by Kylie Chan
‘I could do that for you, you know,’ Marque said as we grew closer.
‘I told you to piss off,’ Richard said. He raised his head and saw us, and his face lit up. ‘Well, look who’s here. Connie told me you were coming.’
Oliver took one of the seed potatoes out of the basket and eyed it hungrily.
‘Don’t you dare eat that,’ Richard said sharply. ‘It’s treated with insecticide. Wait until we’re back in the house – your nan’s made you some potato dishes for lunch.’
Oliver tossed the potato back into the basket. ‘Nan says come now because lunch is nearly ready.’
Richard raised his hat to wipe his brow, then shoved his pick into the ground. ‘Connie’s looking after me far too well,’ he said, and patted his firm abdomen. ‘She’ll make me fat.’
‘Not as long as you continue to perform completely unnecessary physical tasks,’ Marque said. ‘You should let me do that! You’re way too slow –’
Richard cut it off. ‘We had this argument before, and we decided I need the therapy.’ He slapped me on the back. ‘I won’t hug you – I’m soaked. Let’s go back to the house.’
‘Potatoes!’ Oliver said, excited. His ears twitched. ‘What’s that?’
‘We deaf humans can’t hear anything,’ I said as we walked over the heavily ploughed earth towards the house. ‘What does it sound like?’
‘A missile!’ Oliver shouted. He tackled me and David to the ground, and threw himself on top of us.
‘It’s not a missile,’ Marque said.
‘It’s me,’ Shiumo said.
I couldn’t see her with Oliver on top of me. I tapped him to let me up, and brushed the damp soil from my clothes.
‘I don’t know what you’re doing here,’ Richard began, then stopped. ‘Is that …?’
‘An egg?’ David said.
‘Is that your egg?’ Oliver said.
‘Mine and Richard’s,’ Shiumo said. She raised it in both front claws; it was thirty centimetres tall, with a lumpy red shell.
‘I did not give you permission,’ Richard began, but stopped when the egg tapped.
‘Let’s take it up to the house,’ Shiumo said. ‘You’re about to be a father.’
‘I did not agree to this,’ Richard growled. He stood with his arms folded over his chest. ‘You did this without my knowledge or permission, Shiumo. This is wrong.’
‘That’s beside the point, Richard. It’s about to hatch,’ she said.
He glowered at her, his arms still folded. The egg tapped again.
‘We need to take it up to the house,’ she said. ‘We only have ten minutes before the baby starts to come out, and we need somewhere clean.’
Richard went back to the apricot tree. ‘Go up to the house then.’
‘This is your child!’ Shiumo said.
He ignored her.
The egg rattled.
‘Can you warn your mother?’ Shiumo asked me. ‘We need a clean surface and some towels. The fluid inside will be messy.’
We left Richard in the field and walked back to the house. Shiumo flew above us, holding the egg in both front claws.
Mum scowled when she saw Shiumo. ‘You stay away from him.’ Then she gestured towards the living room floor where she’d laid out some towels. ‘Put the egg on these.’
Shiumo carefully set the egg on the towels, and stood back. Its shell rattled and shook as we watched.
‘Wow,’ David said softly.
‘Richard should be here,’ Shiumo said, her voice sad.
‘You really can’t blame him,’ I said. ‘You lied to him. How does he know this is his child? You could still be lying.’
‘You’ll know when you see it,’ she said.
‘What will it look like?’ Oliver said, crouching to watch the egg as it shifted on the towels.
A spiderweb of cracks appeared on one side.
‘You’ll see,’ Shiumo said. ‘We may have to help it – some weaker hybrids need assistance to break out.’
A hole was punched through the shell and a little hand – a human hand – waved at us. A second hand appeared and pulled at the shell to enlarge the hole.
A child’s cheeky face became visible in the gap and we all made soft sounds of wonder. She looked like a toddler, but only thirty centimetres tall; and had Richard’s dark brown skin and eyes, and a mass of soaked black hair with red scales on her temples.
She smashed away the last of the shell, looked around, then held her arms out towards the door behind us. I turned to see Richard standing there, his face full of indecision.
