by Tanya Huff
“The Dragon Lords are arrogant, overbearing, and homicidal, but they’re not stupid.”
“And what about Jack? He’s Wild. What happens when he accepts . . .”
“He’s always known.” Shaking her head, Auntie Gwen handed Edward his sippy cup. “Charlotte was raised knowing she was different. She had to find out what that meant on her own. Jack was raised as a prince. He knew what being Wild meant long before Charlotte told him what we call it here.”
“But he wasn’t Wild there . . .”
“Oh, for pity’s sake, Alysha, think about that for a moment. As a sorcerer and a half Gale, he stood separate from that family as well. Flew separate,” she amended after a moment.
Allie set a bowl of oatmeal in front of Evan and another in front of Edward—the trays of their high chairs charmed to hold the bowls in place. “You didn’t answer me. You didn’t tell me why you didn’t ask what they were hiding.”
“Because, bottom line, as much as he’s like no Gale that’s ever been, Jack is a Gale. As much as she’s a little too fond of the end justifying the means, Catherine is a Gale. And Charlotte, who could make us believe whatever was easiest for her but doesn’t, is a Gale. Even for the Wild Powers, family comes first.”
Allie could see that, as far as Auntie Gwen was concerned, that was that.
She wanted to believe that was enough, that the secret Charlie and Jack were hiding would come second to family, but she didn’t. Not quite. How could they keep secrets and still put family first?
It didn’t help when, after breakfast, Charlie announced she’d be leaving for a few hours.
“Why?”
“I’ve got some things to do, Allie-cat.” She turned from setting a stack of dirty dishes on the counter and spread her hands. “People to see.”
Allie knew that grin. It had nothing to do with humor or pleasure or anticipation and everything to do with deflection. But not this time. “Who?”
“What difference does it make?”
Allie lifted Evan out of the chair and folded her arms as he raced for his brother, already freed. “It makes a difference because I asked and you’re not telling me.”
“I don’t tell you everything I do, Allie.” The grin was gone, leaving Charlie looking both more and less like herself, the familiar caught in an overlay of other. Then Allie blinked, and she was Charlie again. Charlie, who didn’t come to bed last night. Charlie, who put Jack back into his seat with a glance. Jack who was Wild like Charlie was Wild.
“I don’t ask about everything you do,” Allie said softly and knew Charlie heard the reason. Please, don’t lie to me.
“If you must know,” Charlie sighed, “I’m going to see Auntie Catherine. I may not have asked the right questions when I talked to her yesterday. And I wasn’t going to tell you,” she continued as Allie opened her mouth, “because you get all weird about your grandmother, and I didn’t want to get into it with you.”
“I do not get weird about my grandmother.”
“Yeah, you do.”
The words weren’t dismissive, Allie decided watching Charlie walk to the door. Presented as inarguable fact, they were worse than dismissive. They were patronizing. “Maybe because she manipulated my life and David’s life and my parents’ lives and Michael and Brian—who aren’t even family—to get David and me here . . .”
“To save the world.” Charlie shrugged into her jacket and looked at Allie with eyes that seemed too dark for thirty. “Or at least to save Alberta. And part of Saskatchewan. Maybe a bit of Montana. You have issues, Allie, and while I’m not saying you don’t have the right to issues, don’t drag me into them.” Her words lingered as she headed out the door. “I doubt I’ll be long.”
Allie probably wouldn’t have seen Jack following had she not been staring after Charlie. Once she noticed him, he stopped blending with the furniture and the walls and paused, hand on the doorknob, looking sheepish. “Where are you going?” she demanded, then added before Jack could speak, “You can chase after her all you want, but she’s not going to take you with her.”
Jack might have been wearing a mask for all the expression his face showed. Scales glinted across the upper curves of his cheeks and across his brow. “There are those under my protection who need seeing to.”
“Jack, I didn’t mean . . .”
