The single Werecat grasps tightly with both claws and fangs to the dragon’s hand as the black cat dangles above the dragon's mouth. The dragon drags his claws up and down, attempting to make the panther lose his hold, as a child would a piece of meat if he wanted to play instead of eat. A growl rumbles deep in my chest as a wail comes from beneath me.

We drop faster. I can’t keep my eyes open as we streak into the plateau. My heart pounds in my throat, and I will never admit to the regurgitation.

Don’t you dare tell Flash.

If I could only talk, the tales I could tell, Cynic sings in my mind.

She-Dragon lands relatively close to the he-dragon and opens her jaws wide, I scramble around to get my paws underneath me on her squishy and somewhat knobby tongue. Wobbling forward on shaky legs, I get to where her tongue meets teeth as long as my forearm. I launch myself from her mouth and latch onto the male's throat.

He makes a warbled cry and slings the panther into a tree in a knee-jerk reaction to the attack. The Were doesn’t get up.

That's all the distraction I can afford, digging and clawing deeper as I struggle to rip out his throat and end this. But the scales are too thick. I only take out a chunk of scales with a small portion of skin. But he makes a loud cry and blows a stream of fire into the sky from his nostrils. I’m dead.

He slams his neck—and me—into the rock face hard enough to shake the mountain. I didn’t get the brunt of the hit, but my ribs re-cracked on contact. Who thought I was a match for a dragon? When I die, I will come back as a ghost and haunt the Imperial for the rest of his life.

That's if the dragon doesn't obliterate our ghost with our body. I agree entirely with Cynic, although his calm voice is annoying while I'm fighting a dragon.

Dropping to the ground seems to last much longer than it should. The male slaps a large, grizzly brown panther away as I splat on the ground. The Imperial slams against the rocky earth, rolling for more than three horse lengths before rising on wobbly legs.

The dragon’s attention turns back to me. He snakes his head along the ground, eyes shining beneath black horns as he stalks to me with black smoke curling from his flared nostrils. His tail thumps on the ground and shakes the ground at my feet. I whimper and try to crawl from him, but run into the rock face with no where else to turn. I turn and brace myself. I’ll look death in the face if I have to, but I am most definitely haunting the Imperial for this.

"Allfather. Help." With no forethought, I send the plea. I know I’m not coming out of this by my own power. It rankles to admit that. I am a well-trained assassin. I am used to coming out on top of whatever crazy situation I get myself into. But this time... I can’t defeat this. This is out of my zone.

Death breathes fire over my head, singing my fur from the tip of my ears and making me duck. The gleam in his eye says he delights in my fear. He raises his claw and catches me in the pad, squashing me between him and the dirt. He leans down and snorts into my face; I cough as the acidic, decaying scent of rancid meat and smoke meet my lungs. He scrapes one claw along my side and I yelp. Warm wetness pools beneath me.

The dragon puts his head within a hairsbreadth of my own. I look into a beady black eye that holds an enjoyment at seeing me bleed. I have taken a chunk from him, but he’ll take all from me.

Fangs as big as my forearm are inches from my face as the rancid warmth of his breath washes over me, making me gag. He brings his mouth slowly over my head and neck, torturing me with a slow death. Now I feel bad for all the rats in a cat-and-mouse game. Weird thought to have in death.

A loud wail comes from outside my tent of dragon teeth. He abruptly jerks his mouth from around my body.

He arches his neck, something bristling along the top of his head like a raised hackle, then throws flames all along She-Dragon's flank. She cries out in pain and trembles at his feet.

He stands proud as his mate cowers.

My blood boils in rage at this mistreatment of a gentle and caring creature, and I have many names for this bastardly dragon going through my mind—words Ma would kill me for uttering in front of my brothers.

I struggle under his claws. Anything to help the female dragon. The distraction is just enough, and I’m able to slither out of his hold and bite down on the membrane between his toes as hard as my fangs allow. I claw through thin membrane and bone.

He cries out in rage more than pain and rips me from burrowing deeper into his toe webbing with his other set of claws, then starts to squeeze. My ribs protest the rough treatment, but that’s trivial compared to when I can’t seem to find any breath in the next moment. Spots fly before my vision as I go limp. Out of the corner of my eye I see the panthers, beaten and battered, panting and bleeding, gathering up the last of their courage to take on this monster.

“Don’t! Get out of here," I shout into the Werecat's minds. I’m not sure it'll work, but I'll not have them dying with me if I can help it. The Imperial should know a losing battle when he sees it.

If he doesn't, we're all dragon fodder.