Antebellum Awakening (The Network Series #2)(4)
She swallowed and nodded.
“O-okay.”
The sound of her retreating footsteps on the grass reassured me. As long as I kept the dragon’s attention, he wouldn’t follow her.
“It’s you and me, dragon,” I said, a bold tone creeping into my voice. His head lowered closer to the ground. The gaping nostrils at the end of his angular face constricted and widened as he sniffed the air, his eyes still trained on me. The magic inside me had swollen since he stepped out, expanding until it filled my chest. I’d have to keep the powers under close reign or risk losing control, with consequences no one wanted. “Are you going to hurt me?”
The dragon’s eyes narrowed at the sound of my voice. I fell under no spell meant to lure me within range of his massive claws; the dragon and I simply stared at each other. It was as if we were old competitors returning again, sizing each other up, uncertain what the years had changed. Despite the obvious danger, I couldn’t deny that he was a magnificent creature.
“Beautiful,” I whispered under my breath. The dragon growled suddenly and snapped his head to the right. His pupils constricted into thin slits. I followed his gaze to a glint of light on metal that hadn’t been there before.
Two male witches crouched near the hedge at the top of the grassy hill. One had a special bow and arrow pointed right at the dragon. His arrows, nearly four times the normal size for hunting, were tipped with silver. I straightened with a gasp.
Poachers.
The poachers seemed to have a great deal of trust in the legends surrounding the use of a silver arrow when hunting forest dragons. When shot right into the heart of the beast, the silver would paralyze the dragon in mere moments. If the myths weren’t true, these poachers would have one angry dragon on their hands.
If they were true, they were going to kill an innocent forest dragon, a creature that hadn’t been seen in hundreds of years.
My magic brightened in fury, feeling hot and cold at the same time. I had to stop them. But how? It was two against one, and I was only a sixteen-year-old girl. My anxiety thickened the magic in my chest. If I didn’t do something, the powers would take over and I’d lose control.
The crouched witch notched his arrow, forcing my final decision. Acting without thinking, a particular specialty of mine under pressure, I shot past the hedge and sprinted onto the grass. The second witch, nearly buried in the bush in a poor attempt to hide from the dragon, had his back to me and didn’t see my approach.
“Stop!” I yelled. “Stop!”
Startled by my sudden cry, the first witch jerked up, releasing the arrow. It went wild, landing with a dull thud in a sapling near the edge of the forest and splitting it in two. I plowed into him, knocking him onto his side. The collision made me lose my balance, and I rolled a few paces down the hill.
“What are ya thinking!” the witch bellowed, his face turning red. He pushed off from the grass and barreled toward me. “I had a perfect shot! Mangy girl—”
“Alvyn,” the second witch yelled, trying to extricate himself from the hedge. “Don’t do anything stupid! If we’re caught—”
“Don’t say my name, ya fool,” Alvyn yelled over his shoulder, nearly apoplectic. “We’ve got to get rid of her now. She’s a witness!”
“You can’t kill a forest dragon!” I retorted, leaping clear when he reached for me. The dragon let out a bellow behind me, sending a plume of fire into the air. A wave of heat rolled past my shoulders and stirred my hair.
“Really?” Alvyn sneered. The putrid smell of fermented ipsum rolled off his breath. “Who do you think you are?”
“I’m Derek’s daughter,” I hissed. Perhaps all this building power gave me a reckless confidence, or maybe I was terrified, but admitting who my father was wasn’t going to help. “If you lay one finger on me, he’ll kill you with his bare hands.”
“Derek’s daughter? Good!” Alvyn sneered, an odd light in his eyes. “I hate Derek as much as I hate dragons. The rest of the Central Network will thank me for getting rid of ya.”
For such a burly man, he charged toward me with surprising speed. But even he couldn’t match the force of the power boiling in my angry heart. I stopped fighting the magic and let it slip away from me in a current.
Time slowed. Every breath I took echoed in my ears. Alvyn’s thick face closed in, an arm’s length away, when Camille’s distant shriek echoed behind me. The world dimmed into darkness.
???
Everything happened in one long blink after another. Alvyn reached for my neck. Darkness. A glowing white ball of heat formed in the air, forcing him a step backward. His eyes widened; his face turned away. He stumbled back a step, and then the light burst. Darkness. The world spun by in shades of green and blue.
Darkness.
“Bianca!” Camille’s shrill, panicked voice came from far away, as if traveling through water to reach me. “Wake up!”
Sharp pain burst into my head. My stomach roiled. I felt a pair of hands tug on my arm.
“We’re both going to die if you don’t wake up!” Camille screeched right next to my ear. “Wake up! I can’t drag you up this hill! I’m not strong enough!”
The fear in her voice roused me. Disoriented and dizzy, I pushed up into a sitting position to find the forest dragon standing ten paces away. Hot breath swelled from his chest and puffed out of his wide nostrils, caressing us both in a ripple of heat. His thick tail swung out like a rope loose in the wind. The narrow, sharp angles of his face moved closer, peering at me. When a low growl rumbled from somewhere inside his deep chest, I scrambled backwards, putting myself between the dragon and Camille again.