Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

Immediately I wrapped him in my arms in a bear hug to beat all bear hugs. “Geez, Sullivan, there are people watching.”
    I finished kissing his adorable face, giving him another hug just to reassure myself that he was really there. “I’m fine. Did you have any trouble at the airport?”
    “Nope. Gabriel said there might be some problems, but he bribed a few people, and it ended up being OK after all.”
    I looked over Brom’s head to where Gabriel and May stood, leaning against each other with that ease of longtime lovers. “Trouble with his passport?”
    “Not that,” Brom said before Gabriel could answer, squirming out of my hold. “With my mummies!”
    “Your . . . you didn’t bring those horrible things, did you?”
    He shot me a look that was oddly adult in its scorn. “It’s my work, Sullivan. You didn’t think I was going to leave it behind so Gareth or Ruth could take it when I wasn’t there? The customs dudes didn’t want to let me bring them, but Gabriel gave them some money to look the other way. He says I can use a room in the basement as my lab. It’s got a table and sink already, and he said he’ll get me a big tub to soak the bodies in.”
    “How very generous of Gabriel,” I said, trying not to grimace at the thought of Brom’s current scholarly pursuits.
    May laughed. “It actually sounds very interesting, if a little gruesome. Brom says he only works on animals that have died naturally, because he feels too much empathy to kill one for research purposes.”
    “For which I am truly grateful,” I said, ruffling his mousey brown hair.
    “That’s not all. Gabriel says you get to give me some sort of a tattoo of the silver-dragon sept. He says most members of the sept have them on their backs, but I thought it would be cool to have it on my arm, so I can show it off.”
    “No tattoo!” I said firmly. “You’re far too young for that. And I wouldn’t know how to give you one even if you weren’t.”
    “It’s not really a tattoo,” May said quickly. “It’s more of a brand. It’s done with dragon fire.”
    I stared at her for a few seconds. “Is that supposed to make it better?”
    Gabriel laughed and pulled his shirt off, turning around. “All members of the silver sept bear the emblem marking them as such on their backs.”
    High on his shoulder blade was a mark that looked like a hand with a crescent moon on the palm.
    “May has one too, although she wouldn’t show me hers,” Brom said, giving her a disgusted look.
    “I don’t take my shirt off in public quite as easily as Gabriel does,” she told him.
    “I don’t care what it is,” I said. “You’re not having it. You’re not a member of the silver dragons.”
    “Gabriel says I am because you’re one of them.”
    “Well, I’m not.” A thought occurred to me. “And I can prove it. You said all the silver dragons have that mark—well, I don’t.”
    They all looked at me as if they wanted me to take my shirt off.
    “She’s right,” Brom said after a moment of silence. “I’ve never seen anything like that on her back.”
    “You see?” I tried to keep the triumph in my voice to a minimum. “I wish you’d mentioned this emblem or tattoo or whatever it is before—it could have cleared things up instantly. I don’t have any such marks on me.”
    “Well . . . except for that one on your hip,” Brom said.
    “That is a scar, not a tribal marking,” I told him.
    “Scar?” Gabriel asked, his gaze dropping to my midsection. “What sort of a scar?”
    “Just the remnants of an old injury, nothing more,” I said quickly.
    “It’s shaped kind of like this,” my son said, holding his hands up, fingers spread, thumbs touching.
    “Oh, it is not. It’s just a simple scar!”
    “Is it a figure resembling a bird?” Gabriel asked him.
    “Of course it’s not! And no, before you ask, I’m not going to—Brom!”
    The child I had labored to bring into the world—even if I couldn’t remember the event—grabbed the bottom of my broomstick skirt and lifted it, squinting at my exposed hip. “I suppose it looks kind of like a bird.”
    “You are in serious trouble, buster,” I told him, trying to wrestle my skirt out of his grasp.
    Gabriel started around the back of me, but stopped at a pointed look from May, who gave me a little smile, and said, “I’m sorry, Yso—Tully,” as she bent her head to look at the mark that rode high on my hip. I’d never thought much of it, assuming