Free The Equen Queen by Alyssa Brugman

jangling and creaking. Every now and then she saw its eyes glimmering as it swung its head towards her.
    She wasn't afraid. She knew the baby dragon didn't mean her any harm. It didn't think of her as its mother, like Philmon had suggested, and not a sibling either. A pet was closer, but still not quite right. The feeling that she got was that the dragon considered her its familiar – an attendant, or a spirit guide.
    Within a few steps Tab's foot hit something unyielding. She reached out to keep her balance. It was a box, or chest of some sort, too heavy to shift. She slid her foot along its base, until she found the end. She shuffled forward, but there was another box, and another. Groping with her hands she discovered the chests were stacked two or three high.

     
    A storage room of some sort, Tab guessed.
    She found one that she was able to lever open, and she reached inside cautiously. Cold, round, metal that chinked and clinked as she ran her fingers across it. Glass beads.
    No, not beads, jewels! Tab gasped. Coins and jewels! Boxes and boxes of them! That was the smell she recognised – silver moons and gold royals! She wished that she had a torch. She wanted to see. Tab felt hot inside her chest and prickly at the ends of her fingers. She could imagine all the treasure glistening in a torch's flickering light.
    She could be the richest person in all Quentaris. She would live in a tower with thick pelts on the floors, tapestries on the walls and a fireplace in every room. She would have exotic pets, and servants. She would eat cake every day. Tab would have a tiara made with red gems that she would wear at a rakish angle, and a matching cape, even just to walk down to the tavern for a meal.
    She would buy her own tavern. And a pie shop! She would make up recipes for pies and have a whole kitchen full of cooks making them around the clock. She would taste pies all day long – in a ruby tiara and a red satin cape.
    But who else knew about this storeroom?
    Tab's eyes narrowed. A possessiveness she had never known before wrapped around her. She felt mean and cold and covetous. She wasn't sure if she was receiving these feelings from the dragon. There was no way to tell, since she'd never even contemplated this magnitude of riches before.
    All at once she understood Florian, the Nibhellines and the Duelphs, and even Fontagu. There was no such thing as enough. Once you had wealth you had to hang on to it, and get more – just in case, because everybody would try to take it from you, given half a chance – even people you thought were your friends.
    Tab stuffed her pockets until they bulged, then thought better of it. She couldn't just walk around the streets of Quentaris with treasure in her pockets. She would be mugged and probably murdered within two blocks. Tab put it all back except for three coins and two gems – aside from the Loraskian stone. She considered leaving the mood stone down here with the rest, but she had become used to the weight of it.
    She would have to move the treasure out slowly, a little bit at a time. Where? Tab rattled the royals together in her pocket, liking the feel of them as they warmed in her palm.
    The hatchling jumped forward. Tab scrambled back, and fell, but it leapt forward again. She sensed its form crouching over her, its eyes like two lamps. She felt its heat radiating on her skin, like sunshine, but somehow oily.
    Suddenly her head was filled with images of carcasses, spilt blood and scattered limbs. The dragon chattered and trilled louder and more urgently. In her mind she saw a bullock lying on its side with its guts spilled out, flies encrusted around the edges of the wound. Her mouth filled with saliva, and her stomach churned, but it wasn't revulsion, it was a deep and savage hunger.
    The baby dragon latched onto the word in her mind and sent it back to her.
    >>>Hunger
    ‘All right,’ she muttered, holding her fingers to her temples.
    >>> HUNGER! HUNGER! HUNGER!
    ‘I