Wyatt’s Secret
Page 12
The little dragon screeched and tried to tear itself away, but I gripped it tight. I braced my elbow to hold it as far away from my face as I could. It flapped and shrieked and smacked its small wings against my elbow, but it couldn’t break free. It spat a brief eruption of flame, but I darted out my other hand and clapped its jaws shut to stop it.
I grimaced from the effort. How long would he keep this up before he surrendered to my authority? All at once, the creature’s efforts evaporated. It drooped in my hand and dangled by its legs whimpering in despair. Its wings hung straight down toward the ground in dejected defeat.
I sighed. So much for the great and mighty dragon menace. I lifted him into my lap and wrapped my arms around him. “It’s all right, buddy. Nothing to worry about.”
I drew the tiny dragon against my chest and stroked his scaly head. The next minute, he shifted into a little boy huddled on my knee. He turned his tear-streaked face into my chest and burst into loud wailing sobs.
I eased the chair back again. All these confrontations ended in tears—his, not mine. He insisted on pushing the boundaries, and he got what he came for. I made sure never to do any serious damage, but I couldn’t exactly face down a dragon, not even one his size, without fighting back. He had to learn one way or the other, and he better learn from me instead of someone who didn’t care about his welfare.
I propped my head against the cabin wall again, but when I opened my eyes, I came face to face with a little girl standing at the foot of the steps. She pursed her lips and her black eyes flashed fire. “What did you do to him this time?”
I closed my eyes again. “I didn’t do anything. If you were watching at all—and I’m sure you were—you would have seen him attack me, not the other way around.”
She regarded me from the ground with those fierce eyes. She looked just like her mother when she arched her eyebrow like that. “You better not have hurt him.”
“I didn’t hurt him,” I muttered. “God forbid I should hurt him. He can hurt me all he likes, but I’m not allowed to defend myself.”
Before she could reply, the unmistakable sound of a car engine echoed through the woods. The Jeep purred up to the cabin and Piper got out. She swept the little girl up in her arms and kissed her on the cheek. “Hey, Munchkin. What have you been up to this morning?”
Piper carried the girl onto the porch and sat down in the chair next to me. She settled the girl on her lap and eyed the boy still sniffing in mine. “What happened?”
“Nothing to speak of,” I breezed. “Just more of the same.”
“Uh-oh,” she murmured. “I hope no one got hurt.”
“No one got hurt,” I told her. “I almost got hurt, but I stopped it before that happened. Isn’t that right, buddy?”
The boy stole a peek out of my arms at his mother. Then he cowered in my embrace again.
A hint of a smile crept across Piper’s face. “I see how it is. Well, I finished the press conference. That means we’ll all have a few months of peace and quiet before I have to go present at the Bat Symposium in Chattanooga next month.”
“How did the press conference go?” I asked.
She beamed across at me, and I beheld the culmination of five years of hard work come to fruition in that expression. “It went very well. Everyone is very excited. Pre-sales of my book just hit ten thousand.”
My eyebrows flew up. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. I guess a new bat species is big news. I’m going to be busy researching this for the next twenty years or so.”
I pulled the boy in tighter. “That’s good.”
She settled back in her seat, too. “Yeah.”
We both gazed out at the woods surrounding our little secluded country home. Life was good raising a couple of dragons on the outer reaches of Smokey Ridge. It made my heart glad to know our Clan was just around the corner when we needed them. In the meantime, no one could disturb our happiness. We had the woods all to ourselves, just the way it should be.
More from Jadyn
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