“That’s the best suggestion I’ve heard all day.”
~
Jess, still a little dazed, followed Wrath into the house. Things were starting to click for her as she sat in front of the fireplace and picked up a cookie from the plate Wrath had set down on the coffee table.
Wrath waved his hand at the fireplace and it sparked to life. It was spring and still sometimes cool out.
“Would you like tea or something stronger?” he asked.
“Tea is fine,” Jess said.
Wrath went into the kitchen, leaving Jess to think and munch on ginger snaps.
Her boss, Mr. Drake, was a dragon. The name should have been a clue. She wondered if Clarence knew. If he did, he never let on. She was tempted to text him and find out but knew she shouldn’t. The existence of dragons was obviously a secret.
That’s when she realized Wrath didn’t intend for her to leave. Not only had she seen that he was a dragon, but she’d also seen that Lily was a basilisk. He’d have to be sure she wouldn’t tell anyone before he’d let her out of his sight, wouldn’t he?
Had her mother and grandmother known about dragons and considered them a threat? Did a dragon they’d targeted take pity on her and help her pay for college?
She was also curious about whether Wrath was right about her having magic. If she did, what kind of magic was it? If she did have magic, maybe he’d be more likely to trust her not to tell anyone about him.
Her mind drifted back to Mr. Drake. If he’d just found out that Jess had been sent to spy on a dragon with a bad reputation, it would make sense for him to panic. Wrath said he hadn’t even met his younger brother, so all Drake had to go on was what he heard about Wrath from family members. That would make it hard for him to make a fair assessment.
Drake must have implicitly trusted whoever had told him to send her.
So, why was she sent? She was obviously supposed to draw Wrath in somehow, but why? What was the end game?
“I know what you’re thinking. I can see it in the way your brow is furrowed,” Wrath said as he set a mug down on the table in front of her.
He sat in a leather wingback chair with his own tea.
“What am I thinking?” Jess asked.
“Who would win in a fight, a dragon or a basilisk? What more important question is there?”
His smile was disarming. She found herself smiling back. “Okay, who would win?”
“The answer depends entirely on the dragon. Basilisks can’t fly so the dragon can stay out of harm’s way. The question is whether it can launch an attack from the air that would hurt the basilisk. On the ground, scale to scale combat, the basilisk can win while it’s napping. Earth dragons can kill a basilisk easily, a firedrake like myself can as well. Our fire is hotter than anything other dragons can manage.
“An air dragon could suffocate the basilisk, but it would take a while. Otherwise, the best they could hope for is blowing it around and inflicting blunt trauma. A water dragon wouldn’t be able to do much. Basilisks are immune to direct magic attacks like an attempt to stop blood flow and they can stay under water in high pressure for quite some time. An ice dragon couldn’t use its normal tricks, it can only freeze them scale deep. Regular dragon fire wouldn’t do anything to them.”
He seemed to be speaking from experience. “Dragons fight basilisks?”
“They have. The first time, they were thinking of it as fighting a wingless dragon. Easy mark for two mature dragons. They attacked, the first one was struck with a warning bite, very little venom but he was incapacitated. The second came from behind and bit the basilisk. He got a full dose of toxin and died instantly. The first managed to make it back to his people to get help. I hear he nearly died. That attack started a war.”
“How did the basilisks survive if dragons can attack from the air?”
“They had a dragon on their side, remember? They’re the product of a dragon and an imp. Only an idiot would expect a dragon to turn on his own offspring. Though, there were some idiots who had that expectation.”
And now Wrath was a dragon living with basilisks. “You’re related to that dragon?”
“I am that dragon,” he said somberly. “I’ve lived a long time. My mate died in Herculaneum. She was trying to get her sister to evacuate before a jilted fae prince could set off the volcano. She failed, unfortunately. I don’t know what happened exactly. I felt it when she died, though. I was on my way to meet her.”
Herculaneum? If she remembered her history documentaries correctly, Herculaneum was destroyed by an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius at the same time as Pompeii. She didn’t know the year, but it was back when togas were all the rage. Two thousand years ago?
No wonder he hesitated to talk about the age of his brother Aegidius.
“That’s why Drake is afraid of you,” Jess said. “You’re the leader of the enemies of dragons. You fought your own kind. Your own family.”
“I did. Kurt only knows what the family has told him and I’m sure none of that is good. I killed some of my own nephews. The basilisk who was attacked was my grandson, though. They wanted him dead because he was openly defiant against Kur, the first dragon. They thought of him as a rebel leader. The war gave basilisks freedom from dragon rule.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“To see if we can come to the answer of why you’re really here. I’m certain my eldest brother, Etel, sent you. Kurt would hesitate to question Etel on anything. He’s more powerful than any of us aside from our father. Even then, I think he might have a fighting chance. My
