Page 9 of Magpies & Mayhem
He was thecutestthing. Even though he was skinny, he was nearly beagle-sized—I’d always been surprised at how much animal could fit all folded up inside an egg—and was covered in dark scales that caught the light with an iridescent shimmer and big, droopy wings. He already had teeth, and claws and horns, being a perfect, smaller replica of his parents. I say his, because while I don’t have a ton of experience sexing reptiles, the bulge behind the baby’s cloaca was a pretty clear indicator that I was dealing with a male. And he was going to getbig—quickly. He was skinny now, sure, but from what I could tell, he was one of the species of lesser dragons and would eventually end up being about the size of my apartment—a far cry smaller than the bigger species of greater dragons, but he was going to be abig boy.
He’d been quiet for the first few days. We’d bought one of those used playpen things for kids and stuck it in the living room area to keep him contained, but he hadn’t moved much. I draped a blanket over the top of it so it would be dark and warm, and to lessen his habituation to us as much as possible. It went against all my instincts to just leave him alone and let him rest, because baby birds needed ‘round-the-clock care and feeding and most of my experience was with them. But reptiles often didn’t eat for a few days after they hatched, and just needed a warm, dark place to rest while they got their bearings and prepared for the first shedding of their skin. The only time he moved was when I left the room for something and Josh wasn’t in there with him. He’d thrash and claw until one of us ran over to reassure him, afraid he was going to rip through the fabric of the playpen.
But now I wanted him to eat, and he wasn’t having it. I had a plethora of foods for him to try, everything from a dead rat, to fish, to chicken hearts, but he wouldn’t take anything. I was back on the kitchen floor again, this time trying to restrain a large, winged reptile, with him pinned between my legs so he couldn’t bludgeon me with his wings and trying to pry his mouth open at the same time. Sometimes, if you could just get food into an animal’s mouth, then they’d eat it, but he kept waiting until I released him and then he’d push it back out with his tongue.
My brother leaned over the edge of the counter. “We should name it.”
“Shut up, Josh. We’re not naming him.” I was struggling to hold the dragon’s mouth shut around the chicken heart I’d just snuck in there, but blood was making my hands slippery.
“We could name him Onyx, since he’s black.”
“We can’t name him. He’s going to be released back into the wild. You don’t name things that aren’t pets.” I wanted to get at least three meals into him before we released him, to prove he was thriving, but that might take a while since carnivorous reptiles didn’t eat every day. The wildlife refuge still hadn’t contacted me either.
“What about Spot?” Josh mused, completely ignoring me.
I slowly let go of the dragon’s mouth, holding my breath in the hopes that he’d swallow. The chicken heart popped out onto the floor. I slumped in defeat.
“You should cook it,” Josh said. I turned my head and blinked at him. “This book you got says they like their food cooked.” He pointed down at the counter, where I’d left a stack of books on dragons.
“They like it cooked,” I repeated in a mocking tone. “Because they cook their food in their big dragon kitchens.”
Josh squinted at me. “They breathe fire.”Okay, fair.
I picked up the dead rat, wondering how I could cook it.Maybe I should start with the fish.
“Wait, I’ve got the perfect name,” Josh said proudly. “Humphry Herbert Hucklebee, the Fierce.”
“I’m not naming it that.”
Mywholeapartmentsmelledlike burnt rat.
The dragon did end up showing more interest in the cooked foods, but I’m not a great cook, so it was by a happy accident that we found out that what hereallyprefers is burnt foods. Which was great; he ended up eating quite a bit. But now my whole house reeked of burned rat fur.
It made it impossible to sleep. Between the acrid smell and my own general restlessness, I’d been tossing and turning for a few hours already, and the little dragon wasn’t helping. He was in my room because I couldn’t get him to stay out. If I wasn’t home, he was fine being left with one of my brothers, but if he knew I was here, he would scratch and huff until I let him in. Which was cute, but he was making it hard for me to sleep. Every couple of minutes, he’d worm his way up onto my bed, down near my feet. I’d pick him back up and haul him back to the floor, but every time I did, he’d make that same squeaky noise that he made in the shell, and it’d make my heart clench.
I wasn’t trying to be mean to him, he just wasn’t a pet. Dragonsaren’t domesticated. He was a wild animal, and he needed to be able to return to the wild. It made me nervous for him that he was already this interested in people. He could end up being the size of a small house someday, and he needed to be up in the mountains doing his own thing and hunting his own bigger-than-a-rat-sized food before he did. What was I going to do? Roast him a cow?
He crept to the edge of the bed and laid his head on the mattress again, peering at me to see if I was going to react. When I didn’t, he flapped his wings to give himself a boost and clambered up the side and onto the bed.
I sighed. “You are relentless,” I said to the darkness.
He took that as permission and plopped down on my blankets, but he kept twitching and moving. Eventually, he rolled over and wormed his way up against my leg.
As I laid there, staring at the ceiling in the darkness, Elara’s words came back to me from a few days ago.And he’s normally so playful and friendly, but he doesn’t act like that around you.What the hell? So,what? He was still the same normal, friendly Jordan to everyone else but not to me? Why did I get the cold, glaring, asshole Jordan and everyone else got playful, fun Jordan? What did I do to him? It had been bugging me ever since she’d said it.
When I’d walked into his apartment the first time, he’d gotten up and left without saying a word to me. I kept smelling his cigarettes around town—with a distinct note of vampire mixed in—but he was never there. Then he took the heat for the guys I roughed up at the warehouse, but he spoke one sentence to me the whole time, and even Elara noticed he was acting weird that day. None of it made sense.
The longer I lay there, the madder I got, something ugly twisting at my stomach. If Elara had been telling me this, I would have told her that her feelings were hurt, but that couldn’t be the case here. I don’t care what people think of me. I just didn’t like not understanding something.
When the dragon twitched again, I got up out of bed. I was too restless to sleep. Jordan was being weird, and I didn’t know why. But I could find out. I was going to make him talk to me. He needed his boat rocked a little bit anyway.
Chapter 6
Iwasblaminglackof sleep for all my faulty decision making as I circled above Jordan’s apartment at midnight. His bedroom light peeked through the crack in his curtains, and from the way they billowed, his window was open. I circled one extra time to double check, because shifters heal fast, but I didn’t think I’d survive a broken neck.
Then—because I know how to make an entrance—I hit that crack in his curtains at a million miles an hour, bursting into his bedroom in an explosion of feathers and billowing fabric.
“What the—” Jordan was propped up in his bed, reading a textbook by the light of a lamp on his nightstand. He was wearing nothing but boxers, with the book propped on his bent knee and the other leg sprawled haphazardly on the bed. And oh, my word, he lookedgood. I shifted forms and landed at the foot of his bed while he was still talking and did my best to ignore his gorgeous thighs. I wasn’t here to ogle him.
