by Emma Alisyn
Donato roared, throwing back his head and shooting flame into the sky. People screamed, throwing themselves out of the way. Roshell and Bash remained, impassive.
When he was done with his display of temper, he snarled, “I will always be at her side. And anyone who threatens her will fill my belly.”
“Release my son from the hex,” Jezamine said.
Dahl looked at her, and smiled. “Do it yourself.”
“That’s it.” Donato lunged forward, long neck whipping towards Dahl, jaws opening wide as he snatched the warlock high up and flung him about like a rag doll. Dahl screamed, thrashing as he crashed into branches, leaves and pine needles raining down in a shower.
“Finally,” Isaai said.
“No one move,” Roshell shouted. “There will be no violence today. Jezamine!”
But as everyone was distracted, Jezamine dashed forward, flinging a shield of magic around her son as he stood, perfectly still and oblivious. Donato's tail smashed to the ground between her and Hebekah, providing an additional barrier as she patted Joshua’s cheek, and took his hand. His expression shifted, sharpening, and he moved forward when she tugged at him.
Hebekah moved, hands outstretched.
“I wouldn’t, witch,” Marcello said. “No oaths of non-violence, remember?”
“That’s going to be a problem,” Bash muttered. “They have shields. Dragons with shields.”
“Later,” Roshell said.
Joshua was at her side, past the invisible line of demarcation that separated the Hearns from the witches of Felicity Falls. She ignored everyone, working on the hex that trapped her son in his own head.
“Jezamine,” Roshell said again, as Dahl continued to scream and babble incoherently.
Jezamine stilled. She could let Donato eat Dahl . . . well, maybe not eat, that was gross. She could let Donato do what dragons did, and eliminate he ex once and for all. She stared at her son, his baby face long since gone, shoulders broad like a man’s. She would do anything to protect him, and protect the new baby.
She closed her eyes. But she couldn’t condone murder. “Donato. Put him down, please.”
Donato tried to talk around his mouthful of warlock.
“I can't understand you, your mouth is full. Just put him down.”
Donato spit the male out of his mouth, and Dahl landed on the ground with a thud, groaning. “Leave,” the drake growled. “Don’t come back. She might not be so forgiving next time.”
“There will never be a next time,” Bash said, expression hard.
The Hearn witches and warlocks left, helpless rage on Dahl’s face as he limped, supported by Hebekah, who glared venom at Donato. Dahl’s arm appeared broken, and Jezamine secretly hoped a few ribs had cracked as well.
“Do you think they’ll stay away?” Roshell asked.
“We’ll be ready if they make the wrong choice,” Bash said.
“If they want to be lunch, let them come,” Isaai said, and his wings spread as he turned around and began walking away. “I’m leaving.”
“Joshua?”
“Where’s Kayla?” he asked, blinking. The last of the hex unraveled, and she blinked back tears, relief burning away the ice in her chest.
“With Leandros, and safe,” Donato replied, voice grave.
Joshua was looking around. “No bodies.”
“The boy sounds disappointed,” Marcello said.
“I never took any oaths of non-violence,” her son said and Jezamine’s heart stopped.
Oh. Oh, dear. How could she have forgotten? Bash gave Joshua a long look. “We’ll have to have a talk about that, son. You need training, you magic is bursting at the seams.”
“I’ve done my best,” Jezamine said, slightly defensive. “I don’t have a knack for training, though.”
“That’s why the covens have specially trained witches for that, sister.” Roshell’s reply was kind. “But maybe that’s something we can help you and brother Joshua with, okay?”
“I was too easy to take,” he said. “Whatever you have to teach me, so I can protect my girlfriend and our baby.”
Jezamine's eyes closed. So proud of her son—and she’d been right. Having adult responsibility was maturing him faster than a nagging mother ever could.
“We’ll talk,” Bash said, and they began to walk away.
Donato finished shifting, and Marcello remained in dragon form as a guard, walking with them to their vehicle, waiting impatiently as Donato withdrew clothing from the trunk and dressed, then flew away as they pulled off.
“Do you really think they’re going to give up on the book?” Joshua asked.
“Yes,” Donato growled. “Your mother’s done a good job of keeping it, and you, safe. But anonymity is no longer the best course.”
