Carol lifted her chin and stared at her friend. “Hildy’s going to be fine. I know how to fix her.”
“Did Zenos tell you what to do?” Iren asked.
Carol shook her head. “No. I just know. It’s hard to explain.”
“I believe you,” Iren said.
Carol snickered. “You are turning out to be the best boyfriend ever. Does your naked butt look as good as Nathaniel’s?”
Iren snickered and winced. “Just wait until we start our learning project together. When I get done with you, you’ll never look at any guy’s naked ass again without thinking about me.”
Both of them laughed at his bragging as Carol transported them back to the safety of the campus.
Chapter 19
Carol grinned as Iren shook his head. “You amaze me,” he said.
She looked at Hildy curled up with Chuck in her arms. She hugged him close. The small shifter really was like a teddy bear for her. The kid adored her. He’d planted kisses all over Hildy’s face the moment she’d suggested it. Now he wouldn’t leave Hildy’s side. That might be a problem, but one that wouldn’t keep her awake at night.
Ahmed jumped off her bed and barked at the air. Carol laughed. Two seconds later Jezibaba popped into the room. Her familiar was great about warning them. He and Hildy’s cats weren’t getting along well though. They were going to have to get separate rooms. It was time.
Carol sighed.
The Jezibaba turned from looking at Hildy. “Why are you sighing? This was nice work.”
Carol nodded. “I know. It’s not about Hildy. It’s how everything is changing so fast.”
Jezibaba looked back at Hildy and pointed to the bed. “They’re bonded on some level now. Shifters sort of jump through puberty in a year or two, instead of ten like humans do. I think Chuck will be looking for her when he comes of age. I’m going to have to speak to his family and see if they can find ways to keep him away and busy.”
“Did I hurt him? Please tell me no. Hildy gets all nuts about shifters and it tends to give her super powers. It’s the only time she ever kicks my ass.”
Jezibaba laughed. “No, Carol. Your ass is safe. You didn’t hurt him. What you did was save Hildy and that’s what Chuck would have wanted anyway. Your job was to connect the energy dots until they led you to the most optimal solution.”
Her sigh of relief was loud. “Do you ever get to take a vacation from this stuff?” Carol asked, her voice wistful.
“Not really,” Jezibaba said dryly. “I found hobbies were good for relieving my stress.”
“What kind of hobbies?” Carol made a face. “You’re not talking about cooking and sewing, are you? I hate crafts. Goddess, please… no finger paints or watercolors either. And don’t get me near a kiln.”
“I’m sure you’ll be able to find some fun and fairly safe project capable of holding your interest,” Jezibaba declared.
Carol fought a smile when Iren ducked his head and chuckled. “Stop,” she ordered.
Jezibaba crossed her arms. “I’m afraid I do have to restrict you to campus for a while. The three of us will need to travel together until your magic training is completed. The other exception is Zenos. You two will be allowed to travel with him. He’s a grumpy old fart, but I know he would protect you well.”
“I understand,” Carol said quietly. “I don’t like being restricted, but I get why it’s necessary.”
Jezibaba walked over and put both her hands on Carol’s shoulders. “Now we need to discuss the big thing. How are you dealing with what you did to Nigel? It’s been a couple days.”
Carol swallowed. “Umm… is it bad that I still feel no guilt?”
“Hmm…” Jezibaba murmured. “We’re going to keep an eye on that. It’s not good to be hard-hearted in our line of work.”
“What about that creep was remotely redeemable? I can’t help hating him. He tried to kill me. He almost killed Iren. He was going to let Thane take you and sell you to bad people. He worked for the traitors on the Council of Witches. ”
“And we still don’t know who that is because why…” Jezibaba prompted.
Carol blew out a frustrated breath. “We didn’t get a chance to torture… I mean… interrogate the prisoner because I took him out instead of wounding him,” she recited. She sighed deeply when the Jezibaba patted her cheek in approval.
Beside her Iren looked away to hide his grin. “If you say anything bad right now, you’ll be bound and gagged before you can blink,” Carol threatened.
