Tove smirks and shakes her head. “You don’t like flying? Interesting fear for adragon,” she gibes.
My answering smile is mocking. “Try doing it without wings. Let’s see how you feel about it then.”
I can feel Karis laugh next to me, but no sound actually comes out of him, which is slightly unnerving, not that there’s much about the colossal drake that isn’t. My entire left side is pressed against his dark brown scale armor, which would be great if he had any weapons I could try to lift. Of course, he doesn’t, so I just get to sit here, uncomfortable and awkward instead.
I sigh and toss a few elbows into the sides of the drakes pressing in on me, demanding more room. Neither of them moves, but I swear I feel Karis chuckle again.
Paragon City flashes by outside the lirocar’s windows, but I can’t get out of my head long enough to appreciate the view. The sights are probably something to marvel over when you’re not plummeting to your death. However, I’m pretty sure I’m driving to mine right now and therefore can’t muster the appropriate amount of appreciation.
“Why are you all broody? I thought you’d be fine dealing with wyverns since they brainwashed—oops, I mean raised—you?”
“Tove,” Ogdan admonishes.
“I’m not being broody,” I defend, internally chastising my lack of awareness over what my body language and silence might be broadcasting. “And you don’t know me well enough to say otherwise, so go lick a leaf.”
Chastain whistles and makes a face like I’ve gone and done it now. He leans away from Tove, who’s sitting next to him, like he’s hoping to stay out of the line of fire.
“No, I’m not buying it,” Tove counters, wagging a finger at me. “Something happened back at the keep with the human. You’ve been squirrely ever since.”
“I have not been squirrely,” I argue.
“Totally squirrely,” Farrow interjects, an easygoing smile stretching wide across his handsome face. His red scale armor looks brighter in the light of day. His dark skin is flawless, and his black eyes glitter with a touch of delight and a dash of defiance.
I toss a glare his way, which only serves to make the teasing twinkle in his eyes brighten.
“So, what is it? Is it the wyverns? The mate thing? Or did something else happen?” Tove inquires, like she actually gives a shit.
She’s good. I’ll give her that.
I stare at the Seeder for a moment, studying her. She’s pretty, but it’s almost as though the shaved black hair and the ever presentget fuckedlook in her brown eyes are an effort to downplay or diminish her allure. Anyone observing her and the others from afar would take one look at the dark green scale armor and the black vines of her dragon mark that wrap around her fingers and hands, and dismiss her as a threat. Karis or Ogdan would be the obvious choices based on size and kith alone, but Tove sees entirely too much, and in my opinion,that’sinfinitely more dangerous.
I quickly sort through and dismiss a handful of things to say in response, but with the two Thrashers next to me, I need to be careful how I traverse this. I can’t tell the full truth, but it needs to be enough of the truth not to flag me as a liar or spark any more of their suspicion.
I drop all pretenses and lean forward, using all of my dulled drake senses to read everyone around me just in case they try to pull something. I don’t know what I could do to stop them, but I’ll at least sense it coming.
Tove’s relaxed but antagonistic mien falls away, and she mirrors my movement, her body suddenly primed and tense.
Good. We’re taking each other seriously now.
“I want weapons,” I tell the Seeder, hoping it will throw her off just enough to keep her from sniffing around anything else.
A flicker of satisfaction moves through me when surprise alights across her face.
“Why?” she asks, confused, like the thought has never crossed her mind. As a fully revealed dragon, it probably never has.
“What weapons?” Karis interjects, which throws me off because I kind of had a theory that he might be mute.
I stare at the Thrasher, his voice more melodic than it has any right to be. The sudden urge to ask him to tell me a bedtime story or to read aloud one of the dirty books Boshle, my Flight’s medic, is always reading, trickles into my mind. I smother the thought with a heavy helping of good sense. No wonder the Thrasher is so quiet. If the male was a chatterbox, he’d probably have a flock of groupies dogging his every step, hanging on every word and grunt.
He looks at me expectantly like he’s genuinely curious about what I’d arm myself with if given the choice. Craith would like this drake. He always said you could tell a lot about a person based on their weapon of choice.
I start ticking off a list on my fingers. “Bone blades, Zurki made, if I can get them, but anything from the Bone Isles will do. A pulse bow and two XD pistols, fourth gen preferably with thigh holsters. A belt of PHaSR grenades. Half a dozen batiirien spikes. A grappling gauntlet. A few fang breakers, you know, the ones that look like necklaces,” I tell them, circling my throat with my pointer finger.
“Fuck the fae, are you robbing a blood bank with all that?” Farrow asks, his dark eyes wide with shock.
I shrug. “I’m game if you are.”
Ogdan laughs and shakes his head. “What’s the point of all that when we’re with you?” he asks dismissively.
