Chapter Eight
Whisper
With my trusty pen and paper in hand, I stepped into the sunny playroom and squinted, holding up my hand to block the brightness.
A blurry figure darted across the room with an apologetic murmur and grabbed something that made all the window blinds lower in a concerted display, bathing me in comfortable dimness.
I mouthed an apology and blinked over at a bubbly omega with blond hair, pink streaks dyed thr—not dyed.
Pink naturally laced in his hair. He grinned at me and clapped his hand. “Whisper? I’ve been so excited!”
I nodded and clicked my pen, ready to communicate, but the omega had a mind of his own and he wanted everyone to know it. I’d never met an omega allowed to talk so much.
“I’m Aster. I hear you’ve met Nula.” He flitted about so freely and happily.
I nodded again as gentle hands guided me to a seat with a click of the tongue.
I wasn’t sure what was going on, but a plastic tote jostled down beside me as a familiar scampering little dragon climbed down from a sturdily built little play structure and strutted over.
I waved at him as he purred and rubbed against my leg with a little whimper.
“He says he’s sorry for last night. He didn’t mean to give you sneezies.” Aster cooed as he flitted about, plucking at my hair before a towel flopped over my lap. “Off with the shirt, dear.”
I froze and scribbled in the notepad. Why?
“Haircut. Whoever did this to you was a real C-U-Next-Tuesday.” He plucked at my hair and flopped his case open, revealing a collection of scissors. “I have experience. I cut everyone in here’s hair.”
I scribbled again. Even Malcom?
“Malkim, dear. M-A-L-K-I-M.” He pursed his lips as I wrestled free of my shirt and folded it neatly. “And I do his eyebrows. But that was funny.”
They were nice eyebrows. Thinking back, everyone in the place had really nice hair. And my hair really couldn’t get any worse. So, I shrugged.
The towel in my lap flew off as Aster hesitated for a moment. I flinched when his hand neared me, but he didn’t hit or raise his voice. He let his fingertips trail my shoulders, individual fingers touching places familiar to me—my freckles. “How old are you?”
I frowned and thought about it. Couldn’t remember. I don’t know.
I’d never been given an ID card like most of the others. I never went to school. I knew my birthday was in March, but that was about it.
Aster touched the freckles again, fingers trailing. “You’re over twenty, right?”
I thought about the last birthday I celebrated, sweet sixteen.
That was when Goober moved me out to the shed…
There was a big snowstorm that year. It made the power go out for over a week in some parts of town.
We’d been without power almost a month. I scribbled, because it seemed important to Aster.
I turned sixteen when that big ice storm happened that knocked the power out all in town.
Aster pulled out his phone and thumbed through it. “When is your birthday?”
I wrote again. March… Dunno what day.
Aster kept studying my shoulders and flung the towel over them. “You turn twenty in March, then. And they said you can’t shift into your bobcat?”
The way he asked the question seemed loaded. I have a talent and I can shift my teeth sometimes, and my claws.
“The fire thing.” Aster patted my shoulder as I nodded. He responded with a noncommittal hum and pulled out a spray bottle, a comb, and his scissors, going to work without another word.
Nula crawled into my lap with a curious little hop and turn before snuggling down.
His little claws pricked and pried at me, and I found myself mesmerized by the little one.
Enough so that I picked at his little paws, playing with his claw tips—clear and sharp as any cat’s.
He seemed to understand, curling them against my hand and pawing at my palm until I reciprocated, showing my own claws with a little curl of my fingers, shifting them.
His claws were so similar to mine, almost glassine clear and needlelike.
I shifted them back to my short, broken human nails and earned a little sigh of disappointment as the hatchling smacked his paws against mine, as if asking for them back.
“No, sir. Whisper was right to put his claws away. They’re sharp and dangerous.” Aster hummed as he wet my hair and snipped, combing locks one way and another before using his fingers as a guide.
A distant beep from down the hall had me twitch, flinching when Aster steadied me. “Easy.”
I tried to sit still, but the scent of food—junk food—had my mouth watering. Jalapeno poppits! I scribbled on my pad, and Aster glanced over with a smirk.
It wasn’t but a moment later when Marcus returned, cupped hands holding one of those cheap mixing bowls from the dollar store, loaded with goodness. Aster, turned, staring at Marcus with something complex in his face, before gesturing. “Come and look at his hair, Marcus.”
I sat still, swallowing the drool pooling around my tongue as Marcus approached and Nula yowled, running circles around his feet until he held down a mozzarella stick, steaming hot and a little burnt on one end.
The hatchling snatched it with eager paws and ran off into the play structure as Aster finger combed my hair and moved my towel to the side. “He’s nineteen.”
Why that was important, I didn’t know, but I sighed deeply when the next touch that met my skin was Marcus’s. It made me want to purr, my body warming as I longed for more. His hands felt good, and I didn’t even flinch that time. Marcus didn’t respond, but his breath caught.
“I have questions,” Aster said, and Marcus’s hand left me, the bowl shifted, crisp food jostling within, and in a moment, he was gone, footsteps stumbling as he did so.
Maybe I still smelled bad?
Aster pushed my towel back into place and offered me the bowl. “Eat, dear. You need it.”
Some might have thought it odd, but I immediately grabbed a steaming piece and stuffed it in my mouth, relishing the heat as its own flavor. My tongue never burned on anything.
