Maybe, but I doubted it.
I went back to grab our lunch when a bell rung off in the distance. When we'd first attached ourselves to the project, we'd done as we always did: we mounted a giant bell in the center of the dig so we could ring an alarm whenever someone found something major.
And whoever had found it was beating the hell out of the bell. I took off at a run and gasped when I saw Nicole trying to get everyone's attention.
There, in our little divot in the ground, sat a perfectly oval, solid black egg the size of my head.
What the hell?
Chapter 3
Eskal
I traded a glance with Hudson, frowning. Were the humans so excited over another bit of shell? Impossible.
Nariti at my heels, I followed the commotion. The wolves were close behind us, irritating by their very presence. If an item had been found, it was mine. How dare they consider laying claim to my world?
I peered down into the miserable little mud pit the humans had created, were wallowing in at the moment. So many hands, too many heads. Nariti saw it before I did, grabbing my wrist in a steely grip that gave me no manner in which to move.
The egg was a perfect oval, dirty from decades hidden in the soil, but as black as my scales. As I watched, they unearthed another. This one was solid gold, sparkling in the daylight even through the filth on it. I couldn't breathe, couldn't wrap my mind around what I was seeing. Mother's final nest had been a complete loss.
And humans had found it. I'd never dreamed she would bury the little ones, leaving them in stasis until she could hatch them. Had she known what was going to happen to her, to the rest of us? Had she suspected the humans were plotting against her and put the eggs into the care of the only being she could trust?
It is our way to respect the soul of the planet beneath us. She feeds us, warms us, birthed us from the flames of her core. And when a mother dragon is frightened, she puts her children as close to that core as she may well risk.
Were they still fertile? Eggs had been hatched centuries after they had been laid, though that had been generations ago. I yanked my arm away from Nariti and slid down into the hole, my thousand-dollar shoes threatening my life. A third egg had been found, this the emerald green of my lost sister's scales. Fascinated, enraptured, I reached for it.
And felt human hands slap mine away.
Rage. Incalculable rage poured through me, crimson fire exploding within my chest. I spun on the human and found the tiny, useless creature with the sandwiches from before. She stared into my eyes and I saw myself in hers, little more than a man angry and ready to slap her down.
There she stood, defiant and scowling, refusing to be frightened away by my posturing. My nostrils flared and I readied to turn her soft, supple flesh into a pile of ash. The flames came at my command, rippling up from my stomach and-
"You'll have to excuse my client," Nariti said, stepping between us. "His father owned an opal mine on this land quite some time ago and to see those stones reappear and, in such quality, I'm certain you understand his reaction."
I coughed a plume of smoke into his hair as I swallowed down the blaze and tried to regain control. What had I been thinking? Roasting a human on the spot because she dared touch me?
Nariti looked back at me, glared, and turned his attention back to the woman. "We must be going. If you would be so kind as to direct me to your overseer, we will set up an account in which you may deposit these opals. We maintain mineral rights to the property as such."
Sweet relief. This was why I bothered to keep Nariti in my employment. He was never at a loss in the middle of any situation and I had...
I had a temper.
"We'll be investigating those rights," Hudson said from behind me.
My gaze turned from the little human, from Nariti's shoulder, to stare back at the local werewolf alpha. I managed to gather my words without the pyrotechnics. "Excuse me?"
"We'll be investigating those rights and following them to the greatest extent of the law," Hudson said. "Those opals appear to be worth a fortune and I have no intention of allowing you to step in and claim them without an investigation. Gabriel?"
The second alpha shrugged. "Doubtless that they have some sort of arrangement, but I'll look into it. There's no reason we can't come to an agreement that pleases everyone."
"If we may speak in private," I gritted.
An agreement that would please everyone? How dare they. If we'd been in the proper setting, I would have had no misgivings about eating both of them. Whole.
As it was, I was certain that they were giving me trouble due to last year's problems with their omega. Hudson's son had bitten a human girl, turning her. It was against every law of the Supernatural Secrecy Pact and it had fallen to me to judge the pup, the omega, and the rest of Hudson's pack.
I had spent a
