Hunting Dragons

Eighteen-year-old Rima enlists in the fight against dragons after an elf tells her that her future lies with the army.

She believes this to be true. After all, the dragon that they are hunting is the same one that had killed her entire family.

Life in the army isn't too bad. She gets a roof over her head and three meals a day.  Except she has two big secrets that she needs to keep hidden by any means necessary. Her first secret is that she's a woman in an army of men and she shudders to think what they would do to her if they find out. She serves a bloodthirsty captain who is as hateful and ill-tempered as everyone warns her that he'll be. It is difficult to keep her secret when they spend so much time together, when her sole purpose in the army is to satisfy his whims and carry out every task to cross his mind.

She grits her teeth and does everything that's needed of her. She really shouldn't be falling for the terrible-mannered captain, not even when he starts warming up to her and shows her that there is kindness and compassion under his cruel mask, when he cradles her face and tells her to trust him.

She thinks he might have figured out her secret, but that’s fine as long as he doesn’t figure out her second secret. Rima’s second secret is even bigger than her first.

You see, Rima isn't human at all.

Rima's second secret is that she is one of the things that they’re hunting. Rima is a dragon.

~~~~~ Excerpt ~~~~~

“Captain! Captain! We've found it!” a soldier shouts from the other side. “We've found the dragon. For real, this time.”

Her blood runs cold.

They've found him.

Or perhaps-

Perhaps he's found her.

When she is brave enough to look up at the captain, he has an indiscernible expression on his face. Does he know this is goodbye?

She doesn't want to go.

The captain says something to the soldier that makes him leave them alone and she finds her fingers are trembling as she buttons up her uniform. Her whole body is shivering, like she's freezing.

“Stay,” he says when she finishes binding the last of her button.

She shakes her head. “I can't.”

“You're not a soldier,” he says.

“I am.”

He glares at her, all the gentleness from the night before seems to have disintegrated at the news of locating the dragon's nest. “You're not a soldier,” he repeats, his tone uncompromising. “Why are you here, Rima?” he asks.

She doesn't back away when he moves towards her. She refuses to be cowed. “The dragon we're after killed— he ate my family,” she hisses. “I'm going to kill it.”

That isn't the answer he was expecting.

Has she given away another secret?

It doesn't matter.

They're all going to die anyways.