Dragon Tamer

Chapter 11

The first order of business was visiting Zellar in the dragon healing pen in the morning. He was still chained down where I had left him, but they had released his head so he could move it freely. He was in a deep sleep when we approached the fence. Camden stopped me before I could climb over the fence to see the large dragon.

"Is it safe?" he whispered, eyeing the dragon warily, as if he was pretending to sleep and waiting to attack when we got close. However, I knew a sleeping dragon when I saw one; they only breathed that deeply when they slept. "It was only last night he was rearing to kill you, Tallinn, and Amelia."

"He was in pain," I told him at a normal volume. Dragons' ears were so delicate, whispering wouldn't make a difference; he'd hear us all the same. "The healers said they removed the bone last night and he's been a big baby since. Besides, if he tries to kill me, he won't get any jerky."

I shook the bag I'd bought on our way here, positive he'd wake up. And he did. The dragon unfurled his head from the nook of his legs and looked right at me. His eyes drifted to the bag. Drool dripped from his jowls.

"Hey, big boy." I swung over the fence, ignoring Camden's hesitations and skipped to the blue dragon's side. "The healers told me you were good last night. As promised, I brought you some jerky."

He didn't need any more prompting, opening his mouth wide. I tossed a piece onto his tongue; he swallowed, purred, then opened his mouth for more. Greedy dragon.

I peered over my shoulder to Camden who was slowly making his way over, as if he feared his presence would set the dragon off again. "Do you want to feed him?"

In the overcast lighting, his hair wasn't as lively with colour today, sticking to its dusty-coloured nature, but his scale jacket shimmered all sorts of colours despite the sun hiding behind the clouds today. He stood a good couple of feet away and held his hands behind his back. "I'm good."

My heart sunk at the doubt in his eyes when he watched me feed Zellar; he might have admitted he needed me to find a dragon, but that didn't mean he was entirely confident I could control a beast that could easily squish both of us in two steps.

After a few more pieces of jerky, I hit all of his pressure points again so he could move once he was released of his bonds. I bid him goodbye with a quick scratch to his eyebrow before gesturing for Camden to follow me back home where Elesor was awaiting our return. Now it was time to teach him how to fly.

If we had to fly around the valley to find his partner, I wanted to have my own dragon; it would become exhausting quickly having him hold onto me as we winded between the mountains. Besides, he had to learn how to fly at some point. Might as well streamline that process a bit since finding him a partner was actually going to be difficult.

We spent a good couple of hours going over how to saddle up on Elesor. Once he had it down, I enticed dragons to my backyard with the promise of jerky, waving it around to distract them while Camden climbed up their back. The only problem, however, was that as soon as he sat in the saddle, they threw him off and flew away. The only dragon who hadn't done that was Elesor because I'd asked really, really nicely and promised chin scratches.

I sighed heavily, watching Riley buck Cam off, hiss dangerously at him, then take to the skies--with the saddle. That was the fourth one so far; I was running low on saddles. I'd have to hunt the dragons down and take our equipment back before we could do more training at this rate.

Kicking a rock in frustration, Camden made his way over to me and leaned against a fence post. He rubbed his creased forehead agitatedly. He'd taken his dragon scale jacket off a few hours ago, leaving him in a tight long-sleeve shirt that left very little to the imagination. Not that I was complaining. The view was most welcomed. It was the best damn view in the valley.