17 Bullets: becoming the Werewolf Queen

Chapter 20: The Alpha King's Mate

40 BULLETS

Brightness shined over my closed eyes, and my body was one total mass of aches. My teeth clenched and I tried to breathe out slow through the pains.

Heavily, my lids finally opened and scaley green bulk was taking over my vision.

Green?

And then my moments before rushed back in like a geyser.

Dragon!

I screamed in horror and grabbed my rifle from beside me and didn't even take the time to aim.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five bullets blasted into the beast.

35 BULLETS

My finger kept pulling and arm kept cocking, but I was out of loaded bullets. Desperately I looked around for my pouch for a reload when Thann's voice finally reached me.

"El! El! Wokuduma. Kulungile. Safe."

My eyes dashed to him beside the beast, hands held up in calm.

"El safe. Indizayo kill."

I looked back to the dragon, my vision and thoughts finally catching up to my adrenaline and took in the scene.

The dragon, the indizayo, was laying prone; dead on its stomach, arms, wings, and legs out at odd angles, head dislocated in the dirt a foot away from its body. With closer inspection it was covered in its blue blood and heavy gashes from teeth and claws; flesh torn from bone.

Did Thann kill it?

My rapid breathing slowed, and I turned my attention to him. He was again wearing his leather pants and pouch and had a white paste covering his wrist and bite marks sliced into his pants.

Was he hurt?

My eyes widened with remembrance of my own wound.

I was supposed to die!

I was laying on my stomach, in the same area that I passed out but now on a soft fur blanket. Quickly I bent over my shoulder to try to see what happened to me.

The wound ached and burned, but the searing white hot pain that pushed darkness to my eyes was gone. My back was covered in the same white paste as Thann's wrist and every few inches yellow leaves were laid down.

I recognized them.

The shut your mouth leaves.

"Thann?" I whined pathetically.

He kneeled beside me. "Myedicine."

Medicine? I strained back over my shoulder and the leaves looked positioned just over the deepest gouges in flesh like bridges from side to side. They held like glue. Or even like stitches.

"These are Indawo planet stitches?"

He didn't speak so I just laid my head back down on my arms and tried to center myself. Now that adrenaline was ebbing, the pain was strengthening. I tried to breath out and in.

I had gotten hurt, but Thann seemed to patch me up. The dragon was coming at me, but it was now dead, most likely from a werewolf Thann attack. I think the ultimate dangers had gone, but I did still have a wound and I did not have Thann's freaky healing. This would be a life changer.

Would I even be able to aim my rifle again?

Sure I just shot Mr. Dragon a round, but it's not hard to hit a monster the size of a bus ten feet away. And the pain in my shoulder now said that recoil was no joke. I moved my fingers of my right hand and arm, rounding through my shoulder and hissed at the burn.