Henchgirl (Dakota Kekoa Book 1)

by Rita Stradling

  “No,” she said giving me a smile, “He is pursuing you. When Wyvern really wants something he pursues it until he has it, by any means necessary. He’s even made powerful enemies by stealing what he wants. What he is doing is so obvious that the only reason I did not recognize it at first was because he had only ever pursued ‘something’s before with this type of intensity, never someone. It is just hard for me to watch my dear friend fall for a girl he can’t really have.”

  “Are you sure you’re not just misjudging the situation?” I said, though her description of Wyvern sounded pretty scarily accurate.

  “Yes. But, I don’t mean to be intrusive,” she said, “Wyvern has always been very like a brother to me.”

  “Were you the friend that agreed to do the contract with him?” I asked.

  “Yes. He told you about that?” She smiled fondly.

  “He said that you did him a favor,” I said.

  “Well, my sister offered and I realized it would be a very volatile situation if I did not offer myself as a replacement,” she said. “So, what song do you plan to sing?”

  She said loudly, probably thinking this was safe small-talk.

  “Jezebel,” said a voice from behind me.

  Turning, I jumped a little to find Wyvern directly beside me. I must be out of it, that or he moves like some kind of ghost.

  “Hello Wyvern,” Jezebel said.

  He stepped up next to me. “Did you really have to do that Jezebel?” he said, looking irritated.

  “Do what?” she asked, giving him a level look.

  “When I left my date was smiling,” he said.

  “Let the girl have a conversation, Wyvern,” she said, rolling her eyes, “You can’t fight every battle for her. She won’t thank you for it if you try.” She patted him on the shoulder, shook her head and walked over to where her sister and Lorelei looked to be having a rather tense conversation.

  Meeting his gaze I saw that he was examining my expression.

  Jezebel could be just trying to manipulate me. Wyvern definitely seemed to be attracted to me and want to kiss me. There was that amazing zing feeling between us whenever he touched me. But there was no way that he was falling for me so soon.

  I still held to the idea that at least part of his motivation to trick me into a contract was because my grandfather challenged him.

  It was very likely that Jezebel was just trying to scare me away by exaggerating Wyvern’s feelings for me. She saw that I was skittish and independent-minded and she was using that to get rid of me.

  But if it was something else, if it was because of what I did…If sharing our souls was somehow making him fall for me… I did it because he was a dragon and he was berserk. He would have killed me. Can I really be blamed for something I did in self-defense? And if I did it to him, I did it to me as well.

  “What did she say to you?” he asked.

  “She told me she liked me,” I said.

  “What else?” he brushed my cheek with his thumb.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, “it was just a protective sister type speech, kind of what Lorelei did for me. I can handle it.”

  “I know you can,” he said, “Unfortunately, you might have to handle a lot of petty speeches when we get back to New Anglo next Monday.”

  My eyes widened.

  Across the room Jezebel snagged my gaze and gave me a sad smile, then she turned back to her conversation.

  The worst thing about all of this was that even though my head said, ‘back up there, buddy,’ just like when he said he wanted to make me happy, I felt a zing deep in me. And some part of me wanted to move closer to him and say, ‘okay, bring it all.’ But saying ‘okay’ just would never be an option for me, I had a job and a life and my sisters to take care of. More than that, I was a whole person here in Mabi; I had work to do and a couple very concrete reasons to exist. Leaving would make me not ‘me’ anymore, it would make me just ‘his.’

  But then again, would it be so selfish to enjoy this attraction between us in the time I have him, knowing that I’ll have to walk away in the end? Probably, but I had always been a little selfish.

  I took his hand. “I had no trip to New Anglo planned for next Monday,” I said, raising my eyebrows.

  He spun me so that somehow I was wrapped in his arm, and he hugged me from behind, both of us facing the fire. It was strange, the fire was rejuvenating me, but at the same time, all the points where Wyvern’s skin touched mine felt just as rejuvenating, if not more.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” he said. He smelled like cigar smoke, but surprisingly it smelled nice on him. “My father likes you. He said he thinks you’re very dangerous for me,” he whispered.

