by Trudi Jaye
“What are you doing?” I say angrily. He doesn’t need to call the others, especially not until I’m able to stand again.
Agent Walker comes through the door first, with Si a close second. They look at me, and then at Seth.
“She can’t walk,” Seth informs them.
“My legs are just a little weak,” I say grumpily. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
Agent Walker crouches down in front of me so we’re eye to eye. “I think you’re close to changing.” He’s deadly serious.
“Changing?” I frown. “Into what?”
“Mei, all these years... We were wrong,” Agent Walker says. “You’re the dragon, not Liling. I realized it when you were in the interview room with me.”
If I’d been standing, I would have toppled over. I blink a few times, trying to process what he’s saying, and miss his next words. “Pardon?” I say, his face blurring in front of me for a second.
“She might be stronger, but you’re more wily. Smarter. You have the intelligence that marks a dragon. And you look like your mother, you have some of her mannerisms. I should have seen it earlier.” He reaches up, as if he’s going to touch my face, but stops. “I’m so sorry.”
A thought occurs to me. “So you’re my father again?” I don’t know what I want him to say.
He hesitates. “Yes. I’m your biological father. And your mother was a beautiful Chinese dragon named Xinglong.” His voice is wistful.
I nod. He’s already told me as much. “Am I half-dragon? Because you’re my father?” I literally know nothing about dragons except what Vincent told me, and I don’t even know if that was true.
He shakes his head. “Dragons and supernaturals are intertwined. Dragons don’t mate with other dragons. You’re a full dragon. Possibly the last in the entire world.”
I let out a breath of air.
I blink, and the room around me turns into reds and oranges and yellows.
I’m a dragon.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“From what I’ve read, dragons spend the last few days before their twentieth birthday changing into a dragon,” my father says. It’s surprisingly easy to start thinking of him like that again. “It’s an extremely vulnerable period. We were expecting Liling to start the process any day.” He’s pacing in front of the bed where I’m still sitting, swaying slightly.
Goose bumps appear all over my body, and I rub my hands up and down my arms. “It takes days?”
My eyes blur, and I wish Jeff had let me in on his suspicions a few years earlier. I mean, I assume he figured it out long before the others, based on his little box of treasures. Perhaps if he’d shown me his wooden box a couple of years ago, I would have been able to read through it and get used to the idea. What the hell was he thinking?
I could have been more prepared. I could have been better able to deal with the idea that my body shape is going to change from a smaller-than-average supernatural woman to a sodding enormous dragon in the next few days. My brain can’t even comprehend how that is going to work.
I think it’s going to involve a lot of pain. My hands clench on the bedspread.
“It’s the final part of becoming a dragon. After you go through the change, you’ll be a full dragon, with your full powers.”
“Will I be in dragon... form... from then on?”
Shaking his head, my father crouches down in front of me. “You’ll be able to switch from your human form to your dragon form at will. Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to change your life. Not completely.” He reaches out and takes my hands. I’m feeling too surprised to do anything other than let him. The blank face he presented at SIG headquarters is gone, and in its place is a painfully raw emotion that wavers between fear and hope. A moment passes and I try to move my hands away, but can’t. The immobility of my legs is moving out into other areas of my body.
“I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time,” he says softly.
“I haven’t, because no one fucking told me,” I grind out. My mouth feels like it’s full of cotton.
He tightens his grip on my hands. “That was a mistake. I see that now. But I honestly didn’t know which of you was my daughter in the early days. And then later, we thought Liling was the dragon, so all I would have told you was that you weren’t a dragon.”
I’m somewhat mollified by that admission. “Jeff knew. Or at least guessed. He left me a box of information on dragons in Quincy.”
My father’s eyes sharpen on my face. “He did? Then he was smarter than I realized.” He pauses. “Where’s the box now?”
I glance over at Seth. “We mailed it. Before we went to see you.”
My father frowns. “You didn’t need to do that. I would have kept it safe.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Really? Cause from where I’m sitting, it looks like you double-crossed us.”
“You know... You know it had to be done that way, don’t you? I really didn’t know which of you was the dragon, despite our assumptions.”
“What would have happened to me if I hadn’t been the dragon? Or if you hadn’t realized in time? Would you have let the director send me to the Earthbound?”
He hesitates. “I would have tried to help you. Where I could.”
It’s the answer I was expecting. It makes sense that the most important thing to my father is the baby dragon, the daughter he had with my mother. I just didn’t expect it to hurt so much. I want him to care about me, whether I’m the dragon or not. I swallow over the sudden lump in my throat and look up at Seth. The expression on his face is enough to let me know that Seth would have helped me, no matter what.
