He hadn't eaten it then.
But he'd taken the bologna.
"He's in your pocket."
I snorted. "You'd keep him in your pocket, too. Don't take some arch tone with me. He's a baby. He wants a warm, quiet den where he can feel safe. We all liked crawling in between tiny fissures in the rocks when were his age. There's nothing wrong with him hanging out with me."
"I'm not saying you can't have- for fuck's sakes, Vadriq. You're acting like someone stepped on your tail. Get your stuff and let's go. Secure the whelp however you think is best. Just don't let the humans see him," Iyadre sighed. "I'll go get my helmet."
Carefully, I buttoned the shirt pocket flap over the whelp. I considered adding a few stitches so he wouldn't be able to escape, but that seemed like overkill. Instead, I stroked him once more and went to find my keys. I couldn't think of a way to describe what he was about to experience in draconic and simply hoped he would understand.
I would protect him with my life if it came down to it. That instinct stayed within any dragon; you took care of your nestmates no matter how old they were. And I'd nearly denied that instinct with Eskal because of a human girl.
Disgusted with myself, I snatched my keys and headed out to the bike. Iyadre followed me and we headed off to the county jail, me constantly checking to make sure that tiny whelp in my pocket was as safe as he could be.
Chapter 14
Olivia
I sighed as I looked around at the bars. It wasn't the first time I'd been in a jail, but I'd hoped the last time would be... well.
My last.
I'd been separated from the guys the second we'd gotten in the cars. Apparently, one side of the jail held women and the other side held men. I wasn't a fan of it, but it wasn't like I was going to get much say in the matter, either.
Thankfully, I had my own cell. The last time, I'd been crammed in with a bunch of other juveniles who had nowhere else to go. Mom and I had been traveling with a group of nomadic people when they'd found drugs in someone's car. Rather than just taking care of the asshole who was carrying, they'd brought all of us in. And Mom had nearly lost me in the court system.
That'd been years ago and it was sealed in my juvenile records. I hadn't done anything wrong other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was a hell of a lot different.
"Ms. Monx?"
A cop stood at the edge of my cell. I cocked my head at her. "Yes ma'am?"
"Ms. Monx, you have a call from a Nicole Pender. Would you care to accept it?"
Nicole. My heart surged against my chest. Eskal and Nariti weren't going to be able to do me any good behind bars. Maybe the museum would press charges on them. If they asked, could I lie and say I'd been forced to help the dragons retrieve their eggs? No, no, the billionaires retrieve the opals. That was what they needed to hear; that was the fact as far as they knew.
I knew my best friend wouldn't let me down. I seized the phone, eager and hopeful. "Hey. What's going on? Why am I in trouble? All they told me was my rights and shoved me into a car."
"What the fuck were you doing at the museum last night?"
Her voice was a low, dangerous hiss that demanded I tell her everything. Immediately, I stiffened up and felt as though I needed to back into a corner. Why did I feel a need to defend the dragons? They were freaking dragons. They could defend themselves, especially after they'd gotten me into trouble like this. "I don't know what you're talking about, Nicole. I wasn't doing anything at the museum. I just-"
"You're all over the goddamned security cameras in the elevator. Doctor Sonnet's pushing for a full investigation. And the security guards are telling us some crazy shit about dragons breaking in and busting up the glass."
Willem would push until he had the truth. I curled the wire around my fingers and was deftly aware of the cop's unwavering gaze. I smiled up at her and moved as far away as the corded phone would let me. Who had a corded phone in the 21st century? "I don't know anything about it. Even if I did, what would I do about it?"
"Are you really gonna try to make it sound like you're innocent? Look, I don't know what those assholes offered you. If you needed a raise, we could've found some way to make it happen. You've been with us forever; you were probably due for one. But if they bought you off and you got them those opals, which are missing by the way, then you're in deep shit. The museum is going to press charges against you. You'll be in jail for theft number 27 or whatever."
I rolled my eyes. "I think it'd be grand larceny. It doesn't matter anyway. I didn't do it."
"Then what were you doing with them in the elevators last night?"
That made explaining difficult. I hadn't even thought of the elevator cameras, but I should have. I'd assumed the spell would have taken out every camera in the area. It was just another way that magic had let me down, but of no real surprise. It wasn't perfect; the casters weren't perfect. No one could be a hundred percent sure of anything when they were working with it.
All the more reason to throw the dragons on the fire and run away, but how could I do that? They were entitled to have their kids no matter what the museum thought about it. They were entitled to their siblings. It wasn't like I was helping someone under child services investigation get their kid back; I was trying to help a fairly rare species continue to survive.
