“Well, that was easy,” I said. The dragon snorted, and two lone sparks twirled from his nose through the thick darkness. A gasping laugh leaped from my mouth. “No, wait! You can’t…um, you can’t do that.” I propped my hands on my hips, utterly at a loss as to how to speak to a dragon—my dragon.
“You need a name.”
The words came as a whisper. Then, unable to contain my smile, I said again, louder, “You need a name.”
The dragon planted his back legs on the ground and reached his long face toward me. He was smaller than the racers I’d watched yesterday, his neck thin enough that I could wrap my arms around him. His back was ridged with spikes, and two longhorns curled away from his black and gold face. When his nose was only inches from my own, he paused. His breath was hot.
Heart thundering, I reached for him.
His eyes pinned on my hand. I yanked it back.
Then he knocked my arm, pushing me sideways. As I stumbled, he moved with me, claws clicking faintly on the cobblestones. His long tail whipped around, his eyes wide as he gave a small sideways hop.
His joy bubbled up as a laugh from my own mouth. “You’re playing,” I breathed, still so shocked I had adragon. I’d seen the young dragons at the Covingtons’ lair play, but not usually with people.
“So, about your name,” I said, staring him up and down. “What do you think? Do you care what I call you?” I didn’t know anything about naming a dragon. That part hadn’t been in the few books I’d stolen.
The dragon lifted his chin.
“Well, fine. Tell me what you like. Onyx?”
He snorted.
“Okay. I didn’t like that either. Obsidian? Okay, not that either,” I said as he thumped his tail violently. “Let’s see. You’re not supposed to be able to bond at all, and yet you did. I’m not supposed to either, by the way. I guess we’re not really supposed to exist.” He turned a golden eye on me, lowering his face closer. “So, you’re a rebel, a secret, a fable. Or…Myth?”
He tilted his head slightly, his eye pinned on me. Then he twitched his nose and knocked it playfully into my stomach, tipping me forward. I was slumped against his face before I knew what was happening.
“Was that a yes?” I barked, trying to regain my footing. He lifted me up and waited until I wasn’t wriggling like a fish before edging backward. “Myth? Is that it, then?”
He puffed out a single spark that lifted into the air, turned a few circles, and burst like the smallest firework in the world.
“Myth,” I breathed, clutching my hands at my chest so I wouldn’t explode from excitement. I bounced on the balls of my feet, grinning like an idiot.
A little hesitantly, I edged around Myth. He snuffled my hair as I walked past, and I giggled.
“Cardan Lott might be a nightmare, but getting to know you is going to be so much fun,” I said to him as I walked down the empty street, my dragon walking softly beside me.
CHAPTER 7
“Now remember, this fork first,” Fairfax instructed, holding up the smaller one as we sat inside the quaint, sunlit dining room in the country estate he had rented out for the week.
I craned my neck to look out the tall window. Outside, a strong wind rustled the leaves in the ancient oak trees scattered around the estate. Myth, whose shoulder was now almost fully healed, lay asleep in the sunshine near the estate’s small lair.
“Miss Mireaux.”
At his chiding tone, I snapped my attention back to Lord Fairfax. Quickly, I snatched up the small fork.
“Preferably, don’t hold it like a weapon,” he said, voice flat.
With a sigh, I loosened my grip and spun the fork around in my fingers, holding it delicately.
“Hmph,” he said, angling his fork down and taking a bite of the salad laid before him. “I am only trying to help you, you know.”
Tomorrow was the start of term, and all the manners, etiquette, and conversation tactics he’d attempted to cram intome this past week were eclipsed entirely by the sleeping dragon outside.
I nodded, taking a tiny bite. When food was scarce, manners were irrelevant. It killed me to eat this crisp lettuce slowly. I had only had salad one other time in my life prior to this week, and that was when we’d grown it in a community garden. Every other year we’d tried, someone had stolen it before we’d ever harvested it.
“Slower,” he said, nodding as I decreased my chewing pace.