  “You’re even more dangerous for me,” I whispered back, almost inaudibly.

  “Girls,” Wyvern Sr said, from one of the chairs, “I am ready for your performance.”

  Wyvern squeezed me then let go. “I want to get a good seat.”

  I growled at him, which only made him laugh as he went to sit beside his father.

  As everyone took their seat, Lorelei stormed over to me her soul crackling with anger. There was something else that was going on with her soul as well. Lorelei’s soul had always been noticeably denser than our cousins, which was why when Wyvern said he thought she would be powerful than them I had not been surprised. But at this moment her soul looked almost to be sparking with energy yet at the same time roiling with movement.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  “Yes,” she snapped, “We are going to rock this if it’s the last thing we do. Stupid, ugly, whiney, ho…thinks I’m too stupid to know she’s calling me a useless dud. She doesn’t even—”

  “Ignore them, they’re not worth it,” I said, feeling very concerned now. This was so not like my sister; Lorelei was typically cool and collected. Usually she did not care what people thought about her, or at least never showed that she did. I grabbed her hand but it shocked me and I jumped back.

  We weren’t just making a scene; the whole crowd was literally sitting in the chairs watching us.

  “How very entertaining,” Cordelia drawled.

  Lorelei whirled on Cordelia and started singing opera.

  Opera.

  Not only was she singing opera, she was singing it in Mabiian. It wasn’t any of the Mabiian songs I had learned in school, it was much more intense than anything I had learned for school assemblies. I did not even try to join in.

  And her voice was beautiful, incredible. We all stared at her, open jawed. Her voice rose and rose.

  The words roughly translated to, ‘come to me, come to me my darling, rest in my arms, I will sing you to sleep…

  While she sang, something streamed into her, wisps of colored smoke sinking into her soul. I blinked in confusion and growing horror. Then I turned, my mouth falling open.

  Still sitting in the chair, Cordelia sat petrified, her eyes wide in terror as her soul streamed out of her and into Lorelei. It was a slow stream, then Lorelei hit a high note and there was a pulse in her soul and suddenly the stream was a torrent.

  “Stop!” I shouted, “Lorelei, stop!” I grabbed her, but she did not take her eyes off Cordelia, as if she too was caught in the exchange, as caught as Cordelia. “Stop!” I yelled, trying to shake Lorelei, but her body wouldn’t move.

  “What is happening?” Jezebel asked, staring at her sister and sounding unsure and concerned.

  Everyone else looked between my sister and me confused, oblivious to what only I could see.

  “Lorelei just inherited her aspect,” Wyvern said, standing and walking toward us, “It’s…” he made eye contact with me, eyes widening in concern, but he did not finish what he was saying.

  I needed to fix this and now. Cordelia had a lot of soul to lose and it kept streaming between them.

  Aside from what happened with Wyvern, I had never kept pieces of other people’s true souls; I had coiled other’s true soul into me, but I always gave i
t back. I’ve pulled the surface, deeper and memory emotions into me and fed them to my grandfather, yes, but Lorelei wasn’t stopping with those three layers. Lorelei was pulling large sections of Cordelia’s true soul into her. Cordelia was a half-dragon, she had an incredible quantity of soul; if Lorelei kept going she would kill herself.

  I grabbed Lorelei’s arm but it did not yield to my pulling, it was if they had both been paralyzed; I reached toward Cordelia but there was still about two feet distance.

  “Help me!” I shouted to the crowd.

  Braiden, Jezebel and Wyvern, who had all already stood up ran to me.

  “You won’t be able to move Cordelia, move her chair!” I shouted, “I need to be able to touch her.”

  Though the chair was made of marble, the three of them all pushed it from behind sliding it across the floor. It moved one foot, two feet, a little more, then my hand was able to wrap around Cordelia’s wrist.