Iren chuckled. When the Jezibaba stepped away, he mouthed “You’re so hot” and held out his wrists to tease her. A blush covered her face because hot was exactly what the elf could make her any time he chose to do so. That kind of power was a bit unnerving. She could only hope she eventually became immune to such things. At the moment, all she could think of was doing more research with him. Not the tying up kind though, she wanted his hands free so they could roam around. That was so much more fun.
“Want to go hang out at the cricket field?” Carol asked.
Iren grinned. “Sure. Let’s go.” He reached a hand out.
Carol looked at the Jezibaba for permission. Her mentor nodded.
“Go. Have fun,” Jezibaba said. “I have some things to do myself. The cats are going to stay right here at her side until Hildy’s back to being her old self. Right?”
Jezibaba turned to glare at them. They stopped licking themselves and all three nodded their tiny cat heads. She turned back and motioned with her hand for Carol to leave.
Carol snickered at the situation. The Jezibaba was more her mother than her own mother had ever been. Surprisingly, she didn’t mind that at all.
“Come on, Ahmed,” she ordered. Her familiar trotted over to stand between her and Iren. He leaned against her leg so he could transport with them. Ahmed was back in his blue sweater and leg warmers today. They seemed to be his comfort clothes.
“Good boy,” Carol cooed to her familiar, glaring at Iren when he laughed at her. “Hey… I love my familiar. He’s the first real pet I’ve ever had. And I think his camel form is hilarious.”
“I know. He’s perfect just like you,” Iren said.
When he took her hand and squeezed, Carol had a moment of perfect peace. It probably wouldn’t last, but she was definitely learning the value of living in the moment.
***
She found Damien sitting in the chair when she got back to her room. He frowned at her immediately. So much for a warm welcome.
“I’m sorry. You were right and I was wrong.”
Jezibaba shook her head. “No apology can change your disloyalty to me these last few weeks. I don’t think I’m ever going to trust you again.”
Damien nodded. “I understand why you would feel that way right now. A part of me even wants to give you time to be mad and work your way towards forgiving me. However, the fact that you were right about the threats to the girls makes it important for us talk… even if you don’t want to talk to me.”
Jezibaba shrugged. “You’re right. I don’t. If you didn’t trust me before, why would you start now?”
“Because it’s time we shared our truths. Why have you stopped transporting?” Damien asked.
“I walked here because I needed the exercise,” she lied. “Why are you in my room uninvited again?”
Damien rose and went to her. He put his hands on her shoulders. “I came to wait for you, because I can’t stand us fighting any more. I want to know what’s so wrong with you that you’re not using your power. I know now I’ve been stupid and neglectful in my support. I’m trying not to be that way anymore. Please talk to me.”
“Damien… all this drama… it’s really not necessary.”
He rubbed his hands over her upper arms. “Shut up and let me grovel. I’ve been practicing in my head all day. You know how difficult I find being wrong, not to mention having to admit it. We have that failing in common.”
Her snicker of amusement gave Damien
the first real hope he’d felt about their situation.
Jezibaba snorted. “Your defense of your arrogant character does not sound one bit like groveling. Do you even know the meaning of that word? I’m not sure you do, Professor.”
Damien leaned in and planted a quick kiss on her cheek before speaking. “I’m sorry I hurt you by not supporting you when I should have, Elenora. I’m equally sorry what I was thinking about you isn’t our truth. You see… I liked the fantasy of thinking you were just a normal woman. Now I realize I can’t keep such thinking and keep you safe at the same time. Not listening to your instincts about Thane almost got you killed… and the girls killed too. If that had happened, I would never have recovered. I owe the contrary mage for intervening, even though his help lacked proper manners.”
Jezibaba sighed beneath his hands and broke away from his hold. “Zenos is who he is. I am who I am. You’re stalling, Damien. What did you do to Thane? Tell me the truth of that.”
Damien lowered his head and studied the floor. “Since no one died, I could not justify taking his life. I turned him over to the Council of Dragons to be reprimanded and punished according to dragon laws.”
