“That is because he was underfed.” Damianos frowns in a way that also makes his sharp jaw clench. “All drakkon can fly from birth. The first instinct a drakkon babe has is to hunt the meat it needs to live since unlike your too long infantilized species, we were not designed to be helpless from the start.”
I dig through all those insults to translate. “Wait, ten to twelve bottles a day was underfeeding him?”
“Yes. Also, the formula lacked the proper nutrients. I suspected as much when he continued to sleep through our escape, our flight here, and your installation into this room. And I saw that I was right this morning when he immediately took to the air after I fed him a breakfast of meat. Sleeping the way he was prior to this morning’s meal is a drakkon’s natural response to starvation.”
“Like hibernation,” I whisper. A terrible feeling comes over me and I turn to look at the baby I’m holding. Our son who’s now happily screeching instead of pitifully squalling…sitting up in my arms instead of lying there and guzzling bottles in desperate gulps. He looks back at me, eyes bright and his wings vibrating as if he’s just dying to take them for another spin.
“Why does your flame burn dark red with shame now?” Damianos asks.
I notice now that his eyes are still golden, which I guess means he can read me just like other Damianos used to.
“I thought he was behaving perfectly normal, because all wolf babies do is cry and sleep the first few months,” I answer. “But he was actually starving. For, like, two weeks, he was starving. He could have died if I hadn’t run away with you.”
Damianos tilts his head. “Again, why do these facts bring you shame? Also, your flame is lit up above your stomach as if you’re in physical pain though no harm has come to you.”
“I’m his mother,” I whisper. “I should have known he wasn’t thriving.”
“That is absurd,” Damianos answers. “He is a hybrid baby, the likes neither of us has ever seen. Why would you expect to sense a problem outside of your experience?”
That would have been a valid point, if not for the twins I spent three months with before they went into hiding.
Suddenly I recall how the twins were always flying around the woods that made up the Upper Peninsula Michigan Kingdom House’s backyard. They’d chase after squirrels and other animals, like rabbits and birds.
At least I thought they were only chasing after them. Maybe I’d just never seen what happened when one of those backwoods’ animals got caught. Again, I long for a call with Fensa.
“You are yearning for someone.” Damianos goes dangerously still, his golden eyes flattening. “You will tell me who it is.”
“My sister,” I answer, voice tight. “She’s the only other mom on Earth I could turn to for advice. But if I try to get in contact with her, you’ll find her and kill her. Or worse.”
His side of our bond goes dangerously numb. “So you know where she is currently located?”
Strange, people have been telling me all my life that I’m a hothead who doesn’t know when to shut up.
If you can’t speak kindness, cease talking, Ola. How many times had FJ told me that?
But Damianos has managed to teach me in three months what my parents couldn’t in nearly three decades. When to talk back. When to be quiet. When to change the subject to safer topics.
Like… “So, Triple D, I don’t suppose there’s a Starbucks or anything on your megavillain island? I’m dying for some coffee.”
This time a smile almost makes it to his lips before I feel the now familiar icy suppression of his amusement over our mate bond.
“You don’t have to keep on doing that, you know,” I tell him.
“Doing what?” he asks with an arch of his brow.
“Pretending I’m not amusing the hell out of you. It’s okay to laugh at my jokes. Other You did all the time.”
“As I told you, the pretender was obviously quite mad.”
“You think laughter is crazy?”
“I think it is unnecessary.”
“Then why did your designer give you the ability to do it?”
He opens his mouth to answer. Then frowns. Then admits, “I…I do not know.”
Despite all the tension between us, I can’t help but laugh at his confusion. “Maybe whoever it was figured it was good for you not to feel so uptight all of the time.”
A hard beat of silence, then it’s his turn to change the subject. “The latest in the family line of housekeepers that comes in to supplement the Colbys work is currently downstairs. She can make you whatever you require.”
I freeze. “Another thrall?”
“Not anymore,” he answers. “I have ungodspoken her. But she agreed to stay on after I offered her a permanent job along with a commiserate raise. As it turns out, many servants are perfectly willing to do as they always have for the correct sum.”