AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The bucket he threw up into the air lands on my head and soaks me in stinky seaweed.
Kallum laughs harder, and the dragon collapses to the ground, her feathery wings beating hard, as if she’s pounding the ground with a fist in glee. Smoke billows out of her nostrils as her large body shakes.
I glare at her, trying my best to look stern.
But she’s the size of a two-storey house, and I am only five foot eleven. I’m nothing but a morsel to her, a mouse glaring at a cat.
Her grin widens as she lifts her car-sized head, her electric blue-slit eyes dancing. She puffs out her cheeks like she’s about to blow flames at me, and I flinch even though I know nothing but noise and smell is able to pass through the magical ward around her enclosure. I shake my head at myself for having forgotten that, but her sudden pounce and burst of fire earlier took me well off guard.
She laughs again, her roars deep and rumbly as I pull Huang to his feet. I wrinkle my nose and half-gag at the smell now seeping into my skin.
“Thanks, Viera,” Huang says.
“You’re thanking her?” Kallum wheezes. “She shoved you...in front of...her.” His two buckets thump onto the ground a second before he wraps his arms around his waist and bends in half. Tears flow down his face. I narrow my eyes at him, but he doesn’t seem to care.
“Well, she helped me up,” Huang stammers. “It’s only polite to thank her for that even if she did try to kill me when it wouldn’t have made a difference to her survivial.”
My cheeks flush hotter. “Well, it’s not like you would’ve survived if I hadn’t pushed you,” I mutter.
“That is true,” he says thoughtfully.
Kallum laughs louder. The dragon bounces around in her enclosure, fluttering her wings but not taking flight. The rocky ground shakes as she moves. Her purple forked tongue lolls out, and her tail wags back and forth like a naughty puppy.
Sighing, I turn to Huang. He’s in the middle of trying to clean his glasses on his khaki work shirt. “I’m sorry I pushed you,” I say. “I didn’t think about it.”
He places his round glasses on his nose. “It’s okay,” he says with a genuine smile. “You blocked the majority of the seaweed from hitting me.”
I wrinkle my nose, but he is right. There isn’t much on him, just a few bits in his hair, and he doesn’t smell anywhere near as bad as me.
Having finally stopped laughing, Kallum comes over and points at me. “You need to put on some weight,” he says, “you look too much like a snack.”
“I knew you thought she was a snack,” Huang says sagely, nodding.
Kallum jumps away from me. “Ew. No way,” he says. “She’s old.”
“Hey!” I protest. “You’re older than me.”
“Yes, but I’m a vampire who was frozen at twenty, and you’re a human….who’s well –” His eyes flick down my body. “Let herself...”
My eyes narrow at him, and he wisely turns his attention to his colleague. “And that includes you too, Huang. Riona likes to pounce on the small fry, so you need to beef up.”
The guy looks like someone stretched him in Photoshop – all limbs, no mass. A palm tree rather than an oak.
Huang grins as he locks his fingers under his chin and flutters his long black eyelashes. “Head Himbo thinks I’m a snack,” he coos.
“Ugh.” Kallum shakes his head, and I grin, but I’m not ready to let his ‘let yourself go’ comment go. So I tuck my clipboard under my arm and hold out my hands.
“Hand me your buckets,” I say with the authority of being his boss. “I’ll feed the kelpies while you clean this up.”
He shakes his head. “Sorry, ma’am. But no can do. If you try to feed the kelpies smelling like their breakfast, they’ll pull you in and eat you.”
“Kelpies don’t eat people. That’s a myth. They’re vegetarians.”
“Oh yeah, my bad. They’ll pull you in and drown you. That’s so much better,” he says, looking at me pointedly.
I purse my lips, but I don’t really have anything to say to that.
“I reckon it would be better to be drowned than get eaten by a water horse,” Huang says, nodding. “Their teeth are for crushing and grinding, not slicing clean like a shark, you know?”