Jezibaba huffed out a breath and shook her head. “Dragon laws? Dragons weren’t even involved. Thane plotted with Nigel to kill a Chosen One. He physically tried to killed Ahmed, sexually harassed both Hildy and Carol, and planned to sell me to the highest bidder. That dragon deserved to die for his crimes and I would have killed him if I’d gotten the chance. The only reason I didn’t kill Nigel was that Carol got to him first. It won’t stop the council, but I’m betting seeing Nigel’s dead body slows them down for a while.”
Damien stuck his hands in his pockets. He paced around her small space. He hated to think of her being in this tiny, bare room all alone. He hated being in his space without her. This couldn’t go on.
His tired sigh broke the silence between their viewpoints. “Do you doubt my loyalty to you so completely now?”
Jezibaba turned to face him. “How can I not? You have chosen against me several times in the last few weeks. You chose it yet again when you didn’t bring the dragon back to me.”
Damien lifted his chin. “I promise you Thane will receive dragon justice for what he tried to do. The Jezibaba and the Baba Yaga are revered by dragon kind. Everyone knows keeping the balance is all that prevents magical chaos.”
“Are we really as valued as you say?” Jezibaba asked. “Morgana said I was to be a bridge between dragon kind and the rest of her creatures. I don’t feel like a bridge, Damien. I don’t feel respected. If my own lover can’t see the Jezibaba as someone with advice worth heeding, how am I going to convince others of your kind?”
“You’re forgetting you are dragon,” Damien declared. “No matter how much you deny it, you are one of my kind.”
Jezibaba shook her head. “My dragon is a borrowed form, a goddess’s trick. It is not who I am or what I am. The truth is I don’t know what I am anymore. The waning of my magic seems to be some horrid price I’m paying for my identity crisis. I wouldn’t have this problem if I hadn’t let the dragon out. And you wouldn’t be able to use that form against me.”
“Are you saying your loss of power is my fault? Because we now disagree on justice?” Damien asked, unable to keep the hurt from his voice. “I would never take your magic from you… never.”
“But you did take away my power, Damien. You didn’t bring Thane back to face me… or the girls. We are the beings he wronged. Facing his crimes against us is real justice. My magic is based on stopping people like him. Now it has nowhere to go because you decided to take it out of my hands.”
“So now you don’t trust my judgment either.”
Jezibaba swallowed, but nodded. She had to. It was her truth. “You and Zenos are a lot alike. You help and support only when it makes sense to your brain… only when it suits the needs of dragon kind. Although I don’t really know what Zenos’s kind is, I can sense he’s far more than a mage because he makes decisions based on ethics he won’t re-examine or explain. What he did for Nathaniel—that’s the act of a god. I don’t even think Nathaniel knows what Zenos is. But whatever his origins, I can’t trust him either, no matter how powerful he seems.”
Damien nodded. “I completely agree about Zenos. He is far more than he seems.”
Jezibaba walked to her bed and sank down on it. “I’m going to have to call Morgana and ask her about him. I don’t know why I’m hesitating. I’ve never been an indecisive person, yet I don’t want her to know what he did for Nathaniel. If I didn’t know better, I would say he’s spelled me to think kindly of him no matter how awful he acts. It’s the same way I feel about you. I actually had Nathaniel check me for unhealthy traces of your residual magic.”
Damien wisely hid his smile. “Why don’t you talk to Zenos first… before you call Morgana? Perhaps you’ll learn what is necessary to know about him.”
Jezibaba huffed. “You make it sound so easy. Have you spent any real time with the man?”
Damien laughed. “Yes, he’s not all that bad. I know many dragons as arrogant as he is.”
“Of course you do,” Jezibaba said. “You see one every time you look in the damn mirror.”
Damien grinned over her sharp reply as he walked to the bed. He hauled the woman he loved up by the front of her low cut blouse and put his mouth on hers before she could push him away. Her arms came around him reluctantly, but they did come around him. In his mind, that meant he could win her back and he would. He’d find a way.
