Chapter One

“No, not yet.” Jacinth drew the words out, pulling her comforter over her head and rolling away from the noise on her nightstand. Some God awful pop song, a going away present from her roommate that she hadn't gotten around to changing, played merrily from the tiny speaker.

She sighed, unfurling herself from the covers and grabbing her cell phone. She slid her finger across the screen to silence the noise, and heaved herself out of bed. Stretching until she got a cramp in her foot, she padded out into the kitchen to prepare the coffee maker. The smell and sound of percolating coffee reached her senses, and she went to her laptop for her morning rounds.

Facebook showed nothing important, and after returning a couples pokes she was off to Instagram. A girl from high school posted an obscene amount of baby photos, broken up by a few selfies and pictures of a dog that looked like a gremlin. Her rock had a few likes, but she didn't expect any more than that. Twitter followed, and that was where she got her first surprise. There were a few responses to the Tweet, but the one that caught her attention was from someone she hadn't heard from, or about, since elementary school.

10:46 PM �" 17 July 2014 @malbright Tweeted: “@jacinthrunner I'm, like, 98% sure that's a dragon egg. Where did you find it?”

Jacinth stared at the Tweet, then at the innocuous looking maybe-a-dragon-egg sitting on the coffee table. “Huh.”

@malbright, or Miles Albright, had been an unusual little boy interested in all of the creatures populating Earth that could kill a person in a myriad of painful ways. This never deterred him, and, according to his Twitter profile, he now worked at the Smithsonian studying them. Meaning, he probably did have some experience identifying dragon eggs. The only thing keeping her from being completely convinced; however, was the fact that there were no dragons in North America.

She knew the basic history, as all kids learned in middle school. Back before the Civil War, dragons lived peacefully amongst Native Americans. They formed a harmonious relationship; the Natives and dragons shared the buffalo as their primary food source, and the dragons would provide controlled landscape burning. The burning happened in intervals, and promoted the growth of new plant life, kept large forests free from undergrowth, and maintained a diversity of habitats.

Eventually, settlers began moving West. They consumed buffalo, fashioned materials and products from their hides, and then began hunting them for sport. As valued as the buffalo were, settlers found even more value in dragons. They lured them into traps, sold their scales, teeth, horns, and talons on the market for a considerable price, and killing a dragon gave men a lifetime of bragging rights.

With a dwindling food supply, and the threat of humans, the dragons left. It'd been two centuries since a dragon had been seen in North America, and Jacinth couldn't bring herself to believe there was the egg of such a powerful creature occupying her living room.

Still...

Arming herself with a cup of coffee in the largest mug she owned, Jacinth opened Google and typed into the search bar: dragon eggs.

Thousands of results came up, including a Wikipedia article, a site where you could hatch your own virtual dragon, and a tutorial on how to make a prop dragon egg out of a coconut. Going past page three proved useless, so she leaned back in her chair and tapped out a rhythm on her mug. Her thoughts returned to Miles, and then to the Smithsonian.

“It's worth a try.” She typed Smithsonian into Google, and clicked on the first link. The main page didn't hold any answers, and the individual museum pages just gave a brief overview of what a visitor could experience by going there. A tab labeled 'Science and Technology' caught her eye, and she released a breath of triumph when a link for the Encyclopedia of Life appeared. The page that came up was exactly what she was looking for.

A large search bar invited her to discover information about any life form on Earth. She eagerly entered 'dragon' into the search bar, and waited for the results. Some plants and fish came up, but she was much more interested in the little pictures of various dragons listed. Unsure what she was looking for, she chose the first one she saw with americanus in the name.

A larger picture of the dragon appeared, and further down, after the brief overview of the species, a picture of its egg was displayed. This one, draconis americanus avii, primarily occupied deserts and were solitary creatures. They were pushed out of their territories during the Mexican-American War in America's pursuit of 'manifest destiny.'

After clicking through several species of dragon, Jacinth's breath caught when she was viewing the entry for draconis americanus bicorne. There, under the picture of a primarily grey, horned dragon, was the rock she had found in the mountains; the rock that was actually a dragon egg.

“Oh, my God.” She got up and grabbed the egg, the egg, holy s**t, and put it on her desk for a side-by-side comparison. The black speckling was a little different, but she supposed not all dragon eggs looked exactly the same. The color and shape were the same; though, and suddenly she was terrified.

