A Destiny of Dragons (Tales From Verania #2)(149)

“I escaped, but not before they’d cut me. Broke through some of my scales. I thought about hurting them, about putting my teeth into their flesh, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I didn’t understand them, and they didn’t understand me, even when I cried at them to stop, that I would leave if they just let me. They didn’t let me. I got away, but only after I knocked them down. I didn’t mean to, but I hurt one of them. A woman. She hit her head on something. A rock, I think. It was scary, because she was bleeding and crying, and I just wanted to go. I tried to tell her that I was sorry, but she thought I was coming to eat her, because she screamed and ran away. So I left.”

“It doesn’t matter if they were villains or not,” I said. “No one should hurt another just for the sake of doing it. Or because they’re scared.”

“But aren’t you scared?” he asked me. “You’re scared, and you’re going to have to hurt someone. To stop this. Because when a life ends, it hurts.”

“My hand is being forced.”

“Maybe those people who came for me thought the same thing. That they were being forced.”

“Did you hurt anyone?” I asked him. “Did you give them any reason to see you as a threat?”

“No.”

“Then what they did was wrong.”

“Is that absolute?”

I balked at that, wondering how he’d been able to complete that circle.

“They chose to come for me,” Zero said. “They made their decision out of fear. Am I supposed to believe that was the path the gods set them on? That if they’d succeeded, that my life didn’t matter as much as theirs did?”

“Dude,” I breathed. “So heavy.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t believe things are set in stone. Look around you, Sam. Stone crumbles. Be it from time and age or the minds of men, it still crumbles. But I also think when a dragon god tells you something, you should listen. And maybe you should tell those closest to you about it.”

“It’s Ryan,” I blurted. I winced. “Shit.”

Zero’s eyes went wide. “What?”

I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. I thought voicing it would make it more real. I didn’t want it to be real. “Vadoma showed me,” I said begrudgingly. “My grandmother. In one of her visions. Sooner or later, Ryan will die.”

“Everything dies, Sam,” Zero said lightly. “It’s the price we pay for being alive.”

“Do you believe in me?” I asked. “Do you believe I can do what I say I can do?”

“Yes,” Zero said promptly.

“Then you best believe me when I say that I will see that stone turn to dust before I let anything happen to him. I don’t care what Vadoma says. I don’t care what the star dragon says. He’s not going anywhere.”

“Chills,” Zero whispered. “So many chills. I want someone to love me the way you love him.”

I smiled at him. “One day, someone will. They call us HaveHeart, you know. For Sam Haversford and Ryan Foxheart.”

Have you ever heard a fourteen-year-old snake dragon monster thing squeal like he’s just heard the greatest thing in the world? I have. It was a lot louder than I thought it would be. “Oh my gods,” he said. “I could just die.”

A shadow passed overhead as Kevin returned.

Immediately, Zero’s smile dropped off his face, and he slumped down when Kevin landed near us. “Everything’s lame,” Zero moaned. “It’s all so lame. None of you understand what it’s like to be me.”

I wasn’t fooled.

Kevin was, but I let it slide. “Little bro, you need to listen to me. You listening?”

Zero harrumphed but said nothing.

“Your big bro is gonna lay some advice down on you. You get me? Some real life-changing shit.”

“Great,” Zero muttered. “Just what I wanted.”

“If you ever want to get some dick, you gotta chill with that whole me-against-the-world thing.”

“Uh,” I said. “I don’t know if that’s the best advice.”

“Of course it is,” Kevin said. “It’s coming from me. That means it’s automatically the best advice ever.”

“See,” I said. “I don’t think that’s a thing. In fact, I would say the opposite is actually truer.”

“You’d be wrong. I get laid all the time.”

“So do I.”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but yours is married sex. That’s so boring. Me, I’m not tied down. I’ve spread my wings, and I’m going to fly straight into some butt.”

“We’re not married,” I said, wondering yet again how it got to this point. “Don’t even say that.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” I sputtered. “You could, like, I don’t know. Jinx it or something.”

“Right,” Kevin said, sounding gleeful. “And the only way it’d be jinxed was because you were thinking about it, right?”

The blood drained from my face. “You shut your whore mouth,” I said.

“You have been! Oh man, I can’t wait to tell—”