“Sorry about him,” Mira said in a low voice, hoping Conrad hadn’t had the chance to pick up enough English words to know what she was saying. “I don’t know why he’s so on edge.”
Vee smiled faintly, as though Mira had said something funny. “You don’t?”
“Should I?”
“I’m guessing he’s one of those old school dragons, right?” That was Ren from the passenger seat, sounding tired. “Those guys that predate the Declaration of Independence always hate wolves.”
“Ren,” Vee scolded him… but she didn’t sound particularly committed to the rebuke. “It’s kinda true,” she admitted after a pause, shoulders slumping. “It’s nothing against you guys, of course. And there’s plenty of it on our side, too. Our mom used to spit in the street if she sensed a dragon within a mile. Wolves and dragons just… rub each other the wrong way, traditionally speaking.”
“That seems… short-sighted,” Mira said, her brow furrowing. “Surely you’ve got more things in common than you have differences.”
Vee shrugged. “Makes no sense to me, either. I dunno, I hope this generation of wolves coming up is gonna be the change, but the generation before us hoped that, too.”
“It just seems more sensible to be allies, not enemies,” Mira said. Then she bit her lip. “Sorry. It’s none of my business, really, is it?”
Vee raised an eyebrow at that, cryptic humor dancing in her bright silver eyes as her gaze darted, just quickly, to Conrad, then back to Mira. “Isn’t it?”
And before Mira could ask her what she meant by that, she realized that Ren was pulling the truck over to the side of the road. With a jolt of recognition, she looked up to see the driveway that led to her aunt’s property, familiar as home always was… but the farmhouse was a five-minute walk uphill from down here. Why had Ren parked on the street?
Her heart sank as she saw why Ren hadn’t driven up the driveway. There, parked such that it blocked the driveway completely, was a horribly familiar white van.
Chapter 18 - Conrad
Conrad let the strange vowels of the unfamiliar language wash over him as the vehicle carried them all deeper and deeper into the mountains. Did he feel a little left out, listening to Mira forge a fast friendship with these wolves? Absolutely not. Yes, the occasional bursts of laughter made him worry that the jokes they were making were at his expense, and yes, he was growing rapidly more worried about these two complete strangers they’d decided to let escort them into the middle of nowhere… but those concerns were all rational. At least, that’s what he was going to tell himself.
At least the view was taking his mind off things. The alien shapes of the city had given way to a much more familiar landscape now, thick trees flashing past the window in a blur. Conrad would have liked to get a better look at them. The trees he’d seen in the city were all subtly different from the trees back home, but he had a feeling that if he wandered the forest out there for long enough, he might find at least a few that reminded him of home. When the car finally pulled over, he was looking forward to stretching his legs and having a look through the woods… that was, until he saw what was waiting for them in the driveway.
On full alert, all the petty grievances of the last few hours forgotten, Conrad hopped out of the car and moved up carefully behind the van, making sure to keep out of sight of anyone who might be sitting in the seats. His magic tingled under his skin, ready to transform his body at a moment’s notice, and he could feel a denseness to the air around the two wolves waiting by the truck that told him they were ready to shift, too. He glanced over his shoulder at them, caught a thumbs-up from Vee and an encouraging nod. Language barrier or no, he knew she was telling him they had his back. Well, they’d see about that, wouldn’t they?
The van, it turned out, was empty. Through the front windscreen, he could see into the back of the vehicle, too, and though the shadows stopped him from making out much of what was actually stored in there, it was clear that there weren’t any men lying in wait. That wasn’t necessarily a good sign, he thought, turning to look up the driveway towards where, presumably, the house was. But what else was waiting for them up there?
He straightened his back and led the way up the driveway, the wolves falling in behind him as naturally as if they’d been working together for years. Mira brought up the rear with some reluctance—she’d tried to argue with him when he told her to stay back, but to his surprise, Vee and Ren both backed him up. She muttered something about not needing wings or claws to enact violence on anyone who dared to threaten her aunt… but she did stay back.
When they reached the top of the driveway, they found the farmhouse, perched on the crest of a hill that Conrad imagined must fall away on the other side of the dwelling. It was much larger than the buildings he’d grown familiar with down in the city, seeming to sprawl out in all directions from a central point… but there would be time for architectural comparisons later. Right now, all he cared about were the dark windows lining the building’s frontage, any of which might be holding an enemy now alerted to their arrival…
“You made it!”
