Free The Silver Moon Elm by MaryJanice Davidson Page A

The strange dasher’s gold-orange eyes were full of shock at the sight of the three intruders.
    The other dasher, Jennifer knew.
    Xavier Longtail’s triple-pronged tail twitched at the sight of them, but he did not budge. The other dasher finally moved first, advancing on Elizabeth with a fervor just short of a charge.
    “Get out of here!” The woman’s voice was clear and powerful—an operatic alto tinged with the same arrogant tone Xavier could use. “You’re not wanted here!”
    Elizabeth stepped back in alarm. Jonathan and Jennifer slid in front of her protectively. “This is my mother,” Jennifer announced as anxious blood rushed to her head. “She’s here as my guest.”
    “I know who she is, Ambassador.” The last word came out bleeding with contempt. “She’s Elizabeth Georges, the beaststalker who murdered my father!”
    “Ambassador.” Xavier’s tone was slightly more respectful. “I don’t believe you’ve met my niece, Ember Longtail.”
    The revelation surprised Jennifer, but she recovered quickly. “I’m charmed,” she snapped. “Now back off.”
    “Longtail…”
    Jennifer turned when she heard how faint her mother sounded, and she immediately saw the whitening of the woman’s face. Her memory quickly went to the week before, when the Blaze had considered granting her mother sanctuary here in Crescent Valley. Despite the threat of Evangelina, the dragons were hesitant to do so—not least because of Xavier’s claim that his brother had died at Elizabeth’s hand.
    “Yes, Longtail,” Ember spat out. “The dragon you performed your sick, depraved rite of passage upon.”
    Jennifer’s thoughts flickered briefly to Eddie, and his half-hearted attempt to murder her. Of course, Elizabeth Georges would have been successful, in her own youth. When Mom tries something, she succeeds. I’ll bet it was brutal. Her stomach churned at the thought of her mother as a killer.
    “She swore off that violence!” Jonathan pushed his wife farther behind him. “For years, she’s devoted her life to healing. She’s saved other dragons’ lives!”
    “She killed twice after that!”
    “Th-that’s not—sh-she…it was only in self-defense!” Jonathan sputtered—but Jennifer heard the desperation in his voice. He knew this would come back to haunt us, she guessed. “Two dragons ambushed her!”
    “Ambushed us,” Elizabeth interrupted softly but firmly. “Jonathan, why—”
    Jonathan ignored the interruptions. “They set upon her and she had to fight to survive.”
    Elizabeth whirled upon her husband with a look Jennifer couldn’t understand. The two of them stared at each other for a moment, and then her mother turned to the dashers and cleared her throat. Jennifer knew her mother had a great deal of pride—perhaps too much to apologize. But she also knew her mother despised killing.
    “Ms. Longtail. I don’t know what to say. If I could take back—”
    The gust of flame that swept out of Ember Longtail’s mouth would have consumed Elizabeth if Jonathan had not wrapped his wings around her.
    “Ember!” Even Xavier seemed alarmed at the attack.
    Jennifer did not wait for the Elder’s help. She steeled herself and drove her head into Ember’s neck, snapping the latter’s jaws shut and sending them both tumbling to the ground. The sound of a tail whistling behind her head warned her in time to flinch, and the dasher’s tail spikes missed her narrowly.
    “Why you…” She slapped her opponent’s tail down with her own. It was hard to tell in dragon shape how old this woman was—a little slow for a teenager, but not quite slow or powerful enough to be an Elder. Jennifer had never fought an adult dragon before, in any shape. She wasn’t sure if she was in over her head.
    After several moments of rolling and wrestling (and making a pretty good showing, she thought), she felt her father’s wing claws on her shoulders and reluctantly scrambled to her hind legs. Xavier pulled up