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I thought you were going to see your family. What exactly were you two doing in here before Gordon destroyed the side of my tower?
I really shouldn’t tell him we were planning to kill all the dragons, but based on the flashing of his eyes, he might prefer the truth to his guess.
4
Axel
Elizabeth insists that her friend passes as a warrior with the humans, but looking at him without his cloth coverings, I can’t see how. Human forms are all inherently weak—no armor over their soft parts at all—but Gideon looks exactly the same as all the others.
The strike blessed flying past me is as unimpressed with Gideon as I am, but she’s definitely eyeing the small boy clutched in my bonded’s arms with great interest.
Who is that? Does it belong to the Elizabeth Chadwick?
It’s not the Elizabeth Chadwick, I snap. Her name is Elizabeth Chadwick.
And that child belongs to her? Memna whips around to get another look, until I blow a stream of fire that sends them all careening away.
It’s too late, though. Our days of hiding the existence of Sammy, Coral, and Jade and their relationship to my bonded are over.
But worse than the other blessed learning about Elizabeth’s siblings are those milling about below who are murmuring about the other oddity they witnessed—a human holding a blessed suspended in air for more than sixty seconds. As far as I know, nothing like that has ever been recorded.
Only sixty or so strike blessed have bonded humans. Another sixty or eighty of the water blessed bonded a partner as well. All told, there are less than two hundred Ensnared, but that’s likely to change. Now they’ll all want one—and they’ve just discovered there are miniature versions of Liz, or at least one, and there’s no way we’ll keep their relationship a secret now that the blessed are looking for them. We hid them in plain sight as regular humans before easily enough, but Liz wouldn’t cradle a tiny regular human in her arms.
It’s really not the best time for this, either, what with the other problems already circling.
Liz and I both dealt with rolling waves of pain when I tried to separate from her, and I only flew a few miles away. I can’t even contemplate teleporting home without her. I know Dad hates this planet and humans, or he’d be here leading the hunt for the heart himself. But bringing her back home with me is. . .inadvisable.
Forcing Dad to come here would likely be worse.
I drop down and check on Gordon, ensuring that he’ll recover, and then I send the gathered blessed away. I also fly to the floor below Liz, where Gordon exploded through the wall. I make a red energy bubble to keep anyone else from bursting through, and then I vault upward to the top floor and shift into my human shape. I didn’t like the look of shock on Liz’s face, and I really disliked the strange sensation coming from the bond when that white flag whipped off, leaving all of Gideon bare.
Was she with that Gideon the whole time I was gone?
Where were her siblings and Gordon and Rufus? How did poor Sammy wind up blowing through the side of the building? What was Gordon doing, exactly? He’s recovering down on the ground, but he wasn’t in shape for an interrogation. Besides, as Azar, I have only the slightest connection to Gordon. I couldn’t really linger, asking lots of questions, without drawing far too much interest.
And yet, there are many questions to which I still require answers. I shift into jeans and a t-shirt because that seems to be the clothing Liz favors most. Not that I need to look like her or dress as she desires, but sometimes it feels easier.
Stomping downstairs in human form is slow, and that’s irritating in the extreme. It gives me plenty of time to wonder what to do about my dad, what to do about Gordon, why Gideon was with Liz alone, and what to do with him. It’s irritating that he shows up so often. If only he were intelligent enough to be a bright, someone could bond him, but no such luck.
By the time I finally reach the right floor, Gideon’s stepping out of his room, this time with pants on. He’s buttoning up his shirt.
“So you do have clothing.”
“Are you jealous of me?” Gideon’s smiling. “I suppose dragons aren’t very well endowed?”
Endowed? What’s he talking about?
“Axel!” Liz practically jogs my direction, and I can feel the same thing as I imagine she can, an easing of the bond as she draws near.
“How are you two still so weird, now that she’s bonded to Azar?” Gideon asks.
“I’m bonded to them both,” Liz says.
Gideon blinks.
“That’s not—” I hiss. “You can’t just?—”
“It’s never happened before,” she says. “And it’s a little complicated, passing a bond.”
