Page 26 of Lady Dragon

She didn’t precisely care about bystanders, other than that Samansa would care, Kirek knew, if she hurt innocent humans.

And thus their mutual pain would grow. But Kirek was so small, so slow in comparison to her.

A torrential blast of flame shot out and lit the farmhouse roof like a torch.

Kirek heard screams rising inside as the dragon circled in the air.

“Samansa, stop !” she shouted.

The red dragon pulled up, the last of the sun making her wings translucent as she spread them wide.

Beneath her, someone opened the farmhouse door and began hurrying out the others that were inside—small figures.

Children. Even dragons generally drew the line against hurting children, the closest thing to hatchlings that humans had.

They began to run. Silhouetted against the sky, that huge, triangular head swiveled toward them.

“Samansa, if you care for me, do not do this ,” Kirek shrieked. “If you care for me—as I care for you—then you will stop .” Her seemingly useless words drifted away on the evening breeze, and yet…

Samansa stopped, only flapping her great wings slowly to keep her aloft. The red dragon’s eyes were trained on Kirek now, as the humans fled. Kirek could see the children and their parents make it to the road and start running down it .

“You know I care for you,” she said, dropping down into an undignified seat on the ground, putting her head in her hands. “Or at least you should know that.”

Kirek felt, rather than saw, the dragon touch down next to her, the ground trembling beneath her. Heard a low moan emanate from within that cavernous chest. Kirek definitely had Samansa’s attention now, and she needed to keep it.

She didn’t look up as the admission tumbled out of her.

“I don’t understand what I feel—but I feel it, nonetheless.

It’s more than the bond, though I don’t know how that’s possible.

I don’t just want to protect you. I would do anything for you, if it would make you feel better—if it could make you happy .

Whether that’s to save your life, or to keep you from killing innocent children, or…

anything. It’s still not love ,” she insisted doggedly.

“It’s just… something else. Something different . ”

Something human , she couldn’t help thinking with despair.

The dragon hummed a huge, warm sigh that stirred the air around Kirek, tossing her hair against her cheeks.

“I even saved your cat,” Kirek said to the muddy ground, rather inanely.

She only wanted to keep talking. To keep Samansa distracted.

“I didn’t really want to. Before, I wouldn’t have hesitated to feed him to you, let alone stop you from crushing him underclaw.

But I saved him. So, please, do this for me. Let them go.”

The moan turned into more of a keen. Kirek looked up to see the dragon settle into a crouch next to her and lay her head out on the ground, neck extended, as if ready for a human executioner’s ax.

Skies above, Samansa already felt awful about what she had done.

Kirek could hear as much in the dragon’s thoughts, never mind that it was as plain in the dragon’s hunched shoulders as the dark stain of the flaming farmhouse streaking the dusky sky.

Kirek was so glad—so blisteringly glad—that the family had gotten away, and not only for their sakes.

It was that care for Samansa, her desire to cling to it even though she wanted to recoil from the disconcerting puzzle of it, that made her crawl over the grass to the red dragon, and put a hand against that huge, scaled cheek.

All Samansa had to do would be to open her mouth, tilt her head a bit, and she could swallow Kirek whole.

But Kirek just stayed there, holding the huge creature as best she could.

Her creature. Her Samansa.

“I have no idea what we should do now,” Kirek murmured, leaning even closer, until her whole side was pressed up against the dragon.

Your. Kind. High. Nest.

Kirek lifted her head and blinked. “You think we should go to High Nest?”

The red dragon chuffed.

“Remember, my mother ordered me to kill you,” Kirek said dryly, even as another misgiving stirred within her, dark and slithering, an eel to the dragon of her pride.

She would have to face the Queen Mother. She would have to explain what had happened. She would have to bear her mother’s inevitable shame in seeing her like this.

Where. Else? came the red dragon’s thought. And then: Bond. Important.

The bond was important, yes, nearly sacred among dragons. But it was also an unheard-of abomination for it to happen between a dragon and a human—and quite possibly what had caused the Heartstone to break. Kirek had no idea how the news would be received. Probably not well.

Her mother would no doubt be furious. But it would be impossible for her to order Samansa’s death now, without nearly destroying her own daughter heir in the process.

It would be an unbelievably sticky situation to navigate—but would it be better than in Andrath with Samansa’s brother and the queen?