“Honey, lemme try something.” Aster leaned over my shoulder and took one of the mozzarella sticks and blew on it, white-hot flame dancing from his lips as the thing split at the edges and burned slightly. “There.”
He handed it to me and smiled. “They’re better hotter, right?”
I nodded and ate it whole, my teeth sharpening involuntarily as I sank them in. Practically on fire, my saliva sizzled and I let loose a soft sigh of pleasure.
“There we go. You like it burning.” Aster snickered. “Share with Nula. Have him make yours all toasty. He’s good at it.”
Nula, upon hearing his name, popped his head out of the play structure and blinked, licking his reptilian lips.
He scrambled out, wings flitting as he hopped into my lap once more, chubby little tail swishing as I offered him a jalapeno poppit.
He spat flame at it and shoved it in his mouth still on fire with a chirp and rumble of pleasure.
When I offered another, he did the same but offered it up to me, and I took it happily, trading one for one with the little one as Aster finished my hair.
We continued eating together until the last morsel of fries remained, nibbling them cold as we licked our fingers.
“Alright. What do you think?” Aster handed me the mirror as he did something with his magic that had all my fallen locks of hair swirling through the air, flame engulfing them in white-hot little spirals that one by one extinguished with a little curl of smoke.
I couldn’t focus on myself, only the dancing flames that took away a part of me that had made me miserable for months.
And when they all went away, my eyes trailed not to the mirror but the doorway where Brae stood with an older dragon who stared at me as if I were something interesting.
He elbowed the dragon and grinned. “Morris. This is Whisper.”
The dragon at Brae’s side had black hair—no, hair such a dark and rich blue that it looked black at first. His eyes, like starlight itself, white and piercing, laced with a gray so fine it could have been spiderwebs holding his irises together. “Well, well, well. Fitting name.”
Dragons aged funnily. Their age was not a measure of their external appearance but in their presence alone. The bigger a dragon seemed in your mind, the older they were. Marcus was small, so I knew instinctively he was under a century old. Likely under half a century.
The babe was practically miniature, the fire in him new and kindled like a newly stricken match. A smell about him, like magic, still held the sulfur of the strike of life that made him.
I swallowed hard as the old dragon stared me down and approached, reaching for me as if we were acquainted. And like Aster, he touched my shoulder, fingers tracing my freckles, toward my spine where they grew dense. “Little one. Do you know what throwbacks come from?”
I shook my head.
He grinned wickedly, his face a catlike stretch of thin lips and teeth, eyes squinting almost cruelly. But I knew it for what it was, cleverness. A very pleased dragon. “My mate was like you, you know? A throwback.”
I stared, waiting for him to finish his story. People always added extra pauses when they told you things, like they wanted you to say something. And for me, I couldn’t. So, it was only awkward silence.
His hand circled my shoulder, and fingertips traced my neck, claws forming as they curled under my jaw and tilted my head up at an awkward and almost-painful angle. “How the stories of ages die so quickly. So much fire in you, little diamond.”
I glanced at Brae and Aster for assistance but only got a glance of Nula as he snagged my shirt in his maw and shook it with a little growl that slapped me a few times. “They come in threes, you know?”
Morris, the dragon staring me down, nodded his head toward Nula. But he was the only pup in the place. “The last time, Lyphus, Olson bore eggs as well as one in our sister clan.”
Brae’s face twisted with unease, as if something he said pained him. And Lyphus had adopted Marcus, so something bad must have happened to his child.
“Morris.” Aster whispered his name, but only earned a stern look that made him back down, head lowered.
“Cirue had a little secret for me this morning.” Morris grinned as he stared me down. I didn’t know who this person was, but Morris must have caught my look of confusion. “My mate. You will meet them soon enough. Perhaps in a few days.”
Brae and Aster looked at one another with unease that turned into something bright and hopeful. Morris leaned into my personal space, breath hot as he spoke, “He is gravid.”
Aster gasped and clapped his hands a single time before covering his mouth.
“One,” Morris whispered, pointing to Nula then himself. “Two.”
With a single tap of a claw, he pricked my nose and I crossed my eyes to stare at it for a second, the movement of my eyes enough to shake my focus and make me dizzy. “Three.”
“Call the whelp in.” Morris straightened up, his deep voice curled around something cavernous, his dragon hiding in the depths of his throat. “And let’s go to the springs.”
I glanced toward a nervous Brae and Aster, who didn’t say anything.
“Little one, do you hunger?” Morris ran his clawtips through my hair, his hot breath too close to me, constricting, boxing me in.
I’d never had such a feeling before, the desire to claw my skin off, chew my foot from my own ankle to escape a trap.
I’d always thought I’d rather die until this dragon came to me.
But I was hungry, so I nodded. What I’d eaten had sated me, but I always wanted more.
“Have you eaten fire before?” Morris pulled away as he asked the question.
I shook my head as he chuckled so deeply and darkly. “Of course not.”
Morris leaned over me and opened his broad arms, wrapping them around me in a tight hug. “You hunger for fire, child. Let Marcus feed you. I wish to see you consume, to burn so bright.”
A hunger for something other than food rose within me, and I shivered. I was cold, a chill running through my core as he spoke. It made me want to kiss Marcus again, to breathe him in and taste the fire only a dragon could breathe.
“Just know, little one. What you do will spare another much pain.” Morris beckoned for me to stand, and I did so, pen and pad falling to the floor. He was an easy dragon to talk to, never asking me more than I could answer without lowering myself to pen and paper.