Page 25 of Magpies & Mayhem
He gave me a completely skeptical look in response, as if he didn’t know if I might be telling the truth or not since I was a shifter. When I didn’t comment, he narrowed his eyes at me further.
I smiled innocently. And then I sighed because my stomach started to rumble, making me realize I hadn’t eaten dinner tonight even though it was well past bedtime. A granola bar or three from my bag would have to do. “Do you need to eat?” I asked as I dug them out and tore into one. “Not that I’m offering, just so we’re clear.” No need to give the vampire the wrong idea about whether my own blood was ‘on the table’, so to speak.
I turned to find his glower had deepened. “I don’t need to eat, thank you,” he said, but the ‘thank you’ didn’t sound genuine.
“How often do you need to eat now?” I was infinitely curious about what his life was like after the change.
The breath that gusted out of him was heavy. “I usually eat once every few days or so, but I can eat more or less often. I could go for weeks without if I needed to. Are you going to need to sleep?” he asked.
“I’m pretty tired, yeah. I doubt I’ll make it through the night without it, considering how little sleep I’ve gotten lately.” I was getting to the point in my exhaustion that I was beginning to feel nauseated.
“You could try to head home if you want, and I can hang out here with the dragon. You’d just need to come back to tag in before daylight.”
I was already shaking my head before he finished. “Won’t work. If I leave, he’ll follow me. Watch.” I stood and made it ten steps back toward town before Huck squawked and shuffle-flapped his way after me, calling out with his little baby dragon cry until he caught up to me. With a sigh, I scooped him up with both arms and hauled him back to Jordan, plopping back down in the sand next to him.
“Huh. Can you sleep out here?” He sat up and looked around doubtfully.
“It’s a little too exposed,” I said with a shrug. “Why don’t we look for a small cave in the cliffs?”
“Somewhere with a little more privacy would be nice,” he said, and I tried to stifle the unintended flame the thought of privacy with Jordan lit inside me.
“Yeah,” I answered, sounding a little breathless to my own ears. “Let’s go see what we can find.”
Chapter 15
Wehikedupintothe cliffs and I got to enjoy seeing Huck climbing around and exploring in a natural environment. His curiosity and enthusiasm for being outside was infectious, and even Jordan seemed to find his antics amusing. It was such a relief to have him out here in nature, where he could just be himself and not cooped up in a house destroying everything. He would find a rock, or a stick, or a leaf that he liked and carry it along with us in his jaws until he came upon something else he liked better, and then trade it out for the newer, better object. He’d cycled through six different random items so far as he followed along beside us at a jaunty little trot. When he stopped again to inspect a new stone, he tried to fit it into his mouth along with the one that was already in there but couldn’t manage it.
“Sorry, bud,” I told him, rubbing the scales between his little nubby horns. “I know how it feels to be excited about trinkets and not be able to carry them all.” I picked up one of his stones and tossed it higher up the path, causing him to scramble off after it.
“That’s one way to get him moving, I guess,” Jordan mumbled. “Which one of these do you want to use?” He bent down to peer under an overhang of rock in the cliff face. The whole side of the cliff was riddled with openings, some large enough to crawl into.
“Whichever one is large enough to lie down in and has the least amount of bugs.” I was starting to not care at this point, as tired as I was.
“This one looks defensible,” Jordan said after checking out a few more openings. He only had to bend at the waist to enter, and when I followed him in, we could both nearly stand. The back was closed and there was enough room to spread out in, with a layer of sand covering the floor.
“Are you planning to be attacked?” I asked, dropping my sack on the floor and laying down on it again. Normally, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep this close to a vampire, even if it was Jordan, but I was so tired I would probably drift right off. I probably wouldn’t even feel it if he tried to eat me. Even as I lay there wondering if I could trust him, guilt chewed at me when I acknowledged that he was doing me a massive favor to help with Huck and let me have a chance to rest.
Jordan frowned down at me. “Don’t you have a blanket or something to lie on?”
“No. I’m trying to be as un-flammable as possible. Not all of us are fireproof.” Just to punctuate my point, Huck bounded into the little cave and torched a spider on the wall before gobbling it up like he was starving.
Jordan’s frown deepened as his gaze transferred from Huck and his spider snack back to me. “Get up.”
“What? I’m fine.” Sleeping in the dirt wasn’t on my list of concerns at the moment.
“Get up, Sidney,” he insisted, dropping his helmet on the ground and unwinding the heavy cloth he kept wrapped around his shoulders. I hauled my exhausted bones up off the ground and stared as he draped the thick material across the ground where I’d been laying and over my pack. “It’s wool. He’d have to work really hard to catch that on fire, and I won’t let him.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling humbled by the weirdly chivalrous gesture. The fabric was soft, but dense, and certainly felt better than the cold ground that hadn’t been warmed by the sun’s rays like the sand in the open desert had. As I settled onto it, I tried not to be obvious about huffing his scent, but I wanted to stuff my face in it. I lay on my side instead and tucked my arms around myself as Jordan settled against the wall across from me.
“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable sleeping in your other form?” he asked after a few minutes.
I’d thought about that already. “We’ve been feeding Huck small animals,” I muttered, turning my head to watch the dragon as he tried to pull a larger branch he’d found—god knows where—into the cave. It looked like he’d dragged in a whole dead bush. “I’m mildly concerned he’d mistake me for food.” My magpie form was a little larger than a real black-billed magpie, but it wasn’t worth the risk to my feathers. My body healed quickly, but feathers took longer to repair.
Closing my eyes was so nice that blinking felt almost rapturous. “Are you sure you don’t mind me dropping off for a little bit?” I felt bad leaving him to do all the dragon-sitting alone.
Jordan shook his head. “What do I need to do for him?” he asked gruffly.
“Try to make sure he doesn’t eat sand. Don’t let him set me on fire. If he takes off somewhere, that’s fine. Just don’t let him head into the city. Use your best judgment.” It was babysitting an incendiary dinosaur toddler, not rocket science. Not that we had rockets here in the Boundlands, but my point stands. They would be fine.
