Chapter Four
Whisper
I kept my head turned down until I heard wings and glanced up in time to see dark scales and wings disappearing into the night.
“Six-five?” Lenny, one of the enforcers in the clowder, laughed. “Rockies only offered you three. Boy, ain’t that dragon stupid as fuck.”
For my part, I only felt pride. A dragon thought I was worth all that money. I’d have to offer my ass to someone every night for almost a whole year just to get that much money. And that dragon wanted to pay that much all at once. All for me.
A pleasant blush burned my cheeks as I kept my head turned down. It didn’t last long, though, and Goober stomped over, grabbing my face to tilt up. “But that ain’t all we’re getting. Because dummy here’s gonna get us into a dragon hoard, isn’t he?”
I stilled, but Goober only made my head nod. For most of the clowder, a command from alpha was law, magic that bound. He thought I couldn’t disobey. I knew I could. I didn’t have to do what I was told because I couldn’t shift.
“Someone get shit-for-brains here a phone. We’ll stay in contact, and all our money problems gonna be over real soon.” He squeezed my cheeks and flicked my face away with a huff of disgust. “Stink like jizz and piss. Ain’t you gone to the lake and bathed recent?”
I shook my head and made a gesture of rubbing my arms. Too cold.
“Why? Dummy can’t even read so we can’t text.” Lenny dug through the cabinets in the shed before pulling out an old phone in one of those prepaid boxes. I’d seen them activate and throw away dozens of the things.
Goober opened the phone and turned it on before plugging it into the one outlet in the shed next to my alarm clock radio. He did something with his own phone and the new one, setting things up. “You can hear just fine, can’t ya, boy?”
I nodded. I could read and write just fine, thanks to my pa, before the drugs took him.
Since I couldn’t go to human school with the other kids, he taught me all he could.
I didn’t recognize him anymore. My alpha father the same.
They still had it together enough to drive trucks, but they weren’t my parents anymore.
“Click your tongue once for yes, twice for no. I already got a buddy that works up that way.” Goober grabbed an old feed sack from a shelf and shoved the phone and charger in before kicking around the room, grabbing things he thought belonged to me.
A can of peach preserves. My alarm clock. Some dirty shirts and pants. Holey socks.
Lenny grabbed a coffee can off my shelf and tipped it over, pulling a handful of change and bills out with a snicker before shoving it in his pocket. I reached out toward it with a breath of protest, willing friction into my lame throat enough to make a rasp of noise.
“Look, I think he’s upset,” Lenny laughed, and Goober slapped him upside the back of his head.
“Give it back, shithead. He’s taken enough of your dicks to have earned it. Some money’s too dirty for us.” He huffed. “There ya go, Whisper.”
Lenny emptied his pocket; the crumpled twenty, a few fives, and a dozen coins fell onto my old quilt.
I scrambled to gather them and waited. It’s all I could do.
Minutes ticked by far too slowly, and my pathetic sack sat beside me as Lenny and Goober made their big plans about what I’d be able to steal for them.
What would they do, after all? Hurt my parents? My friends?
Everyone was too broken anymore. Nobody had stuck around for me, befriended me. The monster inside of me, the cat I couldn’t let out of the proverbial bag, snarled. Let them die.
And I would. I spoke to my beast, head down. Calm down, kitty. It’ll be okay. The dragons are supposed to be real nice. We can be warm there.
That dragon will keep us very warm. We will love his fire. We will bathe in it. The purr in my mind distracted me until the flap of wings drew my attention. He really had come back, and when he approached Gordon with a sneer, he held out an envelope fat with bills.
I’d gotten to watch TV sometimes when I was cleaning houses, and I knew from the gang movies and things that counting money in front of people was rude. It must have been real rude, because Marcus’s face twisted.
“It’s all there,” he said, his voice level. Goober didn’t even look up, kept fumbling numbers. After a long time, he glanced up and declared it all there.
“You sure you counted it right?” Marcus frowned and waited as Goober cleared his throat and reached in, pulling out a hundred-dollar bill. “It was, uh, a little over.”
Marcus sucked his teeth and huffed. “Keep it.”
He stared me down, eyes so dark and unreadable. “Why aren’t you packed?”
I held up my feed sack and shook it, and something bitter flew over his face. Anger? I didn’t have better clothes. Maybe he was mad that I didn’t have good bed stuff? I held up my quilt, and he stared at it, upper lip twisted.