His eyes flashed gold. “Then I’m going to kill a large animal and eat it.” He closed the door quietly, gently, the dragon barely contained within his skin.
When she turned, Auntie Gwen released Evan to join his brother under the coffee table and said, “That was cruel, Alysha.”
“I know.” Allie dropped into the closest chair. “I didn’t mean to . . .”
The snort made Auntie Gwen sound terrifyingly like Auntie Jane. “Yes, you did.”
“Yes, I did. I’m a horrible person. I mocked a seventeen year old who’s having his heart broken.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that. I know how he feels. I know how Charlie feels. I know how Aunt Judith feels about Richard learning to ride a bike. If I extend a little, I know how the city feels about that pothole the works department still hasn’t gotten around to filling in the intersection of Macleod and 11th. I know, but I can’t say anything because they haven’t told me, and I can’t ask because I’m afraid Charlie won’t tell me. You’re right, I’m afraid I’m losing her.”
“Of course, I’m right.”
Allie lifted her head far enough to give Auntie Gwen a narrow-eyed glare. “That’s what you’re going with?”
Auntie Gwen smiled and set a block of shortening on the kitchen island. “It was the important point.”
Two days ago, Charlie would have been out the back door and into the Wood before Jack could catch up. Today, she waited at the bottom of the stairs, keeping the promise she’d made. No leaving without saying good-bye—even if he knew where she was going and why. As her exit had prevented her from saying good-bye to him upstairs, she was sure he’d be down in a minute.
Maybe David had been right after all. There was still a hole in her heart she’d never be able to fill, but the jagged edges she’d been living with for so long had been smoothed down and the pain, that had become so much a part of her she’d nearly forgotten it was pain, had eased. Plus, she had some kick-ass emo lyrics if she wanted to get another band together.
Classic rock, this time.
When CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising” started up, she laughed—it was always nice when someone got the joke—and unclenched her fists before her fingernails cut half-moons into her palms. Twenty-two months. Now that was a punch line.
The apartment door opened, and she moved to stand by the mirror rather than be caught waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She frowned at the emphatic thud, thud of Jack’s descent. For all the comments about his size—fine, for all her comments about his size—Jack usually walked as though he weren’t carrying around a metric shit ton of weight. He didn’t throw anger at her when he turned the corner and took the last two steps down into the hall, but he definitely looked angry.
“You okay?”
He nodded, a quick up and down jerk of his head, smoke trailing from his nose. “I’m fine.”
Charlie looked past him at the mirror where her reflection stood surrounded by flame. Not exactly fine. “My guess, Allie’s pissed at me and took it out on you.”
“She wasn’t . . .” His posture suggested that if he’d had his tail he’d have been lashing it. “She wasn’t entirely wrong.”
And that, Charlie realized, was why Jack was angry.
“I wasn’t running after you . . .” The smoke thickened. “. . . like I was begging for crumbs of your affection.”
“Whoa. Allie said that?” Allie did not get to say that, not to Jack. Ignoring the fact that Jack had no need to beg for Charlie’s affection, slamming Jack
because she couldn’t slam Charlie was a top of the charts bitchy thing for her to do. The music a low rumble, Charlie had one foot on the bottom step when Jack grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
“I don’t need you to fight my battles. Anymore,” he amended when Charlie raised both brows. “And stop humming, the building’s shaking.”
About to protest that she wasn’t doing anything to the building, she realized the vibration she could feel through her feet matched the vibration she could feel in the back of her throat and swallowed the sound.
He managed a twisted smile. “I’d be flattered except I know you’re not overreacting because of me. Not just because of me,” he corrected before she could say anything. “And it wasn’t Allie who said that.” His grip on her arm tightened slightly. “My mother used to say it when I wanted to chase after my uncles.”
“Nice.”
“Not really. Dragon. Then she’d remind me that family is the arena where even the simplest conflicts draw blood.”
