Tropical Dragons Series Box Set - Naomi Lucas Page 0,5

We both thought my brother would be hers.

Aida doesn’t look much like Delina, having inherited the paler brown skin on her mother’s side. Unlike Delina, Aida is tall, lean, and sharp of features. She does not follow her younger sister’s style in heavy braids but keeps her curls pulled taut, away from her face, to tumble wildly down her back. Bracelets line her arms, and feathers adorn her tied-back hair in a wild array. Aida wears a small headdress of shells. Her eyes are just as slanted as Delina’s, but Aida uses the kohl on her face sparingly.

She and I couldn’t look more different.

She’s so beautiful it hurts.

Whereas I have pale blond hair almost the same length as Aida’s, though mine can not hold a curl unless it was dried with ocean-water, and even then, a curl it wasn’t but a weak bump. I keep my braids loose—if I even put the time in to fix them—and kohl isn’t something my tribe utilizes. We live away from the jungle’s shadows, and our camouflage was that of mute coloring and white shells to reflect like the sands. And though my skin is gold from sunlight—my hair the same—it’s still light compared to Aida’s richness. Sand’s Hunters wear mainly snakeskins and croc hides, where Shell Rock weaves shells, fish scales, and seaweed nets to cover our skin. We take after the mermaids that play in our lagoon.

Aida once told me her father’s people came east from the dry wastes to settle and join in unison with a tribe already established on the Mermaid Gulf.

“Will you be okay?” I ask. My loneliness and longing are nothing compared to Aida’s.

“Yes. I’ve had my time to mourn.”

She lies.

This isn’t only a bleakness of a dwindling future for our people, but so much more. We see the elder men of our tribes and wonder why there aren’t as many now as several generations ago. We see the love and care and stoicism they share with their mates, with their children, and wish we can have that for ourselves.

The red comet above casts its muted red light atop us.

I exhale. “Do you want to join me in Shell Rock and stay with us for a season?” It’s the best I can offer: a reprieve from the mating courtship that was soon to happen here. I raise my palms back to my mouth to blow on them again.

Aida pries my hands from my face and scowls as she sees my wounds. “Come with me.” She doesn’t give me a choice as she drags me to a nearby tree-hut and sits me by a shallow fire within. Settling with a pout, she collects a bowl and fills it with herbs, smashing them soon after with a rock. “You always put yourself at risk for your brother.” Her voice is thick with accusation. “Have you ever thought what would happen to your tribe if they lost you?”

I shrug. “You didn’t answer my question.”

She tugs my hands toward her and rests their backs on the floor, exposing my palms in all their ruddy glory.

Aida pulls her lips back to speak when a very chilling, harsh shriek fills the air, eclipsing the laughter outside, the crackle of fire, the whistling of the night breeze. It echoes between the rock islands even after it ends. We look at each other when the flaps of bird wings and their cawing cries ends the assaulting call.

This mating call was far closer than the last.

To my shock, Aida smiles excitedly, as if all thoughts of Leith and Delina had vanished from her thoughts. Her giddy grin stops me from pulling back with alarm and rushing out to the villagers, where their anxious whispers now join the sea breeze.

“Why are you smiling?”

“You haven’t heard the rumors?” she asks instead.

I’m beginning to think she doesn’t like answering any questions lately.

“What rumors?”

“A messenger from one of the northern coastal tribes came to visit us a week ago. She brought news.” Aida stops as she gathers ointment onto her fingers.

“What news?”

She spreads the ointment on my palms, and I wince, trying hard not to curl my fingers and pull my hands back.

“The shrieks, they’re from dragons. They stir during the red comet to mate.”

My eyes narrow. “How is that worth grinning about?”

My heart is still pounding from before, but now it thunders. A dragon hasn’t been seen since before my grandsire’s generation, and they only spoke of them as frighteningly giant monstrosities of legend. They were beasts that filled the