by Award, Aidy
“By all means, lead the way. It's been too long since I've had the opportunity to let off a little steam.”
They followed Steele’s directions and didn't have to go far. Steele waited for them in a park maybe a mile from where Ciara lived. He had cleared the area of humans, and the stench of evil would keep more from wanting to come this way.
Jakob would be assigning at least six green dragons on permanent undercover duty to guard Ciara. But first, he would destroy every single one of the little shits he could find in her vicinity, and then some.
As if they had been waiting for Jakob to land, a dozen demon dragons rose up out of the shadows the second his feet touch the ground. Excellent. “These ones are mine.”
Jakob tore into the demon dragons like a Viking berserker with fangs and claws. He eviscerated six of them while the others gawked at him. He didn't care. Bring on more.
He got exactly what he wished for.
All of his frustration and anger were channeled into the battle. None even got close to him before he turned them into stains on the ground.
“Jakob, look out.” Both Steele and Cage called out the warning. A mass of demon dragons dropped from the top of a nearby building, through the trees, and tackled him. Five or six of them held him down while two others reached for his soul shard.
A blast of fire threw half of them off of his back and a blast of water took out three more. He looked up to see Match, Kai, Cage, and Steele all joining the fray.
Jakob swung his tail around clobbering the two bastards who had gotten their hands on his shard. They hadn't been able to take it off of him but had lit up with delight, which was completely creepy, when they had touched it. One of them disintegrated into a puff of ash, but the other took off bounding across the park and disappeared into the shadows.
Jakob spotted it again a couple hundred meters away running directly for the building where Ciara lived.
They were going after her.
Over his dead body.
Chapter Seventeen
What were you thinking?
Ciara slept the majority of the car ride from Washington DC to home. She still felt like she could sleep for another week. She was groggy enough that Wes suggested he take her straight home instead of stopping to get her car at the wedding hall. Mrs. Moore the elderly lady who lived across the hall from her had a spare key, so she agreed. But, now that she was here and had Wesley Alexander inside her house, she didn't know what to do with herself, or him.
She putzed about the kitchen for a few minutes before he shooed her away. “Ciara, sweetie pie, go sit on the couch. I'll throw together a quick amuse-bouche and some wine, and you can tell me all about where you've been the past couple of days. Unless, you want to go to bed and I'll get out of your hair.”
“No, it would be nice to have some company for a while.” She didn't know how much she could actually tell him about her insane adventure without sounding like she needed to be sent to the mental hospital. She could probably relate a similar story to what she had told the people at the embassy. They seem to have bought that, so she would stick with it.
Wesley pulled a couple of glasses and a bottle of wine off the shelf, poured hers and gave her a light shoved toward the living room. She curled her legs underneath her on the couch and took a sip of the wine. Then she sat and stared at the wall for a good five minutes.
She may not have even blinked until Wes set a cutting board with slices of avocado, cheese, chunks of rotisserie chicken, and crackers in front of her. It was the most beautiful meal she had ever seen and it made her burst into tears.
“That's right, honey, let it all out.” He slipped onto the couch next to her and wrapped her up in a big bear hug.
She dreamed more than once of being in Wesley's arms. But, she didn't feel a single tingle or butterfly. He was kind and comforting and she was completely emotionally drained. He stroked her hair while she sniffled, trying to get herself back under control.
No, no. She'd vowed not to sweep her feelings under the emotional rug anymore. She leaned into him and let the tears flow. It felt good to let the mountain, she couldn't remember the last time she had cried. Maybe when she'd been a little girl and her father had left.
It didn't take as long as she would've thought to get all cried out. She blew her nose and one of the napkins and grabbed up her glass of wine to wash the taste of salty tears away.
But the wine in her glass had frozen.
Shoot.
“Yeah, mine did that too a minute ago. Also, I think it's snowing in your kitchen, and your ficus is crawling up the side of your wall.” Wesley's voice was remarkably calm and he picked up his online glass swirling the red mass of crystals around and took a sip. “Yum. Wine slushy's.”
“You are handling this a lot better than I did.”
Why wasn't he slowly backing away from her to escape her and the weirdness happening around her.
“There is a lot of bad shit in our world, this isn't one of them. This is kind of amazeballs.” He took another sip of his wine slushy and looked at her expectantly. “I could freak out, or I could just wait for you to tell me what's going on.”
The entire story from being caught eating leftover wedding cake, being kidnapped and flown across the ocean, learning magic from a witch named Mrs. Bohacek, mating with Jakob, fighting off demon dragons, the challenge to find the ring, getting Dragon married, the possessed visions, her escape, the black-eyed man, getting mugged by Gypsy children and saved by a Marine, to him picking her up in Washington poured out of her mouth.
Wes listened to it all, asked clarifying questions, and repeated “literally?” at least half a dozen times.
When she finished, her heart felt a lot lighter. It still hurt, but it didn't feel quite as heavy. “You're not mad about what happened between me and Jakob, are you?”
“Why would I be mad?”
