Elias comes back to the table to poke at the top of Ezra’s head, drumming his two fingers on her casually. “Hadeon has been relatively peaceful the last ten years, but nothing lasts forever. I’m the last generation in middle school, and as soon as we graduate, all of those teachers will be out of jobs, just like the elementary. When people lose their jobs, they get desperate. Desperate people do desperate things and make rash decisions they wouldn’t otherwise. So having an extra set of eyes isn’t something to turn away if their intentions are in the right place.”
As soon as I thought I had a read on these men, they throw me for a loop.
“Wait,” Ezra asks, tilting her head up as Elias continues to boop her nose and cheeks casually. It must be a frequent occurrence, because she acts like it doesn’t even faze her. “Is that why the three musketeers have been working so much? Are people stocking up on weapons and armor?” She’s looking at Elias, but talking to the triplets.
“We didn’t want to worry you,” Kahl says quietly and her expression shudders closed.
“Can we cool it with all the secret keeping, for the love of the Fates? First I’m a ticking time bomb and now murder sprees? What else have you all been hiding?”
They’re quiet and she sags in relief until Kinsley pipes up, “I’m the one that killed your turtle.”
Her eyes fly open and she whirls around, nearly falling out of her chair. “I knew it, you lying bastard!”
It helps to lessen the doom and gloom as they start bickering and Kahl and Kaiden give me the go ahead to walk a tour of the house to get a layout of entrances and exits in case of an emergency. I won’t be staying here, but if push came to shove and someone broke in and she called for help, I could get here quicker than the three of them since I’m only living two blocks over.
I walk down the hall, passing each of the triplets’ rooms and up a flight of stairs to the second floor. I pass Elias’ first, and Ezra’s is directly across the hall. She has a massive window that even I could fit through, which is a security nightmare. Her bed is pushed up against the wall in the corner to the right of the window and on the left of it is her dresser. The entire rest of the space is cleared out in the middle to make room for...I’m not even sure what it is.
“It’s my design for a gauntlet,” Ezra says from behind me, squeezing past to get into the room and brushing against me. I don’t step to the side to make it easier, enjoying it far too much.
“Those are Legos,” I argue.
She gives me a withering look. “Well yeah, it’s not like I can afford to build the real thing. Legos are expensive enough already.”
I step further into the room and look at the chaotic mess in a new light, now that I know what it’s supposed to be. “Your hoard of choice is Legos?” I clarify and she narrows her eyes at me.
“As well as books and weapons. Don’t mock, this town is incredibly boring,” she scoffs, but I’m pretty sure my grin takes over half of my face; especially when I see the corner of Yri’s shirt peeking out beneath her pillow.
“No judgment, just caught me by surprise. My fat fingers have never had patience for the things, but I step on enough of them at home.”
Her eyes light up. “You have brothers too? Younger? Elias could use some more friends his age. How old are you anyway?”
I wobble my hand back and forth. “The flight kind, not the blood kind like you. We’re all twenty- six.”
She sits on her bed and tries to subtly stuff the shirt out of sight and I do her the courtesy of pretending not to notice. “That’s pretty unusual, to be an only child.”
She’s not the first to point it out, nor will she be the last. Even before the humans made the strike on the female dragons, our numbers were dwindling. Women mate in units, typically referred to as flights, because only mated adults could fully shift. Unmated males never developed their powers, simply a stronger stock than humans, and though females have extra abilities at birth, even they can’t fully shift unless mated.
We’ve evolved through the centuries to be a stronger class of people, but reaching that highest rank is still the prize most people will only ever dream of.
“My mother died in childbirth,” I admit quietly. “So as you can imagine, it wasn’t the most pleasant upbringing with grieving fathers.”
“I’m so sorry,” she apologizes, but I wave her off. “What’s done is done, no use harping on about it or getting trapped in the past. Want to show me the rest of the house?”
She welcomes the change of subject, leading me past the bathroom on the way to the door at the end of the hall. The massive library is gorgeous and I can already see it’s the most cared for room in the house, not a speck of dust to be found.
“It used to be my parents’ room,” she casually states, picking up the bag from earlier today and starting to add the books to one of the shelves. “We didn’t want to preserve it like a creepy memorial and be sad every time we looked in here, so we decided to convert it instead.”
Yri was absolutely right. She’s a fiery haired angel.
“I adore it,” I admit honestly.
She gives me a sad smile. “Me too, but I still would trade it for them in a heartbeat. Theirs is a sad story, but not the only tragedy in this room anymore, and we decided to fill it with happy endings instead.”
She trails a finger across the spines as a shout echoes up the stairs. “It doesn’t take that long to see the place! Those doors better be open!” Kaiden calls and I laugh, ushering Ezra back downstairs.
I bid everyone goodnight and give Ezra my number, despite Kaiden’s glare, promising to be here at seven tomorrow morning. I walk back home, since it was more practical financially to only invest in one car when we came to this country before settling into a town.
I unlock the door, Yri face-planted on the couch and Cai reading in his chair. He looks up when I enter, giving me a look.
