6. Milo #4
Tiny teeth closed on empty air as Milo barely pulled his hand back in time.
“Okay! Personal boundaries. Understood.”
The Glaceryn hissed.
“Easy.” Milo lowered his voice. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
Snap.
“I have food.”
Hiss.
“Warm blankets?”
Another hiss.
“I make an excellent fever reducer.”
The Glaceryn spat, and a tiny chunk of ice struck Milo directly between the eyes.
“Ow!” he said, flinching and rubbing the spot.
Grievance laughed.
Milo turned on him. “Oh, now you’re laughing?”
“She doesn’t like you.”
“Aw, thanks, I hadn’t noticed. Any suggestions?” Milo paused. “Wait. She?”
“Yes. This little one is female.” Grievance crouched, slowly extending a hand toward the poor creature, who had huddled helplessly into the corner of the barn.
She responded with another round of spitting and hissing.
Grievance withdrew his hand. “Perhaps she would trust one of her own kind.”
“Can you transform into something you’ve never been before?”
He shrugged. “I’ve never done it. But I can try.”
He crouched lower. For a moment, nothing happened. Then Milo saw his nostrils flare. Scenting her. Studying her. Learning.
Again, Grievance slowly extended one hand, moving closer this time.
The Glaceryn lunged and sank her tiny teeth into his finger, leaving a neat row of punctures that immediately welled with blood. Grievance laughed.
“Spry little thing, aren’t you?”
The baby released him and scrambled backward, pressing herself against the hay.
Grievance stood. “I think I’ve got it.”
Milo knew what came next. He scooped Marigold up.
“You’d better step back,” Grievance warned.
“Way ahead of you,” Milo said, stepping outside. “But hey, maybe don’t do it in my barn—”
Green light erupted through the yard. Grievance transformed. His human shape dissolved beneath a storm of green magic and swirling frost. Bones shifted. Muscle expanded. The frozen ground trembled beneath Milo’s boots as something enormous took shape before him.
Timber splintered. Beams snapped. The barn gave one terrible groan as its walls buckled outward—then the entire structure burst apart from the inside.
That is the second time that man has destroyed my barn.
Then—
Silence.
Milo slowly lowered the arm shielding his eyes.
“Oh…”
A full-grown Glaceryn stood before him. This was closer to the image he remembered seeing in his studies. But the artist’s depiction did nothing to prepare Milo for the size. The sheer magnitude of him.
Grievance was enormous.
His front legs were the size of tigers, wrapped in thick white fur striped with brilliant ice-blue markings. That fur gradually gave way to overlapping crystalline scales across his massive hindquarters. A long tail swept behind him, lined with translucent spines that glittered like icicles.
And his wings—
His wings were magnificent.
Great feathers unfolded from his back, white at the roots before fading into shimmering blue at the tips. They stretched wide over the wreckage, expansive enough to blot out half the yard.
His reptilian head lifted, and those enormous brown eyes found Milo. The only sign that this was not, indeed, a true Glaceryn. No matter what shape he took, Grievance’s brown, peridot-flecked eyes never changed. His mark as a Chimera. They blinked at him now.
Milo smiled and blew him a kiss.
“You look amazing, babe.”
The enormous dragon visibly preened.
“Show-off. Now make sure you didn’t crush the baby.”
Grievance rolled his eyes and snorted a puff of snowy air. Then he turned toward the wreckage. One small corner of the barn had miraculously survived, and there, still curled in the hay, was the baby Glaceryn.
Grievance lowered his head and sent a gentle puff of frozen air toward her through his massive nostrils.
Milo watched as her ears perked and her little eyes widened.
And then—
Chirp.
Grievance lowered his head in invitation, and the baby scrambled to her feet.
Chirp! Chirp!
The sounds were high and desperate. A baby calling to an adult for help.
Milo’s heart cracked.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Grievance answered with a low rumble, the scales along his throat visibly vibrating with the sound. It was so deep Milo felt it through the soles of his boots.
The baby’s response was immediate. She scrambled across the hay and dove for him as though he were a lifeline, pressing her tiny body against one of his enormous front legs.
She trembled and buried her face in his fur.
Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.
Grievance turned his massive, draconic head and looked at Milo. And even in this form, Milo could see the pleading in his eyes.
Milo looked down at Marigold, still perfectly content in his arms.
“Did you know our next family member was out here?”
“Baaa.”
“Yeah. Of course you did.”
Milo looked at the sick baby ice dragon curled against his mate, and his heart melted into a useless puddle.
Well. At least they wouldn’t have to attend Hobbs’s awful festival meeting.
How does this keep happening to me?
Grievance nuzzled the baby, rubbing their noses together, both of them purring in unison.
Milo sighed.
“Welcome to the family, little one.”