A light rustling in the grass is all I am cognizant of before my body reacts on instinct. A black form hurtles through the air toward the black dragon’s neck; I intercept and knock her away mid leap.

Bridget stills beneath my teeth as I pin her to the tilled black dirt, the muddy snow soaking into both my paws and the cat between my front legs.

“This is not the one who took your family,” I say in an attempt to reach her mind.

Her slight nod tells me she heard, even if she doesn't like it.

I step back to find the dragon watching me with a rapt attention of curiosity and trust I'm not entirely sure I deserve.

Bridget tries to get at her again, but a low chuff from the Imperial and she sits her hinny on the ground with her back to me and the dragon, even as her tail twitches back and forth in agitation, slinging droplets of mud and snow that somehow pepper my nose.

I shake off the mud with a huff. The little panther turns her head to glare at me before Flash runs over to nudge her away. She hisses and bats a claw at him, but he neatly sidesteps and bowls her over with his shoulder. She stills, a low clicking sound in her throat. Flash rubs his jaw along hers, then steps back to allow her up. She follows behind him, only slightly more complacent than before, but at least she's not attacking.

I get her anger, but she's too immature and rash for such a mission as this. I'm slightly regretting talking the Imperial into bringing her.

I touch the dragon with my nose and try to send her an image much as she sent me. I imagine the Were coming out but being harmless. She trills, and I perceive assent in her mind.

“Come out,” I send to the Imperial.

After a few seconds, the fifty Were pad silently into the clearing. They keep a respectful distance from the large dragon who could tear any of us in two as we would rip vellum. Flash and Bridget join the rest of the pride, the young cat still glaring at me, flashing her fangs.

“H-How?” I didn’t realize a stutter was possible in mindspeak. You learn something new every day. The Imperial swallows, his slit eyes wide and slightly wild as his ears sit flat to his head, before trying again. "How did you know? I believed my one remaining link to an old friend lost."

The wide, disbelieving eyes of the rest of the cats suggests they thought the same.

I pin my ear, swiveling it back at the dragon as she moves closer before responding. “Instinct. She wouldn’t hurt me if she could help it. It’s the male who is hurting your people. They are wild.”

“Wild?" the Imperial yelps at the same time as something behind me sneezes.

The sound is high pitched and almost... cute, and something disturbs the hair on my back. I glance behind me to see her snuffling my fur, but when her eyes meet mine, she immediately retreats into a regal pose, neck arched. Her face expresses innocence, as if saying "What, me? I did nothing."

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"And you just approached her?” the Imperial continues, not seeing or ignoring the silent conversation

“She would not hurt me,” I reply, standing straighter and meeting his gaze.

“Of all the foolhardy, crazy things to do,” he grumbles.

I give him a toothy grin. “You said you’d need my foolhardiness.”

“Aye. Just didn’t think you were crazy enough to approach a full grown, wild she-dragon.”

I chuckle.

Then a slight stiffening of the dragon at my back draws my attention. Before I can communicate with her, she grabs me in her jaws. My heart skips a beat, thinking I’m about to be the dragon fodder the Imperial forewarned. She grabs the closest Werecats in her claws. Surprised caterwauls fill the air, and I'm afraid I've made the last mistake of my life.

An image appears in my mind, an image of her mate harming innocents. I go still in her mouth, her squishy tongue and sharp teeth against my chest, stomach, and back. My mind needs anything to distract it from where I currently occupy, so I focus on the Werecats in danger from this male dragon.

I send the image to the panthers and the braver few climb upon the dragon with claws of steel. When She-Dragon turns her head, I see them settling upon her back, hooking their claws into her scales.

My heart still pounds as I attempt to get comfortable in the jaws of this enormous beast.

A fine way to ride your first dragon, Cynic says, laughter hidden in the flat voice.

Not. Another. Word.

In the end, I’m in the mouth of a large beast soaring over snow-covered mountains with Werecats flying in claws beneath us and another half dozen behind us on her back.

I glance out at the vast expanse of jagged peaks covered in snow and the frothing blue, tumulous streams flowing through canyons. The cadence of her wings and the wind in my face is strangely... soothing. Evergreen trees stand as sentinels on these tall mountains, with the rare addition of a red winter flower blooming in the frosty terrain.

My breath catches in my throat. The wind passing through my fur brings scents of long untold secrets of the sky’s endless expanse. The smell of rain and lightening and water and freshness never told on the land of jagged mountains and dropping cliffs below. It's a different world up here, a world of life and beauty I never realized was above me my entire life, just waiting to be explored on the wings of a dragon.

Then we drop.

I look down, my eyes searching… there.

A large black blob getting ever bigger, right at the edge of a larger ravine than even the one the where She-Dragon was. She tenses, her teeth and slimy upper jaw clenching a little harder around my prone body. It takes a lot of self-control to keep from squirming.

But the scene below helps distract from her teeth. The other dragon is playing with the Werecats he brought back from the pass. My spine goes rigid at the horror of the cat and mouse game.

He swats at them with the pads of his paws to send them flying into trees and bushes. A toothy snarl alights on his face as one cat clamps down with claws and jaws, biting into the soft tissue between the dragon’s claws with an animalistic frenzy felt only by those who know death is near.

The dragon brings the panther up, as if to drop the cat into his mouth.

"Ba-aadd dragon,” Flash says into the minds of all the Were and one Shifter riding the dragon, murderous rage in his usual humorous voice.

I snort a laugh that feels highly out of place, even as we drop ever closer.

I still do not know what I’m supposed to do. We'll just be more playthings for the beasts if I don't figure out why the dragon insisted we come. It was a knee-jerk reaction to let the other cats know of their brothers and sisters in danger, but now... seeing the male play with the Were makes this much more than just some cats in danger. Now we're all in danger from animals larger than most castles, and I'm vastly regretting it. Have I brought us to our deaths?