“What kind of self-respecting dragon cares what he’ll look like?” I can’t help my smirk. “Are you vain, Hyperion? How did I never know that?”
He snorts flames my direction and I barely snuff them before they hit the side of the house.
“Watch it,” I snap. “If you burn this place down, Liz will do more than leave you out of her little requests to Jörð.”
Hyperion rolls his eyes.
It hits me then why he wants to shift.
He’s feeling left out. Thanks to Liz, this bizarre group has become a family. It may be dysfunctional and strange, but he wants to be part of the group, not left outside, literally. Rufus and Gordon, Sammy, the strange mirrored humans Jade and Asteria have become, and Coral. But Hyperion’s way too large, way too scary, and literally stuck sweltering in the heat, since we’re in Australia.
Alone.
It wasn’t a concept we discussed as blessed. Feelings of loneliness weren’t acknowledged, and they certainly weren’t pitied. But now that Liz has shown me what it’s like to feel a part of something, I see how much better it is. Now if I were stuck outside, I would yearn, I would long, and I would burn with a desire to be included. I’ve felt lonely in my life more times than I can even count, long before I had a word for it. That’s probably why I sit on the edge of the porch while everyone else walks inside.
Only Coral stays with me. “Can you help him?”
“I’m going to try,” I say. Hyperion, you have to be vulnerable to become a human. You have to know that you might be attacked, and you might die, but you want to be near these creatures more than you want to be prepared to fight a threat.
I can’t do that, he says. My job is to keep Coral safe.
As he says the words, I realize he means it. He didn’t say he needs to find the heart, possibly because we’ve found it, or that he needs to fight vanir, or that he needs to keep me safe from Thunar. He doesn’t say we need to prepare for our father’s return, either.
He said he needs to keep Coral safe.
It’s a big change for him. It’s a step in the right direction. He’s worried about something that has nothing to do with his orders or his place in blessed society. He’s worried about something for himself, or rather, for his bonded. I think Liz would be as proud of him as I am.
Okay, I say. I’ll do it.
Do what? He frowns.
I’ll shift, and you can go in and join them. Not for a long time, because I need to check on Liz. And if this works, you can’t sleep in the same place as Coral. Not ever.
Hyperion rolls his eyes.
She’s a hatchling, I say. Don’t forget that.
His lip curls. Of course I won’t forget that. What’s wrong with you?
I laugh. And then I shift into my Azar form as I leap to the ground. Now, reach down deep and try to collapse even smaller. You won’t be able to protect her as well, physically, but you’ll be healing her heart and your own, and you’ll know I’m out here on watch.
Hyperion doesn’t look as if he believes me, but he does try it. I can see the frustration in his eyes. It didn’t work.
I’m reaching for the right words of consolation to share when Coral says, “You big idiot. Act like you think I’m dying, and you have to be small enough to reach me.” She jumps off the porch, right at him.
And he shifts, just like that, and catches her with his big, beefy human arms. He looks even larger than me, and for a dragon-human, I’m large. Very large.
Coral’s beaming.
“What if I hadn’t shifted?” My older brother, the massive nightmare, the terrifying beast, looks a lot like me. I kind of hate it, but mostly because I worry Liz will think he’s better looking. She did say she preferred larger sizes.
Coral shrugs. “You would. I knew you would.”
“How could you know?” He arches one eyebrow, and I notice his eyes are a dark green. “You could have landed on the ground hard and hurt yourself.”
“But I didn’t.” Coral hugs him. “You caught me.”
His eyes widen, and then he looks pretty dopey, and I think that’s exactly how it should be. She’s Hyperion’s first family member, other than me. When he closes his eyes and inhales slowly, I realize he might have needed this even more than I did.
