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Started crying?

Kit stood there, bleeding from a hundred wounds, and wondering if he was seeing things. But no, the great eyes were welling up, the great arse was plopping down, and one giant, clutching hand had just been joined by another. As the creature grasped its nose and wailed like a small child.

Before he could decide what to do next, a woman came running frantically over a hill. She stopped dead, staring at the smoking ground, at the missing tree and at the bloody vampire. And then at the huge, oversized, wailing beast with its crumpled snout.

And turned furious eyes on Kit.

“What the devil have you done to my dragon?”

* * *

“Well, she’s just a baby, isn’t she? Poor, sweet thing.”

The woman—Gillian’s friend Estrilda, apparently—was a wild looking creature with enough flyaway gray hair for two or possibly three people, big, blue-gray eyes and a kindly face when she wasn’t looking at Kit. She was wearing a simple green gown with a white linen apron, and had a white mob cap in hand which she was using to wipe away the tears of her pet. Which was what the massive dragon apparently was.

It had a deformed foot, which Kit hadn’t noticed because it hadn’t seemed to slow it down any, and had been abandoned by its mother when it couldn’t keep up. Estrilda had come across it as a baby that couldn’t even fly yet, sobbing in the wilderness, and had adopted it as if it was another cat. And now she hated Kit with a passion for hurting one of her strays and was unlikely to tell him a damned thing.

That was a problem, since she was the only one who knew anything about the drawing tucked into his purse.

He assumed that was why Gillian hadn’t returned it; she’d needed to show it to Estrilda, who had been there that night, when the Great Mothers called the storm, and as a result, might know where the other rings were. Mircea had been quite insistent that he needed to know, and Gillian had seemed to think that her friend could help. Only they hadn’t gotten past the usual pleasantries when Kit foolishly interrupted.

He’d almost perished for it, although that did not appear to be a concern for anyone except Gillian, who had followed her friend over the hill and screamed when she saw him. But she was now glowering at him along with everyone else, having ascertained that no, he wasn’t dying. And “everyone else” included the humans from the alehouse, who had arrived shortly after he did, and who were just all he needed.

“We tried t’stop him,” the Abraham man was saying to Estrilda.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said, shooting Kit a purely evil glance. “I know what they’re like.”

“You want us to hide the body somewhere?” the doxy asked, kicking Kit’s thigh.

“Ow,” he looked up at her malevolently.

“When he finishes bleedin’ out, that is,” she clarified.

“Ought ter feed him to the dragon,” the older woman among the thieves opined. “’Tis only fair.”

“No one is feeding me to anything!” Kit snapped, only to have the younger woman crouch beside him, showing off her expensive petticoat again.

“Looks like the creature already had a bite,” she said viciously. “Too bad she didn’t finish the job. But we can take care o’ that.”

“He isn’t Gideon, Leta,” Gillian said abruptly. “He never hurt you—”

“And won’t get the chance!” the girl snarled, about the time that Kit noticed the stake in her hand.

He dodged it easily, took it away, and briefly contemplated using it on her. But he was in enough trouble as it was. “Who is Gideon?” he demanded instead, as she lunged for her weapon.

Kit fended her off, but now her friends were coming to help.

“Another bastard, just like you!” she said, fighting with him, and struggling hard enough to spill dirty blonde hair out of her cap and onto her shoulders.

He decided to hedge his bets, and tossed the damned stake away, far over the hill, before anybody could get it into him. He was a master; they’d have to take his head as well if they really intended to kill him, which they were unlikely to be able to do. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t try.

And he’d already had enough holes poked in him for one day!

“Plenty of replacements,” Leta snarled, and grabbed a sliver of the exploded tree.

“Leave off,” the Abraham man advised. “You’re going to annoy Gil—”

“Who should never have brought him here!”