“Is this safe?” Talon rumbled.
“Does he want his stone?” Kami snapped. “It’s not here yet.”
“I want my stone.” He held out his hand to Kami. “You have to think about it really hard if you really want to go.”
“I really want to go.” Kami took his hand, and Talon grabbed him from the middle. Then he heard Kami’s voice inside of him.I want the stone. I want to get the stone.
Kami had an image of a beautiful stone, and he grabbed hold of that idea and pushed everything in him, leaning hard against Talon—and his body slid—and suddenly it was icy cold—and he could barely breathe.
His breath was like visible frost.
“Damn it, you did it. Look, we’re in fucking Turkey.”
“We are where?” Talon sounded absolutely gobsmacked.
“Do you hear the stone?”
Mercury looked at Kami, trying to think, trying to breathe. “We need to hurry if you want to go and do it again. You have to hurry. I’m tired, and I don’t want to leave you wherever this is.”
“Don’t panic; we’re right here!” Kami started to make this noise, and then somebody was digging through a bag, and there was banging.
He just stood there, feeling dazed, confused, spinny, and worried. He didn’t know what he was going to do, and what if he got lost here?
He could get lost here, and he didn’t know where here was!
“You’re not gonna get lost here, hailee.” The voice was calm and soothing. Talon’s low rumble right inside of his head, not out loud. “It doesn’t matter if we have to stop and rest. We can do it. We’re dragons. We can sleep in a cave. You just need to breathe. We’re gonna be fine.”
It calmed him quite a bit, even though Talon wasn’t touching him. He had a feeling Talon was digging the stone out of the cave wall, but he didn’t know. He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, air damp but still somehow smelling of earth.
He held his head, trying to stay upright, trying to keep himself in his human form instead of his dragon form because even as a tiny dragon, he’d still be a little big right here where there was no space because there was only all this stone and?—
Suddenly a rock fell into his hand, the cold stone heavy. It was a rectangle, half the size of his palm, a greenish, pinkish, orangish color.
And it was his, and it was alive.
“Oh my God. Oh goddess, please!” He stared into Talon’s eyes, and he felt a rush of energy and of pain and of noise and?—
“I want to go home. I want to GO HOME!”
“Fuck! Talon, grab him. Now!”
Talon wrapped his arms around Mercury and Kami, and suddenly they were sliding again, the world a wash of slick and silver.
When things solidified, they were in his apartment.
His home.
Mercury started to sob because he’d come home and he was so tired and he could die now because he had a stone and he didn’t know what to do. And oh God, he needed help right now!
“Talon, let’s get him in a bathtub. I’m gonna get Cain. Cain will know what to do. This is his part.”
“Hailee, we found your stone. You did it. We’re home. Let’s get in the tub.” Talon sounded worried, and he understood. He was worried too.
But Talon picked him up and carried him someplace. He was floating on air, safe in Talon’s arms. So he held on to the stone in his hand and closed his eyes.
The warm water felt so good on his skin when Talon finally put him in the bathtub. He was shivering by then, his teeth chattering, his hand frozen in a grip around the stone. He could feel the power of it, but he couldn’t figure out how to connect to it. The last time he got a stone he’d been a baby, and the connection had been effortless and natural, but this was completely different.
He had no idea how long Talon murmured to him, holding him right there, keeping him afloat in the water until Cain came. But it seemed like a very long time and no time at all.
