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Akoni waved his hand with an expectant glimmer on his skin.
Auryn lifted handfuls of my hand and twisted it in a cord around his hands. “No, love. It’s not. And that’s what we all like.”
True…
Eleven
Keon packed his tablets into his small satchel. He gave me an affectionate, but discreet, caress along the arm as he stepped away from the table.
I tried not to pout. “Will you at least tell mesomething?”
“There are words. Many, many words.”
“Not the sort of update I was hoping for.” Hekon’s Super Secret Society of Repurposed Topside Drakes had their own little fun clubhouse with a sign that readNO CHAOS DRAGONS ALLOWED.
Auryn and I had to wait for the Dekka-Approved Digest Edition, and that currently had exactly one page, and it readLOL, NO.
I picked at my steamed bun. It was my favorite (mulberry) but hard to enjoy it when my stomach felt halfway across the planet with worry. I managed a bite before I picked up my phone and banged my head once more against the wall of my family.
[MESSAGE BLOCKED]
[MESSAGE BLOCKED]
[MESSAGE BLOCKED]
[MESSAGE BLOCKED]
I turned my phone back down on the table.
“I am impressed with your family’s commitment to stonewalling you,” Auryn commented.
“Now you know where I get my stubbornness from.” I popped another bite of bun into my mouth.
“But what’s the ultimate goal? They clearly still think of you. The parrot tree topper. The fact they had a stocking for you. How are you supposed to make amends if they won’t talk to you?”
“I’m supposed to go home.”Homefelt like an odd thing to say, becausehomewas Dekka’s roost. Buthomewas also North Carolina, even though I hadn’t lived at my parents’ house for years. I’d had a brief post-Auryn stay after my dad had flown to Seattle, pulled me off the park bench where I’d been sleeping rough, and took me back to North Carolina.
Auryn’s eyes crinkled in the corners. “As in, show up on their doorstep?”
“Yep.” I finished my bun but didn’t taste anything. Gulped it down with a wash of lukewarm jasmine tea.
Auryn pressed his leg against mine. “Would they talk to you if you did?”
“They’d talkatme, but notwithme. I get it, or at least I try to.” I looked at the gouge on his chest. My family had picked up the pieces and taped me back together.Theydeserved that horrible necklace of scales that Auryn’s father Kern had been ordered to forge. They’d never really liked Auryn, and they’d never been convinced I’d recovered. Dad had been right about Auryn hiding something. They’d also been right I hadn’t been okay when I’d insisted on going back to Seattle to resume my repaired life. I’d put on the Successful Adulting act for social media. Everyone knew I’d actually faced each day like I was heading back to the mat, broken fingers and all. But like hell I’d confessed it.
Then I’d lied to my sister I’d gone to Antigua on business just for my father to find me in Maurlun. Dad couldn’t have known the dragonsweren’tgoing to let me leave, and his chartered jet would plunge into the ocean if I attempted escape.
Going home would mean unconditional surrender. Lay down my weapons and await further instructions.
“There’s no good way around it.” I’d considered my options, done the calculations, run the simulations. The best-case scenario was I got the Gate open, Homeworld threw us a Welcome Home party, and I faked my own death so my family could move on with their lives.
Yay.
Auryn nudged me gently. He slipped off the bench and offered me his hand.
I accepted. He drew me up, and entwined my hand around his forearm like he’d always done. A familiar, aching pang crossed between us. He clasped his other hand over mine and drew me away from the eatery, but not back towards Dekka’s.
“Where are we going?” We walked down the path lined with a profusion of jasmine flowers and ferns that stretched the length of the harbor. The barges were coming in. Barrels. Apples, perhaps?
