by Mell Eight
Table of Contents
Dragon Dilemma
Book Details
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Epilogue
About the Author
DRAGON DILEMMA
Supernatural Consultant Book Three
MELL EIGHT
Dane doesn't get along with his parents. He hasn't spoken with his mother in years and he's never met his father. Somehow his mother finds out about Mercury and the kits anyway, and it's difficult to throw one's mother out when she happens to be a powerful, dangerous witch.
She isn't the only uninvited guest either, and these ones are even less likely to take no for an answer—and much more likely to leave everyone dead if they don't get what they want.
Dragon Dilemma
Supernatural Consultant 3
By Mell Eight
Published by Less Than Three Press LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.
Edited by Amanda Jean
Cover designed by Aisha Akeju This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.
First Edition June 2016
Copyright © 2016 by Mell Eight Printed in the United States of America Digital ISBN 9781620048009
Print ISBN 9781620048016
CHAPTER ONE
Saturday-morning breakfast was always chaotic. With seven kits running around, it was inevitable, and Daisy—the babysitter slash housekeeper who helped to look after the kits—had weekends off. Daisy somehow managed to corral all the kits into line for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and got them to their lessons with their tutor on time. Dane, on the other hand, was lucky he still had a standing kitchen.
Lumie and Alloy were chasing each other in circles around the kitchen island, yelling excitedly about something. Their words were too garbled for Dane to catch. Lumie's red hair kept flashing by, followed by Alloy's mix of blue-and-red hair. Copper and Zinc were yelling at each other from opposite sides of the island. Their argument stemmed from something that had gotten spilled in the bathroom, which might also explain why Copper smelled particularly flowery this morning. Copper would probably smell like that for days; as a fire dragon, he avoided proper baths as much as possible. Even though he was eight years older than his youngest siblings—much too old to be skipping baths—his hair was the same shade of red as Lumie and Alloy's. Zinc was an air dragon the same age as Copper. Her hair was white and she kept it in one long braid down her back to avoid getting it tangled in her magic.
Chrome and 'Ron were also arguing, this time about frogs. Why? Dane couldn't even fathom a guess. The answer might scar him for life. Over the last year, 'Ron had cut her brown hair into long spikes on her head and had traded frilly dresses for sparkly pairs of jeans. She was still cleaner and more put together than Chrome, whose brown hair was actually longer than hers and usually contained a few sticks and leaves tangled in his curls, but she was more willing to go frog hunting now. Or frog dissecting. Again, Dane really didn't want to know.
Luckily, Mercury was at the stove calmly flipping pancakes on the electric griddle. His bronze hair was long on his collar and still sleep mussed. Dane had to hide a grin because he knew exactly what had caused Mercury to look so disheveled this morning, and it wasn't a kit-friendly topic.
"Kits who aren't sitting quietly don't get pancakes." Mercury didn't say it loudly, but he didn't have to. Copper, Zinc, Chrome, and 'Ron immediately shut up and took their seats around the island. Lumie stopped by the spice drawer to pull out the extra-large bottle of cinnamon before he and Alloy also settled quietly into their seats.
The threat of being denied pancakes was a serious one. Dane went to the pantry to grab the syrup—another extra-large bottle, because dragons were sugar fiends—and set it in front of his seat as he took his own spot at the island.
"I'm going to have to shovel the driveway this morning," Dane said into the quiet kitchen. "I'd appreciate everyone's help." Copper, Lumie, and Alloy looked immediately interested—they could melt the snow with their fire magic so long as they didn't leave puddles of water that would eventually turn the driveway into a skating rink. Nickel, the only kit who had been sitting quietly the entire time, nodded to tell Dane he was in too. He liked playing with frozen water just as much as unfrozen. Nickel was the only full water dragon living under Dane's roof, his blue hair and bright blue eyes a stark contrast to the other kits. Alloy was genetically altered to have both fire and water magic, but he spent most of his time with Copper and Lumie, so fire was his preferred method of choice.
None of the kits made a peep of agreement or disagreement. The pancake rule was still in effect, apparently, but at least Dane wouldn't be shoveling his driveway on his own.
Mercury brought the plate over and the steaming heat of buttery pancakes enveloped the table. Chrome was actually drooling, Dane thought. He didn't look too closely. There was a sudden popping noise and a sealed envelope appeared directly on top of the stack.
Dane knew that spell. Hell, he knew the handwriting on the envelope, just as he also knew that the sender had chosen to have it materialize on the food on purpose. Mercury pulled it from the stack of pancakes and read Dane's name on the front, then held it out for Dane to take with a quizzical look on his face. Dane's hand wasn't shaking when he forced it to reach out and take the envelope from Mercury. It wasn't, he reassured himself, but he wasn't breathing either.
"I'm starving!" Chrome moaned. Mercury smiled at him and grabbed a fork to begin filling everyone's plates. The syrup disappeared with alarming quickness while Dane was staring at the cramped cursive. That handwriting was so familiar and so damned frightening.
"Who is the letter from, Dane?" Mercury asked.
