by Angie Fox
Dimitri closed the heavy oak door behind us. It gave us a measure of privacy, even if it didn’t completely block the bass beat on the other side of the wall.
“We’ve been surveying the grounds, and it seems the security situation is more dire than I imagined,” he said. “If things don’t change soon, I fear for all of our lives.”
I nodded. I knew.
“Therefore…” A dark look crossed his face and I could see the muscles in his neck tighten. “Amara and I must leave immediately in order to consult with the Dominos clan on Rhodes.”
That I didn’t know. I fought to keep my voice even. “You’re going?” We didn’t know what was after us, and he was taking off…
“With Amara?”
He looked almost pained. “The Dominos council is assembling right now. It’s the only way.”
“No, it’s not.” We weren’t backed into a corner. Not yet. “There are a lot of ways to approach this.” My stomach churned. “We can all stay. We can fight.”
“Or we can ask for the help we need,” he said evenly.
“I don’t believe it.” Now was not the time to leave. “It seems like every time I need you, you go off to fight some battle and I have to pick up the pieces.” I watched my words strike home and guilt dampened my pity party. I knew I wasn’t being fair, but I was hurting. I didn’t want to be alone here. I didn’t want him leaving with her. This felt wrong.
He closed the distance between us. “We’re in a precarious situation here. Diana and Dyonne aren’t regaining their strength. They’re weakening, Lizzie. The entire estate is in danger, and you along with it. It would be foolish not to employ every single one of our resources.” He stood taller. “Including the Dominos clan on Rhodes.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I know. I’m just not sure if I trust them.” Since they’d been helping Dimitri’s family, his estate had been invaded by imps, his line had almost died out and his sisters were losing power.
Dimitri wrapped an arm around me. “I know you’ve had your differences with Mara.”
There he went with the Mara again.
“It’s not her,” I said. Ironically, I didn’t question Amara’s loyalty.
Amara had been with Dyonne and Diana since they recovered. She knew them and the estate, and she even had a gift for predicting what may come next. I’d seen firsthand how she’d tried to use her powers to help us.
“I just have a bad feeling about the entire situation.”
Maybe I was too independent minded, but I didn’t understand the idea of accepting protection from a griffin clan I’d never met.
“You can bet I’ll be keeping an eye on Talos,” I added.
Dimitri pulled me closer. “I believe Talos may be pursuing his own interests as well. So far, I haven’t been able to determine what. But he is sworn to protect this house. I don’t think he will fail us at that. Be cautious, but know Talos can and will assist you.” He looked down at me. “I also talked to your grandmother. She and the Red Skulls know more about wards than any group I’ve ever met. They’re going to put up some barriers for us.”
“Thank you,” I said. I was touched that he’d trust my family with his home and his sisters. “They’re also building me a cave of visions,” I said against his chest.
I could feel him darken. “I don’t like it, Lizzie.”
“Grandma said the cursed imps were made by Vald. I need to see who is controlling them now.”
He was torn. I could see it on his face. “Be careful. And try to wait until I come back. It won’t be long.”
Yes, well I didn’t know how long we had. “I’ll try,” I said, snuggling into his arms, inhaling his clean male scent.
Despite everything, it felt good to be here with him.
His breath tickled the hair on the top of my head. “At least we’re talking about it this time. That’s what you wanted, right?”
“I just wish none of this was happening.”
“I know.” He kissed me on the top of the head. “To tell you the truth, our journey to the Dominos clan is a last resort, like your cave of visions. But you’re at risk, along with my sisters. I don’t see any other way.”
“I get it,” I said. Logically, I understood why he felt he needed to do this. But logic didn’t calm the churning in my stomach or the fear that gripped me at the thought of handling things here by myself. Even if I could avoid the cave of visions until he returned, there was no way I could control thirty-eight biker witches. Even now, I could hear them whooping and hollering outside on the front lawn. “Sorry in advance for your trashed estate.”
