Necessary Monsters

Chapter 9

At this, Felix balks. He's always known this was the endgame for the two of them - he has a shrewd idea both families have already decided on dates and divided up holidays - but the idea of abandoning his newfound freedom for a lifetime laying next to this woman, cold and beautiful and sharp as a diamond, is utterly terrifying. Instead, Felix throws himself into his correspondence with Juniper, who points out that Aurelie isn't the only eligible, pureblood woman in the world, reminds him he's hardly done any serious investigation into the subject, and encourages him to hold out.

"There's got to be at least one pure-blood girl out there with a passing interest in dragons. It'd be a shame for you to settle for someone that can't appreciate all your talent," she writes, in a letter Felix folds and unfolds so many times, the parchment eventually falls into pieces he has to tape back together. He can't stop re-reading it. The words make him glow. Aurelie's early letters teem with tantalising coquetry, but Juniper simply declares her compliments like established points of fact. If Aurelie is a diamond, then Juniper is a dragon egg; rougher and hotter, a different sort of object altogether, but infinitely more precious to Felix.

Felix can't imagine Juniper ever permitting a chilly silence to blow between them as they lay in bed together. Juniper, with her easy laughs and natural way of setting people at ease, would know exactly what to say to make those moments beautiful and memorable, even if he doesn't. They're hard for Felix to picture with no good point of reference, but he feels instinctively that nights with Juniper would be better.

Which is what makes the aftermath of their brief tryst so much harder to bear.

Felix returns to work as usual, but there's an ache inside him he cannot soothe, like a miniature dragon tooth lodged in his flesh. Unbearable waves of longing and pain beat against him every minute of the day, exhausting him and keeping his fractured nerves on fire. True focus is impossible. He's caught between an unquenchable thirst for Juniper and resonating, bitter anger for the way she's treated him. After every sacrifice he's made for her, Juniper is unwilling even to try. He didn't know it was possible to hate and love somebody so fiercely and simultaneously.

I don't want things to change. Her words kick at his already bruised brain. Somehow, in spite of everything he had done, he still had not been good enough. On some level, Felix knows it must be his fault. He should never have let that night occur. He had rushed in senselessly, swept away by emotion, just as he had the night she'd been attacked. How might everything have been different if he'd only listened to his common sense? The regret makes him physically ill.

Juniper's first letter arrives a week after his return, and Felix can't prevent his heart leaping into his throat when he recognises the hand-writing. For a few wild minutes, as he finds a quiet spot and tears into the envelope with shaky fingers, he's convinced everything will be fixed. Surely Juniper will be fit to burst with desperate apologies and confessions of feelings she was too muddled to express before. But as Felix scans the lines eagerly, his hopes are dashed. It's a few dutiful paragraphs about Juniper's return to the Khanna tree farm, her reconciliation with her friends, some minor improvement in her hands as she focuses on her healing once more, and her subsequent decision to return to school. She's breezy and pleasant, as if nothing remotely intimate had ever passed between them. Felix throws the offensive parchment into the fire, then spends the evening meticulously reassembling the ashes.

His late night craft project makes Felix late for the next day's shift, and it's a testament to his genuine enervation that he doesn't even notice. Nor does he notice the eyes of his Senior Dragonologist following him as he wanders into the Peruvian Vipertooth habitat an hour past his scheduled time. Felix goes through the motions of inspecting his dragon, instructing his team of assistants in a weary, hollow voice, entirely oblivious to his superior's expression of growing concern. It isn't until Felix fails to notice the tell-tale signs of impending flame from the mercurial young Vipertooth and has to be yanked out of harm's way by a terrified assistant that Luis Rashbold steps in. Barking orders over his shoulder to the rest of the team, Rashbold heaves his junior dragonologist out of the fray by the back of his neck, and half-drags him across the grounds to a carefully concealed paddock.