How to Kill a Dragon (Heir of Dragons Book 1)

crush her. It could destroy her with a single fiery breath or slash her apart with a flick of its claws. In her time as a hunter, she'd scarcely encountered a foe that could stand up to one of her arrows, much less two. This beast had shrugged off both shots effortlessly. She felt herself an annoying mosquito buzzing in the face of a savage lion—weak.
Teeth grit, she launched another volley. Now wasn't the time to sulk. Two arrows, let loose in quick succession, were sent upward toward the dragon's head and neck while it tried to pull its dense tail from the crater it had made in the ground. Both of them, to her dismay, failed to deliver; the first disintegrated against the thing's diamond-like scales, and the other, though it struck a softer part of the creature's underbelly, resulted only in a scratch.
More agitated than threatened, the terrifying dragon reared up on its hind legs, its massive wings flapping and sending an oppressive gust about the glade that nearly swept her off her feet. No sooner had she found her legs did the beast loose another blast of flame—this one shooting out in a concentrated column like magma spewing from the mouth of a volcano. The incandescent blast ripped through the air, leaving everything in its wake melted and singed beyond recognition. Trees in the area ignited for the heat of the attack, and though it missed Minx by a small margin, the air temperature had swelled to an almost unbearable high. She felt woozy as she dodged, had trouble breathing in the boiling air.
All around her, small pockets of forest were burning. She realized she would not be able to escape safely—and felt a great pang of shame at even having considered a retreat. There has to be some way for me to injure it... Some place to shoot it that'll take it off guard... She grit her teeth, knees knocking together despite her best effort to stand firm. Her guts churned and an unfamiliar feeling needled her mind. There's no good way to attack it. The plating is too strong, and now that it's enraged, it isn't going to give me enough time to aim.
The beast had her well and truly cornered. She'd been bested. I can't believe this... Waves of smoke rolled past her, making her eyes water and burn. She fired another shot, trying to pierce the beast's belly, but it beat its wings again and effortlessly knocked the arrow out of the air. How can this be? This is only a Royal Dragon... It isn't even one of the Great Dragons! I was supposed to beat this thing easily...
Shuddering now in terror, Minx focused all of her energies on standing firm. She would fight this thing to the death—and death, she now realized, was likely what awaited her. At any moment, the creature was likely to lunge at her, to rip her to shreds with its countless teeth. Drawing up another arrow, she resolved to make herself a nuisance, at the very least.
She had been given the title of Dragon Hunter, and she was determined to be remembered as a Dragon Hunter, too.

Chapter 4
The dragon watched the Fae huntress nock another arrow and couldn't help chuckling to himself. What does this girl think she's doing? She could fire a hundred arrows. It won't make a difference. Amused at her struggle and impressed at her tenacity, the creature ceased flapping its wings and touched down in the clearing with spectral grace. The Fae, wide-eyed and shaken, lowered her bow by a few degrees, unsure of how to proceed.
She proved even more confused when Kaleb shed his dragon form and shifted. Where only moments ago a monolithic fire dragon had stood, there was now only a young man in the smoldering clearing. Smiling wryly, he probed her wild gaze with his yellowish eyes, making a little motion with his hands intended to get her to drop her weapon. She lowered the bow—less out of obedience to him than out of pure shock. “Well, that wasn't very neighborly of you!” he called out, hands on his hips. “Is that how you treat all the visitors who come into your lands?”
The Fae huntress said nothing, still stunned at his sudden transformation. She eyed the burning woods to her back, held onto her bow for dear life. She appeared to be considering a retreat, but the mess he'd caused with his fire blasts had made that a rather risky proposition.
He took a slow step toward her, nodding. “I'm Kaleb,” he said. “And you are?”
The girl, slender, with long, dark hair, gave her delicate shoulders a toss. She was wearing a form-fitting olive garb with steel accents on her calf-high boots and shoulders. Around her wrists were curious bracelets studded with glowing blue stones. “M-Minx,” she uttered—quickly adding, “Not that it's any of your business.”
The young dragon shifter crossed his arms, plate armor gauntlets clanging as he did so. “I don't know about that,” he said, chuckling dryly. “You attacked me out of the blue. Least you can do is tell me your name.”
“Out of the blue?” spat the Fae in evident disgust. “You're trespassing on our lands! I was well within my rights to attack you! There's a treaty between our kinds—or don't you realize that?”
The horned shoulder pieces of Kaleb's armor rose and fell as he shrugged. “The treaty, sure. But since you came at me without warning, I was well within my rights to defend myself, wasn't I? Trying to launch a sneak attack against a dragon who's just minding his own business isn't exactly the spirit of the treaty either, is it?” He flashed her a pearly grin.
Rather than return his smile, Minx looked on the verge of taking another shot at him.
He watched her prepare to draw another arrow from her quiver, and urged her against it with a shake of his head. “Now, that's quite enough, don't