Chapter 4 #2
“No, you totally need a stone for that. So we need to find it.” Kami started wandering around the apartment, grabbing a backpack and stuffing things in it.
It looked totally random, but he got the feeling it wasn’t.
There was a flashlight, some rope, and some kind of weird little tools that looked like miniature pickaxes and hammers.
There were granola bars and bottles of water, and he just wasn’t sure he understood what was going on.
Still, he waited, watching curiously as Kami worked. It was fascinating.
“Okay, cool. Call to your braaken. He’s not working right now.” Kami grinned, waiting.
He closed his eyes. Talon? Mate? I need you. Please.
Are you well, hailee? Talon’s mental voice was as rough as his speaking one. So wonderful.
Yes. I am going with Kami to find my stone. I need your help.
Where are you?
At Kami’s. He sent Reno with Tempest to have stew.
Mmmm. Stew. I’ll be right there.
Thank you. He smiled at Kami. “He’s on his way.”
“Good job. He’s incredibly helpful at the digging part.”
“I bet.” Talon was so strong. So gloriously big and muscled.
Kami gave him a wink. “Braaken can be sort of amazing, can’t they?”
He wiggled his cheeks heating. “They can.”
They stayed there in companionable silence until Talon knocked on the door. Kami shouldered the backpack and opened the door, grinning at Talon. “It’s about time you got here. Come on, let’s go hunt a stone.”
Raised an eyebrow. “Just like that, huh?”
“Just like that. Food can wait.” Kami nodded once sharply. “I can tell you there’s not going to be anything in Cain’s collection that will fit this one. You know I know those stones really well at this point.”
“I do know that.” Talon reached out and took the backpack, then winked at Mercury. “I’m ready when you guys are.”
“Good deal.” Kami marched off, and Mercury blinked at Talon, who just grinned and followed his friend.
This wasn’t the strangest situation he’d ever been in.
That had been the tower, of course. But this qualified as pretty strange.
He was off to find a heartstone with a stone singer and his braaken, and everything felt surreal.
Like one of those paintings his father had been so fond of and had hung all over the house, giving Mercury nightmares when he’d been a child.
He followed along as they left the apartment buildings.
There was a short opening outside, and they started into a tunnel that looked like it went right into the side of the mountain.
It was damp in there, and a chilly, constant temperature.
He thought, at least he wasn’t up in the ocean in the north like where he’d been brought up.
“I’ve been thinking about this stone for quite a while,” Kami mused. “Ever since you introduced me to Mercury, in fact. I’ve been working at this. I can feel it. It’s getting close finally. It’s been moving.”
“Moving? Really?” That seemed like an odd way to put things.
Kami looked back at him with a nod. “They kind of have a will of their own, you know? Like, seriously.”
“That’s weird.” Cool, though.
“Sometimes the stones move through the veins of the earth themselves. That’s how we get some strange stones where we don’t expect them. Sometimes they have to be called, and when I met you, I felt this calling, and I’ve been begging it to get here.”
Talon seemed so pleased by this. Mercury could feel it in his bones. “Thank you, Kami.”
Kami shrugged. “It’s my job.”
“But you didn’t have to do it,” Talon pointed out.
“I don’t have to do anything. I am doing this.” Kami just kept moving, and Mercury shivered at the chill. It was plumb cold down here. “This is your mate. He needs the appropriate stone.”
“I am his mate, and I want to have the best stone for me. It doesn’t have to be a fancy stone; it just has to sing.”
Kami nodded at that, and then showed him a pendant he wore around his neck on a chain. It held a beautiful but small stone in its clawed grip. “This is my heartstone. Goes with me everywhere. It’s tiny but it’s incredibly powerful, and it’s mine.”
Mercury squinted at it, amazed, because it did have this inner fire that shone from the stone, even in the gloom of whatever cave they were trekking into.
Dragons had pretty decent night vision, but Talon had still pulled out a flashlight so that they weren’t losing all their depth perception.
The lack of natural light could flatten one’s vision out.
“It’s lovely. Do you think mine has to be from the sea? It was from the sea before.”
Kami shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. No, that’s not what I’m hearing at all. This is a mountain gem. Something special. Something that my best friend’s mate deserves. It’s just so far away.”
Mercury felt his cheeks go pink, and he blushed, so pleased. So honored. He wasn’t used to having friends. Well, he supposed he still didn’t.
