Page 61 of The Dragon Shifters' Enemy
Marban put some steak aside for him.Valerius popped a few of the pieces into his mouth.
“You are going to find, Tilly, that from now on, most of your experiences with people will be tinged in small or large parts by your brother’s position,” Marban explained.
Tilly nodded her head again.“So what do you suggest?”
“There will always be some people you can trust.Identify them early.Hold them close.Watch them carefully,” Marban said with again all due seriousness being given to teenager politics.
“That makes sense.But what about everyone else?”Tilly’s forehead scrunched up.
“Your inclination is to reward only those who care for you because of you,” Marban stated as he gave Valerius another pepper.
“Yeah, that’s what Mom and Dad would tell me,” she said.
“But that’s not really what you should do, because you wish to be of use to your brother,” Marban said as he waved tongs in the air.“You need to use them for what they are worth. Pretend there is bullet proof glass between you and them.They cannot touch you.The glass is clear so they don’t know it is there.But you do.”
Valerius must have made some sound as both Marban and Tilly turned to him.Tilly had been nodding along with Marban’s rather Machiavellian view of “friendship”.Part of Valerius wanted to say that she should listen to her parents and not the criminal Swarm Shifter.But Marban was giving her a realistic view of how things would be as the ninth Dragon Shifter’s sister and potential Councillor.
“What do you think, King Valerius?”Tilly asked kindly as if she were asking a shy child to contribute.
He blinked.He felt a little like a shy child.
“I was just going to say…” Valerius cleared his throat, “that Raziel and I would be willing to set anyone who is mean to you on fire.”
That hadn’t been what he had meant to say.Both Tilly and Marban just stared at him with open mouths.Then Tilly giggled and smiled broadly at him.Marban snorted.
“Perhaps immolation should be alastresort option,” Marban replied dryly with suspicious twitches of his lips.
“Thank you, King Valerius!”Tilly beamed just like her brother.“I feel better already!”
He nodded, blushing.“Anytime.”
I may not have an answer to the Behemoth,Valerius thought,But I can make Tilly laugh.Keeping the Bryce siblings laughing may be the best thing I can do right now.
“Now, Tilly,” Valerius said, “tell us more about thesefriendsof yours.”
Overheard Conversations
Caden found Rose and Wally with his parents on his family’s balcony.They were all sitting together having wine and appetizers.In a way, it was good that they were all together.That meant he would not have to repeat this terrible news twice.
He and Valerius hadn’t discussed who would tell Landry’s parents about herdeath.He doubted that they would want him to relay the news.Her parents were members of Humans First, after all, and he was the ninth Dragon Shifter.He didn’t want to add to their pain even if that was because they were prejudiced against him.
Laughter drifted out to him as he closed the doors of the tower suite and stood silently in the lobby. He and Iolaire just listened to them.
“...and then I shifted into my rat forms and carried all the defective plushies into the dude’s house.I hid them like everywhere! Behind his walls.Up in the rafters.In the vent work,” Wally was saying.“And since they were moldy andsmelled--which was the problem to begin with--I hear the bastard is going crazy tearing up the place.He finds one plushie here and another there.Hethinkshe’s got them all, but nope!The smell and mold patches come back.And I make sure he never does get them all as I come back every few weeks and tuck a few more in there.”
Iolaire let out a wheeze of what had to be Dragon laughter.Its eyes sparkled with amusement.Caden grinned and just barely repressed a bark of his own.
“Oh, my goodness, Wally,” his mother laughed, “that’s terrible!I shouldn’t laugh!”
“He was the one that sold him the defective goods in the first place, Ellen,” his father said.“All Wally was doing wasreturningthem.”
“Exactly!”Wally cried and Caden imagined the wisps of black hair on his head waving wildly.
“I take it we aren’t selling any plushies from him any more?”Rose asked dryly.
“Hell, no! If a man can’t supply a good plush he’s no good to me!”Wally harrumphed.
Iolaire reminded Caden of the little girl who had made him have the white and black dragon plushieskiss.