With a hint of a grin, he said, “Just try to keep them out of my study. We don’t want any of them to get slimed.”
I was glad he could joke about it, but in all seriousness, my family could and would destroy his house. It was on me to keep them in line, like a busload of crazed toddlers.
He touched my shoulder. “I’m trying to let you in, Lizzie. In the past, I’ve wanted to do things on my own. I was alone. Now I want to include you.”
And Amara. I didn’t say it, but he knew what I was thinking.
“I’d ask you to come,” he said, “but it would be unwise for you to leave the estate right now. You’re needed here.”
“I know.” Not to mention the fact that the Dominos clan would probably be about as eager to meet me as Amara had been. They were the ones who had arranged for those two to be married.
“You have to go. With her. I don’t like it”—that was the understatement of the year—“but I understand.”
Now it was up to me to keep his estate in one piece when everything seemed to be coming down around my ears.
He kissed me long and deep. “I love you, Lizzie.”
I felt him down to my toes. “I know,” I said, scrunching my fingers against his black T-shirt, watching it fold up under them. “I wanted this to be our vacation, a time for us to get to know each other better.”
“We’ll have our time. Soon,” he rumbled against my fingers.
I wished that were true, but I didn’t know what to count on anymore. I had my whole life planned out before I became a demon slayer. Now I was grateful to make it through an afternoon.
But I could depend on Dimitri—strong, loyal Dimitri. If only I could spend a week with him without someone’s life being on the line. Could we even be a normal couple? Where would a guy like him take me on a date?
What would it be like to simply talk?
I tilted my head up. “We’ve spent our entire time together running from one disaster to the next.”
He nodded. “And now it’s followed us.”
“Do you realize we’ve never even been on a date?”
He thought about it. “What about the time I cooked dinner for you at the Hairy Hog biker bar?”
He’d turned hamburger patties and mac and cheese into a poor man’s version of pastitsio. It had actually been delicious, eaten on a picnic blanket out back. But that wasn’t a real date or any real time alone.
“Our life is what it is,” he concluded. “It’s not as if we don’t know each other. It’s not like I don’t feel what I feel for you.”
I couldn’t argue there. The man had ignored his estate in order to battle demons with me in Las Vegas. He’d gone to hell and back with me. Now I come to find he’d compromised his relationship with the only clan powerful enough to help him save his family.
“You are my world,” he said, drawing me into his arms. “But I have to go. The Dominos council is assembled and waiting for us.”
“How long will you and Amara be gone?” I asked, his chest warm against my cheek.
“Not long—I hope.”
Me too.
Dimitri lowered his mouth to mine for a toe-curling kiss. “I’ll miss you,” he whispered, nipping at my lower lip.
With a twinge of regret, I realized I hadn’t appreciated Dimitri enough lately. Everything he’d done since I met him had been to help me or someone else, ye
t it always seemed like somebody wanted more.
Well, not this time.
I’d let him go with Amara. I refused to be jealous. Instead, I’d spend the time training to be a better slayer. I’d help him save his home and I’d try to look at things from his perspective.
It was about time I put him first.
“Lizzie!” I heard a voice call from outside. There was a banging at the door.
Oh geez. It was starting already.
I opened it and was about flattened by a blast of rock music. “Heaven’s on Fire” pounded through the house.
No kidding.
Frieda stood outside. “Lizzie, your dog is looking for you!”
“I have to go anyway,” Dimitri said.
Yes, but did it have to be now?
He kissed me briefly once, twice. I shuddered at the thought of letting him go. I sank into him as he ran a thumb along my chin, tilting my head back for a kiss that left no doubt he’d be thinking of me, that night and every night.
Dimitri broke away slowly and, with a nod to Frieda, left the library.
I followed him out as Pirate dashed out the back hallway, skidded past the staircase and ran paws first into the back of my knee. “Ow!”
Pirate continued his assault on anything he could reach. “Lizzie! Come quick—it’s alive!”
