Page 28 of Consorting with Dragons

“He’s not eating much. And he-he cries sometimes.”

“What?”He jumped from his chair, hurting his side and clutching it for a moment in pain. I rushed to his side to lower him back down.

“Now see what you’ve done,” I said, as alarms went off on his monitor. “The doctors will be in here in a moment. You could have hurt yourself again.”

“I didn’t, so let them come! Tell me about my dragon.”

“Rylan, be reasonable, please. He’s notyourdragon.”

“He sure thinks he is.”

Since that was undoubtedly true, I could hardly deny it. The doctor came in then and reset the alarm. He gave me an odd look as he went back out and told me to please be careful not to undo all his hard work. I sighed again and tried to change the subject.

“Look, we need to talk about your relatives’ upcoming visit. They’ll be here very soon, and preparations need to be made.”

“First I have to see my dragon.”

“Rylan…”

“Please. Maybe he’ll eat for me. He’s too young to go without food. Please let me try to talk to him.”

I blew out a breath. “If I were to take you to him—and I’m not saying I will—then you can’t make him think he’ll be leaving. You have to coax him to eat and accept his new Rider.”

“Oh no. He won’t accept his new Rider either? That poor baby. What have you people done to him?”

“Rylan, he’s not a baby, so please stop calling him that. And he won’t stay little for long, you know. I told you how big he’s liable to get, and he could even get bigger. My dragon is fully grown and weighs almost 12 tons. Are you familiar with Alliance measurements?”

“Yes. Blake is human, and he taught us lots of things about Earth.”

“Yes. I knew that. We’ve heard a lot about King Davos’s consort.”

“I’ll bet. And some of it may even be true. But only the good stuff. You’ll get to meet him soon, and you’ll see for yourself. Both my omak and my omak-ahn are wonderful.”

“I look forward to meeting them,” I told him. Again, I didn’t mean a word of it.

“You don’t look so sure about that, but you’ll see. I’m so anxious to see them both. But I want to see the dragon now. Please take me to him or bring him here to me.”

“That may not be a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s already confused, and he has to stop all this foolishness and settle in. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise, what? What will you do to him?”

“You understand that the ten-ton beast he will become one day has to earn his keep…which is considerable. We’ll give him every chance, but…”

“But what?” His face visibly paled right in front of me. “Would you kill him?”

“Kill him? Certainly not. But we’d have to send him to the breeding grounds and clip his wings so he couldn’t fly away.”

“No!” Rylan shouted at me in outrage, his eyes dark with anger. “I forbid it. No, I’ll talk to King Davos, andhe’llforbid it!”

“Stop all this now and calm down. Getting so excited is not good for you.”

“Then you’d better take me to my dragon. I insist!”

Chapter Nine

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