Hydra Read Online Free PDF Page B

it?
    “She was injured. Dying. They had a lot on their minds. It didn’t seem important then. Besides that, you know how it is—we don’t reveal our identities to anyone, especially back then, when dragons were actively being hunted to extinction. Sharing his name meant putting a mark on him, targeting him for death.”
    “But grandpa wouldn’t have hurt him.”
    “True, true. But when you’re in the habit of keeping a secret, you don’t spill it the first chance you get.”
    “But we need to know his name. Zilpha wants so much to marry. She wants it more than anything. If dragons are going to continue to exist for another generation, we need to know the identity of the man—”
    “I know, I know. That’s why we’re here. We’re going to try to find him. If he’s still alive he should be around here somewhere. Dragons don’t leave their treasure hoards unprotected.”
    Her words remind me of the advantage we have of being a family, instead of one dragon all alone. My father and brothers are watching over our village, our treasure and our people. In the same way, when my father made the perilous journey home with my mother nearly twenty-two years ago, her father, my grandfather Elmir, watched over both his and my father’s villages, which are neighboring kingdoms among the Caucasus Mountains of northern Azerbaijan.
    If my mother’s suspicions are right, there’s a dragon around here somewhere. Maybe even in the same building with us. “And Nattertinny Castle? Why’d you pick this place?”
    “It’s the oldest castle in the region that’s been continuously occupied by the same family. On top of that, in the old Scots Gaelic, the nat prefix was associated with dragonflies and a feminine variant of the word dragon . And teine , which transliterates into the suffix tinny, means fire. ”
    I put the words together. “Dragon-fire castle?”
    My mom smiles. “And conveniently, they let out rooms.”
    For a few seconds, I study the fire, my very own dragon fire in the dragon fire castle. I’m thinking Mom is pretty savvy, after all, for bringing us here. But then I realize something troubling. “Mom?”
    “Hmm?”
    “You said Grandma Faye knew of one other dragon, but there are four Sheehys, and two sons.” I’m trying to rectify what she’s told me with what I know. See, dragons are immortal creatures, insofar as they live forever, unless you kill them. When we’re in dragon form we’re pretty tricky to kill. When we’re in human form, we’re nearly as vulnerable as anyone else. But no matter which form we’re in, we only age until we’re young adults, and then we just hang out looking twenty or so for centuries.
    So if my grandma knew another dragon, even three hundred years ago, he’d still look like he was my age today. He’d still be a perfectly viable romantic partner, even if he was hundreds of years old. I know that may seem strange to people who are only humans, but it’s perfectly normal for dragons.
    Mom frowns. “I’ve thought about that. It’s possible she only knew of one of the sons. One may have been born since. Or she might have known Malcolm. Perhaps he found Blair later and married her and had the two sons.”
    I mull these possibilities. “How old do you think Malcolm looks?”
    “He looked younger on the website than he does in real life.” She sighs.
    “I’m not going to argue, he’s in great shape, plenty handsome, but I don’t know that I’d say he looks forever twenty. His sons look twenty, but they also look younger than he looks.”
    Mom throws her hands into the air. “Who knows? We can’t say. Perhaps, if you get to be hundreds and hundreds of years old, perhaps it starts to show. Perhaps he wears makeup to look more appropriate to his age.”
    “Perhaps.” It is a possibility. My mother is guilty of reading articles about ‘make-up mistakes that age you,’ just so she can make those same ‘mistakes’ in an effort to keep people from thinking