At least until he heard the familiar footsteps banging down the hall.
Julius closed his eyes with a long sigh. He barely had time to put down his fork before someone started pounding on the door to Bob’s room like they were trying to break it down. Fredrick didn’t even have time to get over there before the door slammed open, and Justin stomped into the room.
“Thereyou are,” he snarled, going straight for Julius. “I was looking everywhere for…” He trailed off when he saw the tray and Fredrick, and then his eyes went wide. “No fair!” he cried. “Why do you still have an F? No one else got one!”
Fredrick stiffened, and Julius put a hand over his face. “Justin…”
“I volunteered to serve the Great Julius,” Fredrick said, his scornful voice sharp enough to cut. “The rest of my clutch is free to do as they please.”
“Oh, well, good thing I’m the Great Julius’s knight, then,” Justin said, walking eagerly over to the tray. “Are those blueberry muffins?”
He was reaching for pastries when Fredrick smacked his hand. “I serve the Great Juliusonly,” he said in a deadly voice. “If you wish to eat, the kitchen is downstairs.”
Justin’s answer to that was to bare his teeth, and Julius leaped to intervene before something got bitten off. “You can have mine,” he said, offering Justin his plate. “I can’t eat all of this, and I would hate for Fredrick’s work to go to waste.”
“I’d rather it go to waste than tohim,” Fredrick growled as Justin took the plate. “He might be your full brother, but now that I’m free to say it, you should know that the Knight of the Heartstrikers is a spoiled, undisciplined, ungrateful—”
“That’s how it is, eh?” Justin said, looking Fredrick straight in the eyes as he plucked a muffin off Julius’s plate and shoved it into his mouth. “You want to show off your freedom, Freddy? I’m game. I’ll take you anytime, anywhere. I win, you cook for me for a month.”
For a terrifying moment, Fredrick looked like he was actually going to take that bet, but he never got the chance. Julius grabbed his Fang before the F could get a growl out, freezing both dragons in place.
“That’s enough,” he said firmly, glaring at both of them. “We’ve got plenty of enemies already. Let’s not give them a head start by biting chunks out of each other.”
Neither dragon looked happy about that, but eventually, they both relaxed enough for the Fang’s magic to let them go. Julius held on to his sword a bit longer anyway, just to be sure. When he was certain no one was going to do anything too stupid, he turned back to Justin. “Why were you looking for me?”
“Do I need a reason?” Justin said, pausing to scrape the rest of Julius’s loaded plate into his mouth, where he swallowed it all in one impressivegulp. “I’m your knight. My place is at your side. I would’ve been here sooner, but that hack of a doctor wouldn’t let me out of the infirmary.”
That was worrisome. True, Chelsie had eviscerated him during the fight in the treasury, but that was days ago, and this wasJustin. He never took more than twenty-four hours to heal from anything. “Why were you still in the infirmary?”
“Nothing serious,” Justin said casually, grabbing another muffin off the tray before Fredrick could stop him. “I just used up a lot of my fire smoking Vann Jeger, so I’m a bit slower on the recovery than normal.”
To prove it, he pulled up his shirt, and Julius gasped. Justin’s torso was covered in bandages, some of which were spotted with red. “We have to get you back to bed.”
“Nothing doing,” Justin said, popping the muffin into his mouth before yanking his shirt down again. “One, there’s no bed to go back to. The infirmary’s as empty as the rest of the mountain since the F in charge of doctoring flew the coop. And two, my place is with you. A knight stays by his clan head’s side at all times. Not that you’re making it easy, hiding away up here.” He snorted and reached for the platter of bacon. “I should put a leash on you.”
Worried as he was, Julius couldn’t help but smile at that. Justin had an odd way of showing it, but it was nice to know he cared. “You should still sit down,” he said, hopping up from Bob’s chair. “I hurt just looking at you.”
Justin rolled his eyes. “No way. I’m not a wuss like you who has to sit down every time he bleeds, and I need to be on my guard. With Conrad gone, I’m the only fighter left. If you die on my watch in an empty freaking mountain, I willneverlive it down.”
That last bit was so Justin, it took Julius several seconds to realize the rest of what he’d said. “Wait, Conrad’s gone? When did that happen?”
“Last night,” Justin said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her, but Mother’s dead serious about evacuating the mountain. She sent Conrad to Washington, DC last night to help David prepare our emergency fallback position.”
This was the first Julius had heard of a fallback position. “So why didn’t anyone tellme?” he cried angrily. “Bethesda doesn’t get to order an evacuation. That’s a Council decision!”
“You weren’t around,” Justin said with a shrug. “And it’s not as if there’s much to evacuate. Between Chelsie’s rage quit, Amelia kicking the bucket, Bob vanishing, the Fs on strike, and everyone else running off to hunker down in their own territories, Heartstriker Mountain’s a ghost town. Even the human staff is playing hooky. The only reason Mother’s still here is because she hasn’t finished moving her treasury into the security vaults downstairs.”
“Of course she is,” Fredrick growled. “God forbid Bethesda put anything ahead of her gold.”
“Well, she still should have called me,” Julius snapped, but his heart wasn’t in it. Other than pride and the fact that it was their home, there wasn’t much reason to stay at Heartstriker Mountain if there was no one here to protect, and while he was angry she hadn’t discussed it with him first, DC wasn’t actually a bad move. They had allies there thanks to David’s congressional seat, and staying in the US capital meant that any large-scale attack would be seen as an act of aggression against the United States as well as Heartstriker. Strategically speaking, they couldn’t ask for a better place to lie low.
He just wished it didn’t feel so much like running away.
“Hey,” Justin said, lowering his voice. “I know it sucks to be driven back, but this doesn’t have to be all bad. Conrad can handle Bethesda, but you’re my charge, and our birthday’s coming up.”
Julius blinked in surprise. With everything that was happening, he’d forgotten all about his birthday until Justin mentioned it. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing,” Justin said with a shrug. “But twenty-five is a milestone, and if we have to run anyway, why not go somewhere fun? I was thinking Vegas. I know you hate gambling, but the food’s great, and the girls are—”