What if there was a mother dragon out there searching for her egg? Did she ruin the chances of it hatching by taking it home? Was there still a chance to hatch it?

She lurched into action, gently placing the egg in her lap and opening Twitter. She wasted no time in posting her Tweet.

9:07 AM �" 18 July 2014 @jacinthrunner Tweeted: “@malbright Oh my God I have a dragon egg! What do I do?! Take it back? Hatch it? Is it too late?!”

Now what?

She didn't trust Google to find a way to hatch it properly, and she couldn't even keep a hamster alive; how did she expect to hatch a dragon? And what about the legality of it all? It was illegal to keep dragons as pets in other countries; they were wild and dangerous and caused all sorts of problems. Sure, it wasn't technically illegal to have a dragon in America, but that's because no laws have been necessary pertaining to their ownership. So, it was legal only because it wasn't illegal; that didn't mean it still wasn't ill-advised.

Surprisingly, she didn't have to wait long for a reply from Miles.

9:15 AM �" 18 July 2014 @malbright Tweeted: “@jacinthrunner You aren't dead yet, so the mother isn't looking for it; likely abandoned. DM me with your number.”

Jacinth quickly sent him her number through a direct message, and waited only a few minutes before her phone rang. “Hello?”

“Hey, Jacinth. It's been a while.” That was putting it lightly. “So, about that dragon egg. Tell me how you found it.”

“Sure, okay. I was hiking up the 'M', that's this trail behind the University that goes up Mt. Sentinel. I got to the end of the trail, and then I went up a little further. There are some rocky outcrops, and a lot of times I can find Eagle feathers there, so I went to take a look. And, nestled in between the rocks, was the egg. I thought it looked cool, so I put it in my backpack and took it home.” She paused for a moment. “You really think it was abandoned?”

“I do. If the mother was around, you wouldn't have made it off that mountain with the egg. You find out what kind of dragon will come out of that?”

“Yeah, I looked it up on the Smithsonian website, actually.” She thought she heard a huff of laughter on the other end. “It's a draconis americanus bicorne; whatever that means.”

“In English, it means American Mountain Dragon, or American Two-Horned Dragon. It can be translated either way; both work. They grow to be pretty large, and blend in well with the mountains they reside in. They range anywhere from the highest peaks to low elevation mountain bases.”

Jacinth sighed. “Great, but you still haven't told me what I should do with it.”

He was silent, and then, “Do you have a fireplace?”

“No, I can't say I do. Are you actually suggesting I hatch this thing?” She stood up, placing the egg on her couch, and began pacing her living room.

“Well, yeah. Dragon eggs incubate at extremely high temperatures. The summer heat will have kept it alive, but not for much longer; especially as we don't know how long it had been sitting there. If we wait for a dragon biologist to come from another country, then it will probably be too late.”

Well, when he put it like that it seemed selfish not to at least try. “Okay. I don't have a fireplace. What else will work?”

“You can always throw it in the oven at the highest temperature. Not the conventional method, but it will work on short notice.”

“The oven? Sure, why not? That won't have any adverse effects, right? You said they need pretty high temperatures.”

“Yes, but incubating temperatures vary, and, like certain turtles and lizards, the sex of the dragon is determined by temperature. Since your oven likely only reaches 500°F it will incubate in the lower spectrum, and you will, most likely, hatch a male.”

“Anything else I should know?”

“That should be it for now. There's no point in overwhelming you with information this early. Just keep the egg in the oven until hairline cracks begin appearing, and then take it out and lay it on a blanket you don't mind getting ruined.”

“Okay. I can do this.”

“Don't worry, everything will be fine. Save my number, and keep me updated. Good luck, Jacinth.”

He hung up. She stood staring at her phone for a few moments, and then shook herself. Scooping up the egg, she grabbed a Pyrex baking pan and set the egg in the middle. It wobbled, so she grabbed some aluminum foil and padded around it. With the egg secured, she put it in the oven and set it to preheat to 500°F.

Before closing the door, she snapped a quick picture.

Jacinth returned to her computer to check Twitter. Notifications greeted her, and she wasn't as surprised as she should have been to see a dozen people she had never heard of following her. Apparently, her post was getting around, and people were caught between excitement that she found a dragon egg and disbelief.

She opened the Twitter App on her phone and attached the photo to her Tweet.

9:38 AM �" 18 July 2014 @jacinthrunner Tweeted: “I have a dragon egg in my oven. Here's hoping for the best. #Dragon #ExpectingParent