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“Sorry, dragons tend to like warm weather. I can turn the heat down if you’d like.”
“Nah,” Paige said as she screwed the cap back on the two-liter. “I’ll just ditch my hoodie.
Dewey fluttered next to her as she began tugging the thick fabric up. “I changed my mind and decided I wanted another breadstick and more soda.”
Paige smirked at him, sliding the two-liter across the counter toward him before she slipped her arms out of the hoodie’s sleeves. She shimmied the garment up over her head, her ponytail flicking as she pulled it free from the fabric. The collar knocked her glasses askew, and she straightened them.
With a snap, she straightened out any kinks in the garment and started to fold it when a crash sounded behind her. The pizza box Dewey held smacked into the stone-tiled kitchen floor.
“Paige!” he shouted.
Paige twisted to glance over her shoulder at him. He floated in the air, his eyes wide and his jaw hanging open. His blue-pink tongue hung out of his gaping mouth.
“Where did you get that?”
“Get what?” Paige asked, crinkling her brow. She glanced at the hoodie. “This?” She waved the fabric in the air.
Dewey squashed his blue lips together and shook his head. He shoved at her shoulder with his scaly finger. “No, no, no, this!”
“Oh, that scratch?” Paige asked as she finished folding her hoodie into a neat square. “I’m not sure. I woke up with it. Dickens must have scratched me in the middle of the night.”
She lifted her shoulders in a nonchalant shrug.
Dewey’s breathing turned ragged as he stared at her back, his eyes wide.
Paige set her hoodie on the bar counter and bent over to swipe the discarded box from the floor. “What’s wrong with you?”
Dewey gasped, descending to the floor as he caught his breath. On his hind legs, he stood about as tall as Paige’s knee.
He lifted his eyes up to her face slowly and gave his tiny head a small shake. “Paige…that’s no cat scratch.”
Paige wrinkled her nose, shoving her glasses farther up on her nose. “What else could it be? I didn’t have it when I went to bed, and I woke up with it. Hurts like the Dickens, too.” She snorted a laugh. “Get it?”
“This is no laughing matter,” Dewey said, his face filled with concern and worry.
She still wore a smile across her face, and she stuck a fist on her hip. “What are you talking about?”
Dewey swallowed hard, his eyes lowering before snapping back up to Paige’s face. “Paige…that scratch… That’s the mark of the beast.”
CHAPTER 15
“Huh? Mark of the what?” Paige slid her eyes side to side, then she offered him a confused glance.
The glass in her hands rattled to the counter as she squashed her eyebrows together.
Dewey scrunched his nose, his spikes wiggling as steam escaped his flared nostrils.
“Mark of the beast,” he growled with a clenched jaw.
“Yeah,” Paige said with a snorting laugh, “I’ll say. Mark of the beast named Dickens.”
Dewey flicked his gaze up to her. “No, no, no,” he said, waving his paws at her. “Beast. Scary. Not a cat.”
His wings beat hard, and he flitted up to her level with his teeth bared and his paws spread, claws showing.
Paige screwed up her face. “What?”
Dewey floated back a few inches, his face a mask of surprise. “Maybe you will be a terrible librarian!”
