Fledgling Read online

Aiden nodded and let go of her face. He took her hand in both of his, and this time, his touch was cold against her skin.

  “He was insane,” she realized, “He actually thought I was family. I thought that, too.”

  She had had a prime case of Stockholm Syndrome. Had she known that Dustin wasn’t related to her by blood? It had never bothered her, at least not in the memories Austin had, that the two looked nothing like each other. She just wanted her brother safe from harm. Dustin had said that if anyone else took care of her, they would not accept her. Only he could really take care of her.

  She was scared for her future. When she was a kid, her Halfling status hadn’t seemed serious. She was always kept separated from anyone but Dustin, so she had never had reason to fear being found out. Now she would be surrounded by dragons, some of whom, or so the story went, could read minds. At any time, she could slip up and they would find out.

  And then she would die.

  She asked, still shocked from the experience, “Where is he?”

  “Dustin got away,” Aiden answered, taking a bite out of his own sandwich, “After promising that he would be back for you. We’re going to have to take him seriously from now on.”

  Something that Dustin had said yesterday was bugging her. It was making her suspicious, something that she shouldn’t be, “Was he right? Did you know that he would come for me?”

  “Of course not,” Aiden reassured her. Austin wasn’t convinced.

  “Aiden, don’t lie to me,” she said, crossing her arms. He might be her best friend, but she won’t forgive him if he lied to her.

  He deflated slightly, giving in, “I knew that there was a chance, but there was nothing else I could have done. That’s why you have so many guardians, just in case.”

  “Do all fledglings get this treatment?” she asked. Their terms were coming naturally to her now. A fledgling was a dragon who hasn’t yet reached maturity. Austin briefly wondered if her own growth process would be slowed by her diluted blood, or if the reverse would happen. Dustin had once told her that she might age as humans did, if she took after her father.

  “Most fledglings don’t have a dangerous Chaos after them,” he smiled, but the smile wasn’t a real one. She noticed that he could never say the word Chaos with a happy face. That’s what the dark dragons called themselves, naming themselves after her.

  K.

  “Her scales turned black,” big brother said, “And her green eyes shone.”

  “Scales?” Austin repeated. She had been picturing big brother as a girl, and he certainly didn’t look like a scaly snake.

  “She was a dragon, you see,” he explained, brushing a piece of hair out of her eyes, “You won’t see us turning into those graceful creatures. Everyone forgot how to transform, actually. But that’s what we all are. Deep now, we’re all just like K.”

  Dustin had spoken about her so passionately. He obviously held her up on a pedestal fit for a god.

  She didn’t want to call the nice boy in her memories Dustin, but that’s who he was. Her big brother had turned into a homicidal maniac. Austin took in a ragged breath as she corrected herself. Her big brother had always been a homicidal maniac. He had stolen her childhood, and he had killed to do it. What else had he killed for?

  Aiden was obviously finished, and they both lapsed into silence. Austin picked up her sandwich and stared at it, thinking. This was her history, not a fairy tale. Her memories were all of warm places, either sitting by a fireplace or making sandcastles on the lake. The backgrounds were always too peaceful to be from Earth. They were of their world.

  Of their world.

  Everyone had been using that term around her. Hell, she had used it a few times herself. She had a vague idea of what it was, but…

  “Aiden, where is our world?” she asked. She hoped that wouldn’t be classified information. There would be a few things that Aiden couldn’t or wouldn’t tell her, and this might be one of them.

  Fortunately, he answered, even if that answer was enough to send her into shock.

  “You’ll see for yourself, soon enough.”