“What’s alive?”
Pirate danced like he was on a hot plate. “My momma always said, ‘You’re a dog. You have instincts.’ And I knew something was up with that egg. I just knew it.”
This sounded like something I didn’t need. “Egg?”
“Go,” Dimitri said, his lips brushing mine one last time. “They need you here, and so do I.”
“I love you,” I said as he walked out the door.
Pirate yipped. “Now don’t tell me you don’t remember because you’re the one who said to be gentle with it and I was gentle with it and it’s a good thing because it’s alive!”
Holy smokes. “Where?”
“Follow the bloodhound!” he said, dashing out into the foyer.
“You’re not a bloodhound,” I said, trying to keep up.
“I always thought I had some in me,” he said, nose to the ground as he made quick work of the foyer, then bounded up the stairs two at a time and dashed down the second-floor hallway. To Pirate’s credit, he did not stop for crumbs, biker witches or the flickering rays of colored light cast by the stained-glass sconces lining the hall.
“This way!” he said, leading me straight to the door of our guest room.
Oh no.
I opened the door to my room to find it blessedly intact, save for the sticks and grass littering the area in front of my bed. Then I noticed the smooth yellow rock inside my brand-new backup pair of silver Adidas cross-trainers.
“What did you do?” I asked, lifting the tennis shoe. I thought we were beyond destroying things.
“I tried to make a nest like a mama bird, but I figured your shoe would be warmer.”
“Nest?” I repeated, my mind working on the problem. “For a rock.”
My instincts had led me to a rock on a cliff face. Not an egg or a nest or whatever Pirate thought I’d found.
He’d lined my shoe heel with mud-caked grass and twigs and—
“What is that smell?” Like burned rubber and gasoline.
The rock shook and I nearly dropped the thing. Holy cow, it was alive.
“See?” Pirate scratched at my legs. “Bob taught me a new word, wicked cool, and I’ll say it right now. That egg is wicked cool.”
“Stand back,” I said, depositing the shoe on the ceramic-tile floor between the bed and the dresser. I’d found this thing the night we’d gone out searching for threats. Just because my demon slayer radar had gone off didn’t mean it was evil. In fact, I wasn’t detecting any malice right now, but I wasn’t going to take any chances.
I pulled out a switch star.
I’d had enough things try to kill me in the last month. It paid to be cautious. Of course, Pirate didn’t listen. He danced in circles around my abused tennis shoe, the tags on his collar jingling.
Smoke curled from the egg where a white claw began peeking through. “It’s not a beak,” I said, taking an extra step back.
“It’s a tooth!” Pirate said, beside himself with excitement. I hadn’t seen him go this crazy since the time I’d baked him a dog-biscuit cake for his birthday.
Pirate was right. A full set of teeth poked out, followed by a slimy head, a scaly ridged back and a set of wet, folded wings. Pirate rushed for it, his nose inches from the thing’s head. “It’s a lizard!”
“I think it’s a dragon,” I said, more than a little shocked as it flopped out of my tennis shoe. I don’t know why anything should have surprised me at that point.
It was the size of a hamster, with dirty white scales and black claws. Its teeth were sharp and uneven. I’d say they were crooked, if I knew anything about dragon dentistry. In fact, one particular snaggletooth stood out nearly sideways. The dragon gave a tiny roar, which I had to admit was kind of cute, before it turned those teeth on my already-abused sneaker.
“Go for the laces!” Pirate instructed. “Those are the tastiest.”
I resheathed my switch star and planted my hands on my hips. “You said you never touched my shoes.”
“Whoops,” he said, not sorry at all, his eyes on the beast. “Can we keep it?”
“Of course not. I don’t know what to do with a dragon.” Not to mention the fact that we already had the biker witches tearing up Dimitri’s estate. We didn’t need to start adding mythical creatures.
“But I need a pet!” he said, like the four-year-old he was.
“You are a pet,” I reminded him.