Though I hesitated on blaming the museum fully, we often came into the possession of precious items. Rarely were living people attached, but I certainly had mixed feelings on our ownership when they were. For instance, we'd done a gorgeous display of Cherokee artifacts to help educate the public. Yet, the tribe had been less than pleased. They'd recognized a piece of clothing as belonging to one of their artists that was still alive. When the artist had requested her work be returned to her, it had turned into a legal battle.
And I'd been glad when we lost it.
Curation was a tricky subject, but this was as black and white as night and day. The dragons deserved the eggs.
Convincing Nicole that they were eggs in the first place was going to be... tricky.
"If I told you something insane, would you trust me?" I asked.
She sighed on the other end of the line. "You already have been. Try me. What can be worse than 'Nah, it was my doppelganger.'?"
"They're dragon eggs. The guys who were with me are dragons. And last night, we tried to hatch them. Nicole, I have to help these people. I might be the only one who can help these people in the tri-state area. I don't know how many other people are bonafied wi-"
"You know, we have free therapy, too."
It was like an arrow in the heart. Worse, a month ago I would have said the same thing in her shoes. I tightened my grip on the receiver. "Please, Nicole, you don't understand."
"I understand plenty. Some hot guys waltz in and you don't want to deal with your buddy's boyfriend blues. So, you run off with them and they decide they're above the law. They're using you, Olly. And I'm not going to sit around and wait for you to realize it. Call me when you're out and sane. There's no such things as dragons."
The line went dead and I sighed. I offered the receiver back to the officer, who only shook her head at me. "Dragons?"
"Yeah. From outer space. They're gonna infest the planet," I told her, deadpanning for all I was worth.
She shook her head. "Saw something weird in the sky a few days back. Looked big enough to be a dragon but the local news said it was the military doing some kind of night operation."
"It was a dragon," I told her, too tired to be anything but blunt. How did people in noir-style novels live with no sleep?
The cop left, still shaking her head, and I hunkered back down on the bench and put my face in my hands. I wanted to go home. I wanted to go home and lay down and have my mom make a giant pot of chicken stew, made fresh from a chicken killed from the yard.
I wanted to go play with the whelp I'd accidentally hatched. I wanted to do research to help the dragons hatch the rest of the nest, despite the fact
that they were the reason for my current situation. Maybe, if I finished up the job I'd been hired to do, the rest of this would just slide away and I could have a quiet life again.
Most of all, I wanted to see Eskal deck that cop again. Nariti hadn't done too bad of a job, either. I hadn't really thought he'd had it in him, but he'd taken down two by himself. Eskal had needed five guys to hold him down, Nariti had needed four. The cops had needed to call for back up.
I'd been a good girl and ducked when they shoved my head in the car, just like they'd told me to do. There wasn't a lot to be gained by fighting cops, but watching someone else do it was amazing.
Not that it'd gotten me out of jail, and it seemed like the museum had turned on me. I kicked my feet as I sat there, trying to figure out a way to get out before I turned into a mushroom.
But nothing seemed very likely to work.
Something off in the distance crunched, loud enough that I was pretty certain someone had just had an accident outside. A car wreck is painfully loud, even if you're inside when it happens. People just aren't used to that kind of noise anymore.
I knew I was wrong when the wall next to me punched inward. I coughed from the dust and scampered to the other side of the room, staring at a dragon's eye peering at me curiously through a hole that was nearly large enough for me to squirm through.
"Stand back," Vadriq ordered from somewhere outside.
I plastered myself against the other side of the tiny cell, covering my eyes. This was going to get me into so much more trouble, but could you really tell a dragon no? They were going to do what they wanted and they were the ones who had the money to cover the problems associated with it.
Another smack happened and the whole damned wall fell in, showering me with dust and bits of stone. I stepped out through the hole as the microscopic debris rained down, frowning up at four very large dragons in the middle of the city. I knew Eskal was the black and I recognized the tiny red whelp riding the one whose scales looked like molten gold.
It was safe to assume the others were Nariti, Iyadre, and Vadriq and I knew Nariti's eye color on the blue, so that left the green and the gold to sort out. Vadriq's voice purred from the gold. "I would apologize for smashing your cell, but I imagine you're happy to be out."
"This is going to ruin your whole day," I told them, craning my neck to really get a good look at the rainbow of shifters that stood before me.
Eskal stretched his wings. "Better their day than ours. To hell with the secrecy pact. Too long have we allowed humans to cage our young and force us into hiding. Perhaps the wolves had it right all along."
"You're really going to have to catch me up on that," I told him as he crouched before me.
Another ride. My heart leapt and I scrambled to climb on. I'd had little time to think about how to brace myself on the vast back but I had an idea or two. I shoved my heels up under his wing joints in the hollow between the joint and his ribcage. Then, I fastened my hands on a massive spiked scale on either side. I had to thread my ankles through the spaces between those scales further down to get the footing I wanted, but I felt a hell of a lot more stable when he took off than I had the night before.
