by T. S. Ryder
“Yeah, but this is the best spot, and it’s not like he won’t know if we go somewhere else and destroy a bunch of stuff there.” He gestured around to the crushed plants and fallen trees that ringed the clearing. “We should keep our damage to one area instead of ruining another one.”
“Yeah, but they keep looking.”
“Let’s just charm her. Make her not want to look.”
She hated the thought of using magic on her friends. It was one thing to use magic so their parents didn’t question why they were in the woods so much or didn’t hear them upstairs fooling around, but against her best friend? It had been necessary to use magic to keep Erica from getting her feelings hurt over Spence choosing Kiara instead of her, and she supposed this was necessary, too, to keep her safe. “I guess we don’t have a choice.”
They moved in her direction, but then there was a loud snap and a shout of pain. It was definitely Erica’s voice. They exchanged glances and crept faster in the direction of the sound.
When they got close enough to see they found Erica lying on the ground, clutching her ankle.
“Do you smell that?” he whispered.
“What?”
“It’s broken.”
“Huh?”
“I can smell the marrow inside her bone. She broke it.”
She shoved his shoulder lightly. “Freak.”
He grinned at her and kissed her. “I’m going to go help her.”
“Me too.”
“No.” He stopped and turned to her. “Think about it. She knows you’re a witch and that you do magic out here. If she knows I was out here with you she’ll figure out that I am, too, and it’ll just make things worse. Plus, I’ll probably have to carry her out and I don’t think you could lift her.”
“I guess.”
“Stay close and stay cloaked. That way if we need you you’ll be right there. You can act like you were just doing magic out here as a witch.”
“Okay.”
He uncloaked himself, then called out, “Erica?”
“Spencer!” Erica said. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard you yelling. Are you okay?”
She looked down at her foot and shook her head. “I think I twisted my ankle or something. It really hurts.”
He went to her and picked her up, carrying her in his arms. “I’ll get you home.”
“Thank you. I can’t believe you were in the woods. Are you still searching for the animal causing the damage? My dad said it’s been worse the last few weeks.”
“I know. My dad did, too. Yeah, I was out here looking.”
Kiara followed behind them, walking carefully to avoid making a sound as she stayed cloaked.
“What’s with the gloves?” Erica asked.
“Oh, I… like to pick plants and stuff and sometimes I get prickers, so I have these gloves to protect my hands.”
Kiara almost snorted in laughter. He may have gotten better at a lot of things, but making up lies on the fly was not one of them.
They were getting close to the edge of the woods. Spence ducked to avoid hitting his head on a low-hanging branch, and his hood fell back. Kiara saw and gasped, then ran to him, but it was too late. The moonlight touched the back of his neck and his skin turned to scales and fur.
Erica landed hard on the ground when Spence dropped her and screamed. She scooted back, trying to get away from him. Spence moved around frantically as his body grew in size, trying to find a patch of darkness to change back to human form, but it was too late. Erica had seen him fully and was watching with a terrified look on her face as he tried to escape the moonlight.
Kiara stuck out her hand and touched him, cloaking them both. When he vanished from sight, relief flooded over her. Only recently had she been able to cloak someone else as well as herself and she was still working on increasing the strength of the spell.
“Hold your cloak,” she whispered, and pulled the large blanket from her bag. She’d started carrying it for this reason, and because having sex on leaves and twigs wasn’t the most comfortable thing. She threw the blanket over his tall dragon head, and in seconds he had changed back.
“Crap, crap, crap,” he said.
Kiara stared at him, not knowing what to do. Erica had gotten to her good foot and was hobbling away. “Should I go after her? You certainly can’t.”
He let out a string of profanity under his breath. “I can’t believe this. Is she going to die now?”
“Uh… I…” She glanced back to her see her friend hopping and looking around for the suddenly vanished wolf-dragon. She had forgotten about the curse in their panic to get him hidden. But she remembered how sick Spence had been after seeing her in dragon form. Her stomach twisted and her chest burned painfully. Not her best friend. And Erica wasn’t a witch, so Kiara couldn’t give her the power to shift even if she wanted to. “Probably.” Tears pricked at her eyes and her throat burned.
“Crap, crap, crap!” He let out more profanities and kicked at the ground, then started punching a nearby tree.
