Other than some boyish scuffles, Sedric had never been in a real fight. Sometimes Hest was rough with him, when he was in a mood to take their engagement in a harsher direction and enforce his dominance. In their early days together, Sedric had been aroused by such rough play. But in the last year or so, Hest had seemed to reserve it for times when Sedric had displeased him in some other area. There had been a few times when the thrill of feeling Hest’s aggression had changed into the dread that his lover would do real damage to him in the throes of his tigerish play. Worse, Hest seemed to relish waking that fear in Sedric. Once, Hest had throttled him nearly unconscious yet had not paused in his own pursuit of pleasure. It was only when he had rolled away from him that Sedric had been able to shift to where he could get a clear breath. With black spots dancing before his eyes, he’d gasped out, ‘Why?’

‘To see what it would be like, of course. Stop whining. You’re not hurt, you’ve just had your feelings ruffled.’

Hest had risen and left him there. And Sedric had accepted Hest’s judgment that he wasn’t truly hurt. The recollection flashed through his mind and with it, the resolution he’d buried shortly afterward. Never again. Fight back.

But Jess’s attack was beyond anything Hest had ever done to him. To be struck so hard in the face shocked him as much as stunned him. He hung in the hunter’s grip, trying to find the strength to lift his hands let alone make fists of them. Then the man laughed aloud and the sound filled Sedric with a panicky strength. He shot his fist forward as hard as he could into the centre of Jess’ body, just below his breastbone. Jess let out a sudden whuff of air and sat down hard in the boat.

For half a breath Sedric was on top of the hunter, raining blows on him, but he was dazed and could not put any strength behind them. Jess lunged up and wrapped his arms around Sedric. Then, as effortlessly as if Sedric were a child, he rolled with him, trapping him beneath his weight. Then the hunter’s heavy hands settled around his throat. Sedric’s own hands rose to catch at the man’s thick wrists. They were wet and cold and slickly scaled; he could not get a grip on them. The man forced him down and back across the seat in the middle of the boat, pushing him into the rancid bilge water as the seat bit into his back. He kicked wildly but his feet connected with nothing. He clawed at the man’s face but the hunter’s skin seemed impervious to pain or penetration.

Sedric gave up trying to attack Jess or even to defend himself.

All he wanted to do was escape. His flailing hands groped for the side of the boat. One hand gripped it and he tried to pull himself out from under and away from Jess. But the man’s hands were locked on his throat and his weight pressed him down.

Sedric had never felt so powerless.

Not since the last time Hest had held him down and laughingly told him, ‘I’ll decide how it’s going to be. You’ll like it. You always do.’

But he didn’t. Not always. And suddenly all the anger he’d ever felt at Hest for not caring if he enjoyed it or not, for laughing at him when he dominated him, rushed through him just as his desperately groping hand found the handle of the hatchet.

It was stuck firmly in the hard dry log that floated beside the boat, but his was the strength of desperate anger. He jerked at it spasmodically. Luck, not intent, decreed that as it suddenly bucked loose, the heavy blunt end of it connected with the back of Jess’ skull.

It startled the hunter more than stunned him. His grip slacked and through a red mist, Sedric saw Jess roll his head to one side as if to look for an unsuspected attacker. Fight him. Fight him. The dragon’s furious thoughts fed him strength. He swung the hatchet again, awkwardly, but with deliberate force and direction. It connected, this time with the hunter’s jaw, knocking it sideways with a loud crack. Jess shrieked. Sedric dragged a deep breath, then half of a second one into his lungs. Jess was making noises, but Sedric’s ears were ringing and Jess’ diction was ruined by the hatchet hitting him yet again. And suddenly Sedric heard himself croaking out, ‘I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you.’

I’ll kill for you. That thought bounced back to him, a reptilian echo.

A last flailing strike hit the hunter between the eyes, and that did stun him. Sedric dropped the heavy hatchet into the bottom of the boat. He pushed hard at Jess and the man flopped off him with a groan, half over the low side of the boat. He was only unconscious for a moment. ‘You bas—!’ he croaked. He drew back his arm and all Sedric could see was a meaty fist headed towards him.

Then an immense splash rocked the boat. Relpda’s head and shoulders shot up out of the matted debris to tower momentarily over the boat. Hunter food! she announced, and bent her head. Sedric had never really seen the inside of a dragon’s maw before. She opened her jaws impossibly wide and he could see inside, see the immense swallowing muscles at the sides of her throat, and the row of sharp teeth that curved inward. Her mouth came down over the hunter’s head and shoulders like a poacher popping a sack over a rabbit. He had one brief glimpse of Jess’s eyes so wide that the whites showed all around them. Then Relpda closed her jaws.

There was a sound, a sound between a shearing of bone and a crushing of meat. Relpda’s head rose and she pointed her muzzle at the sky. Her head jerked twice as she swallowed.

Jess’s bloody hips and legs fell into the boat beside Sedric. He kicked at them in reflexive horror and the pelvis flopped over the side, followed by the legs. Relpda gave a squeal of protest and dived after them. The wave of her passage rocked the boat wildly. Blood and water mingled in the bottom of the boat, sloshing back and forth around the dropped hatchet.

Sedric leaned over the side of the boat, staring after them. ‘That didn’t happen,’ he slurred. He lifted the back of his hand to his mouth and then took it away. Bloody. He turned his head and looked at the hatchet in the boat’s bilge water. Blood streamed from it in tiny threads and mingled with the water. There was hair on it, too. Jess’s hair. ‘I killed him,’ he said aloud. The words came strangely to his ears.

Delicious.

The afternoon passed without incident. Thymara and Tats didn’t talk much. She didn’t have much to say, and keeping up with her left Tats short of wind. She made sure of that.

The way her feelings about him vacillated bothered her more than her actual emotions. When she was around the others it was easier to pretend that nothing had changed between them. Did that mean that perhaps nothing really had changed? Was she angry at him or not? And if she was, what was the reason? Sometimes, she could see that she had no real basis for her anger. There had been no mutual understanding between them. He had not broken any promise to her. Surely he was free to do as he pleased, just as she was. She could be dispassionate about it. He’d mated with Jerd. That was their business, not hers. And now that Jerd was with Greft, it had even less to do with her.

But then her hurt would break through, and she’d feel indignant and slighted all over again. The least he could have done was let her know sooner. If Rapskal had known of it, how private could it have been? Why had he let her be ignorant of it so long? It made her feel so stupid, so naive. My pride, she thought to herself. It’s my pride that’s broken, not my heart. I’m not in love with him. I don’t want an exclusive claim on him. I don’t want him to claim me. We are just friends, friends who have known each other for a long time. And he kept a secret from me and made me feel stupid. Just her pride. That was all.

It might be true, but it wasn’t what it felt like.