but still ran into enough dragon shifters while residing in their territory that she needed to play it safe, too. No matter how hard we fought it, our hard-wired instincts would win if we weren’t careful despite the fact the Taugud could take on human form. We had to stay on our allies’ good side with a much larger war looming against a powerful force to the West.
She wiped her sword clean and slid it into the scabbard strapped to her belt. “It is getting annoying. We haven’t had a decent fight in over a month, and our prey used to be tougherwhen we first started hunting here. These days, they don’t even hurt me before I finish them.”
“Yeah,” I said, humor and sarcasm lacing my voice. “It’s terribly frustrating when you walk away from a battle without a scratch.”
She grinned. “Right?”
Grunting and cursing came from about a hundred feet away, where Conrad still fought to finish his dragon. He wanted to be a slayer like me and Rayna. He’d been gifted with immunity to flames almost six years ago and used that advantage to fight our fiery-mouthed foes. I suspected he’d eaten a coupleof hundred dragon hearts over that period, hoping to make the transition as we did. It was part of the initiation process for those of us born with the gene and who accepted our duty. Conrad’s distasteful diet had made him stronger and faster, so I supposed he was on to something, but I was glad I only had to eat the heart once to become a full slayer. He was attempting it the hard way as a regular human.
Also, unlike us, he took his time with his prey and killed them slowly with sword strikes and verbal mockery. I’d begun to feel sorry for whichever dragon he targeted since it would die a slow and ignoble death. Conrad really enjoyed the job for someone not born into it.
“Man, eweee! Do you Shadowan ever clean your asses after you shit?” Conrad wrinkled his nose and sliced the green beast’s snout. “Seriously, ya’ll stink. You might breathe fire, but a little water can be your friend, ya hear me?”
I hadn’t noticed a difference in their scent. Slayers had heightened senses, so I could smell one if it got near me, but most pure dragons had the same odor as a reptile, as far as Icould tell. Shifters were another story. Their odor tended to have a trace of musk regardless of their form.
“Do you know what he’s talking about?” I asked Rayna.
She shook her head. “Nope. I’ve never been bothered by their scent, but breath, on the other hand…”
“Oh, yeah. Pure dragons are the worst,” I agreed. They ate raw meat all the time as part of their diet and never cleaned their teeth, unlike shifters, so one had to gird themselves whenever the beasts opened their mouths. Not even their flames killed whatever germs lurked in their saliva.
Maybe that’s what Conrad meant, come to think of it.
“Just kill the damn thing already,” I said.
It had taken us hours to find a group of dragons to kill. The roving guards had gotten smart and begun avoiding us, so we had to go deeper into Shadowan territory near an apartment complex to find a cluster foolish enough to attack. Or rather, ones who flew close enough to the ground to hit with our projectiles. Twice, we’d gone to hunt Bogaran instead since they were easier to find, but that meant hours of travel to cross the state and reach Arkansas. It had to be an overnight trip. I hated being away from Aidan and our son, Orion, for that long.
Speaking of which…
“Come on, Conrad.” I put my hands on my hips. “I’ve got plans and don’t want to be late, or I’ll never hear the end of it.”
He grumbled about how I shouldn’t rush perfection. Then he kicked the dragon in its damaged snout and thrust his sword into its chest while it roared in pain. In seconds, the beast sank to the ground as life left its eyes. Damn, he had good aim.
