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Kevin looked fretfully down the hallway one last time. “We failed to liberate Magpie… but we didn’t come back empty-handed. We kind of—inadvertently—captured Reynard Drake.”
* * *
Sorin didn’t have time to dress. He bolted down the hallway and into the labyrinthine core of the compound in his underwear, not stopping even when his stomach cramped and his lungs burned, begging for air.
He made a beeline for the holding cells, following the shouts and yells of the Vanguard on scene until he found the source of the hubbub—the field team had just come in from a mission, and were in the process of imprisoning an unconscious Reynard Drake.
Sorin, swearing under his breath, cut through the crowd to find Sandrine at the helm of the operation, stationed by the cell door. She was overseeing the members of the field team who were now clustered in the cell, blindfolding and restraining the captive dragon.
Sorin did not wait for them to finish.
He grabbed Sandrine by the wrist and pulled her out of the throng and around the nearest corner, where they would have some semblance of privacy.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he hissed, gesturing in the general direction of Reynard Drake’s cell. “I didn’t authorize you to lead any missions, let alone one as awful as this.”
“You didn’t.” Sandrine’s eyes took on a strange gleam. “But you told me there was something I could do to help you.”
A chill shot down Sorin’s spine. “What are you saying?”
Sandrine’s voice lit up with hope. “Raven, you don’t have to suffer anymore. I didn’t just bring you a dragon… I’ve brought you your new eggs.”
8
Sorin
Sandrine brought Sorin into a small room across from the holding cell where an unconscious Reynard Drake had been imprisoned. It was typically used for storage, its walls lined with dusty shelves filled with cleaning supplies and other sundries with faded labels and retro packaging, but as Sandrine clicked on the overhead light, Sorin noticed something about it was out of place.
At the very back, on the floor, was a large cardboard box big enough to fit a conventional oven. It was neither dusty nor faded and seemed to have been opened recently—its flaps were closed, but not taped. Rather, they’d been tucked shut. Sandrine went for the box without hesitation, wresting the flaps out of place while Sorin stood beside her, too stunned to do anything but watch the grand reveal.
Inside the box were plain black zippered bags, the topmost of which Sandrine unzipped to reveal an egg.
A dragon egg.
It was a beautiful Amethyst color and glimmered like a diamond might. Five other bags, also containing eggs, were visible, but Sorin knew there were eleven in total.
He knew, because he could feel them.
They called to him.
Cried for him in uncertain whimpers that registered like the barest brushes of silk over his soul.
Sorin’s heart broke for them immediately. They were scared and wanting love, but they were too timid to latch on to him. They didn’t know what was happening. All they knew was that their father was gone, and that they were afraid.
It made Sorin want to gather them in his arms and hold them close until they knew they were safe, and loved, and wanted. To bask with them shirtless in bed while sunshine streamed in through the window, warming them all. It made him want to watch them hatch. To kiss their little scaly heads. To laugh at their antics as they grew, and celebrate loudest of all when they learned to breathe fire, and fly, and transform into boys.
It made him want to make them his.
As though they knew it, the gentle caresses from their egg bonds nuzzled up against that golden place inside of him where his bond with Bertram was rooted. Sorin, gasping, grasped the side of the box to keep himself from falling to his knees.
“Babies,” he breathed, voice quavering from the onset of tears. He reached a shaking hand out for the nearest one, wanting so badly to touch it, to bond with it, and to let it know it was going to be okay, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
He remembered a time, many hundreds of years ago, when his eggs had been taken from him.
Stolen from him.
It had rotted his heart and his mind with grief so thoroughly that he still felt it to this day—and that was without having ever touched one of his eggs. Without having truly known their love.
But these were Magpie’s eggs.
