A huge body slammed into me…
The impact drove me backward, and I hit the ground hard enough to drive all the breath straight out of me.
The weight was there, and then gone. I rolled to my side and froze.
About ten feet from me stood a creature with six legs, covered in fur that looked mottled in the gathering darkness. When I met its gaze, it flattened its ears and growled at me, lifting a lip to reveal a very sharp canine.
My cloak had parallel tears from its claws. Luckily, they hadn’t penetrated through to me. The animal wasn’t huge, about the size of an average German Shepherd. But it wasn’t alone. Behind it ranged another six of them.
Not all were focused on me. As we stared at each other, the two at the back suddenly decided to express themselves in another manner altogether.
Maybe humping was a stress reaction?
It was clearly a pack of carnivores. Even the two otherwise engaged had their bright yellow eyes focused on me.
Suddenly, they weren’t. Their gazes lifted and widened, and from overhead came a subterranean sounding rumble.
Xandros moved to stand over me in dragon form—his lips peeled back to show every one of his huge teeth.
It was no contest. The pack had to know it, but their growls took on a hint of desperation, and they didn’t move away. Although the humping seemed to gain almost a frantic quality.
Definitely a stress reaction.
“They have young,” Xandros said.
Well, if they spent much time reacting to their environment by screwing, then babies would be the logical fallout. “Are you sure?”
“Look at me. Look at them. They are protecting offspring.”
Protecting or procreating? I did, however, sense the truth in his words and in the sudden relaxation of my muscles. Was this the precognition thing kicking in? It hadn’t warned me of the animal’s initial attack… but I’d been distracted by my find.
Clearly, I needed to get in touch with my new inner dragon.
“What else is in there?” Xandros rumbled.
“Nothing much.” I shook my head, slowly. “Just the metal we need.”
Xandros cursed softly. “Can you mount me?”
My face flushed as his jaws opened and closed again.
“Get up on my back.” He snorted, lowering his head.
The entire pack stiffened as I crawled in place. They snarled as he walked to the door, hooked his talons into it, and then wrenched the whole thing right off the track.
As he threw the door aside, my precognition instincts prickled. “Watch them.”
“There is nothing they can do to me,” he stated.
The pack leaped around him and made odd, frantic yipping noises. One lunged at Xandros’s exposed flank, but he used his long tail to swat it away, before he crouched and crawled into the building.
The pups were standing in the shadows of a crate—I could barely see them in the darkness. Five tiny pudgy bodies that scurried for cover when we entered.
The pack followed, and two of them ranged between us and the pups. Their teeth glinted white in the darkness.
The other four were reacting to the stressful situation in the way of their people.
Geez.No wonder there were so many pups.