  Delving into my sister was like diving into a stream of electricity, she was over-full, pushing at her own limits. Because I would know my sister’s soul anywhere, it was easy to sense the difference between Cordelia’s soul and hers. My sister had a grip on Cordelia’s soul, it was as though she had a hundred suction cups and I had to peel each one away.

  The moment I separated a coil of Cordelia from my sister, I sent it through me and back into Cordelia. Soon, Cordelia’s true soul was coursing through me, into her and at the same time I had to concentrate on prying the coils away from Lorelei.

  Lorelei’s song just kept lifting and soon she was tearing out Cordelia’s soul quicker than I could take it back. Lorelei was filling up like a sink with a water faucet on high and a drain that can’t keep up with the flow. Then Lorelei’s song came to its crescendo and I knew that I was failing, that Lorelei was bursting and I wouldn’t be able to prevent it.

  A scream tore from me as I ripped Cordelia’s soul from Lorelei and slammed it into Cordelia.

  Lorelei sang the last note. Immediately the connection between them broke. They both swayed forward.

  For a second we all just stayed still together in place, breathing heavy, connected by my arms reaching between them.

  Then Cordelia’s gaze fixed on Lorelei, her pupils turned bright yellow. The second soul, the wolf soul, the only part of Cordelia that had not fed through our little circle grew as rage fed through our still-open connection. The features of Cordelia’s face sharpened as her teeth elongated in her mouth.

  Lorelei fell back, her arm ripping from my grasp as she collapsed in exhaustion.

  Still holding onto Cordelia, I moved between her and where Lorelei was lying on the floor.

  “Listen to me!” I shouted into Cordelia’s morphing face.

  Coiling her back into me was the last thing I wanted to do, but I did not think I had a choice. Cordelia was going to change into something like a werewolf but much more terrifying; and from the looks of it, she was planning to kill Lorelei.

  Opening my ring, I took her rage and pulled, it was easy, as though having had half of her soul already pass through me earlier greased the wheels.

  “I don’t want to take your soul into me,” I said, “I just spent all that energy giving your soul back to you. But I will uncoil your soul if you don’t calm down!”

  Her gaze fixed on me and a pulse of terror fed from her, through me and into the ring along with the rage. It took a minute but her face morphed closer and closer to looking human.

  “Listen to me closely,” I said when she was calm enough to focus. “I saved you; I gave you back your soul. However, I did not do it for you; the only reason I did it was to save my sister. And I will take it back if you ever look at her that way again.” I squeezed her arm.

  “I understand,” she said, terror pouring into me now.

  I pushed her terror back into her. “Never even consider hurting Lorelei or any of my family again.”

  “On my honor, I promise I will never intentionally hurt a member of your family,” Cordelia said.

  Then, there was the sound of applause.

  I looked up to see almost everyone in the room look upset and drawn.

  Wyvern Rex Sr, however, was smiling and clapping. From where he sat in his chair across the room, his legs lazily crossed, he said, “You both were incredible, ladies. That was quite a memorable singing performance.”

  Chapter Twenty Four

  “Uncle Bobby once told me that there’s a family of dracons in Europa that were from a bog dragon and everyone inherited farts that poisoned people,” Stacy blurted out. “That’s worse than yours.”

  Lorelei let out something that could have been a laugh.

  I put my arm around Stacy because I could tell that having Lorelei out of commission like this seriously upset her. We had come home and immediately all of us sisters piled on Lorelei’s bed. Clara sat at the head of the bed, combing through Lorelei’s hair.

  Wyvern was also with us, he had helped Lorelei up the stairs because she had been barely awake when Clara and Braiden drove her home, and he stayed.

  “When I’m a dragon, I spew poison,” Wyvern said from Lorelei’s desk chair. “Poisonous projectile-vomit. That’s worse than yours.”

  That received a little chuckle from Lorelei as well.

  I blinked at Wyvern, something about what he said bothered me but I could not quite figure out what it was.

  “Your singing voice is very beautiful,” Clara said. Totally failing at this.

