Page 15 of Hoarded By the Dragon

My history stealing, the forging, and my attempts to make amends. Obviously, I omitted any details so she couldn’t call the authorities on me. I’m reckless, not stupid.

Instead of this sending her running, she’d brightened and asked more questions. It’s an odd way to start a friendship, but we found common ground.

We’re both rejects of a sort. I’d been raised in foster care with no knowledge of my parents or that I wasn’t human until my teens.

Stella had a different problem. Her father is a shifter of some sort, but she didn’t come out a shifter. Witch genes are supposed to be recessive, so her mother was sent back to her family, and the business arrangement that was the marriage dissolved. The shifter family then took out their revenge on her mother’s family, sabotaging their businesses through backroom dealings.

“Have they never heard of a DNA test?” I ask in disbelief.

Stella only shakes her head, lips thin. “It didn’t matter. I’m not a shifter. So they won’t claim me. It happens sometimes, but it’s super rare. Lucky me.”

“What happened?” Stella asks, though she squints her eyes in a way that communicates that she’s already guessed.

“It was just one last thing,” I concede.

She throws her hands up. “It was one last thing the last time he roped you into something. I don’t have to tell you how dangerous it is to do what you do.”

“He was crying, Stel.”

Stella blows out a breath in frustration, and her face softens. “I’m glad you’re in one piece. What was it?”

My shoulders come up.

“Isn’t it enough that I’m done and safe?” I ask. I avoid looking at her while I take the food containers out. I open the first one—

“Not that one. It’s spicy,” she says.

I peek at Stella, and she’s back to glowering at me.

“That you’re avoiding talking about it makes it seem like this time was bad. Spill,” she orders.

I hesitate for a moment, putting my noodles on a plate and in the microwave. Noodles and coffee, yum.

I shouldn’t tell her… but I like that she cares enough to want to know about this. “It was stealing a figurine from some guy.”

She frowns. “That doesn’t sound too bad. What guy?”

“I don’t really think that’s important.” My voice gets higher. The microwave beeps, and I put her food in next.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Stella says.

I wince. “It was really stupid.”

“How stupid?”

I sip my coffee. “Do you know that Kalos guy?”

“The dragon, Kalos?” Stella screeches.

“Yeah, that one, but I’m alive!” I rush to say.

Stella’s eyes are so wide that I go back to avoiding looking at her as I put both of our plates on the sad table that I found on the side of the street. I’d tried to sand out the gouged wordFree, but I’d rather have a carved-up table than an uneven one.

Stella falls into the chair across from me. “Kat, you can’t do something like this again. He could have killed you. He could still do a lot of things to you. Dragons don’t part with their hoard. If rumors are true. He’ll be able to track the piece you took no matter where it goes.”

Well that’s an interesting tidbit.

“I don’t have it anymore,” I say. “And anyway, we kind of traded.”

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