Page 23 of Klaus

I froze, eyes wide, heart immediately leaping to life and taking off at a trot.

It’s all right. Everything’s fine.

With two dozen living alongside me, the odds of ever being truly alone were slim. The woods didn’t belong solely to me. There was a good chance any of them might come out for a walk at any time. I couldn’t let the slightest noise shake me in such a way.

If my dragon were with me, my senses would be so much sharper. I couldn’t hear as I once had, couldn’t sniff the air and immediately note a difference. What was I thinking, going off on my own? I was all but defenseless! Practically blind and deaf as I stood there, muscles rigid, breath coming in short gasps.

Another snap.

Another.

I began to tremble. Why couldn’t I move? I had to move! To at least turn and face whatever was behind me. I couldn’t stand there, shaking and quivering in fear. Not like before, when I had let everyone down by not acting fast enough.

Stop this!It wasn’t my dragon screaming at me. Something else, someone else, a voice that could only belong to me. Just me. You’re utterly ridiculous to stand here and cower in fear. You are a dragon!

Yes. I was, still. The blood of the dragon still flowed through me as it had for centuries, when these woods were hardly more than a small grove of saplings. I had survived the passage of time and would still be standing when the last tree fell.

And I would stand before whatever lurked behind me because I wasn’t one who cowered.

My spine stiffened, my shoulders squared. I lifted my chin as I turned, fists clenched, ready to fight.

What I saw took the fight straight out of me. One thing I had never seen in the woods over the centuries. The last thing I’d ever have expected.

A lion. A lion with scars running down the side of its face, staring at me through familiar eyes.

“Klaus?” I asked, my shoulders slumping.

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