Smoked - Mari Mancusi Page 0,70

humans dove out of the way, but the other fell, the fire consuming her as she writhed in agony. He grabbed her in his mouth—her screams nothing more than a lullaby as his teeth dug into her flesh. He shook her violently until she went limp. Then he spit her onto the ground, disgusted. He didn’t have time to eat her, even if she deserved it.

Besides, the fire was burning inside of him again, and so he turned to seek out the other killer, his gaze darting around the room but coming up empty. He was gone. But Zavier would find him again. And he would make him pay.

He swallowed the fire back down—for now—not wanting to waste the heat. Then he turned again for one last look at his sister. His sweet, sweet sister, who only wanted to love and be loved in return. And yet instead…

They will not get away with this, he vowed. I will stay alive for you, Zoe. I will avenge you. I will kill them all.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Be brave! You’ve got be brave! Don’t let him see how much it hurts!

Connor jerked back into consciousness. His eyes darted around the dark room, assessing quickly as the horror rose inside of him at an alarming rate. He must have hit his head when he’d dived behind the plane to avoid the dragon’s fire and managed to knock himself out.

Now the hangar was ablaze, flames greedily licking at the walls as all around him, smoke twisted and danced a devilish jig. A few yards away, the pink dragon lay where he’d shot it, its mighty flanks heaving up and down with great effort. The other… He scanned the perimeter but came up empty—until his eyes rose and he saw the giant, dragon-sized hole in the ceiling.

He’d gotten away. Fleck.

I can’t breathe… It hurts. It hurts so much!

Connor frowned at the sudden, high-pitched cry piercing through him like a bullet. Confused, he looked around again, his lungs seizing as his gaze fell upon a charred lump nearby. A human-shaped lump, black and bloody and torn.

Rashida. Oh no.

He leaned over just in time to empty his stomach, yellow bile spewing from his mouth and onto the floor. As tears sprung uninvited to his eyes, he forced himself to straighten and wipe his mouth with his sleeve. He should have never let her come. It was his mission, not hers. She should have never been involved.

But she had insisted. And in doing so, she’d saved his life. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again, trying to reset his sanity as they’d taught him to do in the Academy.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get him, Rashida,” he swore under his breath. “I promise you, you won’t have died in vain.”

Please, Mr. Hunter. Don’t hurt him. He’s a good dragon. Really he is.

What was that? Connor clapped his hands over his ears, frustrated, but the gesture did nothing to dampen the sound. Because, he realized suddenly, he wasn’t hearing it through his ears. It was coming from inside his head.

What the actual hell…?

Cold dread clawed at his stomach as his eyes slowly turned back to the dragon he’d shot. It was clearly dying, blood pooling around it in a blackened halo as it struggled to take in its last shallow breaths. But while that should have made him happy—overjoyed, in fact, mission accomplished and all that—for some reason, all he could feel was an inexplicable grief washing over him like a tidal wave. So much anguish pounding at his insides that, for a moment, he could barely breathe. In fact, it was all he could do to stop himself from running over to the monster and trying to staunch its wounds. To save its life. Even though moments before, he’d want nothing more than to kill it dead.

He’s a good dragon, Mr. Hunter. He’s sorry for what he did. Please don’t kill him.

Connor’s heart lurched, realization seizing him with a clammy grip. His trembling hand rose involuntarily to his forehead. The same spot his brother had struck him with a rock earlier that day. The spot that should have been badly bruised—a huge goose egg at the very least. Instead, the skin was completely smooth, unmarred—healed in a way that should taken weeks.

He staggered backward. They couldn’t have. They wouldn’t have. They knew how he felt about dragons. There’s no way they would…

You were dying. I helped you. I thought it would make you understand.

No!

It took everything he had to force himself