Page 15 of Delinquent Dette
It took a few hours of searching before he called a number he’d long remembered.
“Hello?” Sile rasped on the other end. Frikka might have worried he woke the Drake due to the hour, but the cries of youthbehind him let him know that pups were about.Had Shui had another clutch?
“It’s me.” Frikka leaned against a scratched-up plastic wall, staring at a crudely drawn penis on the wall.Unimpressive.
Silence stretched with unsaid annoyance beneath it. “Where are you?”
“Danville by the shuttered Kmart. I need to liquidate some gold. I’m coming back.” Frikka hadn’t spoken much in a long time, his voice hoarse.
“Everything’s digital these days. I’ll have a driver come get you so we can get you straightened out. Does Hallr know?”
Frikka stared out across the bleak parking lot, the crookedKof the sign’s panel fluttering in a light breeze. “Nah. I want it to be a surprise.”
***
Sile had him picked up within the hour, fed and housed in a hotel where the council met. He didn’t come himself, but rather sent papers to him with a new identity, a letter, a cell phone, a bank card with documentation on how to access the funds, and had the attendant that delivered it take the gold in return. A few hundred thousand had been deposited, which was good enough for the time being. He only needed the bare essentials. And atop the paperwork was a set of keys to a motorbike. He’d not driven one in years, but it was like riding a bike. Wasn’t it?
He opened the letter and stared at the neat script scrawling across the crisp paper. In it was a polite list of Drakes and Dettes in the area since he’d been gone.
“Sacha Dior lives here, now?” Frikka half grinned. The Drake had been a half brother to Hallr’s tiger lily—Cairn.
The first matter of business was abusiness. A flower shop in Brenton—Snapdragon. There, he could find Hallr’s mate. The paper said his name was Leo.
He folded the note, tucked it in his leather jacket, and rode out, determined to see this Dette and the pups.
An hour later, he sat in a parking lot, watching through a bright window as the prettiest little red-haired Dette rushed around. He was so small and innocent looking, but when Frikka stepped closer to the building and opened the door—
“Who the fuck decided to put baby’s breath in with my goddamn daisies? Cheezus christ, man!” Shrill tones cracked out from the male almost as sharp as the scent of mating flower. A female—shifter of some variety—snapped back at him about storage space since they were dealing with all the nestblossoms.
Frikka stood in stunned silence as the male gave him half a glance. The boy was no ordinary Dette, for certain. He had no decorum, didn’t behave like any dragon Frikka had seen.
“Sorry. I’m out of it. Sile sent you?” The male, Leo, pushed a shock of ginger hair from his face and stared Frikka down with too-green eyes.Too much like Cairn…
“Sacha…” Frikka started, but Leo interrupted.
“Oh, Pops sent ya. Okay.” Leo ducked behind a counter and pulled out a small tissue-wrapped bundle of two flowers. “This should help. Just snuffle around with it and should knock the edge off your heat.”
Cairn’s nephew…Hallr did set his mind to things.
“Thanks…” Frikka stepped back as Leo rushed by, waving him off dismissively.
“No problem. The council pays for them out of the restitution fund. If you need housing or someplace safe to have your heat, there’s a card tucked into the bouquet. Call the number.”
Frikka nodded, slightly dumbfounded, before he stepped out. Things had changed.
Unsure of what to do, Frikka left, making his way to Hallr’s estate. He still had questions and wasn’t ready to speak to anyone, so he parked down the road and cut through adjacent fields, sneaking over a brick-walled fence. The shouts of laughter met his ears and such a vision he’d never thought he would see…
Hallr lay shifted out in the sun, his pearl-flecked hide glinting as pups crawled over him—shades of gold, silver, black, white, and a strange kind of black that was not Nidhogg or Nielsen. And amid them all, a pushy little Drake with two-toned scales bowled over a Dette much older than him with playful intent. The sight froze Frikka in place for too long because by the time he realized it, a little red-haired Dette with sinfully green eyes stared up at him. His little shorts bunched up on his legs and had the scuffs of grass and dirt from hard play. Something no young Dette would have been allowed to do only a short time ago.
“I will not hurt you.” Frikka held up a hand in panic.
“Better not. Papa will kill you, and Father will hide the body where nobody will find it.” He glared.
Frikka blinked. “Hallr your father?”
The child nodded.
“What’s your name?” Frikka moved to settle down and pull himself back into the hedges.
