"It's because you're being a dick," Vadriq said as he walked into the room, carrying a plate of sandwiches. "You know you're being a dick. I know you're being a dick. You're usually a giant cock but this? Love, this is so much worse than your typical bullshit."
I sat down without a word, wondering if Vadriq wanted anything in particular written on his tombstone. Eskal turned his head to gaze at his lover, his face carefully neutral. "And what would you have me do?"
"Let her come to us. She keeps having explosions of magic because we're near her. Eventually, something will happen and she'll be driven into our stead. Then, we ply her. We bend her. We beg her. She'll give in. We'll have our eggs hatched and alliances to make. The Yarrow flight is begging for an alpha, by the way."
"You spoke to Alashia?" I asked.
Vadriq shoved a sandwich in his mouth and settled in. "As long as she would talk to me. She has six betas under her flight, including herself. No alpha. No omegas. They've been pairing off, but any eggs have been infertile. Dragonkind is dying out, so say the rest of the flights we have contact with. The magic is leaving this world, and what are we if not magic?"
Eskal wrinkled his nose at him but didn't say a word. I picked up a sandwich, myself, and shook my head. "We've outlasted periods like this before. Shifters aren't magic, exactly."
"Close enough for it to be a problem. Three eggs have been hatched in the past two years. That's low, even for us," Vadriq said.
"And lower, still, if we lose the eggs the museum has," I sighed. "You didn't mention them to anyone, right?"
Silence took the room and a sinking feeling overtook me. Eskal stared at Vadriq. "You didn't."
"I didn't see any reason to keep them a secret. It's not as if anyone can do anything with them other than us, right?" Vadriq swallowed.
Eskal said nothing. He got up from his seat and swept from the room. After a moment, a door slammed shut. I found myself rubbing my temples again. The headache compounded itself. "But they don't know where we are, right?"
"I don't think they do. To the best of my knowledge, they know the state but not the city."
"Not that it matters," Iyadre said, taking Eskal's seat for his own. "The opal find will be all over the news. Digs like this find so little, so often, that when they do it's an explosion of press. I wouldn't be surprised if you have to wade through them in the morning."
I frowned at him. "How did you know we have to attend the site in the morning?"
"Hudson called me, first."
I made a face and took another sandwich. I didn't think the wolves were trying to play us against each other, but they all knew that I was the point of contact for legal issues like this. Besides, it hadn't even been Hudson who had spoken to me, which may or may not have been an insult now that I thought of it.
Rather than sit and chat with my wingmates, I got up and went back to the guest room I usually slept in. It was a quiet, windowless room that was kept a bit too warm. The walls were all smoky blue with some ridiculous pattern around the top rim of it. I dropped into the bed and watched the ceiling.
Were we to manage to take the eggs for ourselves, it still didn't solve our problems. We would need to hatch them before we could lay claim to the whelps. Worse, what if they were infertile after all that time in the ground? Our endeavors would be for nothing.
And yet I couldn't, in good conscience, allow someone like Alashia to try to hatch her own alpha. Dragon flights were always in competition with one another and I sometimes wondered if another flight had been the ones to send the government in after us. Though Eskal had shot that down early on, it held some merit.
It was something I intended to look into, one of these days.
I didn't mean to fall asleep, but a fully belly makes anyone tired. I only knew I had when the incessant chirping of birds bit into my conscious awareness. A quick look at the clock confirmed my worst suspicion: I'd slept through dinner and made it all the way until 7 the next morning.
"Damn it," I muttered, rubbing the top of my head.
There was never enough time to sleep, not when one worked as hard as I did. I dragged myself through my morning routine, making sure my shower was set to blast ice in my face. It was the only way I could actually wake up these days.
Still yawning, I went downstairs and found the rest of the flight had already left for the day. A note from Iyadre stood on the table, folded in half so I would notice it.
"Nariti," I read aloud. "We're headed to the dig site. Join us when you're awake. Your breakfast is in the microwave. Just hit 2 and it should be ready to go in no time."
I glanced at the microwave and pushed the appropriate button, waited, then retrieved a platter of protein the likes of which most athletes would kill for. And Iyadre had been kind enough to leave me the honey and biscuits I craved every time I heard him get the flour out of the refrigerator.
There was a distinct lack of coffee, but it would do. I settled in, enjoyed my breakfast, and browsed through the news articles on my phone. He'd been right. There were three mentions of the new opal
