Hydra by Finley Aaron Read Free Book Online Page B

the Caspian Sea?”
    He nods. “To the spot where you were attacked.”
    “It’s a long way from here. My father and brothers searched and found nothing.”
    Ed doesn’t even blink. “I study sea monsters, livin’ close to the Loch, as I do,” he explains. “Ye might even call me a sea monster expert. If there’s anythin’ down there, I want the chance to look.”
    I’m panting a little from the excitement of telling my story, from the fear it roused in me. Much as I’d love a sea monster expert to validate my story and tell me what really happened, it’s a long journey. I don’t want to waste Ed’s time. “The creatures probably swam away. It’s a huge body of water. A sea, not a lake. They could have gone anywhere. I don’t know how you’d ever find them. It could take years.”
    “Years I have in abundance.” He tells me solemnly. “What I don’t have is answers or evidence. Do you think you got tangled up in seaweed?”
    “I know I didn’t.”
    “Then take me there, and I will find the monsters that attacked ye.”

Chapter Six
     
    Tiny waves, the wake of a distant boat, lap against our dinghy as I stare at Ed, pondering my response. On the one hand, I’m grateful, so very overwhelmingly, wordlessly grateful, that he believes me. His simple acceptance of my story has restored a part of my heart that was crushed by my family’s disbelief.
    I could hug this man.
    But there is also the simple fact that the monsters that attacked me, if they are real (of course they are real—do you honestly think I, a dragon, was nearly drowned and defeated by seaweed ?) are dangerous on a level Ed, for all his sea monster expertise, cannot begin to understand. To put it in perspective: the Caspian Sea monsters nearly killed me when I was in dragon form, thirty feet long with horns and talons and armored scales.
    Ed is just a guy. He’s a pretty big guy who can carry headless bulls on his shoulders at a running clip, and tote precarious stacks of luggage up stairs without getting winded, but he is still. Just. A. Guy.
    The Caspian Sea monsters will obliterate him.
    There are few things I am sure about in this world, but this I know: I do not want someone as nice as Ed, a guy who saved me from a charging bull, the only person on earth who believes me about the monsters—a guy I could hug—obliterated by ruthless sea monsters.
    On the other hand (and the lapping waves die down to nothing, returning the lake’s surface to its usual mirrored self while I ponder it) I could fly Ed there on my back over the course of a couple of days, he could search the sea, and we could be back in under a week. Logistics-wise, this could happen.
    There’s just that whole part about Ed getting obliterated by sea monsters. That’s my sticking point.
    So finally, after Ed’s been more than patient, waiting for me to respond, I explain to him, with a gravity in my tone that I hope captures the danger of his proposal, “The sea monsters tried to kill me.”
    “Aye,” Ed acknowledges, his tone almost apologetic.
    “I mean, they almost did kill me.”
    “Are ye worried for me safety?” Ed looks surprised, maybe even amused by this notion, as though no one has ever been worried for his safety before. Considering his skill with the broadsword last night, probably no one has. Still, I can’t imagine him fighting the sea monsters with a broadsword.
    “Yes. I’m worried for your safety. It’s dangerous.”
    “I’m a mite bigger and stronger than ye are.”
    I have to turn my head away to hide my laughter. Ed may think he’s big and bad, but I’m a freaking dragon. I am so much bigger and badder than he is.
    “What’s that?” He peers around me toward where I’ve hidden my face. “Have ye been tellin’ a joke?”
    I sober quickly, because it occurs to me that, with his knock knees and funny hands, he might have been teased as a child. And I don’t want him to think, even for a second, that I’m laughing at him. “No,