by Tami Lund
Because bodies didn’t spark and magic didn’t exist.
So what the hell just happened?
“How?” she muttered, still staring at her own hand.
“You know what’s interesting?” said the older lady with the long, straight, midnight-black hair who kind of looked like a witch. “She’s definitely a half-breed, but what else is she?”
It sounded like her question was serious.
“Half-breed? Like, am I black and white? I mean, yes, my mother was white and my dad was black, but seriously, half-breed? That’s how you describe it?”
“Not that,” the lady—Delilah, that was her name—said, flapping her hand in dismissal. “Your species.”
“My species?” For the seven billionth time she looked to Rahu for help, but then she quickly glanced away because he had started talking like he bought into all this half-breed, magic crap too.
Fated mates. Dragons. Magic. Oh, and now witches. Delilah had mentioned gargoyles too. As if all those stone statues in Aunt Pacey’s yard were real. Well, more real than being ugly lawn ornaments.
“Is that why you dress like this, keep your hair dyed like that?” she asked Delilah, not bothering to hide her derision. “Because you think you’re a witch?”
Delilah snorted. “I started doing it a while back because humans like the idea of magic and witches, and it helped me sell more merch when I ran my antiques shop down on Royal Street. Now I maintain the look because a certain someone in my life thinks it’s hot.”
She waggled her eyebrows at the white-haired, bearded guy who had been talking about dragons and fated mates. He gave her an exaggerated wink in return. The really tall lady, Antoinette, rolled her eyes. Becca swore Rahu’s lips were twitching.
Dear God, she had fallen down the rabbit hole. Not an hour earlier, she’d thought herself fortunate, had been so glad she’d finally made the decision to move away from her overbearing, overprotective aunt.
Now she missed that safe, secure, sane place.
“You know what? I’m just going to pack my stuff and go back to Aunt Pacey’s. I think, uh, I think that’s best.”
She started to head up the stairs. Antoinette grabbed her arm and that light flared again, so bright it was damn near blinding. Antoinette pulled her hand away like she’d been scalded.
Holy crap, that really just happened.
Becca dropped to sit on the step and lifted her hand to stare at it once again. “Okay, somebody explain this to me. Somebody who can speak plainly, so that it makes sense to me, please.”
Nobody said anything for long moments, and then someone cleared their throat, and finally, Antoinette said, “What you’re trying not to believe is actually true. You aren’t human.”
“I’m not human,” Becca repeated like a robot.
“None of us in this room are, actually,” Antoinette said.
Yeah, right. “So what are we?”
“Well…most of us are dragons. Except you. And Delilah is half dragon, half witch.”
“Half dragon, half witch,” Becca parroted. She hadn’t torn her gaze away from her hand, which was doing nothing at all except looking like a plain old hand.
“Witch and dragon,” Delilah spoke up.
More throat clearing. “Yes,” Antoinette said.
Finally, Becca lifted her gaze. It skimmed over Rahu, who appeared both worried and frightened. What was he scared of? Her calling the authorities and reporting him and his buddies here? Was this some sort of cult? Was that why he’d been so insistent she move in here? So they’d have more opportunity to brainwash her?
“Prove it,” she blurted, shifting her gaze to Antoinette, who was acting like the leader of this, er, cult. Or whatever.
Antoinette exchanged a look with the dark-skinned guy with the short-cropped hair. He nodded, and she blew out a breath. “Okay, but we have to go outside. We’re, um, really big when we’re in dragon form.”
Dragon form? Was she serious?
The group all headed across the living area toward one of the French doors leading onto the wraparound porch.
Apparently she was serious.
“Are you coming?” Rahu asked. He hadn’t followed the others, had stayed behind when Becca didn’t made any move to get up from her seat on the stairs.
She closed her eyes. “You believe all this too?”
“Um, yeah. It’s all true, Becca.”
It’s all true. “So you’re a…dragon?”
He nodded.
“Scales? Wings? Breathing fire? The whole shebang?”
He nodded again.
Her insides felt like they were bubbling and boiling, like hot lava. It wasn’t the exciting sensation she’d had earlier with Rahu; it was darker, angry.
That stupid light on her hand flared again. Becca scowled. “How do I keep doing that? It isn’t possible.”
“It is. Come outside. It’s honestly pretty spectacular to watch us shift.”
“Shift.” Us. He was part of the cult. She just slept with a guy who thought he was a freaking dragon. And her hand kept lighting up like a damn streetlamp.
She definitely needed to get the hell back to the sanctuary of Aunt Pacey’s house.
“Come see,” Rahu said, a note of pleading in his voice. “It will help you come to terms with all of this.”
Will it? He reached for her, but she jerked away. “Don’t touch me,” she snapped, and she finally stood, deliberately turning away from the injured look on his face. That’s all she needed, to feel sorry for him on top of all this insanity. Somebody needed to feel sorry for her, damn it.
They went outside.
The backyard was small, with a tiny garden to one side. The porch steps led down to a partially constructed deck. A round, glass table and several cushioned chairs were situated in the shade provided by a giant oak tree. A ten-foot white privacy fence wrapped around all of it.
