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A rapid thunder of footsteps tears my attention away from her. A man rushes from the shadows and charges me with a double-sided spear. He swings the spear, and I duck and slide, narrowly avoiding a slice to my leg. I’ve never practiced fighting outside of hand-to-hand combat, archery, and a sword. And I’m terrible at all of them. I’m not quite sure how to work with this.

Fuck.

He swings again, wicked fast, before I can unsheathe my sword. I fall back, barely in time to dodge his next attack. Catching myself on the ground with one hand behind me, my other is extended in front of me as if it’ll stop him from delivering the killing blow.

An eclipsing shadow looms over from behind him followed by an earth quaking growl. Daeja’s daggered teeth glint in the moonlight mere seconds before she snaps forward and snatches the man’s shoulder into her mouth. She tears him back away from me, her cat-like eyes slanted in fierce determination. The screaming man writhes in her grasp and frantically stabs the tip of his spear into her outstretched wing. Daeja’s roar rips out across the night. She clamps down harder on him with a sickening crunch, and the man falls limp in her mouth like a doll. She flings him off into the night.

“Daeja!”I cry and jolt forward for her.

The spear pierces the thin webbing of her wing, ripping through the membrane and poking out the other side. I stop myself from removing it, knowing that doing so in a human could mean bleeding out. For dragons, I’m not sure.

“Can you move it?”

She glances at the spear, flexes her wing, and cringes with a high-pitched shriek.

I brush a tender stroke up and down the ridge of her nose to comfort her. The spears has to come out if we need to fly. Eyeing the dark sea of the battle, I guide her back toward thehealer’s quadrant. She tucks her wings into her side with a cry and squeezes her shoulders through the door frame. I hold out a hand to pause Daeja from entering further.

Marge freezes in her furious gathering of bottles tucked in the locked cabinet. She spins, positioning her staff in a defensive stance. When she realizes it’s me, she relaxes. Slightly. Because her gaze shifts to Daeja behind me, her mouth drops open in a silent gasp.

Panic creeps into my voice. “Marge, please. I need your help—she’s injured.”

Marge abandons her stash of bottles, clears the space between us, and reaches a shaky hand out to touch the spear lodged in Daeja’s wing. Daeja growls and snaps at the air near Marge’s hand. In the same second, Marge swings her staff and smacks Daeja on the head.

I shift in front of Daeja, arms outstretched, and ready to block any further blows. “You will not do that again,” I warn.

Daeja shakes behind me, clearing her head from the shock more than the actual blow. If anyone were to attack a dragon and not flinch, itwouldbe Marge.

She stares past me at Daeja. “I need you to trust me, if I’m going to help you.”

I glance back at Daeja, who stares back at Marge. Daeja’s pupils flicker back and forth between slits and rounds, her upper lip twitching.

“Katerina, the green bottle over on the counter.” Marge still won’t take her eyes off Daeja.

Hesitantly, I slip past her, grab the bottle, and return.

“You’ll need to pull that spear out quickly. It doesn’t seem to be laced. As soon as you remove it, pour half the bottle on her wound,” Marge coaches.

Taking a deep breath, I do as she instructs, ripping the spear out of Daeja’s wing first. Daeja roars, her long tail sweepingacross the room and smashing into the beds. I move quickly, pouring the green swirling liquid onto Daeja’s wound as she hisses through gritted teeth.

I pull her head into my chest and scratch under her chin. “All done…it’s all done.”

Marge taps me with her staff. “You both need to get out of here before someone sees you. They’ll kill you both.”

I look away from Daeja and toward her. “Come with us.”

She shakes her head. “No. It was foolish of me to ask you to take me there. You go.”

“I’m not leaving you. Have you seen what’s going on outside? You’re in danger here.”

Marge snorts, “I can defend myself.”

“Hate to break it to you, Marge, but your razor-sharp tongue isn’t going to save your ass from a rebel.”

She slams her staff into the ground. With one hand, she clutches the staff’s neck, and the other she twists the head, pulling the two pieces apart. The light shines on a metal blade as she unsheathes it.

My mouth falls open. “What the fuck—”

“Watch your mouth, woman.” She glares, lowering the blade and pointing its sharp angled tip at me.