Dragon Tamer

Chapter 10

Shoving aside my silly envious feelings, I turned my attention to Tallinn. He was coming to, leaning back on a fence post. I knelt beside him and lifted the dark hair out of his face to check his wound. He slapped my hand away with a vicious glare.

"Get away from me, Kal. I don't want your help."

"You're injured, Tallinn, just let me-"

He shoved me, hard. I fell on my rump. "I said go away! What part don't you understand about that?" His blue eyes were orbs of a raging storm, hazardous to anything they laid their eyes on. Me.

I gaped, hurt such raw emotion was angled towards me. "Tallinn, what did I do?"

"What didn't you do? Everything always has to be about you. First you take the Rite of Passage away from me. Now you're stealing my dragons? I had him! I didn't need your help!"

"It took five of us to bring him down," I snapped, standing up. "You did not have him. I helped because you're too stubborn to admit when you need it!"

"I hate you!" He jumped to his feet and pushed me again. "I wish you were never born. At least Mom would still be around!" He rammed his shoulder into mine as he passed me for the pen's exit.

"Tallinn!" I was going to run after him, but Dad caught my arm--the one with the sore elbow. I tried to hide my wince from him. He saw it and eased his grip with an apology in his eyes.

"Let him go, Kal. He needs to cool off."

"He's hurt."

"And so are you. Go look after yourself. We'll handle everything from here."

I looked over to Zellar who was seething but had stopped trying to escape his bonds. "You're not going to put him down, are you? He only acted out because he has a bone stuck in his teeth. He wouldn't. . ."

He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed tenderly. "I'll let him live and have a healer look at his mouth. Get checked out, Kali, please."

It wasn't until I felt the dribble down the back of my neck when I realised I'd also suffered a head wound and that he was staring at the copious amount of blood trickling down my face.

"Okay." I went over to Zellar and pressed my palm between his nostrils. "Be good for them, big guy. They're going to look after you. The pain will stop, I promise."

His watery eyes met mine a moment then he nodded the best he could with his face pinned to the ground.

I kissed his scaly face. "Good boy. I'll stop by the healing pen tomorrow with jerky if I hear you behaved yourself."

The dragon perked up at that and stopped puffing black smoke.

Satisfied he was going to be all right while I was gone, I hobbled over to Amelia and the prince. "Hey, Amelia, I know you're probably scared, but do you think you could-"

She leapt from the prince and wrapped her arms around me with more force than I expected from someone so small. "Thank you! You saved my life!"

I couldn't stop the flush rising on my cheeks; no one had ever thanked me for taming a dragon for them. I untucked some hair from my ears so she--or the gobsmacked prince--couldn't see the blush. "I was just doing my job. You don't have to thank me for that."

She slapped my bad arm; I winced. "Of course I do. You were amazing! I've never seen someone tame like that. Pressure points? Brilliant! No harm comes to the dragon. It makes my job so much easier. Oh, your arm's wounded. . . and I just hit it. I'm so thoughtless. Come on, I'll make you brand new, so you can continue training the prince."