Page 38 of Talon

“Where have you been?” she whispered harshly, giving me a shake. I bit my lip to keep from crying out in pain. “I’ve been trying to contact you for hours. Why didn’t you answer?”

Too late, I remembered all the missed calls on my phone. The unknown number was probably hers. But she had never called me before; it was just assumed I’d see her again the next morning. “I was at the mall,” I whispered back. “I didn’t hear my phone ring.”

“Get in there,” Scary Talon Lady snapped, shoving me toward the living room. “Mind your manners, if you have any.” Her poisonous-green eyes narrowed to slits. “I swear, hatchling, if you embarrass me, you’ll pay for it tomorrow.”

Rubbing my bruised arm, I walked into the living room.

As I crossed the threshold, six people turned to stare at me. Uncle Liam and Aunt Sarah stood in the kitchen, glaring at me over the counter, but they weren’t important. Neither was Dante’s trainer, who stood along the opposite wall, his hands folded in front of him. Dante, sitting alone in the middle of the couch, shot me a relieved, almost frightened look as the pair of strangers in the room turned their attention to me.

A man rose from the armchair, a smile stretching across his narrow face. The smile looked forced, somehow, not real. As if he had seen pictures of a smile and was imitating them, but didn’t understand the meaning. My dragon hissed and cringed back as two pale blue eyes settled on me, ancient and terrifying. An adult, and a really old one at that, the way my instincts were screaming at me to run. He wore a plain gray business suit, and his dark hair was cut close, as was the neatly trimmed goatee.

“Ah, Ember Hill.” When he spoke, the entire room fell silent. Not that anyone had been speaking before, but my trainer, Dante’s trainer, our guardians and the well-muscled man in a black suit standing beside his chair all went completely motionless, their attention solely on him. His voice was low, confident, similar to the one I’d heard in the secret room that night, and I wondered if this was the same dragon. He gestured to the sofa where Dante sat, rigid and unmoving. “Please, have a seat.”

Warily, I sat, giving my brother a quick, nervous glance. “What’s going on?” I said, gazing around at the ring of somber adults, all still watching the man in the suit. “Are we in trouble?”

“Trouble? No, of course not.” Another blank, empty smile. “Why would you be in trouble?”

“Um...” I decided not to answer that. “No reason. I was just...curious.”

“This is a routine visit,” the man continued, his pale blue eyes watching me with the unblinking stare of a hawk. “There is no reason to be alarmed. My superiors sent me to check on your progress, see how you are coming along in your new home. So...” He laced his fingers under his chin, regarding us intently. “Have you settled in all right? Are you happy here?”

All attention shifted to us. Scary Talon Lady watched me from across the room, her eyes gleaming dangerously. It wouldn’t matter what I said, I realized. I was expected to be happy, settled in and doing fine. Admitting I was anything but would be useless, and probably result in a lot of pain for me tomorrow morning. Talon didn’t care about our happiness; they just wanted to make sure we were following the rules. The discussion I’d overheard with Liam and Sarah in the secret room only confirmed that.

“Yeah,” I muttered as Dante stated a polite “Yes, sir” at the same time. “Everything’s peachy.”

As expected, the man in the suit didn’t notice my flat tone of voice, and if he did, he didn’t care. But my trainer’s eyes grew hard and cold and terrifying, making me cringe inside. Oh, I was going to pay for this tomorrow.

“Good!” the man in the suit exclaimed with a brisk nod. “Talon will be pleased to hear it.” His gaze shifted to Dante’s trainer and Scary Talon Lady, standing by the far wall. “And their education? How are they progressing?”

“The boy is doing well, sir,” said Dante’s teacher. I noticed he didn’t even look at the other man but stared straight ahead, averting his eyes. I shivered. In Talon society, looking directly into a dragon’s eyes and holding its gaze was considered a challenge or a threat. Of course, living among humans with their sloppy glances and wandering eyes, we’d learned to adapt, but you still didn’t want to hold a staring contest with an older, more powerful dragon. At best, it was considered extremely rude and asking for trouble. At worst, you’d get your head bitten off.

“And the girl?” The man in the suit looked at Scary Talon Lady. “There are concerns within the organization that your student lacks...discipline. Is this true?”

My trainer smiled, but it was an ominous, threatening smile, directed right at me.

“Oh, she’s coming along, sir,” my trainer said, her eyes gleaming with dark promise. “There are a few issues we need to work on, but worry not. We’ll fix them. We will indeed.”

I wasnotlooking forward to tomorrow.

The man in the suit stayed a while longer, asking questions, speaking to my trainer and my guardians, occasionally talking to me and Dante. The tension in the room did not go away, and I began to feel very twitchy surrounded by four adult dragons, all their attention directed at me. Not only that, one of Talon’s cardinal rules was never to have too many dragons in one place at once, as it attracted St. George like moths to a flame. Some of Talon’s higher-ups, the big shots closest to the Elder Wyrm, never ventured into the open. Like the Elder Wyrm—Talon’s CEO and the most powerful dragon in existence—they remained behind the scenes and in the shadows. If the man in the suit was as important as everyone seemed to think he was, having him in Crescent Beach was really weird. Why would someone this powerful pay a visit to two insignificant hatchlings, just to see if they were “happy”?

Something else was going on, but I couldn’t figure out what. Just another mystery to add to the big, ominous cloud called Talon.

As the afternoon waned, Aunt Sarah politely offered to cook dinner for everyone, and it was just as politely declined. The man in the suit rose, spoke once more to our trainers, then turned to me and Dante. He didn’t say anything, though, just regarded us with those pale blue eyes that were somehow reptilian even in human form. With a nod and a last empty smile, he turned and left the room, his bodyguard following him out. They didn’t walk out the front door, but vanished down the basement stairs, probably going to the secret tunnel. The door creaked shut behind them.

I felt a presence beside me and turned to face my instructor, who beamed one of her scary smiles in my direction. She did not look pleased.

“Well,” she said in a conversational tone, despite the evilness of her expression. “You certainly made an impression, didn’t you? It appears that Talon thinks you have potential but you lack discipline.” Her smile grew wider, and her eyes glimmered. “We will have to work on that, won’t we? Rest up tonight, hatchling. Tomorrow is going to be...interesting.”

Garret

Ember was late again.

Parked under the same grove of palm trees from a few days ago, I checked my watch for the third time since arriving at the cove. Eighteen minutes past noon, and still no sign of the girl. I wondered if she’d “lost track of time” again, or had just forgotten. To me, it was incomprehensible. In the Order, punctuality was everything. You were either on time, or you were early, but you wereneverlate. If a superior told you to meet them in the chapel at 0400, for no special reason whatsoever, you had better be in that pew when the time rolled around or you’d risk pulling KP duty for a month.

I figured the locals of Crescent Beach didn’t worry too much about being on time, at least in the summer. The whole place had a lazy serene feel to it, where you took each day as it came and didn’t stress about time, place or anything.

I could never live like that, not on a regular basis. It would drive me crazy. Much like these strange, unfamiliar urges a certain red-haired girl stirred in me. I didn’t understand them, and I wasn’t sure I liked them. When Ember had taken my hand yesterday, I’d frozen. For the first time in my life, I hadn’t known what to do. Looking back, I realized that it was highly unusual that I hadn’t responded, that I’d even let her touch me in the first place. In the Order, if anyone grabbed me like that, they would be on the ground. It was reflex, a reaction you couldn’t help when your life was constantly on the line.

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