“Because… You and I… I mean, we had a date. We spent half of the last year flirting with each other.” With each word that came out of her mouth she turned more and more into a weird awkward teenager. She had plenty of clues that Wesley might not feel the same way about her as she had about him. She had chosen to ignore them, mostly because she'd wanted somebody to want her back.
She could feel the heat in her cheeks and tried to hide behind her glass of wine. Wesley touched her hand and lowered it so she had to look at him. “I adore you, your hilarious when you want to be, you don't take bull ship from anyone except your mother, not even the bridezilla's, you genuinely care about them, and I like you, a lot. But,”
great, here it came the I like you but speech. Why could never be the I like your butt speech?
“If I had a choice between you and a sexy ass Dragon warrior like what you found, I'd take him to bed too.”
Screech. Ciara's brain pulled on the emergency brake cord. No. Seriously? How had she misinterpreted every single goddamn interaction she'd had with Wesley over the past few years?
“Sweetie, I thought you knew. But, I can see from the holy shit look on your face, that you didn't have a clue. So, just in case you're still unsure, I like dudes. Like, a lot.”
Ciara stalled for another minute by shoving three pieces of chicken in her mouth. She chewed, swallowed, chewed some more all while Wes chuckled at her.
“Nope, not a single teeny tiny clue.” She didn't even feel as smart as a box of rocks. “I seem to have the relationship intelligence of a four-year-old wheel of cheese.”
“It's okay, not everybody's gaydar works. My parents certainly didn't.” They sat together munching on the snacks while Wes let her process this revelation. He'd obviously had the same conversation a timer to. She wouldn't be surprised if she was the first woman to have a crush on him. He refilled their wine glasses and gave her an expectant look. She blinked at him and then realized he wanted her to slushy-ize his drink again. She laughed and swirled her finger around until his wine was half frozen.
“Here's what I don't get. If this Jak
ob guy is hot and good in bed and convinced he's in love with you, what the hell are you doing back here?”
“Don't you see, it could never work between us. He honestly didn't even understand why I was so mad after the mating ritual. There was no way we could form a lifelong loving relationship. It was more like some sort of Stockholm syndrome.”
“I'm not buying that. You can't tell me you didn't have any feelings for him. I can tell by the way you talk about him.”
So what if she did. She might be new to accepting feelings, but having them for someone didn't mean they were in love or that they could have a meaningful relationship. “I'll get over them.”
She might've had too much wine, or her stomach was rebelling against the first real food she'd had in a while because when she said those words she wanted to throw up.
“Did we just establish that your relationship dumb?”
Ciara made a face at him. “I guess so.”
“Well, I'm not. I've had hundreds of relationships. Okay, maybe like five. But, I make excellent boyfriend material and I know what I'm talking about. So listen close, honey. If you don't get that awesome ass back to Prague and beg for Jakobs forgiveness, on your knees, naked, I will.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, but he was serious at least about the part where she needed to get back with Jakob.
“I don't know. We are from such different worlds. I can't pick up and moved to Prague. What would I do there? I don't think I'd make a very good housewife.”
“That's all a bunch of bullshit. Different worlds, my ass. You just grew a jungle in your kitchen, rivaled Elsa in the do you want to make a snowman department, and invented the best new drink, with your mind. All the rest is fluff.”
“Your face is fluff.” Fear that everything Wesley said was true had her defense mechanisms rising. She gulped the remainder of her wine down. Then she whispered, “what if he doesn't want me back?”
“First off, he does and you will be miserable for the rest of your life if you don't go find that out. But, if for some reason he's as relationship stupid as you are and things don't work out, you need to know your fucking fabulous, and will find you a new hottie. I can't guarantee he'll be a Dragon, but I know a couple of drag queens.”
Fucking fabulous? Was she? Maybe. But, she could work on that. “What about Willingham weddings?”
“You mean what about your mom. That woman needs to get laid worse than anyone I know. A little lickity on her split and she wouldn't be half so cranky all the time.”
“Ew.” But, maybe he was right. Ciara hadn't seen her mother in a serious relationship in twenty years.
“I'd work on that for her, but I don't know any men who like twatwaffles.”
Wes had to grab the rest of the napkins and Pat up the wine Ciara spewed all over him.
“Sorry about that.” She handed him one more napkin for his hair. “If I leave, you'll get stuck with all of my high maintenance accounts.”
“I'll be fine. I've already moved up to a level six bridezilla slayer. Besides, it's all practice for when I start getting us the gay weddings. You haven't seen a bridezilla until you've met the Queen marrying his queen.”
Was she really going to do this? She couldn't. She had to. She really was going to throw up.
“Uh, Ciara. I know you said your Dragon was super sexy. But, that guy looks more like Steve Buscemi as a snake.” Wesley's eyes went as wide as the windows.
Oh no. Ciara slowly turned to see what had scared Wesley. Standing on her small porch was a demon Dragon.
She thrust her hand open palm at the monster and blew it tumbling over the side of her porch. Three more appeared out of the shadows.
“Wesley, grabbed the phone, going to the bathroom and turn on all of the lights, and call 911. I will keep them at bay as long as I possibly can.”
“Shit, shit, shit. That's not your boyfriend is it?”
