Pack of Wolves by Maggie Claire (read along books .TXT) 📕

he has disowned me and left me for dead. And Iris sent me here to endure this, didn’t she? She wanted me dead. Maybe Wolf was right; maybe all I’m good for is death.

Cyrus drifts into a fitful sleep with a single, sorrowful tear pooling in his eye.

***

“You catch on quickly,” I admit to Enomena as I stretch out my legs before the small cooking fire in our camp site a few miles north of the River Sangre. We’ve stayed here for the last three days, allowing our new Cadogans to spend some time with their Ddraigs, complete their Dadeni rituals, and start practicing flight together. My words to Enomena are not a false compliment; of the newest Cadogans, Enomena has been the only one to successfully ride on her Ddraig’s back.

“And you are discouraged,” Enomena muses, speaking as though she states a fact rather than asks a question. “The others are not learning quickly enough for you?”

“It’s not that,” I hedge, unwilling to admit that her words are truth. Hearing Enomena acknowledge my impatience makes me sound callous. Yet I cannot deny the growing frustration that is threatening to burst inside my heart. “Every day that we spend here is another opportunity we’ve missed in our search for the other Cadogans. And every passing minute brings us closer to another attack from Déchets.” Even now my eyes dart to the horizon, startling at every passing shadow, certain that our enemy is close.

“You really think they will come so soon?” Enomena questions, a skeptical quirk of her eyebrows marring their normally straight line across her face.

I nod my head in grim resignation, too full of fear to even offer a whispered assent. “Each second is precious, Enomena. We do not know how many more we will have before we are waging war.”

We both sit in silence, staring into the tiny, flickering flames that nibble on spindly twigs, using them like toothpicks to clean between their writhing, yellow teeth. Neither one of us dares to move or speak until Siri and Anemone drop from the sky, quickly extinguishing our fire.

Siri unceremoniously drops a dead deer carcass at my feet, baring her teeth with pride. “Now you don’t have to hunt for your meals! I’ll bring you meat; you just cook it.”

“What, you can’t burn its hide off with your fire?” I mumble sarcastically, feeling my mood sour as I consider dressing down the deer. It’s a bloody mess that I wish I could give to another in our camp.

“I’d end up cooking the hide. We’d smell like burning hair for weeks,” Siri replies, wrinkling her shimmering, pale nose at the thought. “Besides, you should be thanking me! I did the hard part—all you have to do is clean, cook, and eat it.”

“Sure. Thanks,” I mutter flatly as I reach for my knife. Suddenly, an arrow whizzes through the air, striking my right thigh squarely in its muscle. I feel its tip scrape bone, nestling itself tightly into my skin. The arrowhead is so sharp that I barely notice the pain at first. Blankly, I stare in disbelief at the fletching protruding from my thigh.

Slowly I grow aware of a dull, pulsing ache. My breathing begins to match this rhythm, shallow and fast. “Who shot me?” I demand, my eyes scanning the camp for any signs of intruders. “Who did this?” I start to crawl away, searching for a tall tree or a heavy canvas tent that might provide me with cover.

Another arrow whizzes by my cheek, warning me to keep still. Siri growls, opening her jaws wide as she paints the sky with fire. Her silver flame dances like moonbeams among the stars, illuminating the surrounding area with its ethereal glow. The glitter of scarlet scales catches my eye from the shadows just at the edge of my campsite. A tall figure stands in front of him, a bowstring pulled taut with its missile aimed at my heart.

“Your beastly creature stole my prey. I demand retribution,” the man’s voice booms through the darkness, his rage as audible to me as the crackling fire at my feet.

“Beastly! Hah!” Siri snarls at the insult as she carefully edges her way between me and the intruder. “My kind are majestic! Besides, the only dangerous beasts are found in the hearts of men like you.”

“Siri!” I stutter, my teeth chattering as the shock of my leg wound finally catches up to me. “Sir, I apologize if my Ddraig has—”

“You apologize for nothing!” Siri turns her irritation on me with a growl. “He shot you, Iris!” Whipping her enormous head back to face the stranger, Siri adds, “And I stole nothing from you. If you wanted the deer, you should have been a quicker shot.”

Stifling a groan, I silently wonder how I will survive my quest to find Cadogans with a Ddraig that has as much tact as a squawking crow. “Wait! You know about the Ddraigs, don’t you?” I blurt, realizing that this stranger is not cowering in fear. He marched right into our campsite knowing exactly what he would find.

“I’ve hunted near the Pith for most of my life. And I’ve heard the old stories that everyone else explained away as fairy tales,” the stranger replies, lowering his bow as he turns his head toward the shadows behind him. An enormous Ddraig creeps closer, carefully assessing the newcomer.

Apprehension shivers up my spine as I try not to gulp. It’s the red Ddraig. He’s found his warrior. My shoulders twitch with unspent tension as I recall the first time I spoke with all the other Ddraigs that lived in the Pith caverns. Siri had called them close so they could listen to my pleas for aid. Yet I remember this Ddraig resisting her command, petulantly refusing to follow her wishes like an obstinate child.

Siri’s whispers in my mind confirm my greatest fears. Finding his warrior will give him courage; he will try to challenge us for the right to rule as soon as he can,