Jake

Jake tugs the glove away from her hand, and there it is. A delicate dragon, coiling round her wrist, its fierce mouth open on her palm. He jerks back. "They were right..." As if he didn't know. As if he hasn't just been refusing to believe it. She tears herself free of the icicles that are pinning her and throws the hand in his face, palm out, so his eyes are once again drawn to the intricate dragon birthmark.
"Like it?" She spits "It assures me that I was born to do one thing—slay dragons." He wants to throw up. He wants to bury his head in the snow and stay there until it melts.

Huntsgirl—Rose—turns for her staff. "Say goodbye!" She lets out a guttural kyai as she moves to attack him, but suddenly the whole world seems to be vibrating, and they both turn automatically toward the source...an avalanche. Jake's insides feel so hot, his thoughts so jumbled that he barely has time to recognize that the storm is not only in his head before it is upon them, and she is caught up in it—she is being swept toward the cliff—while he is in the air, born up automatically by his wings and dragon instincts. For a split second he watches as tons and tons of snow pushes her towards the cliff. He tries to remind himself that she is still Huntsgirl, still a mortal enemy out for his blood, and not just the lovely, fascinating, precocious girl that he fell for both literally and figuratively. But through the mask, he sees her blue eyes widen with fear, and he can't help it. "Rose!" He dives for her and lifts her under the arms, carrying her away from danger, setting her down in the snow.

"Huh? Why did you save me?" His blood roils at the confusion and anger in her voice. But in spite of the bitterness, it is unmistakably Rose's voice. He can't help wondering what caused Rose to become one of them. He can't help trying to come up with an explanation, an excuse. There isn't one. He knows that. Jake cannot kill Rose, and he can't let her die, but he can't deny any longer that she is his worst enemy, and they can't be together.

"We're mortal enemies! Or did you forget?" And yet he can't make himself hate her, can't make his feelings toward her anything but-

He turns away. "I wish I could."

Rose

Rose stares at him almost without comprehension. The spiky black hair frosted with green, the narrow, earnest eyes and knitted eyebrows, lips down-turned and sober like she's never seen them before. And she wants to close her eyes, count to three, and find out it's just a dream. Jake is not the American Dragon. That cocky grin she looks forward to seeing every day at school cannot become a maw full of fangs by night. Those hands that catch her when she stumbles, those hand she wants so badly to hold, cannot turn into needle-sharp claws when she turns her back. The stupid red gangster jacket that he's never without must not be traded in for glinting red scales after school. Jake cannot be the American Dragon.

Because if Jake Long is the American Dragon, Rose has nothing left. Rose ceases to exist, and there is only Huntsgirl. There is only hunting, hunting, hunting. Pursing magical creatures. Pursing victory. Extermination.

If Jake is the American Dragon, she is pursing his death.

In the endless hunting, there was Jake. His over-confident blunders. His fumbling attempts at being a Casanova. He was not perfect—he was even annoying sometimes—but he wanted her—wanted Rose—and gave her a real life. A classmate. A friend. A crush.

She is so angry, so confused, that time has stopped. Huntsgirl. Hunt hunt hunt. She has been raised to lust for the blood of the American Dragon. A dragon killer—she wants to swing her blade and see his blood splurt, gush, stain the ground at her feet. Then her breath catches. It's me, Rose. It's Jake, he said. He knew who she was. Was it a trick all along? Had he played her—had there never been anyone but Huntsgirl?
She stares at him, and the look in his eyes jars her heart. He could have killed her long ago, but he hadn't. Rose. He'd called her Rose.

Some comprehension comes to her. This boy standing in front of her, this punk who ran into her on his skateboard and has been drooling over her ever since, who stole the last pudding for her, caught her in his arms when she tripped down the stairs, who signed up for the school play just for the chance to kiss her—Jake Long, the boy she might already be in love with, is her worst enemy. One hand wants to slit his throat, the other to caress his face.

Rose—Huntsgirl—whoever she is right now—breathes in. The minute is over. With a yell that tears from her gut she leaps at him, staff raised, blade glinting. His eyes close quickly and he shrinks back against the tree. With one slash, she severs the ropes that bind him, then launches herself off the tree-trunk and runs, the blood rushing so loudly in her ears that she only faintly hears the cry behind her "Rose! Wait!"

Jake Long is the American Dragon. He knows that she is Huntsgirl, his nemesis, and he still wants her.

Rose is afraid she might still want him, too.