by Tesha Geddes
❀
Kaida woke up the next morning, surrounded by a warm, furry blanket. As she stirred from her sleepy haze, she snorted in surprise –– that was not a blanket. Kaida and Celicia had talked and cried late into the night, and when they’d finally gone to bed, they’d curled up together as a wolf and a pocket-sized dragon. Kaida carefully extracted herself from the sleeping wolf and quietly slipped out the door after shifting and dressing. Her heart felt raw and tender after last night and she needed some time alone to process.
When she’d left Drake City, she thought she’d left everything behind. She thought she’d be able to start fresh, that everything in her past was past. She now realized she couldn’t treat her past like it never happened. She wouldn’t let it define her, but she needed to acknowledge and process what she’d been through.
She stepped out onto the porch and found Mathis sitting there, enjoying the sunrise. On impulse, she sat down next to her mentor.
“You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind,” Mathis said as she sat.
“Perceptive,” Kaida nodded.
“Do you remember the therapist I sold your magical books to?” Mathis asked. Kaida nodded so he continued, “He helped me work through my grief when my wife, Laila, passed. He’s a good person to talk to –– he can help you work through things.”
Kaida looked down and said quietly, “I can’t really afford it though.”
Mathis reached over and patted her hand, saying, “You’re pack now. We take care of our own. Besides, I’m sure he’d give a great deal to the girl who made those magical books that have helped his patients so much.”
Kaida glanced at him in surprise –– she hadn’t heard anything more about the books since Mathis said he’d sold them.
“Oh, I must have forgotten to tell you,” Mathis said in response to Kaida’s look. “I heard from Rai and he says the books have helped tremendously. He can’t tell us much more than that due to patient confidentiality, but he is interested in buying more. He also suggests registering your books as magical medical devices. Rai is willing to help you with the paperwork if you’re interested.” Mathis paused to chuckle to himself and then added, “When I first met you, I thought I was getting a great apprentice, but you’re so much more than that. You could start your own business and do a lot of good with those books.”
“But what about being your apprentice and learning how to repair magical books?” Kaida asked in alarm as a tiny, pessimistic voice inside her suggested Mathis was trying to fire her.
“Oh, I’ll still teach you as much as you want to know,” Mathis assured her, “but I want to be sure you know that you can be anything you want to be. You can take over for me when I retire, you can start your own business making magical medical books, or you can choose another path. You don’t have to be anything just because another person expects it. Whatever path you choose, your pack will be behind you, supporting you.”
Kaida looked at the ground, unsure what to say. It was a big decision, one that would shape her entire future –– it wasn’t one she could make lightly. Then again, the last few months had been full of life-altering decisions, and it all started with the decision to leave.
“You don’t have to decide yet,” Mathis said, correctly guessing her thoughts. “But when you do, let us know, and we’ll support you as best we can.”
Kaida nodded, remembering Sophie’s words of encouragement from their day together in the forest — things that were important to her were important to the people that cared about her.
❀
Kaida stirred the pan of eggs, trying hard to hide her amusement at the antics of the two young wolf shifters on muffin duty. They were supposed to be filling the muffin tins with apple cinnamon muffin batter, but she wasn’t sure how much batter was actually ending up in the tins, and how much was ending up on the toddlers. Marjorie managed to rescue the bowl before one of the batter-covered kids stuck his face in it. With skill born of practice, she deftly scooped batter into the tins and herded her young and unrepentant kitchen helpers over to the sink where a very repentant Cody washed dishes. After his hundredth guilt-laden glance in her direction, she finally had enough. She threw an eggshell at him.
“Enough,” she said as it bounced off his head. “I’m fine –– I promise. Now, stop torturing yourself, or I’ll keep throwing eggshells at you.”
He gaped at her for a long moment before snorting and asking, “That’s the best threat you could come up with?”
“It’s a pretty good threat if you’re the one who has to clean them up,” Marjorie interjected with a significant look at the young bear shifter.
“Point,” Cody conceded as he bent down to pick up the eggshell Kaida threw.
“Don’t forget the potatoes,” Amyra said as she flicked a few pieces of potato from her pan of hashbrowns at him.
“Hey!” Cody squawked in protest. “What did I do to you?”
“Kaida’s our friend,” Rio said, glowering at his brother from where he stood at the kitchen island, kneading the dough for today’s bread. “She might have forgiven you, but the rest of us haven’t.”
“Speak for yourself,” Amyra scoffed. “If Kaida’s forgiven him, that’s good enough for me. He’s just buckets of fun to torment.”
There was a murmuring assent from the rest of the kitchen workers and Cody looked around in dismay. “You’re all ganging up on me!” he exclaimed.
“Oh, no, sweetie,” Amyra said, throwing her arm around the young bear shifter, “we haven’t even started yet.”
