Page 22 of Magpies & Mayhem
“No.”
I clutched my hands around my water bottle and held it under my chin, tilting my head to give Jordan a cutesy, sarcastic look. “Aw, Jordan,you love me! My heart just grew three whole sizes!”
Jordan didn’t respond at all other than to turn his head toward me as we walked. I couldn’t see through the visor, but I could feel his glare, so I beamed at him. I don’t know why it made me feel better that he wasn’t furious with me personally, but I couldn’t help but ham it up a little bit, even if it didn’t really mean anything.
We were getting pretty close to the cliffs now, but I figured we didn’t need to head into the caves just yet, since sunlight was a long way off. “We could just park it here for a few hours and watch the stars since it’s a clear night,” I suggested.
He stopped and looked down at Huck hanging from his chest. “What do I do with him?” he asked.
“We could let him go,” I said with a shrug. “He can’t really get into too much trouble out here, and if he runs away, well, then I guess he’s released himself back into the wild. I can unbuckle your straps if you’ll let me.” I waited, trying—for maybe the first time in my life—to be respectful of his space.
“Yeah, go ahead.” He sounded hesitant.
“Okay, coming in,” I said, making sure my movements were slow and he could anticipate them. I grasped the buckle behind his shoulders and pinched, and the instant Huck heard the buckle click, he exploded out of the carrier, smacking Jordan on the helmet with his wings and flailing around in the air.
“Ah, sh—” Jordan slapped him away from his head while I scrambled to grab Huck and get his wings pinned again. So much for not getting into trouble.
“Sorry!” I yelled, my body tensing at Jordan’s reaction to the ruckus. I was apologizing a lot today, which wasn’t my favorite thing. Huck squirmed in my arms while Jordan stood a few paces off, breathing heavily, with his arms braced on his knees. “You good?” I asked him. I knew he wasn’t hurt. He was wearing a full helmet and vampires healed faster than any race I knew of, but I felt bad for startling him again.
“I’m fine, just wasn’t expecting it,” he said.
I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I risk spooking him again, or should I wait for his nerves to settle? When I remained frozen with my scaly captive clawing at my arms, Jordan raised his head.
“I said I’m fine, Sidney. Let him go.”
“If you say so,” I muttered. “Let’s try this again, okay, little guy? Be chill.” I lowered us both to the ground and kept my hands around his wings until I was ready to back away. Getting clubbed by a wing bone repeatedly did not feel good, even from a smaller animal. Pigeons were much smaller and could still dish out a slap that hurt. My voice seemed to do something for Huck though, because I felt his muscles loosen when I spoke to him. “That’s right, buddy. Nice and easy,” I crooned. Letting go and backing away in one smooth movement, I tensed for flailing, but Huck had a much calmer posture now. “Okay, well, that was anticlimactic,” I said, taking a seat on the sand.
I pulled my backpack in front of me, digging through it for some toiletries. A wet wipe and a hairbrush felt like a godsend right now since I’d never gotten the chance to clean up after Huck’s… debacle. I scrubbed my face with the wipe and then pulled out my loose braid to redo it. Two tight braids seemed like a good option around fire.
Jordan stood where he was, watching Huck as he sniffed around in the sand, eventually getting bored and beginning to chase his tail again. “What’s he doing?” Jordan asked.
“His best.” I gave him a shrug and stuffed everything back in my pack, pulling it behind me and flopping back to use it as a pillow. “Nobody ever said dragons were geniuses,” I said. There were few clouds tonight in the rapidly darkening sky, I noted as I fixed my eyes above me. “You gonna stand there all night, or come look at the stars with me?” I asked Jordan. I didn’t necessarily want himrightnear me—yes, I did—but having him just standing there staring felt weird. The scuff of a boot told me he was moving, and I tried not to flinch. Why was I always so conflicted with him?
