Pib's Dragon (2 page)

“
That’s right.” The man
studied him, but Pib had his information and he had no reason to
stay. He turned and was about to leave when the man’s voice stopped
him in his tracks.

“
Welcome home,
Pib.”

Turning back, he opened his mouth to
speak, but the man was gone. Frowning, Pib looked around, but when
no one else appeared, he left the tavern and made his way through
the village and toward Dragon’s Keep.

The walk took longer than it should
have since Pib kept stopping and simply staring at the mountain in
front of him. He hoped there was no one around to witness because
they’d think he’d completely lost his mind, randomly pausing when
there was no one and nothing around.

Why did I ever leave this
place? Oh yeah, I wanted an adventure.

Pib snorted and shook his head. “I was
an idiot.”

“
Has anything changed?” a
deep voice said from his right.

Pib startled and spun toward the voice.
In front of him was a man holding the reins of a horse, a cart
filled with rocks behind them. The man was tall—six feet was Pib’s
guess and he was used to sizing people up. He wore pants that were
cut off at the knees and a sleeveless white shirt. His black
shoulder-length hair was shaggy, and he had dark stubble on his
face, but it was the mischievous look in his amber eyes that gave
him away.

“
Of course. I’m not an
idiot anymore,” Pib said, his voice sounding as pompous as he could
make it. With his hood still up, he could smile at the man without
him knowing Pib was doing so.

“
I’m not so sure about that, Puss. You
were
just
standing in the middle of the trail for five minutes, not
moving.”

Frowning, Pib opened his mouth to
speak. “How…”

The man laughed. “Your boots. You
always were a sucker for fine boots.”

Pib looked down and realized he was
right. The boots were the finest money could buy, with magic woven
into them to make them damn near indestructible.

Returning his gaze to the man, he
laughed. “You always were too damn observant, Pup.”

Pib lowered the hood and looked at his
best friend. Wil had definitely grown into his body and developed
some very nice muscles to go with it. Seconds later, Pib got to
feel those muscles when Wil stalked over and grabbed him in a hug,
squeezing tightly and lifting him off the ground.

“
Oi, put me down, you big
oaf!” Pib exclaimed, although he didn’t try to escape from the
embrace. Instead he wrapped his arms around Wil’s waist and hugged
him back, letting Wil’s scent surround him and give him and his cat
what they’d been missing for nine years—family.

After a while, the horse stamped its
foot and neighed, causing Wil to sigh before putting Pib down and
releasing him.

“
Come on, I need to drop
off the materials and horse and then we can go home for the night.
You’re staying with me,” he said, moving toward the
horse.

Pib chuckled. “Am I now?”

“
Yup. We have nine years to
catch up on, and besides, you know you want to stay with me. We’re
pack,” Wil replied, sounding very smug.

“
We’re not a pack, we’re a
pride.”

“
Nope, we’re a pack. I’m a
wolf, and I say we’re a pack.”

Pib snorted at Wil’s reasoning. “Well,
I’m a serval, and I say we’re a pride.”

“
Nope. I say we’re a pack,
and since I’ve been here this entire time, I get an extra vote.
Therefore I outnumber you and so I win. We’re a pack,” Wil said,
turning to give him a wink before taking hold of the reins again to
pull the horse and cart along.

Laughing, Pib fell into step with the
man as they walked back to the village. “So what are all the rocks
for?” he asked, his curious nature coming to the fore. When Wil
lost his smile and sighed, Pib got worried about what his friend
would say.

“
They’re for the mansion
I’m building.”

Huh?

Pib tried to make sense of that
comment, but no matter how he tried, he couldn’t come up with a
logical explanation.

“
Huh?” As soon as the word was out of his mouth, Pib rolled
his eyes at himself.
Very
intelligent there, Pib.

But it did make Wil laugh and bring a
smile back to his face, even if it didn’t reach his eyes. “After
you left, I thought I’d only have to deal with the three idiots for
another year, two at the most, but unlike you, I didn’t want to
leave Dragon’s Tail.” Wil sighed, and Pib got the impression that
he wasn’t going to like what else Wil had to say.

“
What did they do?” he
growled out.

“
I started learning from
the mason, and eventually I was able to build stuff on my own.
After I turned eighteen, they commissioned me to create a mansion
for them to live in. The first one was made of straw.”

“
First one?” Pib asked in
shock.

“
Yup. The rocks here are
for mansion number three. Because the other two never made it to
completion, the contract wasn’t fulfilled, and therefore I couldn’t
move on to other projects. It’s almost the same as it was when they
were my guardians, only now I have to pay them rent because my
cottage happens to be on the land they purchased a few months after
I got the place.”

Pib’s jaw dropped, and he froze on the
spot, staring when Wil stopped a few paces in front of him and
turned back. The very thought of those three jackasses taking
advantage of his best friend was enough to make him itch to grab
his blades and pay them a visit, but instead a better idea came to
mind.

“
Hey, Wil, what happened to
my family’s cottage?” Pib asked, hoping for some good news. Pib
could see the obvious confusion on Wil’s face, but he waited for
his response.

“
It should still be there.
The enchantment you got for it has meant that no one has gone
anywhere near it. They can’t even see it. Hell, I’d forgotten about
it until now. I still can’t remember where it is, and I used to be
able to walk there with my eyes closed and my nose
blocked.”

Pib smiled at his disgruntled friend.
“Perfect! Then it should be ready and waiting for us to move in to
it.”

“
Huh?”

“
Mum and Dad made the
cottage big enough for the both of us. They might not have been
able to get custody of you, but they considered you theirs. The
cottage is ours, and no one, not even the jackasses, can take it
from us. They can’t even buy the land because they’d need my
signature, and the signature of a dragon. Plus they’d have to fork
out more money than even they have.”