Dane looked up just in time to see Lumie liberally coat his syrup-drenched pancakes in cinnamon. Copper and Alloy each had their turn with the cinnamon before Dane remembered that Mercury had asked him a question.
"It's from my mother," Dane said as unemotionally as he could. If he didn't suppress what he was feeling, he might start screaming or crying.
Mercury put his fork down on his plate, which was just as drenched in syrup as his kits', and stared at Dane with his bronze eyes. "The one that's a god?" he asked. Dane was the child of a god, something he had told Mercury before they became lovers, but Dane had never gone into specifics. Mercury had seemed to sense that it was a difficult topic for Dane and had never asked for more detail.
"No," Dane replied. "My mother is one of the few witches in the world strong enough to summon a god, though." At Mercury's blank look, Dane sighed. "The Isle Crone?"
Mercury's jaw dropped. "Your mother is the Isle Crone?" he gasped.
"Who's that?" Zinc asked curiously.
"We have a grandma?" 'Ron added. She bounced in her seat with excitement. Mercury's lips tightened and Dane had to hide a wince. It wasn't Mercury's fault that dragons in the wild had to abandon their kits so they didn't inadvertently end up killing them over a territory dispute. Mercury didn't have the first idea of where to find his parents or any of his siblings. Dane had a mother who was the Isle Crone and a father he had never met and would probably never meet.
"She's not the cookie-baking type," Dane tried to explain to 'Ron. She was more of the biblical-smiting type. She was the territory leader of the British Isles and she ran her territory with an iron fist. No one dared to challenge her because she was that powerful and that ruthless. For all that, she w
asn't evil. Mostly she was controlling and no one was allowed to live their lives outside of how she dictated. It made her one of the more well-known territory leaders in the world.
Dane had left her house as soon as he was old enough to get away with it. Actually, escaped her house was probably a more accurate description. He had travelled all the way across the ocean to flee from her, but that hadn't been nearly far enough thanks to the more modern and less taxing innovations to basic transportation magic. Luckily, she wasn't more powerful than Dane, so couldn't force him to return with her magic, but she had made her displeasure known many times since then.
His favorite instance was when she had instructed the largest witch coven in England to curse him. He had managed to counter it before he found out what exactly it was supposed to do to him, but the end result according to his mother was supposed to have been him crawling back to her for help and falling under her thumb again. She had sent a letter much like the one he was holding to tell him how disappointed she was that he had managed to avoid that fate.
That, along with a number of other difficulties she had caused throughout the years, was why he hadn't spoken to her in at least a decade and had hoped to go a few decades more before having to even think about her again.
"What'd she write?" Chrome asked through a mouthful of food.
"Don't talk with your mouth full," Mercury immediately scolded. Chrome frowned, but obediently shut his mouth.
Dane grit his teeth as he slid a finger into the envelope and began ripping it open. One piece of formal stationary slid out when he tipped the envelope over. His mother's careful cursive only filled the first third of the paper.
I will be visiting this Sunday to meet my grandchildren, she wrote. I am very disappointed that I had to learn of their existence through rumor and gossip. We will be having a discussion about your communication skills when I arrive. She hadn't signed it, but she didn't need to.
Dane passed the letter on to Mercury to read and turned to his own breakfast. Luckily he didn't need more than the dregs of the syrup bottle to sweeten his pancakes, because that was all the kits had left him. Dane forced himself to cut his pancakes into bite-sized pieces and then to chew and swallow. It was tasty enough—Mercury knew what he was doing in the kitchen—but it sat in Dane's stomach like a nauseating brick.
Once everyone's plate was clean, Mercury clapped his hands to get their attention. "Grandma is coming to visit tomorrow. That means the house needs to be spotless. Copper and Lumie, help Dane with the driveway and then come inside and clean your rooms. Zinc and 'Ron, I need the bathrooms cleaned and organized. All of your toiletries need to be put away; you can't leave them on the counters. Chrome, the carpets need to be vacuumed and then your bedroom needs to be unearthed from the disaster area you've created. Alloy, you need to clean the schoolroom. And Nickel, you need to help me get a guest bedroom ready."
The guest bedroom. Shit. The last time Mother had visited, Dane had put her in the master bedroom in the other wing, mostly to keep her as far away from him as possible. That room had been transformed into the kits' classroom when Mercury had moved into Dane's bedroom with him. Dane wasn't about to change the room back over and put her in the same wing as the kits. He didn't want any crying kits. Which meant she would have to take one of the bedrooms in Dane's wing of the house. He could already hear the complaints.
She would have a bathroom to herself, but it was in the hall instead of attached to her room. The room was smaller than she was used to and didn't have a sitting area. Plus, she was coming with a bad mood already in full force. It was going to be an awful visit.
Dane cleared his plate and helped the kits get their own plates into the dishwasher before Copper, Lumie, and Dane went to go get their winter coats. When Dane walked outside with his coat zipped tight and a shovel in his hands, Copper and Lumie were already busy melting snow in their dragon forms. Red scales appeared between snowdrifts as they burrowed and melted. Fire flared and water sizzled, evaporating into a low-lying fog. Dane called a gentle wind to blow the fog away, burrowing deeper into his coat as the additional wind-chill made his nose ache. He followed after his kits with his shovel, cleaning up the edges of the drive and scooping up the piles of snow they missed.
