DRAGONS ARE good at a fair number of things, but one thing most dragons are pretty terrible at is being quiet. They’re just too darned big, and most have egos to match. If they’re going to attack, they want their opponent to know who’s about to eat them.

Which means very few people are worried about watching their backs for dragon sneak-attacks.

Their mistake.

I took the one in the trees first. Not without making a fair bit of noise, but it was dark enough, I doubted they could make out exactly what happened. At least not until he hit the ground and the blue glow around the house thinned a little.

He wasn’t dead—at least, I hoped not. I’d just pulled him out of the tree and let gravity do the rest of the work. To be honest, I wasn’t sure whether I could purposefully take the life of someone who wasn’t actively attacking me. Up until now, I hadn’t actually killed anyone directly that I knew of. I didn’t know what it would feel like, and I didn’t really want to know.

While the fae were still trying to figure out why their guy had fallen out of the tree, I launched myself into the air and flew up to the roof, brushing off the magic of their glowing barrier without much thought. There was no cover, so the two attackers up there spotted me pretty quickly. One of them staggered backward, looking a little horrified, and checked behind her as if she were considering jumping off the roof to get away from me. The other one seemed to have a bit more fortitude—he lifted what looked like a compact crossbow and took a shot.

The bolt glanced off the scales on my shoulder, narrowly missing my wings.

My wings were really the only chance the fae had at taking me down. Their magic couldn’t hurt me directly, and their weapons couldn’t penetrate my scales. If they could take out my wings, however, I wouldn’t be able to get away.