Chapter 8
1243 Words
8
The most peaceful night of sleep was interrupted by a small ball of fuzz.
“Hfffff!” Pickles hissed, shaking her spines dangerously close to me.
“No, leave me alone,” I muttered, trying to push her away. I wasn’t going to let the perfect morning be ruined by an angry dust bunny.
Ryoko stirred in my arms. “What?”
“Nothing. It’s Pickles.”
“Hmm…” She yawned and stretched like a cat, wrinkling her shirt even more. She unfurled from the ball of arms and legs we were and sat up. “What does she want?”
So that was the end of that cuddle.
I cracked my neck, trying to remove the stiffness. My single bed was just a bit too small for the two of us, but it was worth it.
The sunlight caressed Ryoko’s back, revealing the golden scales I always so admired. Carefully, I followed the lines with my finger, tracing them up and down her spine.
“You’re tickling me,” Ryoko giggled.
“I love your scales.”
“You do?”
“Hmm-hmm.” I trailed my fingers up and down her skin. Despite the scales, she was smooth and soft. “They’re beautiful.”
She smiled. “I used to hate them.”
I perked up. “Why?”
“Growing up, I was the only Sun Dragon of my peers. They would tease me that my scales weren’t the same colour.”
“That’s mean.”
“Children can be mean.” She moved her arm through the sun, her scales chasing the light and disappearing once they reached the shadow again. “The sun and moon have a complicated relationship, but they are brother and sister. They despise each other just as much as they love one another.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just remained silent. She was fascinating and I would gladly just watch her for hours.
Ryoko smiled. “We should get up. I’ve got an early class.”
“Right. I’m going to see Flavia before my lesson starts.” That said, instead of getting up, I pulled Ryoko back into me and peppered kisses up her neck and to her cheek. “Stay just a moment longer.”
“Hfff!” Pickles hissed.
“Or not,” I quickly joked, jolting up and releasing my girlfriend. “I think you have a needy bunny.”
“So it seems.” Ryoko pressed a quick kiss on my lips before she crouched down to feed Pickles.
While she was rummaging through Pickles’ things, I gave my shirt a quick sniff.
Nope.
I shouldn’t have slept in my school shirt.
“I smell,” I announced, earning a chuckle from under the bed.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Ryoko argued. She sat down next to me with a handful of cotton balls that she fed one by one to the dust bunny. “Yum, yum, yum. Tasty breakfast, Pickles.”
I pressed a quick kiss on Ryoko’s temple and moved to my side of the room. “I need a change of clothes. I hope I still have some…”
I rummaged through my dresser and my wardrobe, only finding wrinkled shirts and dirty clothes. Just when I was certain I was out of clean things, something hit the back of my head.
“Hey!”
Ryoko giggled. “Oops, sorry. I was aiming for your desk.”
I picked up the thing she threw at me. “That’s… your shirt.”
“We’re about the same size,” she reasoned. “And I know you forgot to do laundry.”
“You sure it’s okay for me to wear your shirt?”
She shrugged. “I think we’ve reached that part of the relationship.”
“Neat.” That solved my issue. With a fresh shirt and a change of underwear, I was set. “Right, I’m off.”
“Good luck with the wolves.”
“We need it.” I pressed a soft kiss on her cheek, relishing in her proximity. I wanted more, so much more of her, but we had things to do. This would have to do to get me through the day. “Right, I’m off.”
“Bye! Be safe.”
“Can’t make any promises,” I joked. “Bye Pickles!”
“Coffee.” Flavia thudded a tray with steaming mugs down on the table and both Astrid and I didn’t waste a second to grab one.
“Hmmm…” I hummed, breathing in the roasted aroma.
Astrid slurped loudly and sighed. “That’ll wake Odin himself up.”
“Do you think he drinks coffee?” I wondered.
“He must.” My classmate turned to Flavia. “Does he?”
“I don’t think there’s coffee in Valhalla.”
Astrid and I gasped. “No coffee?”
“No. But there’s mead that comes from a golden udder.” Flavia downed her mug of coffee and rubbed her hands together. “Let’s get to the task at hand. Valhalla isn’t going anywhere.”
“Is Sim not coming?” I asked. “Or is he still asleep in your bed?”
“Ha. Ha,” Flavia replied sarcastically. “Is Ryoko still asleep in your bed?”
That shut me right up.
“Point taken. Task at hand, it is.”
She chuckled triumphantly. “Good. Astrid? What did you find out about the two Ravens?”
My classmate dug in her pocket and unfolded a piece of paper. “Right, so this information wasn’t easy to get, but you’re lucky I know someone. Raven Hilda Vind, Wind Child, and Raven Bart Streefman, Elf. From what I heard, they’ve been with the Midnight Ravens for a while.”
“Weaknesses?” Flavia asked.
“Like I said, Vind is a Wind Child, but that won’t do us much good. She’s an abandoned orphan with a heart of steel. She knows no other loyalties. She’ll never crack. But Streefman, he has a younger brother, Billy, that’s also a Raven. Only his brother joined much later and get this… He’s a klutz. If it wasn’t for his older brother, Billy Streefman would have been kicked out a long time ago.”
Flavia clicked her tongue. “Interesting… How do Vind and Streefman get on?”
“They’re not friends, but they work well together.”
“So how do we use this information and turn it into an advantage…” Flavia wondered out loud. “Streefman’s younger brother is clearly our way in, but how can we use him?”
“Money?”
“No…”
“Maybe we threaten him,” Astrid suggested. Her eyes flickered dangerously as she smiled. “Yes, we’ll kidnap the brother and then blackmail Streefman into doing our bidding.”
Flavia shook her head. “No, he’ll just report that to the Midnight Ravens. We need to come up with an idea that means he’ll turn on them.”
I listened to the two of them bouncing devious ideas back and forth. Each suggestion was rapidly growing darker and darker to a point where I couldn’t believe we were even considering this.
“Guys,” I interrupted. “Are you serious? Kidnapping? Blackmail? I thought we were the good ones.”
“We are,” Astrid said. “But they’ve got our dusk wolves. They’re keeping us hostage. We have to fight fire with fire. If you don’t have the stomach for it, maybe it’s best you leave it to the experts.”
“Experts?” I laughed loudly. “Your last plan to escape the bunker almost killed you.”
“Only because you got us into that bunker in the first place.”
“Well…” I glared at her, wishing I had a good retort, but I came up blank. “Whatever. I just don’t think we should be hurting someone to get what we want.”
“We’re not,” Flavia cut in. “Streefman only has to think Billy is in danger of getting kicked out of the Midnight Ravens. Are any of you good at copying handwriting?”
“I’m good at it,” Astrid quipped in. “What? I had a bucket load of siblings, my mother didn’t always have time to sign all our sheets and forms. We used to do it ourselves.”
“That’ll do. I’ll come up with the ransom note and instructions. You’ll write it down. When we get Streefman and Vind away from the Barn, we’ll stand watch. Ylva and Aellyn will disable the shade lock.” She checked her watch and nodded. “Alright. I have class.”
Astrid nodded. “Alright. We do too.”
“We’ll meet again tomorrow night when everything goes down. In the meantime, act normal,” she instructed.
Act normal? What was that supposed to mean?
- Writer