I let out a tired breath. I’m expecting too much of my father, I know that. It’s not fair to ask him to care about a child that might not have been his.
But some irrational part of me just can’t help it.
I glance down to my legs, and the hands that are now immobile next to them. “Will I be like this the whole four days?”
My father nods. “I think so. We have to get you to a secure location.”
“Where?”
“I found an old dragon nesting ground during my research. You should be safe there while you succumb to the change.”
His mention of the nesting ground reminds me of the cryptic message my father gave Seth at the training school. “Why did you pick Seth? Why did you give him that warning, if you didn’t think I was the dragon?”
My father hesitates. “I guess I wasn’t as sure as I thought I was,” he said, running one hand through his hair. “Jeff was insisting we needed a particular type of replacement for him. The Earthbound were always chasing you, and they seemed so sure. I was hedging my bets, making sure you would be protected, just in case we were wrong.” He gives a wry smile. “Turns out it was the right decision.”
I can’t think of anything to say.
Tires screech outside the motel and we all look up. Seth strides over to the window and twitches the curtains aside. “Five SIG vehicles. They’ve found our car in the next door motel’s parking lot.” He glances at my father. “The SUV must have had a tracking system other than the GPS we disabled.”
Si swears angrily. “We should have double-checked.”
My father stands up, pulling a set of keys out of his pocket, and hands them to Seth. “There’s a small van around the back. Painted baby blue. There’s money and other supplies in the glove compartment. Take Mei, get her out of here.” He pulls another piece of paper out of an inside pocket. “Here are the directions to the nesting ground. Get her there, and she’ll be safe. For now at least.”
Seth glances at me and hesitates.
“Hurry,” my father urges. “I don’t have time for you to second-guess me.” He pushes Seth in my direction. I glance at Si, but he’s nodding in agreement with my father. The pair of them have obviously been talking about this.
Seth’s gaze locks with mine, but I can only shrug. I can’t help anyone right now. My arms hang limply at my sides,
and I feel like I’m about to fall sideways in the bed.
It’s terrifying.
“Wha’ you goin’ to do?” I ask my father, my words slurring.
Seth puts his hands under my arms and knees. He hefts me up into his arms and my head lolls onto his shoulder.
My father practically pushes him out the bedroom door to the back entrance of the motel room. There’s another parking lot this way. I can see a baby blue van parked at the far end.
“Si and I will hold them here for as long as we can,” my father says. “You need as much of a head start as you can get. You must get to the nesting ground. There’s too much at stake, too much riding on Mei surviving this, for us to back out now.” He rests one hand on my shoulder for a moment before stepping away.
Seth nods once, firmly. “I will, sir.”
“Wha’ you talkin’ about?” I’m confused and frustrated, most especially because Seth is carrying me away from my father, just as he’s telling me information I’m certain is important. And where’s Si? I’ve only just gotten my mentor back; I can’t leave him again like this. My eyes are almost the only part of my body still working, and I look around frantically. “Si?”
Si moves into my line of sight. He pats my arm and nods. “Just remember what I’ve taught you, little one.”
Tears well in my eyes, and I struggle to understand what’s happening. My brain isn’t working properly; it feels like everything is in slow motion.
“You must survive, Mei,” my father says. “The fate of the world is riding on your shoulders.” Then he closes the door, and we’re running across the parking lot to the baby blue van.
I scrunch up my face, struggling to remember my father’s words.
Why is the fate of the world riding on my survival?
I’m completely unable to move my body now, so Seth buckles me in. I slump to one side, but there’s no time to fix my position. He jumps in the driver’s seat and the engine starts on the first try, so I know Si’s been working on it. We slowly make our way out of the parking area and onto the main road. Behind us I can hear the sound of sirens and a gathering SIG presence at the motel next door.
I don’t look back. Truth be told, my head can’t actually move in that direction any more.
But I can still look to one side at Seth as he peers over the steering wheel into the dark night ahead of us. Before my eyes loll shut, I’m able to think one last thought.
I’m glad he’s here with me.
THE END
Thank you
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Other books by Trudi Jaye:
Ringmaster
The Gift
Tilly’s Secret
High Flyer
Hidden Magic
Trudi Jaye was born and raised in New Zealand, where she currently lives in a secluded haven amongst the trees with her lovely husband and her cheeky four-year-old daughter. She’s been writing since she was a young girl, and for the last ten years has worked as a magazine writer and editor for a variety of niche titles. She enjoys yoga, although she’s not very bendy, and karate, although she doesn’t like the idea of hitting anyone.
