The fire popped, sparks exploding. I yelped and fell back. The bark pizza roll platter teetered. Bryce fought to rebalance it. It swayed, almost fell, but then righted itself.
I let out a sigh of relief—
Eeeeeaaaaakkkkk!
A deafening, high-pitched screech split the night, followed bythe bone-chilling beat of dragon wings. Wind swept my hair back. A dark blur shadowed the corner of my eye. Then rows of wicked teeth filled my vision.
“Watch out!” I yelled, ducking.
The dragon dove for us, its wings snapping open at the last second. One claw grazed my cheekbone, barely a brush, not even hard enough to scratch. Its wing clipped Bryce, throwing him off balance.
I glanced up, but the dragon was already soaring toward the horizon, its chilling scream fading away.
I looked down in time to see the pizza roll platter tipping in slow motion.
“Nooooo!”I reached a trembling hand.
One square pillow of goodness after another plopped into the white-hot coals. Logs popped, sending embers prickling across my skin. The fire flared high as it consumed our dinner.
Anger fueled by hunger burned in my gut. I pushed myself off the ground and flailed around for my weapons. Finding a knife, I ran a few steps farther into the field, scanning the sky. “Come back here, you overgrown arthropod!”
“We missed our chance, Courtney,” Bryce said. “It’s gone.”
A stress migraine throbbed behind my eyeballs. “So are the pizza rolls.” That fact shouldn’t have felt critical after the reappearance of the dragon, but I hadn’t eaten in hours, and my temper had ignited faster than my dinner had. “We’re going to starve.”
“I’ll get right on that next time.” Bryce scrambled to his feet. “Saving pizza rolls fromgiant flying spiderswill be my number one priority.”
“Well, you certainly weren’t busy chasing the dragon.”
“At least I bothered to make food in the first place.”
I marched up to him. “I haven’t asked you to do any of the things you’ve done for me. I neverwantedyou tobother.”
“No, your stomachdemandedit.” Bryce waved his hands overhis head, his shadow stretching behind him like one of those red dancing men found outside sketchy car dealerships.
“What does that even mean?” I asked, temper and voice rising.
“Oh, you knew what you were doing.” His lip curled. “Standing there looking all innocent in the wildflowers while your stomach growled and growled andgrowled.” Bryce let out a growl of his own, running a hand through his hair until the wild orange strands springing around his head resembled the still-growing fire.
“You think I can control mystomach growls?” I practically screamed.
“God, you’re annoying!”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“Your voice gets scratchy when you yell, and it’s really hot!” he yelled, a vein standing out on his forehead.
A strange mix of desire and white-hot anger shot up my spine. When he yelled, his voice got all throaty and rough, and it. Was. Really. Hot.
“Yeah, well,” I said. “You make me so angry with your stupid shirts that younever wearand your annoying five-o’clock shadow.”
“How isthatannoying?” he bellowed.
“Because it’s impractical! I bet it takes youmoreeffort to look like you don’t care than if you actually didn’t care.”
“If I actually didn’t care, then I’d look like you, and what a nightmare that would be!”
“Fuck you!”
