Chapter 6

The only time he’d ever felt pity, Scarface thought, was the time when he’d found the wounded hawk out in the desert. It had fallen into a thicket of cacti and broke its wing, and now it was nearly dead. He’d considered killing it all the way, and then eating it, but thought that would be heartless. Ha. Cactus would’ve loved to hear that. “Assassins don’t feel pity,” he heard her voice say in his head. “They move quickly, ruthlessly. There’s no time to feel any emotions.”

But he hadn’t eaten it. He had just studied its injuries, and as gently as he could, he had tried his best to heal it. Ok, yes, fine he got help from Sage. He and Sage, his pet human, had nursed the hawk back to health, and with a little more help from Sage, the hawk (which was now named Feather) was fully healed and completely tame.

He couldn’t tell anyone of course. He was a little—OK, a lot afraid that if he let slip that he had a tame meal for a friend then someone might find Feather and eat him.

So that was why, whenever he had to go on a mission or was in the dragon palace, Feather stayed with Sage.

Only one other dragon knew about both Feather and Sage, and that was Iguana.

But apparently, that was about to change.