Talon had friends.
He had Talon, so he had Talon’s friends. He wasn’t really Kami’s friend.
Not yet, he told himself, he wasn’t Kami’s friend yet.
Hailee, you’ll make friends. I swear. Talon’s mind was a sweet touch, gentle. You’ll meet people. I think that you and Lake could probably get along very well. Elowyn, too.
I hope so. I very much like to make friends. Very much.
At least he thought he did. He was fairly sure he did. He hadn’t actually done it, but he was sure he was capable.
He wasn’t a stupid dragon, just very new at so many things.
Talon’s warm hand landed on the small of his back, and he didn’t have to worry so much about feeling silly when Talon was touching him.
You’re not silly, hailee. You’ve just been isolated so much of your life. Everything is new, but that makes you wonderful.
I love you too. He grinned because it was all new and fascinating, and he liked these caves.
Kami looked at him all of a sudden. “Hey, if you held on to us, and I thought about where we needed to go, could you take us there and bring us back?”
“I can try. I don’t know. I don’t have my stone, but I did it before. With a stone, I can do it three or four times without being too tired.”
Mercury thought he could do it. He wanted his stone. Kami knew where his stone was.
“Is this safe?” Talon rumbled.
“Does he want his stone?” Kami snapped. “It’s not here yet.”
“I want my stone.” He held out his hand to Kami. “You have to think about it really hard if you really want to go.”
“I really want to go.” Kami took his hand, and Talon grabbed him from the middle. Then he heard Kami’s voice inside of him. I want the stone. I want to get the stone.
Kami had an image of a beautiful stone, and he grabbed hold of that idea and pushed everything in him, leaning hard against Talon—and his body slid—and suddenly it was icy cold—and he could barely breathe.
His breath was like visible frost.
“Damn it, you did it. Look, we’re in fucking Turkey.”
“We are where?” Talon sounded absolutely gobsmacked.
“Do you hear the stone?”
Mercury looked at Kami, trying to think, trying to breathe. “We need to hurry if you want to go and do it again. You have to hurry. I’m tired, and I don’t want to leave you wherever this is.”
“Don’t panic; we’re right here!” Kami started to make this noise, and then somebody was digging through a bag, and there was banging.
He just stood there, feeling dazed, confused, spinny, and worried. He didn’t know what he was going to do, and what if he got lost here?
He could get lost here, and he didn’t know where here was!
“You’re not gonna get lost here, hailee.” The voice was calm and soothing. Talon’s low rumble right inside of his head, not out loud. “It doesn’t matter if we have to stop and rest. We can do it. We’re dragons. We can sleep in a cave. You just need to breathe. We’re gonna be fine.”
It calmed him quite a bit, even though Talon wasn’t touching him. He had a feeling Talon was digging the stone out of the cave wall, but he didn’t know. He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, air damp but still somehow smelling of earth.
He held his head, trying to stay upright, trying to keep himself in his human form instead of his dragon form because even as a tiny dragon, he’d still be a little big right here where there was no space because there was only all this stone and—
Suddenly a rock fell into his hand, the cold stone heavy. It was a rectangle, half the size of his palm, a greenish, pinkish, orangish color.
And it was his, and it was alive.
“Oh my God. Oh goddess, please!” He stared into Talon’s eyes, and he felt a rush of energy and of pain and of noise and—
“I want to go home. I want to GO HOME!”
“Fuck! Talon, grab him. Now!”
Talon wrapped his arms around Mercury and Kami, and suddenly they were sliding again, the world a wash of slick and silver.
When things solidified, they were in his apartment.
His home.
Mercury started to sob because he’d come home and he was so tired and he could die now because he had a stone and he didn’t know what to do. And oh God, he needed help right now!
“Talon, let’s get him in a bathtub. I’m gonna get Cain. Cain will know what to do. This is his part.”
“Hailee, we found your stone. You did it. We’re home. Let’s get in the tub.” Talon sounded worried, and he understood. He was worried too.
But Talon picked him up and carried him someplace. He was floating on air, safe in Talon’s arms. So he held on to the stone in his hand and closed his eyes.
The warm water felt so good on his skin when Talon finally put him in the bathtub.
He was shivering by then, his teeth chattering, his hand frozen in a grip around the stone.
He could feel the power of it, but he couldn’t figure out how to connect to it.
