Chapter 40

As it turns out, Brendan was right.

The two of them watch as the little dragons feed - a bit viciously and mildly reminiscent frighteningly- on the raw slabs of red meat Brendan had discreetly acquired from the kitchens.

There isn’t really a way to explain why both Alcina and he would suddenly require raw, uncooked steaks to be sent to their rooms, so Brendan had had no choice but to slip in through the shadows like a common thief.

Brendan watches, halfway torn between disturbed and intrigued, as the little dragons consume nearly their own weight in raw steaks.

When Brendan glances upwards, Alcina still has that eerie, transfixed light in her eyes, the one that comes and goes as she seems to snap in and out of awareness of it, herself.

As if she’s pulled in, by some otherworldly force of attraction, to the two creatures.

Brendan glances now at the still-open chest, where he finds the shattered remnants of what he’d thought to be two gems - but had, apparently, been dragon eggs.

Or wha