And as soon as the Council of Dragons made their decision about Thane, he’d tell her what punishment the boy had received. Then perhaps she would understand how Thane would suffer far more than his death at her hands would have allowed.
He pulled away and put his forehead on hers. He hated how tired and defeated she still looked. If anything was his fault, it was this. His lack of support had done this to her. But he couldn’t let his past mistakes keep him from a future he knew in his heart was right.
“Keep something in mind while you’re debating my character. It was my kiss that broke the spell on you. My kiss… because my love for you is true,” he whispered. “It will be that way until I take my last breath, Elenora. I may continue to make mistakes where you’re concerned, but I will never stop believing you and I belong together.”
When she didn’t answer, Damien made himself let go and walk away.
But he would be back. Yes. He would be back.
Chapter 20
Jezibaba paced back and forth in the area where she and Damien went to practice shifting. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d tried being a dragon. The physical pain was so excruciating, over the years she had avoided it whenever she could. For the last year or two, no threats had forced a shift and she’d found a hundred excuses to avoid Damien’s suggestion to practice the change.
Even looking at the ground and envisioning talons digging into the earth was enough to send her heart racing and her pulse scrambling. She’d concluded this unconquered fear was part of her waning power problem, but still couldn’t bring herself to shift by choice.
Sighing, she hung her head. She hadn’t felt this insecure since she told Ambrose she couldn’t marry him. The mage who had trained her had been devastated. It had taken her months to get her confidence back after she’d understood how deeply she’d disappointed him. She’d learned the hard way that doing the right thing often knocked her back on her self-righteous Jezibaba ass.
Knowing she wasn’t going to be able to wrestle the dragon problem on her own, she opened her mouth to call her benefactor.
“Feck, woman. Don’t call the banshee. Morgana can’t help ya or she would have already done so.”
Jezibaba spun to face the voice. Before her stood a twenty foot tall talking phoenix. While she watched, the creature shrunk until it morphed into an attractive, middle-aged version of Zenos.
“The firebird is an immortal form. You’re not just
a mage. What are you?”
Zenos snorted. “I’m no fecking consort to yer goddess, if that’s what ya be thinking.”
“Are you a god then?” Jezibaba asked.
Zenos shrugged a shoulder. “A long time ago I wanted to be a god, but I’m well over that foolishness. As for being immortal, I can die just like the rest of ya, but the difference is I always come back. The firebird is my native form now. Whatever is left of me at my death turns into him no matter what.”
“You now look half the age you were when I met you. You look my age… or Damien’s. How many times have you come back to life?”
He rubbed his nose and laughed. “More times than you can imagine. I was already magically immortal before yer conniving deity got her hooks into me. But I was very old and I looked it. I didn’t like being old. Morgana promised to help me find my youth again and I believed her. But the price I paid was too dear, and for a long time, I believed it had been for no good reason. I wanted her dead over it because I concluded all she had said had been lies.”
“What price did you have to pay?” Jezibaba asked.
“My original form. Morgana The Red took it from me forever. A few years ago, I finally found out what she did with it. She put it in another which is the only truth she ever spoke to me.”
“So that’s why you don’t like her? She stole your original form?”
Zenos snorted. “Like? I fecking hate her for what she did. Ya should know I’ve spent many years thinking about how to get even. My promise to the druid came back and bit me on the arse before I could figure out how to take my revenge. The connections between creatures will always trip ya up when yer not expecting them to.”
“Do you hate Nathaniel too? Because I will kill you as many times as necessary to protect him from your wrath.”
Zenos grinned. “No. Nathaniel has reminded me for a second time in my long-lived life that there are forces binding us all together that even yer goddess can’t get around. Those forces have turned my mistake into a legacy I’m now forced to support because of my honor. Being pissed about that for a couple of millennia won’t change it. So there it is… ya now have the whole sad tale.”
Magic and Mayhem: How To Date A Dragon (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Baba Yaga Saga Book 2) Page 14