“Exactly,” he said, as if I was just catching up. “So I know how to treat a pet.” He made two full circles before plopping his rear down in front of the dragon. “First rule: no Healthy Lite dog chow.”
The dragon lolled out a snakelike tongue and licked Pirate on the nose.
“No,” I said. No pets. No tearing up the estate. And while I was at it, no flying imps, no scheming griffins, no more attacks and no Amara.
If I could only have had half of what I wanted, I’d have been in pretty good shape. As it stood, there was a distinct possibility the world was indeed scheming against me.
“Get rid of the dragon,” I told Pirate. If I could have controlled one corner of my life, that would have been it.
Pirate’s ears flattened and his shoulders slumped. “Sure. Fine. All I wanted was a pet, but I don’t need no pet.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Never mind where the poor dragon is gonna go because I sure don’t know and I don’t think he’s got any friends and—”
“Pirate,” I interrupted. “Diana said something earlier about the ASPCC.”
His ears perked up. “The ASSP-what?”
“The All-Species for the Prevention of Cruelty to Creatures. I’m sure they’ll take good care of him.” They certainly wouldn’t insert him into the middle of the trouble we had going.
Pirate cocked his head. “But will they love him?”
“Pirate,” I warned.
He left with the dragon. I felt bad about it. I did. But I had my hands full enough with whatever was threatening me and this estate. Not to mention the biker witches. They’d switched to Merle Haggard. And karaoke. If I leaned out the window just so, I could see the smoke from their fire. I said a quick prayer that they’d started it in a fire pit.
In the field out back, I watched Dimitri join Amara. At least she’d left her clothes on this time. Maybe she realized he wasn’t interested in her lacy pink bra, or maybe she figured she’d get to him later.
Soon she’d have him on her home turf, with her perfect griffin clan—the family he’d chosen to join.
They shifted together, their bodies shuddering and expanding. Massive forearms ripped through Dimitri’s black T-shirt as claws erupted from his hands. Lion’s
fur raced down his back as red, blue, purple and green feathers grew into tremendous wings.
When they finished, two beautiful griffins stood side by side.
Dimitri called to her in a language only they understood, and she responded, spreading her silver wings and launching herself into the night. Dimitri followed and I watched them, majestic and proud, until they faded into the gathering darkness together.
Chapter Thirteen
That night, I dreamed of Diana’s Skye stone. She kept it on the dresser in a room draped with roses. It shone like a bright summer’s day, even in the darkness.
It wasn’t as brilliant when Talos held it. I wondered what would happen if I touched it. Even more, I craved it.
I reached for the stone and was shocked to find that it shimmered against my fingers. I took it, cradling it in my palm and luxuriating in the warmth and power it sent flooding up my arms.
This energy was mine.
I raced from the room, through the house and out to the back gardens. Two of the Red Skull witches had fallen asleep in wrought-iron porch chairs, their chins against their chests. I rushed past them, out to the far edge of the garden. I ducked around an ancient oak and down a narrow path, over a bridge and to a secluded spot where the knapweed and wild orchids buzzed heavily with insects. I buried the stone at the base of a wild pomegranate tree growing crooked against a rock.
Soon it would begin. Fire would rain down. The earth would split and I would be the only demon slayer—the most powerful one of them all.
The sun was barely over the horizon when a pounding at the door had me sitting straight up in bed. My head ached. I hadn’t slept well, which meant I’d probably been having bad dreams. This one hovered at the edge of my consciousness, barely out of reach until Pirate flipped over next to me, taking the covers with him. “Lizzie, there’s someone at the door!” His paws dug into my hip as he made a mad dash off the bed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, shoving my way toward the bedside clock. Usually when someone woke me up at five thirty in the morning, our world had just gone to h-e-double hockey sticks.
I stumbled past the sleeping dragon, unlocked the door and found Talos on the other side, his black hair an unruly mess and his narrow face etched with concern.
