not yet grown in on her thick tail. Where there’d eventually be long, forking horns were only small, round bumps atop her head. More spectacular than anything was the color of her scales; dark, almost black in places, but shimmering with hues of deep crimson and purple. Her eyes, bright gold, shone against the darkness surrounding them.
Kalai was right. She was incredible. She was more than incredible.
Tauran let her sniff his hand. Her slitted pupils grew round as she stared at it, tilting her head. Then she parted her jaws and clamped them around the entire width of Tauran’s hand.
“Ah!” Tauran cried and yanked his hand back. She released him, licking her lips.
“Okay,” Tauran said, inspecting the half-moon of red indents in his palm. “She’s got teeth already.”
Kalai stared at Tauran’s hand, then burst into laughter. “Well,” he said, getting himself under control. “You were right. It’s a girl.”
Tauran furrowed his brow, leaning sideways to look under the dragon’s belly, although he took care not to get his nose too close to her jaws.
Kalai chuckled and nudged his shoulder, pointing. “Female titans are born with dew claws on their back feet. Males aren’t.”
Tauran looked at the curving little toes on the insides of her back legs. “Huh. How did you know?”
“I read it,” Kalai said. “In a book.”
Tauran stared at him for a long moment. A slow smile spread on his face and Kalai mirrored the expression before wrapping his arms around Tauran, squeezing him tight. Kalai’s shoulders shook with barely contained laughter. It filled Tauran with a joy that bubbled out of him uncontrollably. He hugged Kalai back, and they laughed together.
“We hatched a titan!” Kalai said against the side of Tauran’s neck, voice muffled. He looked up, unbearably beautiful with his eyes full of happiness and Tauran did the only thing he could think of in that moment. He cupped Kalai’s face with both hands and kissed him hard and not at all elegantly. He felt Kalai’s soft lips so keenly against his own, Kalai’s fists curling in the front of his shirt.
For a moment, surprise left them both silent, a deep blush creeping across Kalai’s cheekbones. “Took you long enough,” he whispered.
Tauran’s face split in a grin and he dipped his head, glancing at the dragon watching them both with seeming confusion. She opened her mouth wide, squeaking out a yawn. Smacking her jaws together, she tucked her wings in and took a few stumbling steps forward, flopping onto Tauran’s lap. Digging her claws into his trousers, she spun once, curled into a ball and closed her eyes.
Tauran stared at her circular form. In the back of his mind, memory and experience screamed at him in unison to stand up and walk out and stay far, far away. But the voices were so distant and so easy to ignore. And when Tauran placed a careful hand over the rounded curve of her body and felt her tiny chest rise and fall, he knew he was lost. Amazingly, desperately lost. And he didn’t mind a bit.
When he raised his gaze, Kalai was watching him carefully.
“I could really use a drink,” Tauran whispered.
Kalai smiled. Leaning in, he rested his forehead against Tauran’s, and for a long moment, neither of them said anything, simply basking in each other’s presence.
Then, slowly, to not disturb the baby, Kalai rose. “I’ll see what I can find.”
* * *
Kalai found a bottle of Dragon’s Breath whiskey and two glasses from the downstairs cabinet and brought it upstairs on a tray. “Fitting, don’t you think?” He displayed the bottle to Tauran as he settled back on the bed. “Apparently, the old archivist had a bit of a stash.”
Tauran smiled. Even more so than the image of Tauran with the egg, seeing him sitting there with a baby dragon curled up in his lap stirred a pleasant tickle in Kalai’s chest. He poured them each a glass, then raised his own. “To baby dragons with very sharp teeth.”
“Very sharp teeth,” Tauran repeated with a knowing nod and emptied his glass in one go, humming a sound of pleasure. “That’s good whiskey.”
Kalai took a sip of his own. The liquid burned his throat, and he coughed, blinking against the water rising in his eyes. “If you say so.”
Tauran laughed. “Not much of a drinker?”
“No,” Kalai admitted. He put his glass on the tray. “A physician in Kel Visal once told me I should avoid alcohol because he believed it could turn my episodes worse. As far as