Page 23 of Magpies & Mayhem
Jordan squinted his eyes just the tiniest amount as he continued to watch the stars.
“Do you even need to breathe air?” I asked, as a thought occurred to me.
He took a beat to answer, like he was actually thinking over the answer. “Not really, no. It’s uncomfortable not to.”
“You can go tospace!” I hollered in excitement. Huck squawked and hiccup-flamed where he sat. “Sorry, Huck.” I guess that was the baby dragon equivalent of a puppy peeing when it got startled. “Okay, hear me out. You don’t even need a space suit. You can explore anywhere you want, just launch yourself into space and you can go see what’s inside the gas giants or drift around looking at the sights for eternity.”
He turned his head to stare at me like I was insane. “Just because I’m not aging and I can’t die of natural causes doesn’t mean I can’t bekilled. Or feel pain. I’d imagine being crushed by the gravity of a gas giant would still kill me.”
“Oh.” Lame. “I guess that blows my next idea.”
He turned his face back to the sky and grumbled, “Do I even want to know?”
“Scuba vampires,” I blurted. He looked at me out of the side of his eye and made a ‘you’re ridiculous’ face. Which was fair. “Just imagine getting to walk around in the deepest trenches in the oceans, and since you don’t need an air tank, you could go anywhere you wanted. Scuba vampires would be the most metal thing.”
“Except for that whole crushing pressure thing,” he said. But then he gave me the world’s smallest smile and said, “Or getting eaten by a shark.” And my heart fluttered in my chest at getting to make this man crack a smile. My own smile was so delighted I couldn’t possibly hide it.
Chapter 14
SomethingwarmedinJordan’seyes as he watched my grin spread. They looked nearly ink black in the darkness, even with the light of the moons, but the intensity in them made my breath catch. I let my gaze trail over the stark lines of his eyebrows, the strong angle of his nose, the scruff he wore on the sharp line of his jaw. But then he seemed to withdraw, his expression shuttering and becoming something brittle.
“As much as I would love to get eaten by a shark or crushed by the overwhelming gravity at the bottom of the sea, it’s not just about what I cando. It’s about—” he paused briefly to swallow, searching my face for something he didn’t seem to find, before continuing, “not having anyone to share it with. What good is any experience when you have no family or partner to experience it with you?” he asked in a murmur.
My stomach twisted uncomfortably at the thought. My brothers, Josh especially, were part of who I was. My parents—as frustrating as they could be sometimes—were my backbone and my safety net, the people I was most excited to share my achievements and my accomplishments with. I loved them all fiercely. I couldn’t imagine the pain it would cause me if they turned their backs on me. But then I thought about Elara, who was practically a sister to me, who I shared a kind of comfortable kinship with that even my brothers couldn’t fulfill. She was family to me too, just in a different kind of way. “If you don’t have a family anymore, you should make one,” I said.
Jordan shifted on the sand, his gaze cutting to me in the darkness.
“Friends can be just as important and valid a family unit as blood relatives,” I insisted. “And you actually get to choose them instead of just making do with what you have.”
I didn’t want to press him too much, so when he turned his attention back to Huck, I did as well, watching as he pounced after a tiny cricket in the sand. After a few frustrating misses, he clacked the stones in his throat and huffed out a flame in frustration, torching the cricket from three feet away. He stared at it in stunned silence, and I could practically see the little gears turning in his walnut sized brain, before dashing forward to gobble up the charred bug. I was so glad we’d left the house.
“And then what?” Jordan asked, interrupting my thoughts. I let my confusion show on my face. “So I make friends, and then what? They just grow old and die and I go on living forever?”
I shrugged at him, feeling uncomfortable with the notion of my own mortality. “Just because a person has an end date, does that mean we’re not worth knowing? People and animals die all the time, and we still make connections with them. Think about all the people who keep pets for their companionship knowing they’ll live less than a decade in most cases.” Not that I wanted to compare mortals with pets, per se, but the idea of an immortal keeping a bunch of mortal people around like pets was kind of an amusing yet disturbing idea. He really was separated from mortal society now that I thought about it.
I didn’t really want to bring up making friends with other vampires and make it seem like I was suggesting he segregate himself, but then a mischievous thought crossed my mind. “You could partner up with Grim,” I said, a wicked smile spreading across my face. “He’s immortal too, right?”
Jordan rolled his eyes and gave an exaggerated shiver, surprising a quick laugh from me. “I don’t think Grim swings that way. I’m convinced reapers reproduce via binary fission.”
I sputtered. “What, like a starfish?”
A short burst of laughter from Jordan was so shocking to me that I almost missed when he said, “Absolutely. I bet he just divides himself in half and creates a clone of himself. Or maybe he cuts off a toe and just grows a whole new reaper.” We both burst out laughing, andmy heart… Oh, man, my heart couldn’t handle the silly mischief written all over his face. This was the Jordan I remembered. The one that joked, and played, and rough-housed with his friends as he fought for a goal on the field. Who had a quick wit and a smart mouth that was just as likely to get him in trouble during practice as his temper.
I wanted to prolong the moment, to watch his smile for a little longer, so I said, “Nah, he seems more spider-like. I bet he has an ovipositor.”
Jordan wrinkled his nose as he chuckled, and I let the warm feelings settle into my bones. “Wouldn’t that be for a female?” he asked.
I just shrugged. I wasn’t an expert in spider anatomy. Huck had found a new cricket to stalk and flamed it as soon as he spotted it. He was getting better at it already. “It seems like you’ve got some good friends in your roommates, at least?” I asked Jordan. Not that I’d seen them interact much, but Levi seemed to care about him, and Grim... I dunno, Grim seemed like a decent guy from my interactions with him, even if he did give me the heebie jeebies.
He shrugged back at me. “Yeah, I guess. They’re good guys. But it’s not really the same as a life partner.”
“But it could be,” I said obstinately. Found family was just as valid as blood family. “Which one of them keeps leaving all the weird stuff in your room, anyway?”
He sighed. “I’ll give you one guess.”
Levi.
Huck tried to flame another bug, but this time he missed and a scraggly looking bush about two feet tall caught on fire. The resin in the wood burned fast, shooting flames much higher than the limbs of the bush. “That’s the second plant you’ve murdered today, you little plant-murderer.”
