Blood Diamond Read Free Page B

burned my lungs. I should’ve done something other than gawk at her like an idiot, but I couldn’t. Like me, she seemed equally powerless—or too stubborn—to look away.
    That both comforted and pleased me, and I didn’t know why.
    A bright flash accompanied by a concussive blast broke my concentration. My ears rang while balls of light burst and danced in my vision.
    The Fenerec’s fangs tore into me.

Chapter Two

    I wasn’t sure why I was lying on the ground.
    The Fenerec had stopped using me as a chew toy in favor of crawling all over me, her paws pressed against my chest with her cold, wet nose pressed against my throat. She huddled close to me, shivering as though it were deep winter instead of late spring.
    Within fifty feet of me, the underbrush smoldered, but recent rainfalls kept the damp foliage and leaves from igniting. Farther into the forest, where I suspected the den had once been, were the burning ruins of fallen trees, filling the air with smoke. The scattered bits and pieces of my memory fell together.
    There had been an explosion.
    I shook my head, and at my movement, the Fenerec’s ears pricked forward. My ears hurt worse than my hand, and the ringing in my head deafened me to any other sound. I felt more than heard the little wolf’s whine. She wiggled, shoving her head under my chin.
    If it weren’t for the jade in her eyes and the fact she seemed to understand what I was saying, I would’ve suspected her to be a regular dog, not a Fenerec. Fenerec weren’t supposed to be cute, cuddly, or friendly—especially not when hurt. The blood of a prey species, humans included, was supposed to bring out the predator in them. While I was well aware she was a predator, I didn’t feel like prey.
    I couldn’t bring myself to fault her for mauling me. The explosion had caught us both by surprise. I tried to piece together why I was lying against a tree. Had we been close enough for it to knock me over? I remembered the flash-bang of the detonation, but nothing afterward. Wincing, I lifted my hand to inspect the damage. The gashes, both on my palm and the back of my hand, had already stopped bleeding for the most part, although a few of the deeper wounds still oozed blood. Bracing against the pain I was about to subject myself to, I flexed my fingers.
    All of them moved. The wounds pulled and hurt about as much as my throbbing ears, but the Fenerec hadn’t done enough damage to impair my movement. With luck, I wouldn’t need stitches. How long did it take gashes to cease bleeding? I couldn’t remember. I estimated longer than twenty minutes, but less than an hour.
    Using my elbow so I wouldn’t put my hands at risk of another bite, I fended her off so I could sit up. She sprawled on my lap, pressing her head against my stomach. The back of my head ached, and when I reached up to touch it, I discovered a tender lump behind my ear. I had no recollection of hitting anything, though judging how I was sprawled against the trunk of a tree, I must have smacked into it one way or another.
    If I had been close enough for the explosion to knock me flat, why wasn’t I dead? My ears hurting I understood; concussive bursts could easily rupture eardrums. It didn’t take much to damage someone’s hearing. But if I had been close enough for the blast to flatten me, I should have been hit with a lot of debris.
    I couldn’t remember any of the details. Making a frustrated noise I couldn’t hear, I pinched my nose, drew a deep breath through my mouth, and attempted to pop my ears. Pain lanced through me, but after shaking my head, sounds began filtering in.