He dropped onto the sand next to me and his helmeted head hit the sand with a thud as he lay down. After a few minutes of fidgeting, I finally managed to get comfortable on the warm sand, focusing on the sky, with the stars so visible and close here in the desert. The two moons hung near the horizon, and clusters of pink and white nebulas smattered among the twinkling stars looked almost close enough to touch. Except for the sounds of Huck snuffling around, doing whatever he was doing in the sand, and a few insects chirping, everything was quiet. And yet… there was nothing I was more aware of in that moment than the person next to me. I was staring at the sky, but every ounce of me was hyper-focused on Jordan, no matter how much I tried to wrest my attention away from him.
His smell had changed so drastically since I’d known him, with the scent of vampire nearly overwhelming the underlying smell ofhim. He’d always smelled warm and masculine, like low burning coals and summer forest. It was hard to describe the scent of vampire in his blood. Like sharp spice and challenge, an unspoken danger that put me on edge. But if I searched for it, if I was patient with it, I could tease out the notes of him, the Jordan that I’d always known, underneath it all. I tried to center myself, breathing deeply and savoring the hidden notes of campfire and man deep in my lungs.
Huck thrashed in the sand, jumping and pouncing and jumping again, and Jordan twitched. “What’s he doing now?” he asked, sounding concerned.
I glanced at Huck, watching him play for a bit. “He’s chasing crickets.” That was a good sign. He needed to be able to hunt on his own, so it pleased me to see he had the instincts for it. “He’s just playing. Are you scared of him?”
“No… I just don’t know what to expect from him.” Jordan lifted his head to stare at Huck, and then let it drop back onto the sand with a thud.
“He can’t hurt you,” I said matter-of-factly. “Just think of him as a dinosaur toddler. That breathes fire. Since fire can’t hurt you, you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“If he was a toddler, I probably wouldn’t be okay with him eating sand.”
I shot up off the ground and lunged for Huck to find that hewas indeedeating sand. Tackling him and wiping the sand out of his mouth made him fuss, but I held his jaws open and made sure all the little grains were out. “Don’t eat sand, dingus.” I crawled back to my backpack and collapsed on my side, facing Jordan. “I don’t remember the last time I got a full night’s sleep. For precisely this reason,” I grumbled. “You should take off your helmet. There are still many long hours of night you can enjoy, and no one is around to see you but me.” I was totally just concerned with his comfort and not at all obsessed with his pretty face. I took another deep breath, just to pull his smell deep into my lungs again, separating out the different layers of scent in my mind and letting myself get used to the changes.
“I’m not sure you can enjoy night,” Jordan said with a quiet rasp, but he pulled his helmet off anyway and dumped it beside him. He pulled his arm behind his head to rest on. My heart squished at his tone, but my frustration sparked at his stubbornness.
“Of course you can enjoy night. Nighttime is lovely. The air is cool and soft. The darkness is like being all wrapped up in your favorite blanket. Like something cozy to hide in. The most interesting creatures come out at night. And the stars and cosmos are more beautiful than anything in the daytime.”
Jordan didn’t respond, just took in my words and the stars above. His hair was still a mess and the thick covering he wore around his shoulders was bunched around his neck. His breaths were deep and even, but other than that, the only thing that moved was his eyes as he scanned the night sky. He really was handsome, his face all hard angles and flat planes, except for his lips that looked soft and kissable.Sigh.It occurred to me I was being rather silly, watching him as he watched the stars, but I couldn’t think of anything else I’d rather be looking at right now.
“Night,” he began quietly, startling me from my reverie, “is only half of the equation. Being confined to it is a half existence. It makes me feel half alive. The future stretches on forever, and yet, I have no real future.”
I huffed at him. “Okay, I get it that nobody likes to have their choices taken away. I don’t condone what that girl did to you,at all, and I’m sorry it happened. But you have a whole new hand of cards you’ve been dealt. You havenewchoices. There’sso manycool things you can do when youcan’t die.”