“Great,” Cody grumbled.
❀
“Do you like fish?” Sen asked Kaida after breakfast was cleared away.
“Yes,” Kaida said slowly, wondering where that question had come from. “At least, I like the one fish I’ve tried.”
Sen glanced over to the end of the room where Rio stood, still glowering at his brother, and said, “There are two bears going fishing in a bit –– it might be helpful if you went with them.”
“I see,” Kaida said, catching on to what Sen wasn’t saying. “Hey, Rio,” she said, walking up to the grumpy bear shifter. “Sen says you can teach me how to fish.”
Rio snorted in surprise at her statement. “Unless you’re secretly also a bear shifter, my fishing techniques won’t do you much good.”
“Well, I’ve never been fishing,” Kaida said with a smile, “so can I come anyway?”
“I’d been planning on bringing Cody with me,” Rio said with a frown. “We were going to catch dinner for tonight.”
“That’s fine,” Kaida said, though Rio looked at her dubiously. “Really, it is,” she insisted. “Now that I know he isn’t some sociopathic dragon shifter out to eat me, we’re cool.”
Rio continued to frown, but agreed, saying, “Alright, but if he makes you uncomfortable, let me know.”
❀
“You’re right, your technique sucks,” Kaida said to Rio as the bear deftly caught a fish and tossed it to the bank.
The bear looked at her in shock and mild annoyance and said, “My technique is perfect.”
Kaida snickered and fluttered her wings from where she perched on a boulder in the middle of the river. “No, your technique sucks for a pocket-sized dragon.”
“Yes, I suppose it does,” Rio said with a snort.
“See, I told you, you were right.” Kaida flashed him a mischievous grin.
A smaller bear several feet away chortled as he caught his own fish.
“Are you going to try catching your own, or just stand there making fun of hard-working bears?” Rio asked, a hint of teasing in his voice.
Kaida grinned and slipped into the water. She thought about trying to catch a fish herself, but then she had a better idea. She swam around, circling behind the smaller bear. She waited until he bent low to catch a fish, and launched herself at him, landing on his snout with a screech and flapping her wings for full effect. Cody fell back with a surprised roar, landing on his back
with a splash. Kaida took off with a whoop of delight. Cody gave chase, trying to splash her as they went, but Kaida dodged every time--slow bears were no match for swift pocket-sized dragons.
“You two are scaring all the fish away,” Rio growled in mock anger as they splashed by him.
In an unspoken agreement, Kaida and Cody ganged up on the larger bear. Soon, they were all soaking wet and laughing so much their ribs hurt.
❀
“How’d the fishing go?” Mathis asked as the trio returned with buckets full of fish.
“It was great,” Rio said, “once these two trouble-makers stopped scaring all the fish away.”
“You had fun, and you know it,” Cody protested.
“Catch any fish?” Sen asked Kaida as he walked up behind his grandpa.
“Yeah, five!” Kaida said proudly –– she’d discovered it was best for her to dive from the air and grab the fish in her talons.
“Yes, but they were all so small, we had to throw them back,” Rio said with a laugh.
“It’s not my fault your fish weigh more than me,” Kaida said, pretending to sulk. Her purpose in going hadn’t been the fish at all, and she was pleased with the progress on her true goal.
Sen grinned at her, seeing the easy way the brothers interacted. The brothers took the fish to the kitchen and Kaida headed to the shower. Fishing was fun, but when done right, it was a wet, muddy business.
Chapter 21
Sen threw Kaida’s bag into the bed of his truck as she said her goodbyes to her new family. It had been a fun week, but the break was over. There were several times throughout her visit that she’d wished she’d been born as part of the pack instead of as an unwanted dragon. She mentally shook herself –– such thoughts were unproductive.
“Come back any time,” Alpha Kendra said, giving Kaida a warm hug. Leaning in, she whispered softly, “You’re one of us now.”
Kaida’s heart swelled with a sense of belonging. She finished saying her goodbyes and climbed into Sen’s truck. She buckled her seatbelt and leaned her head against the headrest –– while it had been a fun week, she was exhausted and looking forward to the privacy of her own room. Celicia, on the other hand, looked like she’d been fully recharged, and chatted happily the entire drive back. Kaida listened with half an ear as she dozed in the backseat.
An hour later, Sen pulled into her dorm’s parking lot and helped her out. He grabbed her bag and walked up the stairs with her.
“Thank you for coming,” Sen said as they stopped in front of her door. “Everyone had fun getting to know you.”
“I’m glad I went,” Kaida said honestly, her hand suspended on the door handle. “It was nice to meet everyone, and to feel like I belonged.”
The tender moment was shattered when Kaida pushed down on the handle and swung the door open, freezing at the sight that greeted her. Their dorm was trashed. Drawers and cupboards hung open, their contents spilled on the floor. All the bedrooms looked like a tornado had run through them. Clothes, books, and other random items hung out of drawers, shelves, and closets and were strewn across the floor.