Literally draw blood. And if his Gale half wasn’t as consistently violent, that didn’t mean Allie had the right to take an emotional swing at him, pregnancy hormones or not. “But Allie said something similar.”
“If I say that she did, what are you going to do?”
He was still holding her in place. He was stronger, a lot stronger, but if she told him to release her, he’d have to. And she really had to do something about how stupidly overprotective he made her feel. “Not leap to your defense like a crazy woman?”
The fires in the mirror became a pillar of flame and that, in turn, became Jack’s reflection—although Charlie noted that a certain amount of flame continued to flicker around his edges. “Good call,” he said and let her go.
The memory of his touch a warm band around her arm, Charlie moved far enough across the hall to point out the window. The cloud cover made it look like dusk in the courtyard. A gust of wind slapped rain against the glass. “If it helps, she feels like shit.”
Jack shook his head. “It’s October.”
“Some of it’s Allie. Her touch is . . .”
“Damp.”
He was grinning when she glanced over at him. Impossible not to grin back. “I was going to say unmistakable.”
“Right. Oh, and cool distraction with the issues thing.”
When they weren’t gold, his eyes really were absurdly warm. “Issues thing?”
“That you used to distract her. So she wouldn’t ask why you were off to see Auntie Catherine. Although . . .” Golden brows drew down. “. . . if you’d time-slipped back, you could’ve been and gone without saying anything.”
“Allie knows when the way to the Wood is opened. It’s why Auntie Catherine can’t sneak back into Calgary.” Not through the shrubbery. Not through the mirrors. Not without Allie knowing. “And even if I could deflect her questions, which—let’s face it—I could, I don’t want to time slip if I don’t have to.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged. Looked past him at their reflections standing side-by-side in the mirror. She was five seven, he was at least five ten and still growing. Which had nothing to do with the question, but now that she had the evidence in front of her, she couldn’t stop wondering how tall he’d eventually get. Then she considered his question and thought about lying. About tossing out a smart-ass remark that meant nothing but would make Jack laugh. Didn’t. Didn’t have to deflect away from feelings anymore, not now they were telling each other the truth. “It makes me older. You stay out of this!” Her reflection, beginning to age, shed years so fast it ended up in grade school, front teeth missing, a plastic recorder in one pudgy hand. Jack’s reflection patted her head. “Every time I slip back, I’ve lived more time than you have.” She’d added a few more hours to the total by taking Gary to Nova Scotia.
A snort and a medium-sized puff of white smoke. “I thought after seven years, it didn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t. I just . . .” It didn’t matter. There were no qualifiers attached to not going to happen, but she hated feeling the distance between them widening. Although maybe if it got wide enough, it would solve the whole problem. She could complain about his music, tell him to pull up his jeans, and bake him cookies. Okay, maybe not the cookies. He’d have to really piss her off to deserve that. And she complained about his music now. Electro? Seriously? There was distance enough between them.
“You just?” When she shook her head, unsure of what he was asking, he gave an exaggerated sigh. “They say memory’s the first to go.”
It took Charlie a moment, almost long enough Jack had begun to look unsure, then she laughed and the distance between them closed again. “I can’t remember what it is I like about you right now.”
He shrugged, a dimple flashing. “You keep saying size matters.”
“Only when trying and failing to drag your enormous dragon ass through the Wood.”
“Only then?”
“Bite me.”
“In a just world.”
Charlie heard Truth and she was pretty sure, given Jack’s senses, he could hear her heart pounding, once again, in time with his as the universe said, you’re meant to be together, except for that thirteen-year thing. Oops. As good as the truth felt, running away, misunderstandings, and hurt feelings were a hell of a lot less dangerous than spending time with Jack without the barricade of ignorance between them. Talk to each other? After due consideration, she was going to kick David right in his white-tailed ass. She took a step back. Jack took a step forward.
The mirror showed no reflection at all. It would keep their secrets. Great. What she needed was someone shouting this is wrong at her, or offering pity rather than tacit acceptance.
