Page 58 of Miss Bennet's Dragon
My vision still flickered and blurred, a blend of her vision and mine. Panic and fear grated and buzzed.
“You are safe,” I said. I concentrated.You know me.The fear diminished.
The strange odor was fading. The colonel or Mr. Darcy must have closed the jar.
Slowly, I raised my other hand to touch her neck. Her scales had lost their suppleness, locking together like a sheet of metal. It was like stroking a bronze sculpture, if bronze could breathe in frenzied pants.
Mr. Darcy and his gamekeeper were speaking tensely. That stopped, and through my confused vision, or perhaps through the wyvern’s, I sensed Mr. Darcy approaching.
The line of pressure encircling my wrist became more exact. That was all—there was not even pain—but a drop of warm wetness ran down my forearm inside my sleeve.
“Do not approach,” I said, not loudly but, I hoped, audibly. Mr. Darcy stopped, then retreated.
The strange smell was gone. I felt the wyvern calming. I concentrated.There is no enemy here. There is no threat. I will let go. Then you may release me.
I opened my fingers. Her jaws spread, not far, but I felt the heat behind them.
Her claws around my wrist opened, stretching wide before she moved her foot away. Her weight on my body lessened as she found the ground.
“Thank you,” I said out loud.
She made a strange huffing sound, her nose twitching.
Oh no. “Do not—”
There was a peculiar, coughing snort. It would have been comical if not for the flash of heat. I clamped my eyes closed, but it was gone in an instant, like slipping a finger through a candle flame.
There was a buffeting of wind, then her weight was gone. Half my mind ripped away.
I opened my eyes to see the sky, now drawn in simplistic shades of blue. Hands helped me stand. Mr. Darcy was facing me, his hands grasping my shoulders.
“Are you hurt?” he said.
There was a burned smell. Hair. I lifted a bedraggled lock. Yes, the ends were crisped. Mrs. Hill would be vexed. No, that was wrong. She had not done my hair for years. But my sleeve was bloody. Had I fallen?
The gamekeeper and Colonel Fitzwilliam were also facing each other. The colonel held a pistol, but the gamekeeper had grasped his arm, forcing the weapon to point at the ground.
The gamekeeper let go with a scornful laugh. “You brought apistolto fight a wyvern?”
“I was prepared to protect Miss Bennet,” the colonel said stiffly.
“If you pulled that trigger, they’d be picking pieces of you out of those damn hedges for a week. All of us, most likely.”
“Are you able to stand?” Mr. Darcy asked me.
“I…” It was difficult to organize a thought. My mind felt lost. Abandoned. His hands tightened on my shoulders. That helped. “I am, as yet, a little unsteady.”
“She is standing perfectly well,” snapped Lady Catherine. She was beside us, glowering.
I looked up at Mr. Darcy. “I know what the French weapon is.”
23
SUGAR
The next day,hobbling with a sore ankle and stiff ribs, I told Mr. Darcy and the colonel about the monstrous foul crawler in Meryton and the venom it sprayed.
“The French collected the venom of crawlers,” the colonel mused. “A dangerous task.”