“Wait here,” Sen said firmly as he strode into the dorm. He moved cautiously through the apartment, checking behind doors, under beds, and in closets for intruders. Kaida waited in anticipation, craning her neck as she watched him move through the trashed rooms.
“It’s clear,” Sen said when he finally returned to the front door. “I’ll call the police. Don’t touch anything but do a quick walk-through and see if you can tell if anything’s been taken.”
“I know one thing they took,” Kaida said immediately, looking to an empty corner of the living room –– the corner where her Sunstar tree used to be.
She walked into the dorm and into her room –– it didn’t look as bad as the other rooms, if only because she didn’t have nearly as much stuff. She’d taken most of her clothing and textbooks with her, but her spare regular hand-bound notebooks were missing, and her pillow was torn open. She bit back a growl of anger –– her one luxury, and some jerk had to destroy it. And for what reason? There was nothing of value in it. And if the robber thought there was, couldn’t they have just squished the pillow first to see if there was anything besides pillow fluff in it? She blinked back tears and fought the urge to pick up the mangled pillow and hug it. Intrinsically, the pillow was worth less than the missing Sunstar tree, but it meant more to her because she’d had to work hard to earn the money to buy it.
She walked back to Sen, who had just finished speaking with the police on the phone and said, “My Sunstar tree and a few notebooks are missing. I don’t know if anyone else’s stuff has been taken though.”
Sen nodded. “The police will be here in a few minutes. I’ll let Celicia and Gramps know what’s happening.”
While Sen was on the phone, Kaida stepped into the open-air walkway outside her apartment –– being inside made her skin crawl. Her safe place was no longer safe. Who did this? And, more importantly, why? At first, she thought a dragon might have found her, but she quickly dismissed that thought. If it was a dragon here for her, they wouldn’t have bothered trashing the place and giving her a chance to escape –– they would have either hidden and waited until she was vulnerable, or just simply attacked the moment they saw her. Was this just a crime of opportunity? Or was there something more sinister going on? She shuddered, wishing she was still on pack land.
“Celicia and Gramps are on their way up,” Sen said, putting his cell in his pocket. “I tried to get them to go home, but they insist on being here for you.”
Kaida nodded. “I should call my roommates –– they deserve to know what’s happening.”
Those were some hard phone calls to make, even if she only left messages for two of them. Erica was the only one that answered, and she was understandably freaked out, but she was only five minutes away, so they kept the call short. By the time Kaida was done updating her friends, the police had arrived.
Though they were polite and efficient, giving her statement and having the police go through the dorm and process the scene left her nerves frayed. She felt like she was a mere breath away from breaking down. Erica, who arrived alongside Celicia and Mathis soon after the police, didn’t look much better, but somehow, they both managed to hold it together. Maybe it was Sen’s solid presence, maybe it was Celicia’s gentle chatter, maybe it was Mathis’s calm, or maybe it was strength they drew from each other.
“Have your roommates contact us when they get back,” an officer named Officer Porter said as he handed Kaida his business card.
Kaida took the card with a silent nod. Oliver, their RA, had arrived at some point throughout the process, but aside from quietly introducing himself, had mostly remained silent and out of the way. Once the officers left, Oliver herded the two girls to the dorm office and had them each fill out an incident report. Kaida wanted to scream at him, but she knew he was just doing his job.
❀
The four roommates sat on the couch, not saying anything. They were all shaken by the thought that someone had broken into their dorm while they were gone and had stolen from them. Some of the smaller things made sense –– they could be put in a bag and carried out without drawing attention. The Sunstar tree, on the other hand, was big and heavy; however, it was probably the most valuable thing in their dorm.
Sen, Celicia, and Mathis had left a few hours ago, but only after the four roommates insisted that they would be fine. It was a lie they all desperately wanted to be true. Kaida wondered if any of them would be able to sleep tonight.
“I vote we have a sleepover in the living room,” Sophie said. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
There was a quiet murmur of agreement before they separated to grab the things they would need for the night.
“So, who gets the couch?” Erica asked.
“Not me,” Tanya said. “I’m too tall.”
“Kaida?” Sophie suggested. “She’s
the shortest and would fit the best.”
Though Kaida was touched by their consideration, she shook her head and said, “I normally sleep in my dragon form on a pillow. So I can just take a corner somewhere. Sophie, you should take the couch.”
Erica agreed, saying she wouldn’t fit on the couch anyway, though she insisted Kaida take the chair. Soon, they were all settled down, though none of them felt like sleeping. Kaida curled up on the cushioned chair, promising herself she would mend her pillow tomorrow. She didn’t sleep well that night, and judging by the restless sounds in the room, neither did her roommates.