Page 3 of Scales ’N’ Spells: Volume Two

One woman’s mouth fell open, and she lowered her phone a little. “Did—did you just try to do a Jedi mind trick on us?”

“Did it work?”

“No.”

Ravi’s shoulders slumped, and he gathered his wings tighter against his body, trying to pull together as much dignity as he could muster, considering the mess he’d gotten himself into.

“Damn you, Obi Wan. You made it look so easy.”

No one seemed to know what to say to that.

Ravi gave them his best puppy eyes. “Could we keep this whole little thing just between us?”

Someone else on the ground barked out a high-pitched laugh. “No way. I’m livestreaming this on Instagram.”

“Facebook,” another woman chimed in.

“TikTok,” a third person added.

“Scheiße,” Ravi cursed under his breath. Alric was definitely going to kill him. With a little wave of his hand, he mumbled an embarrassed, “Sorry for disturbing your movie. I thought the pilot was in trouble.”

And then he launched himself back into the air.

He didn’t care about fog, clouds, or trying to hide himself in any way. It was too late for that. Now he was just a blue blur in the sky as he raced toward a secluded spot. He needed to warn the other dragons back at Burkhard.

The kilometers raced by below him, and he didn’t stop again until he was in an uninhabited area well past Dover. That had been his original plan, to stay away from civilization until he reached a library.

Now he didn’t know what he should do.

In what looked to be a lonely stretch of woods, Ravi set down and shifted into his human form. His heart was pounding, and his throat was painfully dry as he dug his cellphone out of the little bag he was carrying. He hesitated for only a moment, trying to decide who to call. He knew he should call Alric or even Baldewin. As the head of security for the clan, Baldewin would need to know about this mess he’d made.

This was so, so much bigger than his usual antics. It wasn’t a matter an apology and doing dishes for a month could make up for. He’d just outed his whole clan. Possibly implicated the ice dragons as well. Like, how many years of dishes would this take?

And were people even ready to come out of the closet? Alric and Rodrigo had been talking about it, debating pros and cons, but no one had arrived at a conclusion yet.

Yet. Ha, that was funny.

Funny because Ravi had taken the option out of their hands.

Alric might lock him in the dungeon with Gunter for the rest of his life. Ravi couldn’t think of a worse punishment than being confined to the dungeon, researching until his eyes crossed. He shuddered at the image.

No, there was only one person who could help keep his king from going through the roof.

“Ravi,” Cameron’s sleep-rough voice groaned in his ear the moment the call connected. “I thought I told you not to call me before the sun was up.”

“The sun is definitely up,” Ravi muttered.

“Really?” There was a pause and a rustling of sheets. “Huh. I guess it is, but it’s still too early.”

“Is Alric there with you?”

“Nope.” There was more rustling of the sheets and a happy sigh like the mage was getting settled in bed again rather than getting up. “He said he was joining some kind of dragon calisthenics on the mountain with Baldewin and Warin this morning. I think they were even going to drag Gunter out with them.” Cameron snorted. “Silly dragons. Not gonna catch a mage out on a mountain at this ridiculous hour,” he muttered.

“Cam, I-I’m going on a journey,” Ravi announced.

There was another long silence, but this one was different. The line was completely still. He couldn’t even hear Cameron breathing.

“What did you do?” Cameron demanded softly. His voice sounded calm, but there was a deadly seriousness to it.