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The other two looked no less serious, puzzling me. “Everyone knows the rules about lessers. We are almost never allowed to fly, just often enough to keep our dragons from completely losing it, and when we do, it’s just right outside the door and under supervision.”
“Everyonedoes not know,” Jude said. “I”—his gaze traveled to the other two before returning to me—“we did not know this.”
I was aghast. “How did you not? Have you even encountered a lesser over the grasslands? Or anywhere else? Are you trying to claim that it’s a big secret that not only are lessers limited in freeing their dragons at all, but that some have completely lost their ability to fly? Their dragons have been so suppressed they can’t even emerge at all?”
“Not claiming.” Nico ran a hand over his face before shaking his head. “It’s true. I assumed some of the lessers just didn’t want to or couldn’t fly, but that it might be genetic. You fly.”
“I do, but my dragon has never been allowed to hunt.”
Jude’s anger radiated from him in waves. “That ends right now. As to the rest, we are higher-ups but not elders. I don’t know what we can do, but we will look into it. Right?” He addressed the others.
They nodded, a similar emotion pouring off them, but they said no more until Nico snarled. “Your dragon must be starving. Let’s go.”
We were all airborne in moments, my dragon confused and edgy when we reached the grasslands. I’d traveled this far only the time I ran away, and that was on foot, but even when the golden stems were behind us, the treetops filling the space under our wings, they did not stop. Where were we going?
We flew for hours, and my wings, unused to such exercise, were aching when a sparkle appeared in the distance. I had been about to try to let them know I wanted a break, but my dragon’s excitement at the sight held me back.
Fish!
She didn’t need to say more, her hunger surging to our wingtips. I had eaten fish in the caves, cooked and usually only the leftovers from the higher-ups. The flavor had always made my dragon angry for some reason, but I thought it was good, and it satisfied my growling belly and made a nice break from porridge and other kinds of scraps.
That’s the sea, then.I strained my eyes to see more, flying faster, my tiredness nearly forgotten.I’ve always wanted to go to the sea.Of course I knew it was out there. After all, the fishermen had to get the product they delivered to us from somewhere. But I’d never considered that I’d be there myself.
And my dragon’s excitement told me how badly she wanted to go. I felt awful. She chose me, or at least that was my understanding of how it worked, and I’d given her a pretty poor excuse for an existence up until now.
Fish!
We flew across the clear blue sky, clouds only visible far ahead, and those white and puffy as if a topping to the turquoise waters below. As we neared, I noticed how clear they were, the sea life beneath swimming here and there, a pod of dolphins cavorting right in front of us. I wondered if they would be afraid of the four fierce dragons approaching, but apparently they knew we were no threat because when we dove toward the waves, they continued feeding and playing as if we did not exist.
Sea birds cries were cut off as I broke the surface, wings pinned back and beak open for the first silvery fish I came to. We swallowed it whole, and took another half dozen before rising for a breath of air. My dragon’s bellows of triumph were echoed by our mates’, the pleasure of eating “real” food for the first time almost topped by that of hunting together.
We fished and dove and played until I was so full, I had to land on the beach to rest, and, soon, my mates joined me. We stayed in dragon form, resting and basking until the moon replaced the sun and we finally turned for home.
Chapter Five
Boredom struck again as I knew it would. I’d counted the walls in this place, rounded and rocky as they were. There were exactly twenty-one windows in the apartment in total, and twenty-two if you counted the tiny keyhole. Did keyholes count as a window?
I groaned and rolled my eyes at myself. Of course not. Keyholes were a genre of their own.
Nico was out. Sometimes he left the apartment and didn’t tell anyone where he was going or when he’d come back. I made the mistake of asking him once and was met with a grunt for an answer, not an answer at all.
A clearing of a throat from the library got my attention. Soren was in there day and night now, searching, reading, pouring himself into books and texts. What he hoped to find there, I didn’t know.
Maybe it was time to find out.
Without asking permission, I walked in. Soren’s right eyebrow moved upward slightly as I moved to the first set of shelves. He was tired. The dark half rings below his eyes told a story none of these books could. His shoulders were hunched over, and his hunger lay stagnant in the air, slightly pulsing.
“What? Jude isn’t entertaining enough today?” Such a loaded question. Jude was out getting groceries and said he had some other things to pick up, but that wasn’t really what Soren was asking. And if I wasn’t mistaken, there was a twinge of jealousy in my brooding mate’s tone. Not that he was fully my mate yet, but still. He pumped his fists open and shut while he pretended to read but, when I turned slightly, I could feel his eyes skimming my form.
Tingles erupted along my skin under my light, almost sheer apricot-colored dress as he caressed me with his gaze. Visions of what could happen on top of his broad oak desk flitted through my mind as my fingers grazed the spines of the books he so lovingly kept here. “Do you want me to leave?” I asked with a whisper.
“You can do what you like,” he said, flat and indignant.
It was all a farce.
“You have all of these books and yet…I’ve never seen you buying any or coming home with any. Did you already have the collection?”
The books were all different, even the ones in the same series or even under the same title. All leather bound with etchings of titles or tiny pictures to complement the subject matter. There were so many that even with my arm fully extended upward, I couldn’t reach the highest shelf, not by a long shot.
