Chapter Seven
Theo
The best forty-eights, aside from when we got to go on outreach to schools or libraries, were the ones where we had no calls. That meant there were no fires, no faulty smoke alarms, no home security systems that went awry—nothing. But those were also the most boring.
There were only so many rounds of UNO you could play before you were ready to throw the cards across the room, and we’d played double that.
The problem with having that many hours on my hands was that it gave me time to think.
And where did all my thoughts go? Brent.
The more I thought about him, the more my beast got riled up.
He was livid at me for not claiming Brent as ours, especially now that we’d reconnected. It didn’t matter how many times I explained that Brent was human and we needed to tread lightly if we had any hope of making him ours. My dragon bought none of that—zip, zero, nada.
Unlike other jobs where people got off shift and sometimes went to happy hour or out to eat, at my firehouse, we generally just went home. We’d had enough together time and couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Today, I wasn’t in the mood to be alone. I needed something to distract me from myself, from my own thoughts, so I pulled up the group text I had with my brothers. Either of you want to grab something to eat? Or maybe shift?
Xavier replied first. Sorry, I’ve got to outline a full back piece today.
My brother was a workhorse. Even though he was more skilled and quicker than I, that was going to take his entire day.
Maybe next time, I replied, not wanting to make him feel bad about working.
I slid my phone back in my pocket and drove home. When I got there, two messages were waiting for me.
The first was a picture of Sothea holding a diaper. The second: Sorry, Dad patrol.
I shot back a quick, Sorry, to which he immediately replied: Don’t be. Being a dad is the best.
I’d meant, sorry about the diaper, but I didn’t want to play the trying to explain a past text game with my brother. Instead, I just sent back a heart and called it good.
“I guess it’s just you and me, bear,” I muttered.
My dragon grumbled.
I went inside long enough to shed my clothes then popped out the back door.
One of my favorite parts of this property was that I could fly here.
As long as I stayed low to the ground, it was pretty great for that.
I called forth my scales, my dragon ripping through me and landing on the ground with a thud.
Burn.
You don’t have any fire, I reminded him.
Burn.
I shifted back and, despite the cool breeze on my skin, went about starting a fire in the pit I’d built.
To most people, it looked like a random place you’d sit around, have marshmallows, and chat with your friends and family—a place where you could have fun and the mosquitoes weren’t.
But, for me, it was how I kept my dragon sated.
It took a while to get it stoked decently.
My beast was very particular. Thankfully, he also knew when it was important for us to use his skill at work, and he’d saved more than one person by drawing in some of the flames.
As a human, I wasn’t as strong as he was, which was why I used our powers to take from the flame today instead of shifting first. I didn’t want him consuming it all and then wanting to find multiple places to burn it off.
My brother Xavier once asked me to explain how I did this, and I couldn’t.
I didn’t understand it myself. It just happened.
When I was nice and warm, almost too warm, I walked away from the fire. “Okay, I’ll let you free,” I said, “but only as long as you stay low and only burn where you know you’re allowed.”
He grumbled, but his grumbling disappeared when I fell back and allowed the shift.
I didn’t love talking to my dragon like he was a child, but he was an ornery and stubborn beast, and it was pretty much the only thing that worked.
Flapping our wings, he took to the air. Flying low, he wove through the trees into the clearing where I’d set up our burn area.
If any of the guys at work saw this while hiking, they’d have flipped out.
It looked more like a bunch of teenage kids came to have some pyro fun than something designed for safety.
I created multiple burn pits for brush and firewood, cardboard, and sometimes trash, if I didn’t think it would get too stinky or make the smoke too discolored and draw attention.
Using my flames in the woods amongst the trees was a big no-go. The risk of a forest fire was too real, but this clearing was safe most days.
He landed on the ground and went from area to area, releasing the fire and burning things to ash. Our flames went down until he had nothing left, but he was content. It got the last of the residuals from the house fire, too.
This was my third shift since then, and expelling all of those toxins for my beast was hard. But when he took in his first breath after the flame went out, I knew we’d finally accomplished the task.
Look at my broken dragon ass. Why would anybody want me, especially somebody as wonderful as Brent?
My dragon ignored my inner turmoil and took to the air, once again.