She hoped he didn’t mean . . . . “You don’t mean take the issue public?”
“Exactly.” He glanced at her, expression smug. “D.S.I. Will be very interested in this, and with enough media attention, no Hearn witch would dare lay a finger on you for fear of the backlash. You wanted a non-violent resolution. Fine. We’ll wage war in a different way, then.”
By the time they were back at Donato's house, after detouring to her home to pick up clothing and personal items, and to check her wards—Marcello also swooped down to do a sweep of the neighborhood just in case—Kayla and Leandros were dots in the sky, coming closer.
Joshua watched, visibly impatient as the golden-rose dracaena flew alongside a larger, emerald green drake. They set down, the girl rushing through a change and rushing towards Joshua, who met her halfway.
“That was some bullshit!” the girl said hotly. “I’m not running away to hide anymore.”
“You’ll do what you’re told,” Joshua said, steely. “You have our kid to think about.”
Kayla scowled at him, tore away from his hug and stormed in the house.
Donato coughed. “I appreciate the sentiment, and the balls to actually utter it out loud, but you might want to go clean that up.”
Joshua stared after her, scowling. “She’s so stubborn.” But he stomped up the stairs after her, calling her name plaintively.
“I don’t like it,” Jezamine said.
“Every dracaena needs her own lair eventually,” Donato said. He was taking the whole moving out thing a lot better than Jezamine.
“You’re too young.”
Kayla didn’t roll her eyes, but she shifted her bulk and managed a long-suffering sigh, giving Joshua a telling look. “Told you she’d freak.”
Joshua shrugged. “That’s what moms do.” He eyed his fiancée, but wisely said nothing. Kayla’s temper had grown increasingly snappish in the last several weeks, and there had been signs her dracaena nature might indeed take over during the birth.
“If she begins isolating herself,” Donato had told Jezamine one day, “then we’ll have to keep an eye on her. I’ll talk to Joshua, tell him how to handle her.”
Because a dracaena in labor who wanted to fly off and give birth alone in a cave would tolerate no interference, not even from the father of the baby. So, while Jezamine should be happy the young couple—now eighteen and twenty and graduated from high school—had decided to move out into an apartment of their own and take that as a sign that Kayla might give birth in a nice hospital with nice medical staff present and a bed and sheets and things a baby not in dragon form would need . . . she was still uncertain this was the right choice.
Okay, maybe she’d been looking forward to having a baby in the house.
Donato was watching him, half amused, half inscrutable. He rose from his seat near the couch and took Jezamine’s hand. “Come check the roast with me.”
“You don’t need help checking a roast,” she said as they left the family room and entered the kitchen. She promptly slid onto a stool at the island because she’d learned that when he said to ‘help him’ in the kitchen, he actually meant sit and look pretty while he cooked. The man did not like her messing with his to
ols.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” he asked as he busied himself with basting and thermometers.
“You’ll let me make the salad?”
“Funny. But, yes, you can make the salad this time.”
“I do know how to cook, you know.” She headed to the fridge, pulling out produce, and began assembling a Greek salad, Olive Garden style.
He watched her for a moment, because it was blasphemy not to get the ratio of feta to croutons correct, then went back to his work.
“It means, tesoro, that when the dragonlings are gone, we can have the house all to ourselves.” He turned to her, pinning her with an intense stare. “It means it’s time for you to move in.”
She’d known this was coming, as soon as Kayla and Joshua announced they were apartment hunting, with the blessing and partial funding of Donato, who thought it was a jolly good idea.
Jezamine said nothing, rinsing cherry tomatoes in the farm sink he’d had installed a few months ago. Kayla told her once that he changed his decor every two to three years, and he was now going through a farmhouse chic phase.
“Why are you fighting it, Jezamine?”
Her lips were sealed. For all his talk of moving in, and mating, and whatnot, he’d not asked her to marry him. Not once, had he mentioned a formal, legal union. Not once. Shifters mated for life, she understood that. But she wasn’t a damn shifter. It wasn’t just that, though. The jewel still hung around his neck, bright and cheerful. A constant source of growing irritation. What did he need it for? Was it insurance in case he didn’t really love her?
