Bloodlines: Dragon Rider Book 2

Chapter 25: And Now The Fun Begins

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"Norah."

    I throw the pillow over my head and nuzzle deeper into the side of the couch.

    "Norah."

    No. No running.

    A gentle nudge on my shoulder and I frown. That's not Holland.

    As I unbury my head and squint up at Holland, I realize that I was very much wrong. I don't know whether to be suspicious or happy for the nice and unusual wakeup. He nods to something behind me.

On my stomach, I look back and jolt. Frost covers the entire couch before I can gasp.

    The tiny white and blue otter-thing with antlers that I saw at the party lays curled up on my back. He peeps a black, tear dropped eye at me and perks up, suddenly wide awake.

    I breathe, wide-eyed. "Ah." It's as dull and flat as I don't feel.

    "Thought so," Holland mutters and picks it up, keeping it far away from him. The creature squirms, his long tail swishing in all directions. Holland drops him with a hiss, watching it immediately scramble to my side with tiny hops and jump back onto the couch and burrowed under my arm.

    "It's touching me." I cringe, rolling over the creature and onto my feet. He immediately jumps off with me, staying behind my mismatched socked feet. Then the tail curls around me, almost wrapping entirely around my feet.

    "Norah, what the fuck is that?" Holland gestures to it, annoyed and tired.

    With a wince, I shrug. "I don't know." Cautiously, I step out of it's protective circle and hop over the couch before it can chase after me. The creature jolts, ready to follow but I hold out a hand. "No. Stay."

    He cocks his head and freezes, slowly lowering one of his clawless paws.

    Holland grumbles, "It's too early for this." Walking toward the creature, he ignores the otter-thing's squirms and shimmies to be let go, and puts him in the backyard. He grimaces, following it's stare to me.

    Antlers flare and I frown. "I guess that's what Frovein meant. But how did it get from the Main Island to here?"

    Holland's stare says it all. What did you do? But instead he says, "I need coffee first."

    Nearly ten minutes pass with Holland sipping his coffee, engaged in a staring contest with the creature, its antlers flaring every once and a while from behind the back doors. The bottom of its body is nearly invisible in the dark, but the creatures arctic white top stands out like a light bulb. He -- though I don't know why I've deemed it male -- flares his white antlers at me.

I sit in the stool beside Holland, eyes darting between the two to the stack of maps and notes shoved underneath the couch. From here, neither of us can see it, but I know it's there and brace for him finding it based on feeling.

    I had fallen asleep two hours before Holland woke me up. And aside from me wondering how this squirming creature got inside the house and off the Main Islands, I wonder about the things I've learned.

    It had taken me almost two hours to find Welyn Valley. Mainly because I had been looking on the wrong continent and not the one across the sea. Welyn Valley, upon more late night research, is little more than giant mountains and snowy tundras. I had pulled out every geological book in this house to discover what could have been so important in that valley that Frovein had been tasked to keep The Darkening's armies away from it. Only a tiny city had come up, Chiver City. Given the lack of creativity on the name, I knew it had been founded by dragon riders but couldn't find anything else on the city. It would mean me visiting the library after Holland left for his training.