“None of the neighbors are outside right now,” Ketu said, approaching from the side of the house.
The rest of the group stood under the tree. Becca felt Rahu behind her. She’d made it outside but still stood on the porch.
“Okay,” Antoinette said. “Ready?” She looked up at Becca, like she was seeking her permission.
For what?
“He should be the one to show her,” Delilah said. She stabbed her thumb in Rahu’s direction.
“Actually,” Antoinette said, “I think she’s right. What do you think, Rahu?”
Becca didn’t turn around to look at him.
“It’s up to Becca,” he said. “Do you want to see me shift?”
She almost laughed at the absurdity of his question. Into what? A liar? Or was he already that? “Whatever,” she finally muttered.
“Come on,” Delilah said. “Let’s get this over with. It’s hot out here.”
Rahu headed down the stairs to join the group hovering under the tree. He stopped a few feet away from them and turned to face her.
“Don’t be afraid, okay? I won’t hurt you, no matter what form I’m in. Do you believe me?”
She shrugged.
He glanced at Ketu, who nodded. And then Rahu’s body started to shimmer, and Becca stared despite herself, despite the absolute impossibility of the situation.
She watched as his hands transformed into claws—giant, black claws that stuck out from under shiny, metallic scales. They appeared silver, although when the sun bounced off of them it created dozens of tiny rainbow halos. She shaded her eyes with her hand and kept watching, admittedly fascinated.
His head elongated and grew bigger and bigger while his ears turned into something resembling flippers and horns sprouted out of the fast-disappearing hair.
Horns!
His face became a snout. Smoke shot from the slits his nostrils had become, while the rest of his body transformed into something of a lizard shape, except far larger than the bearded dragon she’d intended to buy for her classroom. He was scaly too. With wings. Great silver wings that, when
he spread them, spanned the entire width of the backyard.
Holy crap.
Becca continued to stare until the transformation was complete. The entire process took only seconds, but those seconds felt like ions in the moment.
Rahu was a dragon. Dragons existed.
Rahu was a dragon.
This…this couldn’t be. It didn’t make sense. Actually, it made even less sense now that she’d seen it happen. Because until this point, she could convince herself these people were simply crazy. But now—now it was real, and she couldn’t process.
This was too much.
“What you’re trying not to believe is actually true. You aren’t human.”
They insisted Becca wasn’t human either. But not a dragon. No, she couldn’t do that.
She only made light flare around her hand. Practically a parlor trick compared to turning into a ten-foot tall, scaly beast.
Guess that explained the fence.
“I can’t,” she whispered, and every single person—dragon…whatever—in the vicinity turned toward her, as if they’d heard the barely spoken words. For all she knew, they had.
“I can’t do this,” she said, a little louder this time.
The dragon, the actual one standing on all four legs in the middle of the backyard, shook its head and snorted. A ball of fire burst from its mouth.
Becca gave a yelp and rushed toward the house. The French door flew open without anyone touching it and banged against the wall, the glass windowpanes shattering.
She shrieked and started hopping around, afraid to cut her bare feet on the shards of glass. As if by magic—oh hell—an invisible broom seemed to sweep the bits of glass out of her path.
Becca ran straight through the house to the front door and burst through it, out into the front yard. She didn’t have shoes or a purse or her keys or phone, and she didn’t care. She just needed to get the hell away from those people. Dragons. Whatever.
She couldn’t take this. It wasn’t real.
But it was.
It was much too real.
Just like her parents dying.
Running down the sidewalk, she shook her head as images popped into it, scenes she didn’t recall ever seeing before, yet she knew in her gut were real.
Her parents’ deaths. Specifically, her mother.
She’d been attacked. By a group of men. Really big men. Five of them. They all had long, dark hair, and their skin tones varied from pasty white to darkest black.
And their eyes glowed.
“Ohmigod,” she said on a gasp without breaking her stride. “Those guys—the band—they killed my mother!”
“We sure did.”
Becca slammed into a wall. Except there wasn’t a wall. It was just the sidewalk, stretching on to the next block. But she’d definitely hit something solid, and she’d been going fast enough that the impact knocked her backward and she landed on her ass on the concrete.
That guy, the one who looked like the lead singer from Cinderella, stepped out from behind a hedge, followed by the rest of his band mates. They were all still dressed like they were about to go on stage. One of them was even wearing leather pants, which had to be seriously uncomfortable in this heat and humidity.
They’d been wearing the same outfits when they killed her mother. Guess they weren’t into variety in their wardrobes.
She could see it as if her mother had died yesterday. Which she supposed made sense. Those memories had been locked in her subconscious for seven years so it wasn’t surprising they’d be so vivid when her mind finally let her see them.
The timing sucked, though, because frankly, all she wanted to do right now was curl up into a ball and mourn her parents all over again.
It was all too much.
Sleeping with Rahu.
Discovering he was a dragon.
A dragon!
Reliving her mother’s death.
And now the same guys were after her.
