House Of Gods 9 - Samantha Snow Page 0,75

for you both.”

Brandt shook his hand and gave him a heartfelt pat on the shoulder.

The walk through the city was quite entertaining. They opted not to take the subway because they weren’t sure how the dragon would react to the moving train and were also worried about what would happen if his tail got stuck in the closing doors. Brenna was amazed that not a single soul could see the magical creature walking amongst them.

Prophecy seemed to really enjoy his traipse through the city streets; the sights and smells were a feast for the senses, and it was amusing to watch him stumble back and forth between people in an overwhelming excitement. As they neared closer to the apartment, it started to look like he was getting weary. The little dragon paused in the middle of the sidewalk and plopped down to take a rest. Brandt bent down and offered his open arms to see if Prophecy would allow himself to be carried. Much to Brandt’s surprise, the creature crawled up into his arms and was soon curled up and asleep for the rest of the walk.

The elevator ride woke up Prophecy, and the little dragon sleepily raised his head to look over the top of Brandt’s arm, which was folded around him. When the doors to the elevator opened, Leif and Norna were sitting in front of the windows in the living room, playing some sort of card game; and Colby was trying to reach over Erik’s back to get into the fridge.

“Oh, hey!” Leif said when he saw them arrive home out of the corner of his eye. “Norna is kicking my ass at this game, but you guys can jump in on the next round if you want.

None of them had given Brandt and Brenna enough of a look to see what Brandt was holding in his arms.

“Well, we know the memory gap isn’t an issue,” Brandt said as he remarked on how uneventful their return home was going.

Brenna saw Jerrik walk out from the hall by his bedroom. He was pulling a shirt over his damp chest and looked as though he had just finished a shower. Brenna was happy to see him again. She loved all of them, but Jerrik would always hold a special place in her heart. He stopped in place as he looked at them, and for a minute, Brandt thought that maybe his magic had left some sort of gap in Jerrik’s memory that caused him to be alarmed when he saw them there.

“Is that a dragon?” Jerrik asked in disbelief.

Brandt exhaled a sigh of relief. He could handle the explanation of bringing a dragon home, but not their months’ worth of disappearance from their friends. Everyone in the apartment turned to look at the dragon. Prophecy’s head poked out a bit farther as he looked around at all the immortals staring at him. He unfolded his wings and pulled his feet down from Brandt’s hold, accidentally scratching Brandt’s arm with his claws. The dragon hopped down onto the floor and, with a small trial flap of his wings, made his first attempt at flight, which managed to provide him only a second or so of a slow freefall to the ground. Flying must be a developmental skill for newly born dragons. Everyone came to stand in a haphazardly formed circle around the dragon as they looked on in amazement. Even Norna, who had seen just about everything, had never before seen a dragon.

“Where did it come from?” Norna asked.

Prophecy looked up at her with a bit of a scowl.

“He’s not really fond of being called it,” Brandt said. “Or at least we don’t think he is.”

“This is incredible,” Erik said.

“We’re not really sure where Prophecy came from, to be honest. He just sort of appeared,” Brenna said.

“Prophecy, is that his name?” Norna asked. “That seems perfectly fitting.”

The dragon walked over to the wall-sized windows and looked over the top of the city. Then he curled up to position himself for some more napping. Apparently, baby dragons required a lot of rest.

“Well, he seems to have made himself right at home,” Leif laughed, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that they now had a dragon as a house pet. “Anything else exciting happen while you two were out?”

Brenna noticed Jerrik raise his eyes at Leif’s question. She was sure that she was being paranoid; he, along with all the others, just thought the two of them had been