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The best he could manage was to control his temper and indicate his acceptance without showing the bitter resentment he felt at being sidelined for a generation.
He’d made all the necessary arrangements, and they had summoned him the moment his whelp was ready to come out of its gestation pod. He had not been without it since.
In the beginning, the tiny Imberian needed near constant feedings and changing, and it was vulnerable to any change in its surroundings, making horrible squawking sounds whenever it was uncomfortable.
Now it made those same sounds, but much, much louder, whenever Jhon was out of its sight, even for an instant.
“Whoa,” his brother Rafe intoned, looking at the ship, as usual.
Rafe had been a hotshot pilot. Jhon strongly suspected he had annoyed the wrong person with his massive ego and had been given the “honor” of guarding an Imberian whelp just to get him out of the way.
Rafe hadn’t taken it personally, though. As playful as a youngling, the rebellious dragon managed to find the fun in every situation.
“I can’t believe that thing is still in the air,” Rafe remarked, eyeing it with great interest.
“It isn’t anymore,” Jhon pointed out.
“Yeah, they have a rough-landing set-up,” Rafe laughed. “But I’ll bet they can get it up again, watch. It’ll jump again when they give it more fuel.”
In Rafe’s arms, his whelp chattered, too. It was slightly older than the others, and always smiling and trying to speak in nonsense syllables. Rafe tousled its curls and smiled back, as if he approved of its off-key gibberish.
On the ground below, another female figure joined the first, followed by a third. All three were tiny, practically lost in their furs. Jhon could really only make out the tops of their heads. While the first had hair the color of tree bark, the second’s head was covered in pale yellow curls, and the third had an inky black mane that lifted slightly in the wind.
Kian, the third dragon warrior in their group, grunted disapprovingly.
Kian was a mountain of a man with a deep voice he almost never used.
Somehow, the silent giant had been matched with the tiniest of the whelps. It was also the youngest, and female. And most disgraceful of all, Kian appeared to have bonded with it.
They were brothers in arms, so Jhon could only button his lip and keep his judgement to himself every time he saw the terrifying hand-to-hand combat champion of all the Invicta nuzzling a creature so tiny and so unremarkable it was practically a blob of meat, no more sentient than a vaca-steak.
At least his little Bo had a personality.
No, Jhon’s inner soldier warned him instantly. We do not call him by a name, and we do not compare him to the other whelps. We keep him quiet and out of danger. Guarding him is the only mission.
The truth was, that in spite of its many shortcomings, the little whelp was starting to grow on him. It was getting harder not to enjoy the weight of its warm form in his arms, or the happy sounds it made when it was eating or being held.
You’re about to hand him off to a stranger, he reminded himself, and tried not to notice the pang he felt at the idea.
“Oh wow, look at that,” Rafe said appreciatively.
The women had turned to them, and the wind was whipping in their cloaks, revealing impractical, low-cut gowns underneath.
His eyes were drawn to the slender frame of the brown-haired Terran. She was as plain as could be, and unappealingly scrawny. But somehow, it almost hurt to look at her. He found he had no interest in the blonde or the curvy one.
The feeling that had come over him before returned, even stronger now. It was like every cell in his body was being pulled toward that tiny, brown-haired girl.
“What are they wearing?” he scoffed, to cover the strange emotion he still couldn’t identify. “Are they here to adopt a baby on the frontier, or host a garden party on Upper Arkadia?”
“I don’t mind what they’re wearing,” Rafe said with a wolfish smile.
“Maybe they want to look soft and comforting,” Kian retorted, his deep voice sounding almost rusty from disuse.
Jhon turned to him in surprise.
Rafe laughed, letting his head fall back as he howled like a hyena in delight. His whelp also lifted its tiny chin and made a high-pitched laughing sound.
Thoroughly disgusted with all of them, Jhon activated the slide-ramp and headed down it into the swirl of frigid air.
