She didn't like that. The glare she gave me was something that would scorch most. I tried not to smile. "I need your help."
"And what could someone like me do for you?" I asked, setting my palms against the machine and leaning back against it. I was going to enjoy this. Whether she asked for love or money, we would fulfill what she needed. And then we would pull her into a contract to help with the eggs-
She shook her head. "Not here."
That said, she turned around and left. Curious, I followed her. We made our way to her car, a nice little rental number with a tiny hole melted in the trunk. I blinked at that. What could some little human have done to a whole car to do that?
Olivia popped open the aforementioned trunk and lunged inside it. She'd parked far enough away from the rest of the vehicles, from the site, that no one could see us.
And in her grasp, she held a tiny, newly hatched, dragon whelp. It immediately flared its neck frill at me and screamed, shooting a burst of fire from its mouth. Needle-sharp teeth snapped at Olivia, but she was too quick for it. She wrapped its head in the towel she held it in and clutched it to her chest, her eyes wide with panic.
My heart swelled so much I thought I might die.
Chapter 8
Olivia
"No."
I stared up at him, knowing what he was and what he was capable of. The monster in my hands thrashed and flailed, intent on getting away from me again. He'd smashed half of the ceramics in my room and thank goodness the cleaning ladies only cleaned every other day. I'd have to spend a fortune to replace everything, but I'd do it.
This?
I couldn't do this.
"What the fuck do you mean, no?" I whispered, tightening my hold on the baby.
Nariti shrugged at me. "Why should we help you when you had no interest in helping us? I suppose I should warn you. Most dragons are venomous at birth and I cannot possibly imagine the local hospitals are equipped to cope with that."
All the blood in my body drained into my feet. How many times had the whelp bitten me in the past few hours? Was that why I felt lightheaded? Why I was certain that I was dying? Or had it been the fact that he'd kept me up all night, trying to silence his screams while the rest of the normal world slept?
"He's your kind. He's your people. You wanted some eggs hatched; I hatched one! You take him!" I snapped, shoving the bundle at the man.
He stepped away and shrugged again. "It was your egg. Your responsibility. Besides, he's not going to allow us near him until you allow it. He'll never take food from any of us. Only you."
The whelp managed to writhe free of my grip and flung itself on my shoulder. It hissed at Nariti again, crawled up my hair, and spit another ball of fire at the man. I grabbed it by its middle and it keened, breaking my heart to pieces.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I whispered, laying the whelp in my arms. Had I smashed it by accident? As wild as it was, it seemed like it was incredibly frail.
I wasn't good with delicate things. Which, you know, that had held me back a bit in my career. I'd tried to pull half a vase out of the ground too early once and completely shattered the poor thing, ruining any value it had. But the dragon had been so tough, so rowdy, that I hadn't even thought about it being a baby when I'd-
With a roar of contempt that came out like a dog's squeaky toy, it charged up my shoulder once more. Nariti snatched the towel from my hands, wrapped it up in a burrito-type style, and tied each end together to keep the little bastard where he belonged. His head was still out, squawking at both of us. I looked up at the dragon with a desperate plea on my face. How was I supposed to work and deal with this thing at the same time?
Nariti looked the two of us over. "I don't see anything we can do. You're in this situation because you hatched an egg. If only you knew a dragon who had an idea of how to transfer a whelp's imprint to someone else. What a tragedy that you don't."
He turned to leave and I grabbed his arm, balancing the whelp in the crook of my other. "You can't just leave me like this."
"Why not?" he asked, looking back at me over his shoulder. "You were going to do the same to us. Enjoy it."
With that, he tugged away from me and headed back towards the trailer. I couldn’t possibly go back to work and leave the whelp in the trunk all day; he'd either rip his way through it or he'd burn up. You didn't leave a dog in your car because it would overheat, I assumed the same was true about baby dragons.
Though, maybe he could be kept tied up somewhere? We were stuck in town, but maybe I could hide him under the trailer? If I snuck under it at lunch, I could tie him to one of the axels and keep him there for the day.
The idea would never work. He'd shoot fireballs at someone's ankles and hurt them. I chewed my lower lip as I tightened the knots on the towel. What the hell was I going to do?
The last, unknown dragon walked past my location, headed back to his bike. I ran to him, sneaking behind the cars on my way. I shoved the baby's head back into the towels and pinned it