The driveway was two miles long, although Dane's protective ward around his house only covered about a mile and a half. They weren't going to clear even that much, though. All they needed was to clear from the transportation circle to the front stoop so Daisy and any other visitors with permission to enter Dane's wards could safely make it inside. The rest of the driveway was never used. Dane didn't have a car and no one ever drove to his house. In fact, he wouldn't be surprised to learn that the far end of his driveway where it met with the main road was overgrown. He should probably walk down there in the spring to double check.
It didn't take long to clear the driveway. Dane felt bad that Nickel couldn't join them. He was a serious kit often more interested in getting his work done than in playing, which was the exact opposite of the rest of Dane's kits. One of the few occasions Dane could get Nickel to play was in clearing the snow. Getting the driveway safely plowed was technically a chore, but Nickel was willing to unwind and toss himself through the snow like his siblings for the half an hour it took. Dane really hoped it snowed again soon.
"Come on, kits!" Dane called to the left of the driveway, into the yard where Copper and Lumie had vanished beneath the untouched snow, as he shoveled the last bit of leftover snow off the drive. "There are more chores that need to be done."
A wet glob of snow hit Dane on the back of the neck with a splat. He dropped the shovel in surprise and spun around. He heard giggling, but whoever had thrown the snowball had burrowed beneath the snow again. Another snowball hit the back of his jacket from behind, accompanied by more giggles. And then, suddenly, the air was full of snowballs as all seven of his dragon kits and Mercury all let their ammunition fly.
Some snowballs missed and Dane deflected others, but at least two hit him square on the nose. It was on! Dane dove into a snowdrift on the side of the drive for cover and began forming his own snowballs for return volleys. His magic swirled around him and three large snowmen grew, their stick arms quickly and firmly pressing together snow and letting it fly as the kits soared by.
Their efforts to clear the driveway were destroyed within minutes, but Dane was smiling and the kits were giggling incessantly. Mercury popped up out of his snow bank for a few crucial seconds, his snout wide in a toothy grin, and Dane popped him on the nose with a snowball. A second snowball hit Mercury moments later and Mercury squealed, then growled playfully when Nickel gave a loud laugh. He vanished back underneath the snow.
Dane had to refocus on his own survival as Zinc whipped a snowball around his snow bank with a jet of air. He dodged and one of his snowmen sent a ball back her way. This was fun, a much-needed distraction from the impending cloud of doom heading their way. It was much more fun than the first snowstorm they had spent together.
After nine months of living together, he and the kits had come to some sort of understanding. They liked him and therefore they would try not to destroy his house. Mercury had chosen to move into Dane's bedroom permanently, instead of semi-permanently, a few months beforehand.
There had been flurries before this, but this was the first time a heavy snow had fallen this winter. Dane's windows were full of kits staring out at the front lawn as the big, fluffy flakes of snow fell and the browning grass quickly vanished beneath a blanket of white.
The older kits, Nickel, Copper, and Zinc, had seen snow before. They had lived in the wild for long enough to experience trying to survive in the ice and chill when hunting was minimal and being outside a cozy den was dangerous. The younger kits hadn't, and Lumie and Alloy had never seen snow at all before.
Light was fading outside as the sun set through the heavy clouds overhead. Mercury was in the kitchen getting dinner ready. Some of the kits were supposed to be helping him, Dane k
new, but the novelty of the snow had pulled them away and Dane couldn't make himself put his foot down and send them back. The snow had drawn him to the window too and he wanted to go outside and stick his tongue in the air and catch some flakes. He also wanted the kits to be able to experience that.
"Come on," Dane called as he headed towards his front door. Cold air rushed in as he pulled it open and stepped outside. Kits piled out behind him. Two pairs of arms wrapped around his knees as Lumie and Alloy grabbed him. They peeked their eyes around his body and stared out into the twilight. Nickel let out an uncharacteristic giggle as the snowflakes landed on him and quickly melted. Copper breathed out a touch of fire and then grinned when a large swath of snow collecting on the ground sizzled away in moments. That was all the rest of the kits needed. They ran out into the snow; even the two gripping his legs dashed off.
It didn't take long for the kits to vanish into the growing gloom. Eventually all Dane could hear was the giggling of kits and the flare of fire or swirl of water that gave away their locations.
"What are you doing?" Mercury hissed into Dane's ear. "We agreed that they didn't go play until after their chores are done."
"It's snowing?" Dane asked, feeling guilty. Mercury was right and Dane had forgotten. Teaching the kits responsibility as they grew up wasn't going to be an easy task. For most dragons, responsibility was a nonentity. They lived in the wild where the only thing they had to worry about was finding food and a safe place to sleep. Once a dragon had built their den, they didn't worry about much else. Mercury wanted the exact opposite for his kits. He wanted them to care about a home and each other, which required that they take responsibility for keeping things clean and helping each other out. Working with Mercury to prepare dinner and set the table for everyone was just one aspect of that and Dane had let the kits skip it for a bit of snow.
