Around Thirty minutes latter…

  We were at the drive-through of Burger Town and my dragon migrated to the back seat. I looked at the time.

  2:30 PM.

  Middle of the afternoon. Broad daylight. Just me, Cam, and a thirty-pound winged fire hazard trying to pretend she was a very opinionated iguana.

  “Welcome to Burger Town, how can I help you today?” the speaker buzzed.

  Cam leaned across the console. “Yeah, uh—three flame-grilled patties, no bun, no sauce, just the meat.”

  “She wants it rare,” I added. “Like, still mooing.”

  A pause crackled back through the speaker. “...We don’t recommend undercooked beef.”

  “She doesn’t care,” I said. “She’s—”

  I glanced at the rearview mirror. “—on a special diet.”

  “This place smells like disappointment and overcooked cheese,” the dragon muttered in my head.

  Cam shook his head and added, “And a Bacon Royale with fries and a medium drink.”

  The speaker crackled again. “Drive forward.”

  We didn’t even bother with more stops. The moment the food was in the car and the dragon was happily chewing through her third patty like it owed her rent, I gunned it back toward campus.

  No more detours. No more chaos.

  Just one goal: get the tiny fire hazard safely back into my dorm room before someone called animal control, the mages, or worse—the RA.

  By the time we pulled into the lot behind my building, Cam looked like he’d aged five years.

  “This is gonna be the dumbest thing we’ve ever done,” he said, loading three plastic bags into his arms and trying to balance a pillow-sized dog bed on top.

  “We once snuck a live octopus into the library for a photoshoot,” I reminded him, grabbing the groceries.

  He grunted. “Okay, second dumbest.”

  My dragon had been following me like duckling.

  “I’m ready to take a nap.”

  “Okay fine.” I muttered as I opened the stairwell door, like we were doing something highly illegal.

  We slipped down the hall like two fugitives with three too many shopping bags and a war crime following me. I scanned the corridor—clear. No RA. No wandering roommates. Just the faint smell of microwave lasagna and stress.

  “It stinks in here and is that someone moaning?” she asked.

  I unlocked my door with a swipe of my keycard.

  There she was.

  Val.

  In a very compromised position with her orc boyfriend on her bed.

  I blinked.

  Cam made a sound like a dying toaster.

  “Why is he so ugly?” my dragon asked.

  She needs a name and I’m so glad she can’t speak.

  Val shrieked and dove for the blanket, dragging it up to her chest like it could erase the last five seconds from all our memories.

  “Jade!” she gasped. “What the hell?!”

  I stared, frozen in the doorway, clutching two bags of raw meat and a fuzzy grey blanket with little dragons on it.

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  “I live here,” I said, voice flat. “That’s what the lease says.”

  Her boyfriend scrambled for his pants. “We didn’t think you’d be back this early!”

  Cam, wide-eyed and traumatized, tried to turn and walk back out the door without saying a word.

  “You said you needed the room for two hours!” I snapped. “It’s been four!”

  Val’s face flushed beet red. “I didn’t think you’d come back with a... a lizard!”

  Her boyfriend jumped out of bed and covered his man bits. “Hi, Jade,” he said, with mortification painting his face like a tragic mural.

  I blinked once.

  “Hi... whatever your name is.”

  “It’s Graak.”

  Of course it was.

  Cam coughed into his elbow to keep from laughing.

  My dragon, still very much not a Lizard, tilted her head from her spot on the bed and said inside my head:

  “Can you make him leave he stinks.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath to keep from wheezing. Do not laugh. Do not laugh in his uncovered face. How did she get up there that quick?

  “Right,” I said instead. “Graak. This is awkward. Could you kindly put pants on before you traumatize Cam any further? He’s one mental spiral away from writing poetry about this.”

  “I can hear you,” Cam muttered from behind the pile of grocery bags.

  Val pulled the blanket tighter and hissed at me, “This is so inappropriate.”

  Hours later Graak, Val, and Cam left.

  “Something tells me, I’m not hearing the end of this.” I said to my dragon.

  She peered in my mind. “What’s my name?”

