“I’m hungry.” Her actual voice was a rumbling, gargling sort of sound. The meaning of it rode into his mind as a thought. No time to worry about his own pain. She pushed his own physical state aside with concerns about her own. She was hungry.

“Well, I don’t have any more hunters to feed you.”

????

“Never mind. I’m getting up. I’ll see what I can do for you.”

He was still trying to forget yesterday’s events and their bloody culmination.

The second time Relpda had surfaced, Jess’s lower half had been in her jaws. She’d treated Sedric to one more shocking glimpse of the sheared torso, then merrily tossed the remains into the air, caught them so that they aligned with her throat, and with a couple of jerking motions, swallowed the hunter’s hips and legs.

He’d turned his head away, retching hopelessly. When he heard a splash and felt the raft rock, he’d guessed it was safe to look back. She’d vanished under the water again. He’d taken a shuddering breath and curled forward over his belly. That left him looking at the pool of mingled blood and river water in the bottom of the boat. He’d scrabbled out of it and perched on the log beside it, trying to think what he must do next.

The hunter was dead. He and the dragon had killed Jess. If they hadn’t, Jess would certainly have done his best to kill both of them. Yet it all seemed so monstrous, so hugely outside his experience that he could scarcely grasp it. He’d never expected to kill a man; he’d never expected even to fight or hurt another man. Why would he? If he had remained in his correct place, in Bingtown, working as Hest’s assistant, nothing like this would have ever befallen him.

If he’d remained with Hest, nothing like this would have ever happened to him.

Suddenly that had been a thought that could cut both ways.

The dragon had surfaced noisily. Better, she’d told him. Not so hungry.

“I’m happy for you.”

The words had been an empty courtesy, but in return she’d given him a flood of warmth. The surge of affection he felt from her had temporarily pushed all pain from his body. She’d followed it with a request. Need help. To get on the wood again.

“I’m coming.” And he’d actually managed to help her to a safer perch, one where she could rest.