The last time he got a stone he’d been a baby, and the connection had been effortless and natural, but this was completely different.
He had no idea how long Talon murmured to him, holding him right there, keeping him afloat in the water until Cain came. But it seemed like a very long time and no time at all.
When Cain arrived, Mercury heard the murmur of voices, Kami and Talon’s worried, Cain’s smooth and gentle and easy.
How he knew it was Cain after only meeting the man once, he didn’t know but he just figured that had to be who it was.
And then he felt a hand on his forehead, warm on his burning cold skin.
“You have to breathe, Mercury. You have to breathe and you have to listen. Stop the noise in your head. Stop the worry that you are going to die. Listen to your stone.”
He tried. He tried really hard. He listened, closing his eyes, his nose, and his lips, just trying to shut out everything but the stones.
“Kami, try to tune the song of the stone. Try to make it a single band so he can hear it.”
“On it.” He had no idea where Kami was. He knew Talon was right there holding him, but he could hear Kami’s voice.
And suddenly he could hear the stone.
The song started out soft and scattered, but then it focused and focused and doubled on itself until it was ringing in his ears and he thought his eyes might be bleeding.
Help me, Talon. I’m scared. He reached for Talon in his head, not sure what else to do. He was terrified that he was just going to wink out of existence like a tiny little star that was swallowed up by a black hole or something.
I’m right here, hailee. Right here for you. You just hang in there. You listen to the stone. I’m singing with it, and I have a terrible voice.
Mercury had to chuff out a laugh at that because his braaken was so alive and funny and ready to help him.
He knew this had to be terribly frustrating for Talon.
He was such a protective alpha who needed to be in control of the situation.
And no one was in control here. This was all just dancing in the dark and hoping that they hit something.
So he focused on the song again, even though his head felt like it was going to crack open. He did feel his nose start to bleed, but not his eyes. It was pretty intense.
He wiggled around in the water trying to make sure that he couldn’t drop the stone, finally, getting it where it was resting on his chest, and then he could hear it even better because it was close to his heart.
Then he arrowed in. He felt it. It was like a click of a cog falling into place in the mechanism working for the first time in a very long time.
The song intensified until everything in his head was a stone and blazed at him with this amazing light that was not purple or green or red but this intense color that was somewhere in between. It was a stone he’d never even heard of, but it was right there in his hand and in his heart.
That’s it, love. You’re almost there. And squeezed him holding on, more warm water ran into the tub, and he had no idea what was going on because the song was going to make his heart explode.
Hold on, Mercury. You’re so close. You’re bonding with the stone.
Just let it happen. Open up. Don’t fight it.
Cain’s voice echoed crazily in the whole room as if it was bouncing off the walls and coming back at him in triplicate or quadruplicate or however that went.
The echoes made him wanna barf, but at the same time he understood what Cain was saying.
He pulled it into him and held it so that he could focus on the stone using Cain’s strength and talents and probably Kami’s too.
I’m home, right here is home, and I want to stay here and I want to live. He told that to a stone, forcing his will into it and letting it know he needed that energy to stay alive.
The last of the cogs slipped into place and clanged, and he heard it like it was a giant clock tolling a bell.
All he could do was suck air in and push it back out because his lungs were going to fail, but the stone was right there, and it was burning in his hand and it was keeping him warm.
He could feel it now. He could feel the energy spreading from his heart all the way out to his extremities, all the way up to the tips of his fingers and toes.
That’s it! Talon’s voice was everywhere. There you are! Do you feel better?
He would glare if he could, but he couldn’t, so he didn’t.
I don’t think so. He thought about winking to show he was teasing, but he couldn’t open his eyes, and so he just sort of squinched them together on one side. Like, hoping Talon got it. It’s been way worse.
Yeah.
He could feel Talon stroking his forehead, and the water was gone now.
Am I in bed?
You are. It’s been a couple of days. I’m a little worried about you. You were very skinny to start with. You really need food.
Oh, he could totally eat.
No fish.
No, no hailee, no fish.
He sighed softly and leaned. We can eat later. Let’s sleep now. I brought us home.
You did. You are amazing.
Yeah, and I’m going to live. He still couldn’t open his eyes. One day, braaken, I’m going to ride you like a prized pony.
He’d read that in a book once.
Talon’s laughter followed him down into sleep.