Dragonback 01 Dragon and Thief Read Online Free PDF Page A

forward. Almost
within attack range now. "I suppose you want me to check."
    "If you would be so kind," the other voice said. Draycos braced
himself . . .
    And for a moment the mental haze of his approaching death cleared,
and a strange thought occurred to him.
    Yes, he could attack this intruder as he'd planned. He could
probably even kill the boy before he lost his hold on this universe and
vanished into death and oblivion.
    Or, instead, he could use that same last bit of strength to try to
connect with him.
    "Still not moving," the boy said. "I guess it's dead. Too bad—it's
pretty neat looking. Huh—those gold scales have little bits of red on
them, too, right at the edges. Cool."
    It was a gamble, Draycos knew. A terrible, desperate gamble.
Throughout their history, the K'da had met only two species who could
act as hosts to them. There wasn't a chance in a hundred that these
humans could do so.
    And if the connection failed, there would be no attack. Draycos
had strength enough for only a single action.
    "Still not moving," the boy reported.
    Draycos came to a decision. He was a K'da warrior, and he could
not attack an untrained and unprepared opponent without clear cause.
The boy stopped and leaned close . . . .
    Draycos leaped.

CHAPTER 4

    It was about the last thing Jack would ever have expected: for one
of the "dead" bodies aboard the wrecked ship to suddenly come alive and
charge at him. With a startled gasp he jumped backwards, reflexively
throwing up an arm in front of his eyes. There was a flash of gold
right in his face—he blinked—
    And then, without a sound, it was gone. He spun around, nearly
losing his balance on the litter-strewn deck.
    The dragon had vanished.
    Only then did he remember the tangler belted at his waist. He
yanked out the weapon and popped off the safety catch, breathing hard
and trembling with reaction as he looked wildly around. The dragon was
gone, all right.
    Only one small problem: there wasn't any place it could have gone
to. It couldn't possibly have made it across the room and out the
doorway back there, not in the half second it had taken Jack to turn
around. With most everything solid in the room lying in broken piles on
the floor, there was no place in the room itself for it to hide.
    So where was it?
    "Jack!" Uncle Virge's voice called urgently from the comm clip on
his shirt collar. "What is it? What's going on? Come on, lad, speak up."
    "That dragon," Jack said. To his embarrassment, his voice was
trembling. He hated when it did that. "It jumped at me. At least, I
thought it did."
    "What happened? Did it bite you? Claw you?"
    "I—no, I don't think so," Jack said, still looking around. "I
mean, I don't feel anything."
    "Check your clothes," Uncle Virge ordered. "Look for rips or
blood. Sometimes you don't feel injuries like that right away."
    Jack glanced down at his shirt. "No, there's nothing. It just
jumped at me and then disappeared."
    "What do you mean, disappeared? Disappeared where?"
    Jack didn't answer. The immediate shock of the incident was
beginning to fade . . . and as it did so, he suddenly became aware that
there was something odd about the way his skin felt. Almost as if there
was a thin coating of paint or something on his chest and back.
    He reached in under his shirt collar and touched his shoulder. It
was skin, all right, normal everyday skin. It certainly didn't feel any
different than usual to his fingertips. His back didn't feel any
different, either, as he slid his hand down along his shoulder blade as
far as it would go.
    But the odd sensation persisted.
    "Jack?"
    "Hang on a second," Jack said, draping his leather jacket across
the back of a broken chair and sliding his tangler back into its
holster. Working a finger under the sealing seam running down the front
of his shirt, he unsealed it and pulled it open.
    He caught his breath. There, angling across his chest and stomach,
was a wide golden band. It wrapped around his rib cage at both the