Holding his gaze, I tried to hide how badly I was trembling. “I’ll bet on my dragon any day.” I snatched the card.
One of his arms reached out and gripped the nearest poster of his bed, right beside my shoulder. “What are you betting on right now?”
My heart scrambled into my throat, clogging my airway. I took a shallow breath. “I’m betting you know what’s good for you, Rushland.”
He rolled his eyes, but his arm flexed beside me. “Only my father calls me that.”
“Any time I want to make you mad, I’ll be sure to remember that.”
He leaned closer and smiled. “Aren’t we a prickly little thing?”
“And I bite.”
Chuckling, he said, “Let’s go, Miro.” As he walked away, he called over his shoulder, “What card was it? Anything good?”
I glanced at the card in my hand. “Jack of spades,” I muttered.
“Not bad.”
My breathing had returned to normal by the time we entered the courtyard, and the cold air clawed down my exposed skin.
Myth rose to greet me as we stepped outside. He spread his wings and let out a small puff of smoke. Then he snorted and furiously sniffed at the place on my back where Covington had applied the ointment.
“All right, looks like he’s still pretty agitated, which is good.” Covington held up his hands. “Yes, it’s good. Hear me out. If hefelt your fear, and he couldn’t get to you, then it won’t take much to provoke him to use his flame.” He stepped closer. “Tonight, Ari, I want him to think he’s protecting you. Dragonfire, from what we know of it, is strongest when a dragon is angry. We’ve been doing this all wrong.”
Placing my back to Myth for his warmth, I propped my hands on my hips. “And what, pray tell, are you hoping he’ll shoot his flamesat?” A tremor inside me told me I already knew.
Covington held my gaze, and I swallowed, unable to ignore the sinking feeling inside me. “I’m going to need to pretend to threaten you so he’ll try to use his flame. I want him to torch this”—he held up a rolled booklet he’d grabbed from inside the house, one of the same booklets I’d seen on race day in Fairfax’s box—“but this will be dangerous.”
Dangerous was the way his thumb had traced up my back.
“I read that dragons use their flame to assert dominance,” I said, resorting to a safer topic.
“I’m aware,” Covington said, crossing his arms. He looked so smug, with his wrinkled white shirt, his messy hair, his wide-legged stance.
I circled Myth, trailing my hand along his scales. He kept his yellow eyes on Covington. “I think he already sees you as a threat,” I said, half-kidding.
Covington stepped forward, loosening his arms and staring up at Myth. “He remembers the first day we met.”
“What happened that day?” I asked quickly. “You were bleeding everywhere.”
He reached up and let Myth sniff his arm, where the ointment was already healing his wound. “You should have seen the other guys.”
I cringed. But after his performance tonight, I didn’t doubt his words. “Why did Myth attack you that day?”
“It was Azeron he was attacking.”
“What were you doing?”
He leveled his gaze on me. “Attempting exactly what we’ve been doing all semester.”
My lips parted, a small puff of breath wafting out. “You said there were others. Did someone see Myth shooting sparks?”
“You wonder why I left them incapacitated.”
Shock tipped me back against Myth’s warm side. “Did you…”
“I didn’t kill them, though that would have made this easier. They’ve all likely recovered, but I doubt they’ll remember much about what happened. They were trying to kill Myth, and I stopped them.”