“That’s not going to help anything,” she said, catching his fist before he could hit the tree again. “We have to go after her and see what she does. She can’t tell anyone else or they’ll die, too. And then we need to think of a way to save her.”
“Right. Okay.” Spence took a deep breath and they followed after Erica, staying hidden and out of the moonlight, walking quietly to avoid being heard.
When they caught up to her Erica was on her phone, telling someone to come and get her. They were so close to the edge of the woods that she was almost out and to the street.
Kiara stopped. “What do we do? You can’t go out there in the moonlight. It’s too risky, even if you stay cloaked. Someone is on their way.”
“What are you going to do, though? Tell her not to say anything about me? Then you’d have to tell her that you know.”
Kiara balled her hand into a fist as she watched Erica hobble toward the road, where her car was parked. “No, I guess that won’t help anything. You think she’ll be okay, though? I don’t want to just leave her.”
“We need to find the dragon and beg him to make her a shifter so she can live.”
“No, she can’t. She’s not a witch. She has no magic.”
“But you gave me magic, didn’t you? Can’t you do that for her?”
“I wish. I’ve tried, believe me. But I didn’t give you magic. It wasn’t like an infuse magic spell or something. I made you into the person I wanted most. Nature made you a wizard because that’s what I wanted.”
He shook his head hard. “That’s so… weird. But then there has to be a spell to give her magic.”
“I’ve never seen one. You’re the only person I know or have ever heard of who gained magic. And even then I’ve wondered if there isn’t magic in your blood, but it just wasn’t strong or something. In all the books I’ve read, and all the time I’ve spent with other witches, no one ever heard of a way to give someone magic. You must have been at least a tiny bit before because otherwise it’s just impossible.”
“Okay, okay, I get it. What do we do then?”
She looked down at her ring. The one that would erase the secret from Erica’s mind and stop the curse, but kill her in return. It was the only answer she had left.
“Let’s get back to your house to think,” she said. “We have at least a day before the curse kills her.”
Chapter Eleven
They ran toward his house, cloaked and speed running with the blanket draped over Spence, and levitated into his room. There they paced together, stepping over his piles of dirty clothes, thinking.
“Maybe there’s a way to cast a spell to keep her from talking about it, and maybe if we did the dragon would uncurse her,” Spence said.
“After the whole wolf-dragon thing, I don’t think he’s going to help us.”
“What about another dragon?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know any personally. I’ve met
a few at the haven, but none that I know the names of to summon or anything. I don’t think any of them would help us.”
“A memory charm?”
She pulled her mouth to the side. “That could work to erase the secret, but it won’t stop the curse now that it’s been activated.”
“Are we sure it has been? I mean, if I’m a more powerful shifter and there’s all the wolf stuff, maybe that’s different too?”
“That seems too good to be true. But I guess we won’t know until she starts getting sick.”
There was a knock on his door. “Spencer?”
His mom. He opened the door.
“Oh, Kiara, you’re here. Can you both come downstairs for a minute?”
Kiara and Spence exchanged looks. They didn’t have time for whatever parental thing Spence’s parents wanted to happen. They trudged downstairs and found his father in the living room.
“Have a seat,” he said.
Mr. and Mrs. James, Spence’s parents, sat side by side on the couch. Oh no, was this ‘the talk’? Were they going to be told not to be alone together and to use protection and all of that? They so did not have time for this tonight.
“We received a very strange call tonight,” Mr. James said. “Your friend Erica claims that you were in the woods, Spencer, and that you carried her out when she fell and broke her ankle, but then—” He stopped to shake his head. “Then she said you changed into a dragon.”
Oh no. Oh no, no, no. What had Erica done? She’d been out of the woods for what, an hour, and had already told someone? Hadn’t she been afraid they would think she was crazy for saying what she saw? Who just goes and blurts that out? Kiara and Spence exchanged a wide-eyed glance. Neither of them had thought she’d tell someone so soon. Kiara squeezed his hand, hard, and it was clammy with sweat, just like hers.
“Now we know that you’re both good friends with Erica,” Mrs. James said, “and that you’d never want to get her in trouble, but this isn’t the time to keep secrets. We need you to be honest.” She gave them each a grave look. “Is she taking drugs?”
