16. Jerrid #2
Well, not completely helpless as long as the cranky one was on her feet.
Jerrid launched toward them as Brynja kicked out with one foot. She caught the hound in the side of the neck and deflected its trajectory. It snarled and shook its head as it came at them again.
But Jerrid tackled it from behind and drove it to the ground.
A squeal of pain greeted his efforts, and he punched remorselessly into the hound’s neck, aiming for the tender part of its throat.
If he could hit it hard enough, it might stop breathing—or at least struggle to draw breath—and give the girls time to get back to the camp.
The hound tried to clamp its jaws around Jerrid’s forearm, but Dragon sent a wave of scales rippling up his arm, over his elbow, like greaves made of dragon scale. The hound’s teeth slid harmlessly over his armored arm. It howled furiously, something desperate and driven lacing the sound.
It knew. It knew it was no match for him.
For them.
They let the hound scramble to its feet, baring their elongating teeth as the predator backed away, its eyes wide.
“That’s right,” Jerrid snarled. “You’ve bitten off more than you can chew tonight. Literally.”
He held up his armored arm as proof. The hound followed his movements, backing away with interspersed growls and whines. Its head began to lower in submission.
Jerrid stalked toward the hound and drove it deeper into the woods, away from the girls. Away from Ava.
Eat it, Dragon encouraged. Hungry.
But Jerrid shook his head. He needed to stay in control of their body. He couldn’t risk Dragon running on a rampage and leaving him to the mercy of the shadow in their thoughts. It lingered beyond Dragon, smug and seething and…
Happy. The thing inside them was happy. Was it enjoying this battle? Or did it think it was winning its battle to take control of them?
Jerrid shook his head, trying to ignore the pounding headache, the vile whispers in the back of his mind. He couldn’t make out words, but he could sense the implications. The vile intentions. The wicked ideas.
The hound yelped and spun around, dashing into the woods with frightened yips and howls.
Jerrid halted his approach and breathed raggedly as the hound disappeared into the darkness.
Then he spun and raced after the girls, back to Ava.
He wouldn’t leave them, leave her, unprotected in these woods.
What if there were more hounds? More monsters?
This place teemed with danger.
They could sense it all around them, a steady whisper of imminent peril.
The Shadewood was a terrible, terrible place to be.
It was a miracle that the human girls had survived in this place as long as they had. How had they managed to survive on their own? It was a mystery he’d like to unravel later. But now…
Now he needed to find Ava.
His meat pasty.
She and Brynja crashed through the undergrowth ahead of him, bickering back and forth as they struggled to carry the dead weight of the girl between them. Both girls looked so thin—and while they had strength in their limbs—a full-grown girl was no easy thing to carry.
He caught up with them near the outskirts of camp.
Ava glanced over her shoulder, her gaze flicking over him and lingering on his armored hand. He ignored her, although every fiber of his being seemed to come alive as he drew closer to her. What did it mean? No one had ever made him feel the way she did right now.
Perhaps it was the blood oath between them. The camaraderie of battling together against common foes.
Surely that was all.
You’re an idiot, Dragon laughed, but his chuckle broke off mid-roll, as if cut off by an invisible hand.
The pain in his temple grew harder to ignore.
“Fight, Dragon,” he growled between his teeth, caught halfway between human teeth and dragon fangs. “Don’t give in. Just don’t.”
He caught the injured girl around the waist and slung her over his shoulder.
Ava and Brynja stepped away without a word, falling into his wake like ripples around a sea monster swimming hard for open water.
Together, they trudged back to the camp, into the warm glow of the bonfires, into the temporary safety of numbers.
The girls rushed toward them as Jerrid laid their injured friend down on the ground. It was the one with the ponytails, the one they had met when they first stumbled upon this strange group of girls.
Some of the women looked at him warily, their eyes lingering on his arm, on his face.
Oh, yes, his fangs.
Fine…
Dragon pulled his teeth back with no small show of reluctance. Soon the scales on his arm receded too.
He rubbed his fingers over the raw, itching skin until the scales finally sank back inside. He stepped away, leaving Ava and the girls to do the healing. He wasn’t needed anymore. Not here. He wasn’t built for healing, wasn’t meant for it.
Protect.
Yes, that’s what they would do. That primal instinct to protect drove him back to the outskirts of the camp, where he began a slow and methodical scouting expedition of their defenses.
While the others tended to Ylsi, Jerrid’s head continued to plague him. He stalked around the camp for his third circle, eyes narrowed and brow furrowed as he tried to ignore the pounding headache.
It was like a drumbeat inside his head. No, more like a hammer against an anvil. Over and over and over again.
Don’t like this, Dragon thought wearily.
Jerrid’s stomach clenched at the tone of despair in the dragon’s voice.
His presence was growing weaker. What would happen if he couldn’t fight anymore?
If he succumbed to the shadow, would that mean instant failure for Jerrid as well?
He didn’t think he’d be able to hold out on his own. Not against this thing.
If this truly was the monster the prince of Gelaira had been fighting, how in the world had he survived so long without the elvish healer to help him? Lady Persis—Princess Persis now—had magic to help him. Sand magic. Healing magic. And Prince Haryk had fire magic.
All Jerrid had was Dragon. And if Dragon fell…
There was no doubt in his mind what his own fate would be.
We have Meat Pasty.
Jerrid’s footsteps faltered. He tripped over an upraised root and righted himself before continuing onward.
“Yes, but she doesn’t have strong enough magic. Her fire is…weak and unpredictable.”
You don’t know that.
“Yes, I do. I’ve seen it in action. She can barely summon it. It’s a miracle she was able to cauterize our wound.” His hand drifted to his side, and the makeshift bandage wrapped around his waist.
She’s growing stronger.
Jerrid blinked and considered that. She had been able to cauterize his injury…and she’d made that ridiculous blood oath, without even realizing what she was doing.
“Why? Why is she suddenly getting stronger? Do you think it’s something to do with the shadow?”
As if it had heard him, the pain in his head intensified.
Dragon winced but snorted. Us.
“Us? What does that mean? You think we have something to do with her powers growing?”
Dragon didn’t answer. The pain continued to grow, lancing through his skull like a physical blade digging into bone. Jerrid pressed both hands against his head, unable to stop the cry of pain tugged from deep inside his chest.
Dragon roared along with him.
Jerrid’s knee hit the forest floor, a stick cracking beneath him. Darkness swam before his vision, a swirling darkness that possessed a will and a mind of its own.
The shadow.
“Hold…on—” But he couldn’t say anything else.
Deep inside his mind, screaming in agony, Dragon began to buckle.