And she was alone in a part of town she didn’t know very well, in the middle of a weekday, which meant the occupants of these houses were all probably at work. Even if she screamed for help, who would hear her?
Wait.
Dragons.
Rahu.
“HELP!”
In the blink of an eye, a dragon appeared in the middle of the street. It looked just as confused as Becca felt.
What the hell was she, a freaking genie?
“The Daughter of Light has discovered her powers,” the lead singer of Band of Evil noted. “And she summoned a dragon protector. Fascinating that she’s using dragons instead of gargoyles.”
“Oh God, don’t tell me gargoyles are real too.”
But good Lord, that one would actually make sense, given Pacey’s obsession with them.
“Oh no. Don’t tell me Aunt Pacey is in on this too?”
“Don’t know Aunt Pacey and don’t care,” the singer said, and he threw what looked like a ball of red light straight at Becca. Before she could react, the dragon roared and, shooting a stream of fire, disintegrated the ball it before it hit its mark.
“Damn dragons,” the singer muttered, and he threw another ball of red light, this time at the dragon. It blew fire and destroyed the thing again, then turned its head toward Becca and waved its snout between her and its back.
What did it want? For her to climb onto its back?
“Uh…seriously?”
The dragon nodded vigorously and then fended off another attack by the long-haired killer.
Becca shook her head. “I can’t even.”
Something hit the pavement near her hand, and she rolled the other way and then jumped to her feet. Glancing at the place where she had been sitting, she saw a black scorch mark.
“Okay, maybe I can.” She scrambled toward the dragon—even if it was Rahu, she was seriously running toward a dragon.
That just wasn’t right.
He lowered one wing, flattening it on the ground, and Becca wedged her foot under the joint and hoisted herself onto his back. She quickly positioned herself so that she was straddling his neck, and she wrapped her arms around him and held on for dear life.
I can’t believe this is happening.
The wings flapped, kicking up dust and leaves and creating something of a wind tunnel that blew at the band’s long hair as if they were posing for a music video, and then in the next breath, Becca was flying.
Without releasing her hold one single millimeter, she leaned to the side to confirm that yes, she was not touching the ground. In fact, she was probably thirty, forty, one hundred feet in the air.
Moisture smacked her in the face, and she squeezed her eyes shut until it cleared. When she opened them again, they were above the clouds.
Above. The. Clouds.
Despite the direness of the situation and the reality that all those things that weren’t supposed to be real actually were, a giggle escaped her lips, and the dragon glanced back over its shoulder. She gave it a feeble wave and then clutched onto his neck again. He winked and then turned around to pay attention to where he was flying.
The dragon just winked at her.
Not just the dragon but Rahu. She was flying on Rahu’s back.
Wait—where the hell was he taking her?
Chapter Eleven
Rahu took her to the City of the Dead. He didn’t know what else to do. The aboveground cemetery was loaded to the gills with gargoyles so it seemed the safest place for her at the moment.
It was dusk when he landed on the moss-coated pavers that formed something of a town square between four of the largest crypts in the cemetery. The gates were locked, which meant no human tourists would be wandering about, and he could shift back to his human form without worry of being spotted.
It also meant the surrounding gargoyles were free to shift as well.
Rahu summoned the magic, commanding his dragon to let go of his form so that he could shift into his human shape. As soon as the magic shimmered the
air, Becca stopped her visual admiration of the landscape to stare at him as the scales and horns and wings faded and were replaced by skin and hair and blue eyes and—oh shit, he forgot to magik his clothes back on. He did so, quickly, as he felt his cheeks suffuse with heat.
And then she attacked him.
“You jerk,” she shouted as she pummeled him with her fists. “You knew about all of this and you didn’t tell me? We slept together, you asshole!”
He grabbed her wrists because, damn, those blows hurt. “I couldn’t. They swore me to secrecy.”
“Liar,” she cried out. “I don’t believe anything you say!”
“Becca, I’m really sorry. I wanted to tell you, I swear.”
She tugged her arms free of his grasp and stormed several paces away, turning her back to him. Hopefully, she was taking a minute to think about everything. Maybe she’d realize that he hadn’t had any damn control in this situation. Not even a little bit. If he had, he would have done things much differently.
Her shoulders tensed as magic filled the air again; the gargoyles were taking their human form. More than one, based on the amount of magic he could feel.
He suspected Becca could feel it too, because she faced him again, her curious gaze darting all around. He could feel her fear, too.
“It’s okay,” he said. “They’re friends.”
“They who?”
“Gargoyles.” He cleared his throat. “They’ve actually been protecting you for your entire life.”
Someone stepped out of the shadows. And then another someone and another. Men and women, all looking as if they were carved from stone, even in their human form. They moved to the edge of the pavers and stood at parade rest. None greeted them, but Rahu noted they were all eyeing Becca with undisguised curiosity.
And then Argyle lumbered up, and two gargoyles moved out of the way to allow him to walk through the living fence they’d created. Becca’s eyes widened.
“The handyman,” she said. “Wait. You’re—” She looked at Rahu.
He nodded.
“He’s a gargoyle?” she asked.
Rahu nodded again.
