Theodore (Xavier's Hatchlings #2) - Kathi S. Barton Page 0,3

you have found by the magic you both will share. My sons, you will leave this place and take your place among men. Becoming someone I will be proud of.”

“Father, the magic didn’t work. We’re still dragons.” Cooper felt shameful to say this to his father. To tell him his sacrifice had not worked. “We will be hunted and killed.”

“Nay, you only need to think of being your other half. Becoming a man is simple. The same when you wish to be your true self.” Cooper was not sure what that meant, but his father continued before he could ask. “Go now, before men come here. The magic to hide me will draw them here. Be safe, my sons, and know I love you more than I do any other creature in this place.”

Cooper stood then as the faeries were still working, taking the body of his father apart. But as he watched, he could see they were not doing anything but preserving his body. Faerie ropes were all around him, strings of magic wrapped around him like a cocoon. It made him invisible to all. As Cooper stood there, his brothers beside him, he knew that, like him, they mourned the loss of yet another parent.

“You are the eldest.” He nodded to the faerie when she asked. “We have a gift for you. For all of you, but you will receive the most. Your father was a great man, your mother, a queen among her people. We wish to bestow upon you all your father had.”

“My brothers, they will need it as well. I should like to share.” She smiled at him and bowed. “What have you done with his body?”

“He is being prepared to be moved. We will make a grand garden upon him. Flowers will be there for all to see, but few will know a dragon is there with his other half, his love.” He nodded. It was as it should be. “You will take this gift? You will share, but as I said, you will get more than the others.”

“I don’t care. Please, just do what you must so we can hide.” She nodded again and touched her fingers, small, tiny ones, to his forehead. Then she did the same to the others before coming back to him. “It is done. You have shared it with us?”

“I have, Lord Cooper. But you must leave here now. There are humans coming. The magic we used to do this thing has given them cause to come here.” He nodded and looked at the ground where their father had been. “He is safe. Just as your mother is now. Go, before they find you here and murder you as well.”

He thanked her for her help and left. The exit from this part of the cave was hidden so well only they knew about it. As they made their way into the night, he thought of the human inside of him, and the pain of it took his breath away. In seconds he was down on his knees. Whatever was happening, he was surely going to die.

“You’re a man.” He looked up at Hudson as they all began to transfer to men. “We’ll be safe now, all of us. We’ll be humans for them until we can find a place where we can be ourselves.”

“I don’t think that’s ever going to happen again.” Hudson nodded and held his head tightly as he did so. “We will need to train ourselves in their ways. Become what they are. But never monsters.”

“No, never.”

They made their way to a building; any would do for now. Hudson, like him, was staggering a little, but they were getting stronger as they moved.

Hudson turned to look at him as they were settling in the empty shell of a house. “We will need to buy things, houses and such.”

“Yes. But tomorrow. I am too tired to think beyond how much we have lost.” Hudson and the others agreed. “When the humans are gone from our cave, we’ll go and find what Father was telling us about earlier, about the wealth that will keep us safe.”

“I only hope there is a great deal of it. I don’t know how to work.” Cooper told Xavier, the youngest brother, they would soon learn. “I hope so. I hope so.”

Cooper did as well. It was going to be hard enough for them to learn to eat and dress like humans, much less get around. Cooper hoped this worked. For he

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