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Well, that only made him want to know what the stuff was even more.
“Amaru!” Ravi shouted, releasing Gregori to descend on him. Nikki continued to hold on to Gregori as if he was afraid the dragon would shift and escape before they could wrangle explosives out of him. “You need to join us. We’re bored and Gregori won’t share a tiny bit of explosives with us.”
“For good reason!” Gregori chimed in. He leaned forward, eyes locked on Ravi. “I heard about the confetti bomb you and Cassie cooked up.”
“Oh my gawd!” Ravi moaned, tossing his head back dramatically. “It was just one teeny tiny storage closet that got redecorated, and we weren’t even using anything like black powder.”
“That’s my point exactly. If you can trash a closet without explosives, I’m afraid to see what you and Nikki would do with them.”
Amaru pulled free of Vasily’s hold and skipped over to Gregori, taking Ravi’s place opposite the one they were calling Nikki. “But if you’re there with us, you can make sure we’re safe. Plus, I need to understand what this C4 thing is.”
“C4 is explosive clay. You can mold it into different shapes and stuff it into tiny crevices, then make it explode. Hi again! I’m Nikki Burkhard, Gunter’s mate.”
“Hi, Nikki! C4 sounds amazing and I want to see how it works.” He turned his gaze on Gregori. “Please, Gregori. I’ve been asleep for soooooo long. I’m missing out on so many new things that have been invented. Please, teach me about C4 and black powder and all your lovely explosives.”
Was it over the top? Possibly.
Was he throwing everything he had at Gregori? Pretty much.
Was it working? Maaaaayyybbbeeeee…
While he batted his eyes at Gregori just like Nikki, the dragon threw a look past them at Vasily and Luka. Amaru glanced back to see Vasily wincing and shaking his head. Luka lifted both hands as if trying to ward off Gregori’s glare.
“Don’t look at me. I have no control over any of this,” Luka quickly argued.
Gregori moaned. “Okay. Fine. A little explosives. But we need to move farther from the lake. I don’t want to risk anything rattling the grotto or mixing with those storm clouds.”
“YAY!” Amaru squealed. He threw himself at Gregori, wrapping his arms around the dragon’s neck while pressing a kiss to his cheek. “This is going to be amazing!”
“Uh-I-yeah,” Gregori stammered, his cheeks flushing a bright red and his eyes darting to the ground. “Why don’t you go find a nice clearing away from the camp and the lake where we can work? I’ll get some supplies.”
“Deal!” Ravi agreed. “I think we already have a place. Amaru? This way!” Ravi pointed toward a break in the trees and started toward it.
Before Amaru took a step, he paused and glanced at his dragons, who hadn’t moved an inch. Their expressions were strange. Kind of a mix of open-mouthed shock and amusement. Was this bemusement? Possibly. If anything, Luka seemed more relaxed than he had been yesterday and this morning. The tension that had pulled his shoulders tight was gone and so were the little lines around his mouth. Maybe he liked blowing things up too. This was what they all needed.
“You’re coming with us, right?” Amaru asked. A little prod to keep them together.
Vasily rubbed his chin, half hiding his smile behind his hand. “Probably best if we do. Just to protect Gregori from you, Nikki, and Ravi.”
“Hey!” Nikki cried out as they followed behind the wind dragon.
“Yep! Definitely coming with you,” Luka suddenly agreed. He bumped his shoulder against Vasily’s and smiled at him. “It’ll be fun.”
Could this day get any better? Time with his dragons, new friends, and explosives! If only he could figure out how to tackle the sleeping clan issue. Maybe he could just blow the devices up and that would fix it.
No. He’d probably blow his clan up as well.
Blowing up Irany might be nice, but not the rest of them.
He wove his way through the dense trees, following behind Nikki as they talked about all the interesting things they’d learned about the Valerii and Sousa since coming to Brazil. They made some off-hand comments about them being far more interesting than the Jaeggi they’d been held captive by. Amaru filed that unexpected nugget away for later. Now might not be the best time to ask about things like that when they were doing fun stuff. But Vasily and Luka might know.
Yes, that was a better plan. Cuddle up with his dragons and ask them about Nikki and their time with the Jaeggi. That would work.
As Vasily and Luka walked beside him, he flashed both dragons a smile. This was as it should be.
Those thoughts flew from his head when he spotted Ravi in his slate blue dragon form in the middle of a newly made clearing. It might have had a little clear space, but the wind dragon was low to the ground, wings spread, as he whipped around and around in a circle, using his long spiked tail and wings as scythes to cut down smaller trees and bushes and then push the debris out of the way.
