Page 51 of Magpies & Mayhem
Jordan cleared his throat behind me. “You stood in those flames at the bank that blistered Augustus’s skin from ten feet away.”
I shot a look at Augustus to find him staring back at me with a calculating expression. But Neven just shrugged. “It can take a few weeks for the mark to develop fully.”
It felt like bile was rising in my throat. “Did I ruin his life?” I asked, clutching Huck a little tighter again. Sure, I loved having the little guy with me, but was this the best thing for him? Wouldn’t he be happier living wild like he was meant to?
Neven gave me a crooked grin. “It sounds like yougavehim life. If he was already dying and wouldn’t have made it, then you did the best you could for him, and this is a better life than no life. It’s just going to be a much longer caretaking task than you anticipated. Much, much longer.”
“How long?” I asked, feeling lightheaded.
“Well, we suspect they live for hundreds of thousands of years, but because their life span is so long, we haven’t been able to track it accurately,” he said with a slight chuckle.
“And you think I’m going to live that long?” I squawked.
Neven’s whole face transformed into a wide grin, his eyes crinkling at the sides like he thought I was adorable. “I do believe so, yes. Especially if what your vampire says about the fire is correct. I’ll be happy to sign off on the paperwork you need to finalize for permanently keeping the little guy, since he surely won’t tolerate anyone taking him from you.” My heart fluttered at the way he said ‘your vampire’, racing at the implications of what he was saying. Was it truly possible that I would be able to love Jordan not just for the rest of my life, but for the rest ofhis?
“But how can you be sure? How do you know all this?” I asked, fervently wanting to believe him, but afraid to get my hopes up. I couldn’t even look at Jordan, or Lucas, or Augustus. It felt like I had tunnel vision and the whole world had narrowed down to Neven’s amused face.
“Oh, well, because I have one myself,” he answered with a self-deprecating little shrug. He placed two fingers under his tongue and whistled shrilly, and then the ground began to rumble. I felt the small hairs on the back of my neck stand up as a large shape lifted into the sky just behind the tree line, the sky darkening as it rose and blocked out the distant moons. Enormous leathery wings created a breeze over us as it cruised low above our group, pulling them up sharply to slow its landing, and then a flurry of beating that allowed it to touch down softly. The ground still shook when the huge dragon landed on the wide path just beyond the quarantine pen, his muted red scales softly reflecting the moonlight. The whip of his tail flicked out and smacked the metal bars and his slitted pupils, so much like Lucas’s, narrowed on our little group as he loomed over us in the darkness.
My body decided I was too close to being a dragon snack as I watched flames flicker in the back of his open mouth and smoke curled out of his nostrils, but just before I felt my bones crunch with the snap of my shift Jordan’s hand flew out and clamped on the back of my neck. It felt like my brain reset at the contact, but considering I was holding Huck, it was probably for the best that he kept me from shifting.
“How do you do that?” I hissed at Jordan, unable to tear my eyes from the dragon’s gleaming teeth or the sharp jut of horns that rose into the night sky.
“I can smell your adrenaline spike,” he muttered.
The dragon’s shoulders were probably fifteen feet from the ground, with his head towering above that on a thick, meaty looking neck that was covered in overlapping spikes. I couldn’t imagine trying to feed something that big. Huck beat his wings and thrashed in my arms, and the girls joined the chaos by sending panicked spouts of flame in the direction of the towering dragon.
“Sorry, I forgot how insecure the little ones can be around Ashtaroth,” Neven said, quickly leaning over to adjust the covers on their cages so that they couldn’t see out anymore. “Sorry Ashtaroth! Go on home. We don’t want to scare the babies,” he called, waving a lazy hand at the massive creature.
I expected the dragon would launch himself back into the air, but it released a puff of smoke and bent its mass nearly in half to turn around on the pathway and lumber back the way it came. Huck was still flailing dramatically, so I pinned his wings and clucked at him to try to calm him down. His little heart was racing even faster than mine.
“How long before they get that big?” I asked, turning to Neven with my eyes wide.
“Oh, I got Ash a little over six thousand years ago,”—I choked on my own tongue— “but I’d say he reached maturity at around the century mark. Dragons get big fast because their bulk helps protect them from predation by other dragons, and your little guy will end up bigger than Ashtaroth. By the end of his first year, yours will be about your height at the shoulder, and within ten years, he’ll be the size of an average bedroom. Then he’ll slow down a bit and end up about the size of a large house in a hundred years.”
It seemed impossible that Huck would grow that fast and live that long, and that I was supposed to be part of that journey with him. “I’m going to need a new place to live.”
Jordan, Lucas, and Augustus helped Neven load Huck’s sisters into their new pen while I stood, holding Huck, who was finally starting to loosen his grip on me. I let him slide down just a little bit so I could stare at his adorable, squeaky, disgruntled face in awe. Did he love me? Could dragons love? He was sharing his magic with me, and he wanted to be with me, so to me that seemed something like love. I leaned down and kissed him right on his little dragon snout, and then promptly coughed and spat on the ground because he tasted like kerosene smells.
“Feel free to come back any time,” Neven told me when he waved us off. “I’ll help you with your paperwork and answer any questions you have.”
Our group was quiet as we made our way back to the train station, and I was grateful for the time to sort through my thoughts, until Lucas said, “He’s got a badass dragon named Ashtaroth, and you named yoursHuck?”
I stuck my leg out and tripped him.
“You deserved that,” Augustus said dryly as Lucas stumbled.
Once we neared the train station, Jordan took my arm and pulled me aside, telling the others, “You guys go on ahead. We’ll catch the next train.” I was startled to hear a tremor in his voice, and when I looked up as he tugged me into the shadows around the side of the building, I was shocked to find his eyes glassy.
“What’s wrong?” I asked through the sudden tightness in my throat as he settled against the stone wall and tried to gather me into his arms. Huck gave a resentful squawk at being crowded and quickly ditched out to wrap around my leg instead, freeing up my front for Jordan.
“I just... I’m having a moment,” he said, his voice tremulous and breathy. He pulled me closer and tucked my head under his chin, wrapping his arms firmly around my back, so I snuggled in and wrapped my arms around his waist. “Everything that man said is a dream come true for me,” he paused to press a kiss to the crown of my head before continuing, “but I’m half-afraid of believing him. It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud.” He held me tighter and rested his head against mine. “And I never thought I’d be so grateful to some rowdy, winged lizard,” he said, giving Huck a little boop on his snout with his finger. “I need a few minutes to put my heart back in my chest before dealing with anything else.”
A few minutes to snuggle Jordan in a dark alley was definitely something I could do. In fact, it sounded like I might even have a few thousand years to spare for such activities.
Chapter 38
Jordanwasbecomingmorecomfortable with me riding on his shoulder when I was in my bird form, but even so, he didn’t like sudden movements. I was doing my best to hold utterly still at the moment anyway, as his team filed into a meeting room together and took their seats around the conference table. I didn’t know what it was going to be about, but since I wasn’t part of his team, I didn’t really belong here, and I was hoping they wouldn’t realize I was a fly on the wall—err, magpie on the shoulder—and kick me out. Because I was nosy. Augustus took his seat directly across from Jordan and made direct eye contact with me before smirking and going back to his notes.Ha!That meant I got to stay. I puffed up my feathers in triumph.
