The finger on her shoulder flexed, and then he shoved her just enough to rock her back a step.
It was as if he’d lit a fuse to something inside her that was just waiting to explode. Without thought, without control, she shifted into the dragon.
Leathery scales scraped over the ground as she lifted herself onto her legs, spread her wings wide, and roared up into the sky where the sun had begun to set. Fire burned in her chest, casting a glow over the courtyard and over Jabbar who stepped back a few paces and laughed.
“You see?” he called out. “You are just the same as the rest of us! When you want a fight, dragoness, you should indulge in your animal’s needs.”
She would show him a fight, if that was what he wished. Faintly, she heard Camilla shout at Jabbar to stop. That he didn’t know what he was doing.
But that didn’t matter anymore. Sigrid hardly remembered that she’d even had a friend at all. Sisters weren’t something dragons cared about, and the human part of her mind was dangerously close to being swallowed whole by a monster that had always lurked underneath her skin.
Jabbar’s human skin melted into a bird larger than most houses. His beak stretched open and a painful cry made her ears ache.
Sigrid shook her head, swaying back and forth. She opened her own mouth and hissed, falling back to the ground, pressing her wings against the earth and the muck. Opal scales reflected the dying sun back in her eyes, but she knew where he was. She couldn’t miss him.
He shot up into the air as more electricity crackled along his feathers.
Camilla shouted, “Sigrid, no!”
She followed him with a ragged wingbeat. Flying still wasn’t easy for her. She hadn’t done it for such a long time that those who already knew how to fly could easily overtake her. But once she lifted herself from the ground, she could follow him anywhere.
Eyes narrowed, blood boiling with the hunt, she shot up through the clouds. Her tail whipped behind her, the thin spikes at the end already tingling, like they knew she was about to catch her prey.
Bursting through the tops of the clouds, she hovered in the air and waited for him to show himself. If she’d had a voice, she would have taunted him. Instead, a low growl erupted from her chest which glowed with more fire.
Soon, soon she would clamp her jaws around his neck. She would pierce his soft flesh with her claws and dig until his heart was within her grasp.
A bolt of lightning shot past her, slicing through the clouds and giving her a small opportunity to see him. He thought he could hide beneath the fluffy whiteness. Likely, he could have, if Sigrid had been completely in control of herself.
Instead of a woman, a dragon hunted him now.
She took a deep inhale and caught the scent of him on the wind. Cold and faintly tasting of metal on her tongue.
Her pulse jumped. She could find him anywhere now, no matter how much he tried to hide himself.
Another bolt of lightning launched past her, this time catching the edge of her wing. Shocks traveled up the appendage. For a moment, she couldn’t use it correctly and dropped until her tail skimmed the edges of the clouds.
Enough. He’d had his fun. She’d indulged him far more than she wished to. And now, he needed to learn that taunting a dragon was a swift way to find himself dead.
Sigrid inhaled deeply again and turned toward the metallic scent. She beat her wings, found the perfect air current, and then shot toward him like a bolt of his own lightning. She heard the answering squawk of fear before she opened her mouth and closed strong jaws down where his wings met neck.
His talons clawed at her chest. Over and over again, he struggled to free himself while slapping her back with his wings. He only managed to injure himself on the plated armor of her body and the spikes at her back.
Blood coated her tongue. She couldn’t think of anything but that she’d caught her prey and that he tasted so sweet. Adjusting, she sank her jaws deeper and deeper, wings curling around him and mind forgetting they were in the air.
One of his talons finally pierced through the armored scales, dragging a long gouge through her chest. The pain didn’t register at all. She didn’t care if he tried to hurt her. Let him. He would soon find that there was little which could stop a dragon.
They plummeted through the air toward the ground. She opened her eyes just in time to see they were going to hit one of the towers of the keep, before she rolled them at the last second. They struck a hill near their home, both rolling down the large expanse.
She lost her hold on his neck in the process and gave a draconic groan of frustration until she struck multiple pine trees that halted her roll. The pain in her ribs and back exploded.
The dragon relinquished her hold, melting away into a woman crumpled at the base of a tree. Sigrid hugged her torso, feeling as though she was on fire everywhere and that everything ached with a pain that was her own doing.
She didn’t look to see if Jabbar was still alive. She didn’t care.
Twigs snapped and a veritable army of Beastkin raced through the trees.
“Sigrid?” Camilla shouted from where Jabbar had landed. “Where is Sigrid?”
She should have been able to call out, but her lungs still didn’t want to drag in enough breath for words. Instead, she let out a guttural groan that she’d never heard her own body make before.
Camilla cursed and ran toward her, leaping over a fallen tree that had been uprooted in their fall. “There you are, foolish woman. What were you thinking?”
She hadn’t been. And that was enough to make her worried.
Sigrid shook her head, trying to push herself up from the mossy ground, only to fall back to its soft embrace.
“Don’t try to move just yet,” Camilla whispered. She hovered her hand over Sigrid’s shoulder, hesitating for a moment before she gently let it touch a ragged, bleeding wound. “You’ve nearly done yourself in this time.”
“Not by choice,” she replied.
“What?”
They shared a worried look before another group of Beastkin caught up with her. They were mostly Bymerian men, all laughing and jostling each other.
One, Jabbar’s right hand-man if she remembered correctly, knelt before Sigrid. His dark eyes sparkled with merriment, and he shook his head. “You just made me a lot of money, Matriarch. Too many of our men were betting on Jabbar, but I think you bested him.”
Camilla sighed and interrupted before Sigrid could speak. “Take her to my room, please.”
“We’ll take the matriarch to her own quarters.”
“To my room.” Camilla’s tone left little room for argument.
The men lifted her to standing, threading her arms over her shoulders and helping her limp back toward the keep. She might have insisted that they let her walk on her own, if she hadn’t seen that Jabbar was getting similar help.
Blood streamed off his shoulder in a small river of movement. It hadn’t yet begun to close at all, and she’d be sad to see the flow of red become sluggish. Served him right for pushing her past all the boundaries she’d put up.
There was a reason why Sigrid locked things up tight within herself. Namely, because she knew things like this would happen. Her temper had to be buried beneath miles of ice or should would end up…
She shook her head, trying to clear the thoughts out of her mind. It wouldn’t do to dwell on the things she’d done. Yes, they were far worse than she ever thought she’d do. She’d try to kill someone who was more than just an advisor, but a savior for most of the people here. What must they think of her? Attacking the man who had risked his life for years just to ensure the Bymerian Beastkin were alive?