“I don’t shack up,” she said, avoiding his look, then darting a peek at the jewel. “We’ve had this conversation.”
“I . . . see.” Donato was silent for a moment, then arms were around her waist, lifting her off her feet. She shrieked as he tossed her over one shoulder, and yelled through the house. “Kayla, handle the roast, we’ll be back in a few hours.”
Sometime between her last visit and now, he’d done up the cave to make it more comfortable for a two-legger. The packed dirt floor was now covered in polished wood—and how he’d gotten contractors to make the trip with supplies and up windy forest paths and install wood flooring, she didn’t know. But then, money and the threat of an angry dragon greased all kinds of wheels. The fire pit was now bricked in, and there was a plump futon mattress in one corner, along with low shelves to store belongings.
No indoor plumbing, but she supposed a dragon had to draw the line somewhere.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
She finished turning in her circle, also noting colorful tapestries hanging from the cave walls to add ambience. “It’s lovely, Donato. It beats camping any day.”
His eyes smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his somber mouth. “Good.” He reached inside his shirt and withdrew the jewel, pulling it over his head.
“What are you doing?”
It dangled between his fingers. “You still believe this jewel is why I love you.”
Jezamine said nothing. She was learning to live with the idea that there were different paths to love, and who was to say what they had wasn’t real? It was true that there were no real love spells—magic could trick the mind, but the results were always warped. Magic could not produce genuine emotion.
He set it on the lip of the fire pit, turned and went to a far wall to rummage through a chest of items, withdrawing an anvil.
“Donato—wait! What are you. . . ?”
She covered her eyes instinctively as he brought the anvil down on the jewel, shattering it. The shattering of rock was an awful screech, and the spell, designed to remain encased, crumpled when exposed to air. She lowered her hands in shock, realizing her fingers were trembling.
He approached, taking her hands in his own and then drawing her roughly into his arms, face burrowing in her neck. “I told you, woman, it wasn’t the jewel. You are still mine. I am still yours.”
Her knees were weak. In that moment, she realized how much she’d come to depend on him. Oh, her life would be okay if she never knew, if she could take care of herself, she could survive. There would be an emptiness in her heart, though, where her mate and her future babies and her extended family—the drakes and Kayla—were supposed to be. She didn’t want to do it on her own anymore. She never wanted him to stop loving her.
Of course, she would move in with him. Whatever scruples that were holding her back meant nothing, less than nothing. Jezamine took a deep breath, realized his hand was rubbing circles on her back.
“It’s okay, tesoro.”
“I . . . you shattered the spell.”
“I don’t need it anymore. It brought me what I needed.”
“It was pretty.”
He laughed. “You’re prettier.” He was silent a moment. “We’ll marry, in the way two-leggers do, and I will have another discussion with your coven to ensure they understand the lesson of their failure. You are my clan now.”
She looked up at him, stunned. “Marry?”
His brow rose. “Did you think I didn’t know that was what you wanted? I know my witch.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I haven’t bought you a ring because I thought you might like to pick it out together.”
Yes, yes she would. Any chance to spend time with him, get to know him more, make memories . . . he did know her well. Jezamine threw her arms around his neck, and he laughed.
“Does that mean you say yes?” he asked.
“The book . . . .”
“Is now of Clan Caruso. Perhaps that is what Aleka wanted all along. Power corrupts those with single natures. It must be hard, stuck in one form. Compensation is often needed to make one feel less inadequate.”
Jezamine sighed, but her happiness refused to dim. He spoke, oblivious to the fact that she was a two-legger. She’d have to work on him. She had the rest of their lives to work on him.
“Of course, I say yes.”
Fierce satisfaction brightened his eyes. “Good.” He lowered his head, hand tangling in her hair. “Good.”
A Dragon. A Hacker. Some Shifty Code.
Renege on a deal with a dragon lord? Become a part of his hoard. . . .
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About the Author
Emma Alisyn writes paranormal romance because teaching high school biology wasn’t like how it is on television. Her lions, tigers, and bears will most interest readers who like their alphas strong, protective and smokin’ hot; their heroines feisty, brainy and bootilicious; and their stories with lots of chemistry, tension and plenty of tender moments.
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