Free Dragon by Finley Aaron Page A

they go? Did they fly off fighting? Did they kill each other off? Is Ram lying in the woods somewhere, hurting and bleeding and dying?
    I really hope not.
    “What should we do?” I ask Ozzie. “Should we find Ram?”
    Ozzie only lowers herself down into the narrow stretch of soft earth between the boulders. I crouch beside her, and she places her head on my knee.
    “What about Ram? Do you think he’s going to be okay?”
    Ozzie exhales audibly, is if in answer to my question, but I don’t speak mastiff, and I don’t know what she means. Is she reminding me that Ram is pretty close to invincible, and a dragon besides? Or is she saying she’s tired, and we’re not going to gain anything by tromping through the woods in the darkness looking for him?
    Or is she reminding me of what Ram’s look said? Stay hidden, stay safe.
    Maybe she’s trying to suggest, in her gentle, patient way, that I’ve already rebelled from Ram’s instructions enough, and that maybe I should actually trust him, since my father told me to trust him, and since I nearly got us all killed by running away.
    So I slump down on the dirt beside her and try to get comfortable, with my legs stretched out in front of me and my back against a boulder—which thankfully, in spite of being hard, is at least sloped at an angle that makes it decent to lean against. And Ozzie puts her head on my lap, kind of like she did in the car, a little like a blanket, which is nice because I need the warmth.
    And I close my eyes and wonder. Does my dad know Ram is a dragon? Is that why my dad hired Ram to keep me safe? He must know, right? That dragons are real, that they might come after me, that the only way to keep me safe was to give me a bodyguard every bit as strong and scary as the blokes who are after me.
    Obviously Ion isn’t trustworthy. The way he flung me down like we wanted to smash me into infinite bits, and then dragged Ram backward to keep him from rescuing me, is a strong indicator that Ion is not trustworthy.
    Did my father know that? Or did my father even send Ion?
    Years ago, when I was about twelve years old, some of the other girls at Saint Evangeline’s were putting pictures of their mothers above their beds, and I wrote to my dad asking for a picture of my mother.
    He told me he didn’t have one.
    I’d forgotten that. Maybe, if I hadn’t been so swept away by finally seeing a picture of my mother, and so surprised that she actually looked like me, I would have remembered. My dad keeps a lot of secrets from me, yes, but he doesn’t lie to me. Not that I know of, anyway.
    In retrospect, I don’t think my dad sent Ion. And I think Ram suspected that, but couldn’t prove it. He obviously knew Ion and probably knew they were both dragons.
    Which bring up the next obvious question: why is a dragon after me, anyway?

Chapter Nine
     
    When the sun rises high enough in the sky to reach past the boulders and warm my face, I awaken, sore and disoriented.
    Ozzie is on my lap. The bandages around her nose have worked themselves loose at some point, and I can peek at some of the injuries below. They’re scabbed over, not actively bleeding. I might be able to remove the gauze, but I’ll wait until she wakes up. She needs her rest.
    I lift my head slowly, easing out the kinks from sleeping in an awkward, slumped position.  For the first time I realize we’re not alone. There’s a hand on Ozzie’s back, half-buried in her fur, and I look up, past the arm, the leather jacket, the thick black beard, to the face.
    Ram’s face.
    He’s sleeping. His eyes are closed, but his goggles are gone.
    I have never seen him without his goggles.
    Maybe it’s because everybody looks angelic when they sleep, even massive bearded swordsmen, but I can’t help thinking, bloody bollocks, who knew? Ram is a good looking guy. At least the top half of his face, the part not covered by the beard, is good looking. With his eyes closed, anyway.
    I’m probably staring at