“Is it sentimental to you?” Revulsion. Pure and simple.
I shook my head.
“Leave it. I’ll have you something clean. New. Leave your clothes, too.” My stomach knotted, and I took them out obediently, carefully clutching the phone in a pair of my rolled-up pants as I did so and left them on the bed. No phone, no way to contact, no mission.
“Anything else?” His eyes traveled the things I’d removed and landed on the phone’s edge peeking from the pants. I hurriedly tucked it, glancing to Goober to make sure he didn’t see. And by some miracle of the mountain spirits, he said nothing.
“Come.” He gestured, and I glanced from Lenny to Goober.
I mouthed words to Goober as I stood before him, trying my best to force words out of my mouth. I added gestures, hugging myself in pantomime. “Tell. Papa and Daddy. Love.”
“I’ll pass it on. Get.” Goober slapped my back, and Marcus squinted at me, brow set in a scowl.
Marcus snatched me into his arms, swept me up in a great shift of his body, and somehow managed to keep hold of me. I screamed soundlessly, my throat squeaking as I did so until I tucked my body, closed my eyes, and bit back the raging fear and nausea that only heights could give.
He flew fast, his wingbeats flapping with a sound not unlike wet blankets flapping in a breeze.
Despite the biting chill of the upper air, his body hummed with heat, near roasting with a warmth that made something in my deepest heart want to curl up and sleep like I was safe, like I hadn’t been since I was little.
And beyond all reason, I almost did. My breathing grew deep and shallow.
A change in altitude and whipping wind drew me to stir, and I fought not to open my eyes with a hiss of breath. I flinched at first, tucking myself tight, but the way we floated like ash curling in a breeze made something in me stir until I forced my eyes open and gasped.
The world below us spun so lazily as he rounded and banked, settling down like the turkey vultures circling prey.
Below us stood the phallic monument of a watchtower rising above the sprawling estate.
The beacon of hope for all those that lived in the area, the reassurance of justice, of safety.
Things could always get worse, but the dragons would keep them from the worst of it.
They’d keep fires at bay and rescue the worthy.
I am worthy. I breathed in the cold night air as we neared a clearing that led up to the entrance of the building below.
The kitty in my head corrected me. No, we are worthy.
When we came to land with a heavy thump that shook trees nearby, shadows darkened a window, a curious posture that peered through blinds.
Marcus let me to the ground, a great clawed hand patting my head before trailing back, greasy strands of hair laying limp in their wake in a way that made me self-conscious. I didn’t have running water in my shack. I had to sneak baths in the winter when I cleaned houses.
“Marcus?” a deep voice bellowed out, and my…owner? Alpha? I wasn’t sure what he was to me, boss? He flinched.
“Father?” Marcus stiffened and stepped in front of me with a gentle slide, holding his hands straight at his sides.
“Who is that with you, Son?” The male stepped out, all impossibly dark skin and bright golden eyes, a slight accent gracing his full lips as he pocketed his hands.
I went to the library every now and then when I was clean, and things were slow.
I hid in the back and read books about the world, and I’d never seen nobody like him before.
He had no hair on his head, skin gleaming, and his clothes reminded me of something I’d seen in old Indian fantasy romance novels, silken and fluttering in the cool mountain breeze.
A kurta? He looked at me kindly, though.
Marcus’s failure to answer earned his curiosity, and the alpha circumnavigated Marcus and stretched his hands out for mine in a kindly gesture.
He had really long fingers, slender and graceful like the lady who played the piano down at the church some Sundays.
They made me sit through a sermon before I was allowed to go to the food pantry.
I stepped away from his reach, aware of how nasty I was. I smelled of spunk and filth, and I was ashamed.
I’d seen black men before, brown skinned and yellow undertones to the palms of their hands.
This male’s, though, were pink with undertones of blue in them, and his features didn’t match up to what I knew.
So, when I didn’t reach out to take his offered hands, a sadness lowered his gaze.
“Apologies. I must seem strange to you. Ask what you wish, and I will not take offense.”
I didn’t know what to say, only glanced at Marcus, willing him to explain. Of course, I had questions. I wanted to know how he got his head that shiny. Where he was from, and what language he spoke to earn that soft accent I could listen to forever.
“He’s mute,” Marcus said for me, and a note of understanding hummed in his father’s throat.