On a hair trigger as he was, the shout almost startled Conrad into shifting. He felt the surge of alarm from the wolves behind him as well, knew they were on the precipice of letting their wild forms out—but then he heard Mira’s cry of joy. She barged past him and ran up to the front door of the farmhouse, where a woman with curly gray hair was standing with one arm raised in greeting. She pulled Mira into a tight hug, and Conrad let out the breath he’d been holding.
“Heather,” he said to the wolves behind him, who nodded in agreement. Relief at seeing Mira’s aunt safe quickly gave way to concern. Heather lived up here alone, Mira had said—that was why she was so worried about her aunt being attacked. And judging from the van at the bottom of the driveway, an attack had indeed come. So where were the men who had carried it out, if Heather was standing here safe and sound?
Mira was beckoning them enthusiastically up the hill, and he obliged, the wolves walking politely behind him. He felt Heather sizing him up even before he’d reached her, and when he met her gaze, he was surprised to see her eyes were dark brown, not the luminous gold he’d expected. For dragons, eye color was always a family trait. But though the family resemblance was clear in the woman’s curly hair, shot through with gray but still carrying Mira’s unmistakable bounce, Conrad realized with a jolt that he didn’t feel any of the magical resonance around Heather that he did around Mira. The woman he was looking at may well have been her aunt, but she was no dragon.
The wolves had noticed it too, or something like it—he could hear them murmuring to each other behind him, their eyes fixed on Heather. The woman’s dark eyes, though, were fixed on Conrad, scanning him with an unmistakable air of appraisal. Conrad had been sized up a few times in his long life, and he straightened a little, feeling an uncharacteristic twinge of hesitation. Had he ever had judgment passed on him by a human before? What if she didn’t like him?
He heard Mira say something to her aunt that seemed to include his name—he inclined his head when he heard it, assuming an introduction was being made. The woman flashed him a smile and shook his hand, her grip strong.
“Conrad, meet my Aunt Heather,” Mira told Conrad. The introduction was unnecessary at this point, but he appreciated the gesture—it was nice to understand a little of what was being said. He caught the sharp look that Heather threw towards Mira at the sound of the unfamiliar language, but then Mira was introducing Vee and Ren, and he was off the hook… for now, at least. Something about the steely maternal glint in Heather’s dark eyes told him that he hadn’t passed the majority of her tests just yet.
They were led through to a sprawling living room, very unlike Mira’s cozy little home, which felt about a thousand miles away. Heather sat them down at a long table and poured them cups of tea from an ornate service that reminded him a little of some of the Palace’s collection. The pang of homesickness surprised him, and he sipped his tea in silence, letting the sound of Mira’s voice wash over him. Occasionally, he’d pick up a word or two… usually his own name, which always drew a quick glance from Heather and the wolves… but for the most part, it was indecipherable. Mira would translate for him later, he supposed. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a little lonely. After all the adrenaline of the trip up here and the discovery of the van, it felt somewhat anticlimactic to simply sit here having a cup of tea.
But then they were on the move again, Heather leading them out through the back door and onto a patio. He’d guessed right about the landscape here—the house was indeed perched on the crest of a hill, and it spilled out beneath them like a rumpled bedsheet. On the curves and undulations of the hill, he could see that the land had been carefully cultivated, with dense vegetation indicating that Heather’s crops were flourishing.
“Heather got this place for next to nothing about forty years back.” Mira’s voice surprised him. “Nobody else wanted it because it’d be too expensive to flatten the land enough to work it. But she figured out how to work around it instead.”
He’d been right, then, in his estimation of Heather as a formidable woman. And that impression wasn’t about to fade any time soon… especially when she led them to a humble shed that stood at the edge of the patio. When she swung the door open, he’d expected to see tools or other farming equipment. What he saw instead made him catch his breath—and the two wolves behind him recoil with shock and recognition.
There, sitting cross-legged in the dust with his arms behind his back, sagged a nondescript-looking man with close cropped hair. He was wearing neutral clothing in dark shades, but a careful look at him showed that he was carrying a lot more muscle than the average human. When he looked up, blinking in the light, Conrad winced at the enormous bruise that purpled almost half of his face. The satisfied grin on Heather’s face when he glanced at her told him all he needed to know about the origin of that injury.