I looked back to see Iyadre and Nariti take off after us. Vadriq snarled at a man with a gun, though I was uncertain if he was a uniformed officer or not, and watched him snort a blast of hot air at the man. The human toppled to the ground, clawing at his clothes as if they were on fire.
I was pretty sure they weren't.
That would have to do.
We climbed until the sky drowned out the world below us. I buried my head against the warmth of Eskal's scales, the air just a little too thin for my comfort. I dealt with it as best I could, but some small part of me hoped that we would land sooner rather than later.
The great head turned to look back at me. His brow was furrowed with concern. I didn't dare let go of him to gesture that I was cold or that I was starting to gasp for air; what if I fell off? Surely, he could swoop and catch me but people really aren't designed for that kind of force.
People don't bounce well.
A chirp, like a bird's, echoed thin and high in the air. As one, the flight fell toward the ground at breathtaking speed and I clung to him for my life. I'd only gone horseback riding a few times, but I was absolutely certain that I was going to build a saddle for this dragon before I did this again.
After a terrifying drop, they leveled out once more. In broad daylight, we swept through the city. People stared, cars wrecked, and fingers pointed in our general direction. I didn't care. Maybe if they'd bothered to believe in something bigger than they were-
Whew, that was some whiplash. I shook the thought away, but it didn't completely give up. What was I turning into?
Eskal landed in front of his home, sending hundreds of people screaming down the street as they streamed from their homes. One older woman snatched up her fluffy little dog and ran off faster than I'd have guessed her capable of. Beneath me, Eskal transformed and caught me before I hit the ground. He arched a brow at me, forever smug, and carried me inside by simply kicking the door down.
"Gather what belongings you have. The hoards will have to sustain us until we can create a new den elsewhere," he said, putting me down on the couch.
Naked. Every single one of them were naked. I watched as a parade of gorgeous, sculpted men passed me and didn't dare to touch any of them. Maybe Nicole had been a little bit right about getting distracted by the handsome men and what they were offering; but it wasn't that kind of offering.
I just needed the money.
The thing that scorched me the worst of it was that she'd offered me more, immediately. Why not offer me more before I'd had to sign on to something like this? I was a good worker, smart, enthusiastic about the work despite the roughness of it.
"Is there anything at your room that you need?" Iyadre asked, head tilting down at me.
I jumped, startled. "If someone would be kind enough to take me down there, there are a few things. I'm kind of fucked for a job, aren't I?"
"I would doubt most heavily that the museum is going to allow you into their good graces in any form, any time soon," he answered. "Vadriq? Are you up for another flight?"
The formerly-a-golden-dragon turned to look at us. "I'm taking her to her room?"
And I realized this wasn't the first time this group of men had been forced to bail on short notice. It was possible that, with the money they had, they could set me up with another job in the future. But returning to the site now meant I'd be stuck in jail forever. Could I walk away from the whole situation? Sure, it was a possibility. I was certain that they'd equip me with the money I needed to get started somewhere else.
But I didn't want to.
Instead of just turning on me and leaving me in the dust, they'd exposed themselves to the world to save me. This time, it hadn't had anything to do with getting the eggs out of a worrisome spot. It was just about getting me out of jail.
They could have left me there to rot. They hadn't. And I couldn't bring myself to do something similar to them.
...Besides, if I was honest, they were growing on me. Even the scowl that Vadriq shot me was somewhat... charming. He jerked his head at the door and I followed him without hesitation. On the driveway, he once again became the massive golden beast. Unlike the others, his horns curved along the sides of his face rather than up and out.
"Is there a reason you look different than your wingmates?" I asked, dragging myself onto the wing he offered.
The dragon snorted. "All betas are missing their points. Our horns grow down because we don't battle over mates. Why? Do you have a problem with that?"
"No?" I said, confused. How could he ask me that? Without the protruding spikes to hold on to, I slid down his back to grab his wing joints with both hands and hoped that would be enough. He was a hell of a lot more slippery than Eskal was.
Without an answer, he stretched those enormous wings out and walked to the
center of the road. There, he broke into a run, gathering speed rather like an airplane. I felt that thrill rise again in my chest as his wings slapped the air once, twice, a third time, and then we were lifting into the sky far more quickly than I had either time on Eskal.
And my grip was slipping.
Chapter 15
Vadriq
We flew due northeast toward her tiny hovel of a room, a few flaps from the ice cream parlor we'd met her in a thousand years ago. The past few days had been impossible. I felt as though she'd been in our lives forever, and yet.
...And yet one quick roll would change that. She would never manage to hang on to my back if I decided to toss her. I mulled it over, one last flicker of resistance to the fact that I was going to have to share Eskal.
On Wings: A Reverse Harem Dragon Shifter Romance (Her Secret Menagerie Book 2) Page 13