“No. Go, quickly.” When he hesitated, Ciara use the same trick of the wind to lift him bodily off the couch and shoved him toward the bedroom. “Remember, turn on all the lights. They come out of the shadows.”
Wes grabbed the phone, stared at it and shook it. “There's no signal.”
“Stand on the bathtub and hold the shower curtain rod. You should be able to get one bar.”
The demon dragons rattled the sliding glass door. She didn't think they understood how to open it. But, just in case she encased the door in a block of ice. It would be impossible to slide it open now.
One of the creatures rolled its head and blew a stream of fire at the ice, melting her handiwork almost instantly. Then it whipped its tail around and shattered the glass.
Fuck three ducks. Think, think. What did she know how to do to defend her self and Wesley. She couldn't run, a dirt barrier would not protect her for long, and now that they had made it inside she didn't know if she could focus her command over the wind to do anything but toss them around the room. If she used fire she might burn the entire apartment complex down, and they had already shown they weren't bothered by ice.
That was everything she knew how to do.
Ciara backed away, retreating into the plants that had grown up all around her kitchen. She imagined a whip in her mind and a spiky wine lashed out at the nearest demon Dragon. It caught the thing in the face, cutting it, but that only made a mad.
“You come, we not hurt.” A crackling voice came from one of the demon dragons mouths.
She hadn't realized they could talk. The speech was stilted and basic. Were they stupid? Maybe she could just talk them into going and leaving her alone. “No. You go.”
The two uninjured ones glanced at each other as if they consider doing what she told them to. “No. You come.”
They definitely weren't smart, but she didn't think she could fool them. Maybe she could stall them long enough for the police and their guns to get here. Hopefully, guns worked as a weapon against demon dragons.
Who she really needed was Sam and Dean Winchester.
Scratch that. She needed Jakob.
“Where do you want to take me?”
“AllFather.”
“Who is allFather?”
AllFather AllFather.” They didn't have a whole lot of inflection, but she could tell that one thought she was as stupid as she thought he was. She wanted to ask what the AllFather was too, but she’d probably get the exact same response.
“Where is this AllFather?” This was working. She'd held them off for a full thirty-seven seconds. How fast were first responders?
The demon Dragon who had been answering her questions snarled as if he'd had enough talking. “Hell.”
Oh, hell no.
The demon dragons advanced, even the one with the cuts on its face. She sure as hell hoped Wesley had been able to get through to 911.
Ciara needed to come up with a plan and quick. She grabbed a knife from the butcher block and held it out. God, she hope this did not come down to hand-to-hand combat. She waved the knife at them. It didn't stop them even a little bit. She switched from holding the knife handle like she was going to chop up a grilled cheese sandwich and flipped it so she fisted the handle, blade down. She'd taken a self-defense class once, kidding, she'd seen one advertised on TV. She did remember though that knife was more powerful and useful in downward stabbing motion then trying to use it like a sword.
She might not be able to throw the demon dragons out the window with her when, but she could use it to throw things at them. A lamp flew across the room and smacked the bleeding one in the head. He shook his head and kept advancing on her. She threw a lot more at them, books, her TV, snowballs. It didn't stop them even a little bit. She needed a better plan.
What would Jakob do?
Thrash them with his tail. She didn't have one of those./Their throats with his claws. They would need to be a lot closer to her for that and she didn't want them to be. Bury them in dirt.
All she had were her potted plants and the ground was eight stories below. She had to try anyway.
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A fountain of soil spurted in through her broken door and gathered at the demon Dragon feet.
“Come on, come on.” She searched deep inside her heart for the strongest emotions in there that she could find. Every single one of them had to do with Jakob. Only this time when she pulled them up they didn't hurt.
The stream of earth thickened and began to avalanche into her living room.
The demon dragons clawed at the dirt and screeched at her.
She studied all of your router out of the tile miles of oil will, or nine like like stone, encasing the Dragon inside.
She had them.
She was feeling pretty damn proud of herself, and almost ready to call Wes back out of the bathroom.
That's when something much bigger with giant talons plunked down on her back porch. It was so dark outside now that she couldn't see what it was. But the weight of it shook her building.
If it tried to come inside, she was toast.
Chapter Eighteen
Save Me
Jakob followed the demon dragon down the street. The one turned to many as it called its brethren to rise. First two, then ten. More and more formed out of the shadows until a river of them were flowing toward Ciara. Where the fuck were they all coming from and why were they here and now?
It had to be connected to Ciara and the relic. The bastards had never shown any interest in a single human being before. They had only ever been bent on causing plagues and spreading death. They’d brought the black death to Europe, Ebola to Africa, SARS to Asia, and H1N1 around the world. Each outbreak had been stopped from becoming a species annihilator by the dragon warriors.
He and every other dragon ever born had rooted them out, usually one by one, and destroyed them. To see this many gathered together twice in a lifetime was more than a little scary. But, for them to be fixated on one human didn’t make sense.
They were missing vital clues, and he didn’t have time to hunt them down. He was too busy hunting demon dragons.
Jakob slashed and destroyed them from the back of the newly formed hoard, but as soon as he killed one, two more appeared to take its place.