“Wouldn’t you still rather try to return to your home?” Kirek asked, hoping her desperation didn’t sound in her voice. “To accuse your brother of being the traitorous worm he is?”

Not. Safe. I. Kill.

Samansa wasn’t worried for her own safety from her brother, then, but for others’ safety from her .

Kirek could no longer make the argument that it was she who was the killer and not Samansa, as the red dragon had just torched half of a company of soldiers, never mind the cows.

And if Samansa transformed while speaking with her mother, say, she could kill the queen in the blink of an eye without meaning to—or even with rage-blinded intention, as she nearly had the family whose farmhouse was now burning like a bonfire in the dark.

Kirek didn’t understand what triggered their transformations. And if they didn’t understand it, they couldn’t prevent it.

Perhaps Samansa was too dangerous to remain among humans. And yet, Kirek wasn’t sure how her pride could withstand returning to High Nest like this. In this form. With these feelings. With Samansa.

Jamsens. Dara. PAIN. The red dragon’s thoughts cut through Kirek’s own like a fiery blade.

“That wasn’t your fault,” Kirek insisted, though she wasn’t sure what exactly had happened with Jamsens.

And yet, if she had to place a wager, she would have bet it was Branon—the distasteful, filthy traitor.

“And I’ll keep you from hurting anyone else—anyone who doesn’t deserve it,” she amended quickly. “I swear to you.”

How? The question was small, coming from so large a creature.

“By reminding you who you are.” Kirek smiled to herself.

“A soft girl. A sweet girl. A girl like a ray of sunlight, making everyone and everything nearby seem to shine, even though it’s just— her , and nothing else.

The girl made of living warmth that can melt everything around her.

” She choked on the saccharine words, hardly able to believe she’d spoken them, and then scoffed, digging the toe of her boot into the earth.

“Even me, apparently.” She tipped her head back against the dragon and sighed. “What have you done to me?”

But those words were soft, too. Samansa had changed her. Perhaps that was why the Heartstone had broken, not because of the pair-bond. Maybe the fault lay with Kirek, with these human feelings that went beyond natural protectiveness for Samansa. And yet, how could the two be separated?

The sturdy surface behind her suddenly vanished—and it was Samansa who was changing. No, it was both of them, Kirek realized frantically as her own frame began to grow. She leaped away from Samansa so as not to crush her—and landed on massive clawed feet that plowed up the earth.

Why? How? Kirek thought frantically. What, if anything, had she done to make herself transform, and how could she keep it this way?

So far, it had happened when the Heartstone first broke, then when they were both asleep, and then when Jamsens must have been killed.

Now, was it her understanding of the curse—and her cursed feelings—or merely reminding Samansa who she was?

None of it fit together to form a complete picture for Kirek to understand.

Whatever the cause, it felt so good, like a huge stretch, to return to her true shape. And yet, Kirek felt colder, already missing Samansa’s warmth.

Skies help me , she thought. I have my own warmth. My own fire. I don’t need another’s, as humans do. It was more insistence than fact, and Kirek knew it would only hurt Samansa to hear, as much as Kirek wanted to trumpet it to the world.

At least she knew how to keep her thoughts to herself, as a dragon.

When she turned—careful of her wings and sweeping tail, her sight sharpening in the falling darkness—she found Samansa huddled on the ground in her tattered yellow gown, human and small and frail once more.

Blood seeped from her shoulder where the javelin had hit her dragon’s wing, but the wound looked superficial and didn’t seem to bother her much.

Her teeth were chattering and her eyes were wide.

Her gaze shot to the burning farmhouse in rising alarm.

Don’t look at it , Kirek commanded. Look at me, little one.

Samansa did, visibly calming somewhat, though her hunched shoulders still shook. “Little one?”

It was how Kirek would have spoken to a younger dragon under her watch. She didn’t entirely know where the diminutive had come from, but at least it was helping to distract the princess.

Well, you are little. Now follow me .

Kirek hoped she was making the right choice. And yet, now that she had, there was no room for wavering. No time, not if this transformation was temporary.

“Where?” the princess croaked, but she obeyed, dragging herself to her feet as Kirek started off into the gloom of the field.

The barn. Which luckily sat away from the farmhouse and the grisly scene with the cows.

“Whatever for?”

Kirek turned and hissed back at her, suddenly angry at the blow her pride was about to take, making the princess draw up short in startled surprise. Because we need a saddle.