Moon Rising by Tui T. Sutherland Read Free Book Online Page A

abandoned the chickens at once and bolted over to that side of the cave. Moon felt the thread of fear twist higher and brighter, as if it had been set on fire.
    And then a small shape shot between the dragons and came pelting across the cave, dodging sheep and chickens, and Moon saw what everyone was chasing.
    A scavenger!
    She’d read about them and seen drawings, but she’d never encountered a real scavenger before. She’d never given them much thought. Apart from stealing the SandWing treasure and killing Queen Oasis twenty years ago, they were just creatures who happened to live on the same planet as the dragons.
    But suddenly this one was right here and blazing in her mind as brightly as any dragon. She saw it spot the sheep and chickens, including the ones that had been caught and half eaten already, and she saw it stumble as a bolt of despair went through it.
    Why can I feel the scavenger’s fear, but nothing from the sheep or the chickens? she wondered. Aren’t they the same?
    The icy anger she’d felt before swept into the cave like an avenging blizzard: an IceWing, pale blue as a frozen ocean, with glittering scales like overlapping chips of ice. He stormed through the yelling crowd of dragonets who were still trying to find the scavenger underfoot, and Moon realized he was chasing the little animal as well.
    The scavenger didn’t stand a chance. He’d fled into the worst possible place. Someone in the prey center was definitely going to catch him and eat him, and Moon would have to feel his awful terror as it happened.
    She couldn’t watch it die — she couldn’t let that happen to something so scared, so helpless and alive and alone and clearly aware of what was about to happen to it.
    Moon bolted over to the scavenger, cut it off as it tried to dodge around her, darted left to block its retreat, and deftly snatched it up in her claws.
    “It’s all right,” she whispered to it. “I’m not going to hurt you.” It did no good. The scavenger’s heartbreaking fear buzzed even more clearly in her mind now that she was holding it. It put its little paws over its head and curled into a ball between her talons.
    Silence slowly spread across the cave. Moon looked up and found the IceWing only inches away, glaring at her with dark blue eyes.
    NightWing, he thought with a flash of vicious hatred that made her wince. He hissed slowly, exhaling a hint of deadly frostbreath into the air between them.
    “You have ten seconds to give me back my scavenger,” he snarled, “before I slice your face off.”

So much for keeping my head down and staying inconspicuous, Moon thought, feeling the eyes and thoughts of every dragon in the cave on her.
    The IceWing was frighteningly beautiful, with horns like deadly icicles and sharp spikes at the end of his whip-thin tail. His gaze pinned her down like a spear.
    Never seen one look like that before, she heard him think. Didn’t know they had silver scales anywhere except under their wings. Those ones by her eyes are remarkable … and she looks like she’s … listening to something. A brief wave of curiosity shivered through his thoughts, and then was abruptly buried in a landslide of anger and self-loathing. What am I thinking? NightWings killed him, and I hate them all, all of them.
    Moon tore her eyes away from his, wishing she could shut her powers off. She could have known from his expression that he hated her. She didn’t need to see the layers of how complicated his feelings were. Who did we kill? Someone he loved, obviously. She found it easy to believe the NightWings she knew deserved his hatred. I wish I could be someone else, someone he would give half a chance.
    “Five seconds,” he snarled.
    “No,” Moon said, forcing the word out past the scavenger’s terror and the sharp edges of the IceWing’s anger.
    “That is my scavenger,” he hissed. “My idiot clawmate let it out, but it is mine and I did not bring it all the way here to see it eaten by