Silver - By Kailin Gow Page 0,10

wil one day, but I wil not. Assuming that she is even like me. It can be hard to judge, given that our strength comes as we age.”

The crossbow she held lifted, just a fraction. “Is that why you have been hanging around her then, vampire?”

“You know it isn’t, Mrs. Edge.” Fal on didn’t move. “If you real y thought that, you would already have pul ed the trigger, after al .”

Aunt Sophie lowered the crossbow again. “True.”

Fal on looked over to the waiting crowd of creatures.

“I love Briony,” he said. “Would you tel her that? If I don’t…”

“You’l be able to tel her yourself if you make it back in one piece,” Aunt Sophie said firmly. “So cut out that kind of talk, young man, and do what you need to.”

Fal on nodded and crept forward, doing his best to stick to the cover of the trees. He found his first corpse a minute later; a strong looking man who had fal en with dozens of wounds. The stench of blood was almost overwhelming. So close, Fal on had to fight the smal part of him that wanted to taste it. To abandon his search and drink it down. He forced himself to walk on quickly.

Ahead, he could see that the other vampires had finished separating the surviving werewolves into two groups. There didn’t seem to be anything to tel between them, but there was obviously some reasoning behind it.

One group sat sul enly on one side of the road, while the other…

The vampires attacked that one in a blur, and Fal on braced himself to watch the carnage. In a fair fight, the werewolves might have been a match for their captors, but not like this. This would just be slaughter.

Except that, somehow, it wasn’t. One of the werewolves, a young man with sun bronzed skin and clothes that didn’t quite match the season, started to shift.

Only he didn’t shift into a wolf. Instead, he expanded, fil ing space as he grew, the deep gold of his tan turning into the burnished gold of reptilian scales. Several vampires found themselves flung back as the change continued, leathery wings sprouting from the creature’s back as it grew to nearly ten feet tal at the shoulder. A huge tail swept around, smashing one of the slowest vampires from its feet.

They ran, and Fal on didn’t blame them. Faced with something like that, some monstrous creature out of a storybook, what else could the vampires do? Even the remaining werewolves ran. In the chaos, the creature bel owed, its roar echoing through the trees in the seconds before it took to the air, those powerful wings sending it skywards.

Fal on was too stunned to do anything but stumble back to Aunt Sophie.

“Did you… did you see that?” he demanded.

Aunt Sophie nodded, her expression grave.

“What was it?”

“A Draco,” Aunt Sophie said. “A dragon shifter. In these woods, that can mean only one thing. It came through the gate.”

“Gate?” The conversation seemed to be leaving Fal on behind. “What gate.”

“The same one my father came through. The gate between worlds. We need to fol ow that dragon, young man.

If Pietre gets to it before we do, things could be very dire indeed.”

Chapter 4

The clearing was one of the most peaceful spots Briony had ever spent time in, but she knew it couldn’t stay like that. Around Wicked, there would always be something to shatter any il usions of safety. Though Briony had to admit, she wasn’t expecting the form that the fresh danger came in.

The creature - the dragon, Briony’s brain supplied, in the absence of any better word… swooped low over the clearing she and Kevin stood in, slowing as its wings held fast against the air, coming to rest on the grass in a motion far too smooth for something of that size.

“Run, Briony!” Kevin yel ed, but Briony found herself ignoring him. How could something like this exist? Then again, how could she ask a question like that while standing next to a werewolf?

“Briony,” Kevin insisted.

“Wait, Kevin,” she shot back. “There’s something about it. Something familiar.”

The creature moved towards them, its reptilian head moving sinuously with every step. It looked… almost like it knew Briony. Even so, Briony found her hand tightening on her sword. She hadn’t exactly expected to end the day by adding “dragon-slayer” to the things she had accomplished, but she wasn’t about to stand there and let it kil them, either.

The dragon came to a halt