  I blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “You called me. Brought me here. Fed me. Gave me a bed. I need a name.”

  I dropped onto the edge of my mattress—technically her bed now—and ran a hand through my hair. The dragon padded toward me, small and smug and still somehow the most powerful thing in the room.

  “You couldn’t just come with one?”

  “That’s not how this works. Names carry weight. Meaning. Power. Intent. I’m not naming myself after a canned soup.”

  I sighed and flopped back against my pillow. The ceiling stared blankly down at me.

  “I don’t know… you’re small, spiky, sharp-tongued…”

  “That describes many things. Knives. Hedgehogs. You.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re also kind of elegant, in a terrifying, I-could-burn-down-a-building kind of way.”

  “Flattery won’t save you from the next bonding trial.”

  I sat up halfway. “There’s more bonding?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Of course she didn’t.

  I stared at her—slitted eyes, soft silver markings, the faintest ember glow beneath her scales.

  And then the name came out like it had been waiting in my mouth for hours.

  “…Ashira.”

  She blinked once.

  Then again, slower.

  “That will do.”

  She curled up at the foot of my bed, tucked her head beneath her wing, and finally—finally—slept.

  Later that night…

  I woke up gasping in a cold sweat.

  The dorm was dark. No lights. Just the low snoring from Val, and the soft, rhythmic breaths of Ashira curled at the foot of the bed like a weighted furnace.

  But something was wrong.

  There was a white-hot burning sensation blooming just above my right breast—sharp and alive, like someone had pressed a brand to my skin from the inside.

  I threw the blanket off and scrambled to sit up, clutching my chest.

  Not metaphorically.

  Actually clutching.

  It wasn’t a sharp pain. It was deep. Radiating. Like the bones beneath the skin were lighting up.

  I slipped out of bed, teeth clenched, hoodie half-off before I even made it to the mirror. I flicked on the desk lamp and lifted the edge of my tank top.

  Right over my heart, just above my right breast—

  A symbol.

  Not a scar. Not a tattoo.

  A rune.

  Delicate lines curled and twisted like they’d been burned into me with surgical precision—no blood, no mess. Just this perfect, glowing mark that pulsed like a second heartbeat.

  My heartbeat.

  I stared.

  Ashira stirred behind me.

  “It’s begun,” she said, voice sleep-thick but steady.

  I turned slowly. “What has?”

  She padded across the sheets and sat, tail curled neatly around her legs. The glow from the rune cast soft firelight across her snout.

  “The bond. The seal. You carry my mark now. It chose the place closest to your core.”

  I looked back at the mirror, skin still warm beneath my fingertips.

  The rune didn’t hurt anymore. But it hummed. Like it was waiting.

  “Great,” I whispered. “I’m half-elf, an art major, possibly cursed, and now I’m wearing magical chest graffiti.”

  Ashira blinked slowly.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Ashira padded across the bed and crawled to where I slept and curled up. This little flamethrower. I grabbed my art bag, my phantom black hoodie, my black leggings, and my black skate shoes.

  I checked my phone

  1:11 AM.

  Of course it was.

  Sleeping was out of the picture, still I wonder how did Ashira get in my trunk.

  I pulled the hoodie over my head, careful not to rub the rune too much—it was still warm, like skin recovering from a sunburn. Not painful, but definitely there. Very there.

  Ashira’s head popped up like popcorn and her green eyes squinted. “Jade, where do you think you’re going?”

  I froze and met her stair. “For a walk.” I said smoothly.

  “No, not without me, I have to go.”

  “Go, back to bed that’s what you need to do.” I muttered.

  “No, I have to go to the bathroom.” She clarified in a smug tone.

  I rolled my eyes, “at least you don’t shit fire.”

  There was a long pause.

  She blinked.

  “If my stomach hurts,” she said matter-of-factly.

  I stared at her, horrified. “That wasn’t a joke?”

  Ashira yawned like we weren’t discussing the potential for napalm poop. “Dragons have complex systems. Pressure builds. If I’m emotionally unstable and digesting poorly processed protein—yes, sometimes it comes out what you call spicy.”

  “Just get in the bag,” I said pointing to it.