  I quickly said, “Grandfather once sent me after a dracon that vacationed here, he was wrapping humans in mucus cocoons. And it was grosser than it sounds. That’s worse.”

  For an hour or so, we continued to tell about aspects worse than singing out people’s souls. We stayed together even after Lorelei and Stacy fell asleep, sitting in silence. I had once heard my father called a soul-singer by my grandfather, but I had never heard the term explained or any mention of him using that aspect. I guess when my grandfather said that I was a singer, he was lying yet still kind of close to telling the truth.

  Life would have been so much easier if my father were still alive to teach us how to deal with our inherited aspects. So many things would be easier if he was still alive.

  Now that I realized it was because my father was half Mabiian that our aspects were so powerful and extraordinary, likely my younger sisters and I were different from all other dracons.

  I looked at Wyvern and remembered that he was different too. Us four.

  Clara extricated herself from Lorelei, tucking her under the blanket. She then lifted a now sleeping Stacy and carried her out whispering a goodnight to us on the way out.

  I climbed off the bed, offering my hand to Wyvern.

  We walked to my room as Mele was still asleep in the guestroom. Wyvern closed the door behind us.

  “What will your father do?” I asked, because I had to.

  “About what?” Wyvern said, he picked me up and carried me to the bed, and set me down.

  “About Lorelei and me?”

  Wyvern shrugged off his suit jacket and kicked off his shoes before he answered. “I don’t know where everyone is getting their information but my father doesn’t steal children,” he said. “He looks young but he’s been around for a very long time. He doesn’t seduce teenagers either, let alone fourteen year olds.”

  “I’m not meaning to say he does, I don’t know,” I said, afraid I offended him; I would be offended if it was the other way around. “I’m just worried because of how everyone is acting about him, that’s all.”

  “He’s interested, he’ll probably have you both watched, maybe put some protection in place, Lorelei more than you,” Wyvern said as he lay down beside me.

  “Because she’s stronger,” I said.

  “No, out of respect for me,” he said, kissing me gently.

  Warmth spread through me at his touch but I wasn’t ready to forget about everything…yet.

  “But he won’t do anything?”

  “Oh, he w
ill, he’ll do everything he can to collect you both into our household, and by any means necessary. But he’s eternally patient. Not now, but perhaps ten years down the road he will try to seduce Lorelei,” he said.

  “Because she’s stronger than me?”

  “No,” he growled, rolling on top of me. “She’s perhaps more powerful but not by much. She’ll probably be able to do what she did today but on a massive scale.”

  Oh, Gods I really hope not.

  “Your aspect is much more desirable from his point of view, much more versatile and manageable. He’s not going to try to seduce you because you’re mine.”

  Then he kissed me and as crazy as it was, I just could not care about anything else. Every place our bodies touched sent rivers of tingles into me, and we touched in so many places; my foot moved against his ankle, his hands intertwined with mine and pressed them into the mattress over my head, our skin brushed against each other with every movement. And nothing compared with what happened when his lips moved against mine.

  Then what had bothered me earlier shot into my mind. I pulled back just a little, “Wyvern?” I said.

  His lips moved to my ear and he nipped it.

  “Hey!” I said, laughing. “I need to ask you something.”

  “I’m busy,” he said, and then he started kissing my neck.

  “You spit poison?”

  He chuckled. “Only when I’m a dragon.”

  “But you did not, when you were a dragon, you turned to me when I was trying to drain your rage…you looked right at me.”

  “I try not to spew poison on girls I want to ask out,” he said.

  “But you don’t mind throwing trees at them?” I asked.

  “I did not see you until I saw you grabbing onto my leg. I was berserk, but I still recognized you. I was going to nudge you out of the way so I could get back to throwing trees.” He nipped my lip.

  “I thought you were going to eat me,” I said.

  “No, I knew that if I ate you, then I would never have been able to do this.” He pressed his lips to mine then coaxed my unyielding lips apart with gentle kisses.