Free Soul of Fire by Sarah A. Hoyt Page A

public execution—to rescue her.
    And yet she was willing to deliver him to death.
    He felt tears prickle at the back of his eye and chuckled bitterly to himself. This was what came from trusting people. Any people. When his own father had disowned him for being what he couldn’t help being, he should have learned not to trust humans. But perhaps because at least half of him was human, he couldn’t seem to break himself of care for the creatures. And then there was Kitwana and Emily and Nigel . . . He thought of the people who’d shared his African adventure and the risks they’d all taken together.
    They were good people. But none of them quite considered him one of them. Nor should they. There was the beast that lurked within him, dogging his every thought, his every movement, influencing his actions more than he liked to admit. And perhaps the girl was right, too, in showing him no gratitude. After all, how much of his saving her was true heroism, and how much was the dragon’s impatience, making him change forms under the impact of emotion? He was a beast and he must remember he was a beast, and thus not fit for the company of men.
    A sound of steps behind him—light and hesitant, as though afraid of themselves—and he turned around. And there she was, Miss Warington, less than ten steps behind him, her carpetbag in one hand, looking quite confused.
    “Why are you following me?” he growled through clenched teeth. “Are you afraid of losing your prey? Are you, then, determined to collect the reward for turning in a dangerous were?”
    He knew the moment the words left his lips that they were unmerited and possibly cruel. He didn’t need to see her eyes widen in shock and surprise to know she’d thought none of that and had no nefarious intentions toward him. Mentally he complimented himself on informing her of the reward. Perhaps she hadn’t known of it, and now he’d given her a truly strong motivation for turning him in.
    Color drained from her face, leaving it a curious tone between milk and caramel, like the palest of brown sugar. She lowered her eyelids to hide her shocked gaze and dropped a curtsey in what must have been an unthinking impulse. “I beg your pardon,” she said, her accent frosty, her diction better than he’d heard it before. “I merely thought, as a woman alone at night, I might . . .” She stopped, and confusion painted itself on her features. “Foolish of me, when I’ve decided to run away from home on my own, to wish for protection.”
    “Yes,” he said, and he thought that she was quite the most foolish young woman he’d ever met.
    She shook herself a little, like someone wakening, or perhaps like someone who’s been languishing and decides to be about her work. “Of course,” she said, her voice flowing easier. “You are absolutely right. Since I will have to make my way to Meerut on my own, then I will make my way on my own. I beg your pardon for having bothered you. It won’t happen again. And you might as well forget my threat to turn you in. I’d never do that. I owe you a debt of gratitude for saving my life.”
    And, like that, she turned on her heel, as neat and military a movement as Peter would have expected from a soldier, and marched down the street, holding her carpetbag. Peter frowned after her. She was so small. Her head had barely reached his shoulder. Small, and weak, and proud as hell. He observed the straight setting of her shoulders. A little slip of nothing, with a determination that would dwarf many a general’s.
    Determination and courage, because she didn’t look nearly as much the fool as she acted. She knew what dangers she faced and yet faced them, unflinching. Peter had seen the look in her eyes as he described the unlikelihood that she’d find her beau waiting for her. He knew well enough she was aware of her folly. She might have run away from home in a sudden panic, but now she would be aware of how impossible it was for her to make