Feeling better about the situation, Pib
stepped closer to his shocked friend and took the reins out of his
limp hands. “Come on, let’s get this dropped off, and then we can
pack up your things and move them tonight before anyone can try to
do anything stupid. I’m not sure if the enchantment included airing
the place out so we may have to do that yet.”

He’d just started walking when arms
wrapped around him from behind and he was jerked off his
feet.

Dammit, my instincts should have warned me!
But Pib knew why they hadn’t—neither
he nor his serval considered Wil a threat, and therefore he could
get close to Pib without warning bells going off in his head. After
nine years of being cautious and on edge, this was going to take
some getting used to.

“
Thank you,” Wil whispered,
and Pib’s heart melted at the emotion in those two
words.

“
Anytime, brother,” he
replied, and Wil tightened his arms for a second before releasing
him and putting him back down on the ground.

“
Come on, let’s get a move
on,” Wil said, taking back the reins and quickly striding
off.

Pib wiped a
tear from his eye and followed.

Pib stayed in Wil’s cottage while he waited for him to come
back. After discussing it, they had decided it would be better if
no one saw Pib and recognized him before they were able to get into
his—or rather
their
—home, so Pib
had pulled the hood back up and stayed indoors. They needed to take
ownership of the cottage before the others remembered that it
existed, and once they recognized Pib, they’d start remembering his
family, the land, and the family home.

Pib was literally climbing the walls
when Wil walked into the cottage some time later. “Pib, what the
hell are you doing?”

Glancing over his shoulder, Pib saw Wil
standing in the open doorway, a bewildered expression on his face.
Smiling, Pib did a backflip off the wall, twisting in the air, and
landed on his feet on the floor facing Wil.

“
I was bored.”

“
You were bored?” Wil asked
in a somewhat shocked tone from what Pib was able to tell, so he
just smiled and nodded at his best friend.

He watched as Wil ran a hand down his
face. “How could I have forgotten to leave you with something to
do, like, oh I don’t know, helping me pack? No, that wouldn’t have
worked. I should have left you a ball of yarn. That would have kept
you busy for hours.” The sarcasm was dripping from each word, but
Pib just stood there and smiled until Wil sighed and walked off
muttering too low for even Pib’s sensitive ears.

With a bounce in his step, he followed
Wil and started helping him. There was a surprising lack of things,
so being the curious cat that he was, Pib asked why.

“
I never saw the need to
clutter this place up,” Wil replied.

“
I can understand why I
would not have a lot of things, seeing as I didn’t have a home, but
I don’t understand why you don’t.” He met Wil’s eyes and saw the
fury in their depths, but he didn’t know the cause, so he silently
waited for Wil to speak, which wasn’t long.

“
I want to rip apart
whoever is responsible for you not having a home, and when we
finish moving my stuff, we’re going to sit down and have a good
chat.”

Pib rolled his eyes. “Fine, but it’ll
take longer than one night to catch up on nine years. In the
meantime, explain to me your lack of junk.”

While Wil snorted and shook his head,
Pib continued to put the clothes into one of the packs Wil
had.

“
In answer to your question, the reason I don’t have
junk,
as you so nicely put it, is because I never saw this place
as home. It’s a house I’ve lived in, but it’s never been a home, so
why bother filling it with memories?”

Glancing at Wil, Pib saw him getting
some things from the kitchen. “The cottage will be our home, now
and forever,” he vowed, only going back to what he was doing when
Wil nodded his agreement. They finished packing in silence. Soon,
the inside of the cottage was left bare and they each had two packs
to carry.

“
Come on, I left a note and
this month’s rent with the brothers’ butler. Let’s get going before
he actually gives it to them,” Wil said, picking up his
packs.

Pib followed suit. “How do you know he
hasn’t already given it to them?”

“
Because they don’t like
being disturbed until late afternoon. That’s when they’ve had time
for the lunch they’ve gorged themselves on to settle.”

“
So in other words, they
eat like pigs?” Pib asked.

“
Nope.” Wil turned and
smirked. “Pigs have more manners than those three.”

They burst out laughing and started the
trek to the cottage that would soon become their home.

When they finally came around the
corner at the bottom of Dragon’s Keep, Pib let out a sigh of relief
at seeing the stairs that led up to the cottage. The plants had
grown around the steps, and without knowing they were there, a
person would easily miss them.

“
I can see them! I remember
this place now!”

The excitement in Wil’s voice was
catchy, and when Pib met his gaze, the two of them took a firmer
hold of the packs and started running up the stairs, trying to beat
each other to the top. Thankfully the steps were wide enough for
their adult bodies, but only just. They both reached the platform
at the same time, and while Wil tried to catch his breath, Pib
walked to the edge and looked out over the view before
him.

The cottage was built on a platform on
Dragon’s Keep. The front rooms were on the platform itself,
allowing the natural light to shine inside, while the back of the
cottage was built into Dragon’s Keep itself and that’s where the
bedrooms were. Not only would that provide them with as much
darkness as possible when they wanted to get to sleep, but each
room had an escape route that went into Dragon’s Keep and
eventually led to an exit on the far side of the mountain. Pib
couldn’t wait to explore the tunnels and see where they led to and
if he could still fit into the ones from his childhood. The space
was given to them by a dragon king after one of Pib’s ancestors
saved the king’s child. However, there was a condition attached to
the land, which was that it could never be sold for anything other
than an astronomical price. The amount would fill up all the carts
for each remaining dragon of the Keep. Additionally, at least one
dragon would have to confirm that the sale price was sufficient. In
other words, the land could never be sold unless the whole world
wanted to lose all of its jewels and gold to the
dragons.