Then Joe stuck his head out into the hallway from the store. “Jack, I need . . .” Jack spun around toward him, teeth bared. Charlie made a noise that might have been a growl although she planned on denying it later. Joe blushed so vigorously, his freckles vanished—which Charlie had to admit was fairly impressive since he’d been knocking boots with Auntie Gwen for four years. “Never mind.” Gaze locked on the floor, he waved a hand in their general direction. “Later.”
They took a step apart when the door to the store closed. As Charlie had already been backing up, her butt hit the window.
Jack’s eyes flashed gold. “I should . . .”
“Thank Joe for his timing?” Not that he’d interrupted anything. Much. They’d been flirting with the line, not crossing it. If Jack had kept advancing, Charlie would have stopped him. She wouldn’t have wanted to—she was self-aware enough to admit that—but she would have put on her big girl panties and stopped him. And possibly, putting on her big girl panties might not be the best bit of phrasing under the circumstances.
“But . . .”
“No buts,” Charlie snapped, trying not to think of why she might have taken off her big girl panties. “And you probably want to go and convince Joe that he didn’t see what he thought he saw.”
“But,” Jack repeated, folding his arms, “Joe didn’t seem to care about our ages. To hear you tell it, he should have called you a hag and chased you away from me with a broom.”
“Hag?”
“Crone?” His eyes twinkled. Literally twinkled.
Charlie shook her head. She could feel the condensation on the window soaking through her jeans. “He’s full-blood Fey, you’re a Dragon Prince, and you growled . . .”
“You growled.”
“That wasn’t me.” And there was the denial, as planned. “His instincts took over and he ran. I heard it in his voice,” she added. “He said ‘Never mind. Later.’ but I heard, ‘Don’t eat me.’ ”
“Oh.” Jack considered that for a moment. “So I guess I should apologize to him?”
“If you’re asking my advice, you guys should definitely square up before he talks to Auntie Gwen and she puts
two and two together and comes up with thirteen years. Auntie math,” she added when Jack rolled his eyes.
“So I guess I should apologize to him.” Not a question this time. He turned to follow Joe. Turned back to the hall. “Be careful.”
Her soundtrack played Hedley’s “Young and Stupid.”
“You’d better be referring to Jack,” Charlie muttered, jerking open the back door. Six strides took her through the shrubbery. Six more took her through the Wood. The last six took her from between two Rocky Mountain junipers out onto the main drive leading up to Caesar’s Palace where she answered her phone and was almost hit by a cab.
And a limo.
And an SUV.
And another cab.
Although in fairness, it wasn’t entirely the second cabbie’s fault as she’d become even more distracted.
“How many baths?” Charlie stepped in under the portico and leaned against a pillar, appreciating the warmth after the damp cold of Calgary.
On the other end of the phone, Auntie Carmen sniffed. “Seventeen. Not that we’re complaining, the smell has faded significantly.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“He’s monopolizing the bathroom. We’ve had to charm it to try and keep him out.”
“So?”
“It’s not working. Whatever tune you have playing in his head is blocking the charm.”
“Really?” That was unexpected.
“Why on earth would I make that up, Charlotte? We need you to come and talk to him.”
“You need me? You and Auntie Bea can’t handle a man who’s been naked and wet for most of the time he’s been in your house?”
“Well, he’s slippery, dear, we can’t get him out of the bathroom.”
They could. They just didn’t want to. “I’m a little busy. Get hold of Jack and have him do it.”
“Isn’t Jack with you?”
“No, he’s with Joe in the Emporium.”
“But he’s always with you.”
“Auntie Carmen, I’m not in Calgary.” Charlie watched a very hungover bridal party tetris themselves and their luggage into a van and head for the airport. “If you can’t reach Jack . . .” Dragon fire had turned out to be the one thing Gale phones couldn’t survive. Charlie was fully aware that this made her inability to get rid of her phone total bullshit. “. . . have Roland talk to Dan.”