‘She’s yours, Richard,’ Shiumo said gently. ‘Our love in physical form.’
‘I did not consent to this,’ Richard said.
‘I know,’ Shiumo said, watching the child as she stretched towards Richard. ‘If you don’t want to care for our child, I’ll take her with me.’ She turned her silver eyes on him. ‘But I wanted to give you this gift. You have lost so much because of me.’
‘I don’t –’ Richard began, then stopped when the baby burst into tears.
He went to her and lifted her out of the egg, then wrapped her in a clean towel. She quietened as soon as he held her. She was covered in slimy, blood-tinged fluid, and an umbilical cord ran from her to a placenta-like mass at the base of the eggshell.
‘I need more towels, Connie,’ Richard said softly, and Mum ran to fetch them.
‘Let me cut the cord,’ Marque said, and Richard moved the towel out of the way. Marque severed the umbilical cord and pinned it shut. ‘It will drop off in about a day.’
Mum passed Richard an old towel, and the child snuggled into him as he gently wiped her clean.
‘She looks like my mother,’ he said, and glanced up at Shiumo. ‘This is emotional blackmail. Haven’t you abused me enough?’
‘I’ll take her with me if you choose,’ she said.
‘You have to – you’re her mother. You have to feed her.’
‘She’ll eat solid food, the same as a two-year-old human. She can stay with you if you want, or I can take her.’
Richard was still broadcasting indecision. ‘We have no baby food.’
‘There’s a supply ten minutes away,’ Marque said. ‘Say the word and I’ll deliver it.’
Richard sat holding his daughter and gazing at her with wonder. The child smiled up at him and touched his cheek, then snuggled into him. He bent over her, his shoulders shaking.
‘Bring her up to my ship,’ Shiumo said. ‘Let’s parent her together. We’ll be so happy.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Come back to me, Richard.’
He didn’t reply.
‘Please, my love.’
Richard stroked the child’s back and still didn’t speak.
‘Is that a yes or a no?’ Shiumo said.
When Richard’s voice came it was hoarse, and he spoke without looking at her. ‘Go away. I’ll arrange for you to visit the child if you want, but I don’t want to see you ever again. Leave me, dragon, and never return.’
Shiumo lowered her head and closed her eyes. ‘I understand. I’ll always be here for you.’
‘Just go,’ he said.
She nodded, and I followed her out of the house.
‘Will you talk to him for me, Jian?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And if he ever thinks of returning to you, I’ll stop him.’
‘I really messed this up, didn’t I?’
‘I’ll be returning to Dragonhome in six weeks to take up my commission in your army,’ I said.
She lit up.
‘Be warned, dragon,’ I said. ‘And pass this on through your network. If you dragons do anything like this again, if any more people suffer the way Richard has – we will leave you to the mercy of the cats’ armada. And if you try any of this shit again after the cats are dealt with, we have the power to stop you.’
She gazed at me for a long time. ‘I understand,’ she said.
‘Now fuck off.’
She disappeared.
‘Good,’ I said, and went inside to my family.
About the Author
KYLIE CHAN started out as an IT consultant and trainer specialising in business intelligence systems. She worked in Australia and then ran her own consulting business for ten years in Hong Kong. When she returned to Australia in 2002, Kylie made the career change to writing fiction, and produced the bestselling nine-book Dark Heavens series, a fantasy based on Chinese mythology, published by HarperVoyager worldwide. She is now a fulltime writer based in Queensland’s Gold Coast, enjoying the beach and writing a new science fiction series.
Also by Kylie Chan
DARK HEAVENS
White Tiger (1)
Red Phoenix (2)
Blue Dragon (3)
JOURNEY TO WUDANG
Earth to Hell (1)
Hell to Heaven (2)
Heaven to Wudang (3)
CELESTIAL BATTLE
Dark Serpent (1)
Demon Child (2)
Black Jade (3)
Small Shen
DRAGON EMPIRE
Scales of Empire (1)
Copyright
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2018
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Kylie Chan 2018
The right of Kylie Chan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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ISBN 9781460753255 (paperback)
ISBN 9781460707906 (ebook)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia
Cover design and illustration by Darren Holt, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover images by shutterstock.com