Kiara breathed out a long sigh of relief. They didn’t believe her. Would that mean the curse wouldn’t work on them? “I don’t know, actually.” She looked at Spence, then gave them a sheepish look. “Spence and I have been spending so much time together that I haven’t seen her much. I guess that doesn’t make me a very good friend.”
“Oh, well, that happens,” Mrs. James said.
“The reason we were called,” Mr. James said, “is because she claims this dragon that she saw was the animal responsible for doing the recent damage in the woods. Her father called me about it.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll figure out the real problem eventually,” Spence said.
Mr. James shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.
There was a knock at the door and Spence’s father got up to answer it. They heard him discussing something with a man who Kiara was ninety percent sure was Erica’s father.
“No, she’s at the hospital now,” they heard Mr. Graham say from the front door. “But you have to see this. She got a photo.”
Spence clutched Kiara’s hand again and they looked at each other with a wild expression.
“What’s going on?” Mrs. James asked. “Why do you two look so afraid and guilty?”
The men came into the room then, and Spence’s father looked angry. “Explain this.” He held Erica’s phone to show Spence the photo of himself in wolf-dragon form. His gold chain, the one with the small gold cross that he was given as a child and always wore, hung around the dragon’s neck. She remembered how Spence had seen the necklace he’d given her and thought that was enough proof that she was a dragon shifter. How could they convince his parents that wasn’t Spence in the photo?
Mr. James’ hand started to shake. “Now, I’ve ignored the rumors. You think we don’t know what you two are up to? Out in the woods all the time, spending every second together. People say you’re doing magic, the both of you.”
Spence shook his head. “That’s crazy.”
Kiara gulped. Had Erica told someone about that, too?
“Is it?” Mr. James continued. “There have been reports of witches and wizards in this area for decades. Strange occurrences, weird things in the forest. That’s why we’ve been so desperate to catch whatever was out there. We had a feeling it was something unnatural. And now I find out it might be my son doing all this? Running around the woods destroying nature, doing magic, and terrorizing his friends.”
“Dad.” Spence held his hands up. “You sound insane. Listen to yourself.”
Mr. James shook his head. “You kids think you’re so smart.” He paced in front of them. “You’re playing with things you shouldn’t be touching.”
“What are you talking about?” Spence threw his hands in the air. “Magic? Wizards? Dragons? Dad, this is real life, not the freaking fantasy channel!”
Mr. James turned and held out his hand, then a shot of yellow light soared from his palm to Spence’s mouth.
Chapter Twelve
Kiara recognized the spell he cast as a truth spell. One far above what she could cast. Her mouth dropped open in shock. “You’re—you’re a wizard?” she asked.
He nodded. “And I had been very successful at keeping this world from my son until he was ready. I’m still not sure he’s ready for the responsibility, and neither are you, Kiara. Clearly.”
“Wait a second,” Spence said. “What is happening right now? You’re telling me you’re a wizard and have been my whole life?!”
Mr. James nodded.
“What the hell!” Spence put his head in his hands for several minutes.
The shock settled over Kiara and her mind started whirling.
Spence turned his head slowly to look at her. “I guess you were right about one thing. I always was a wizard. Even if my parents never bothered to tell me.” He looked up and glared at them.
“Why wouldn’t you tell him?” Kiara demanded. “If my mom was a witch, she would have told me! She would have taught me and helped me, not kept it from me and hoped I never found out!”
Mrs. James laughed and she gave Kiara a sympathetic look. “Aww, sweetie, your mom is a witch.”
“What?” Kiara’s mouth hung open. She and Spence exchanged bewildered looks. Could they possibly be dreaming this?
“It’s in the bloodlines. Witch and wizard parents have witch and wizard kids,” Mr. James said. “And no, we don’t train them and help them. That’s not the way it’s done. You’ll see when you have kids of your own. Magic has to be discovered and harnessed and kept secret. And you both have done a terrible job of keeping it a secret from the non-magical people in this town.”
“But—” Kiara’s hand drifted toward Erica’s father, who stood at the edge of the room, watching everything.
“Erica is adopted,” Mr. Graham said. “She doesn’t even know that, so don’t you dare tell her.”
“I won’t.” Kiara gasped at him. So that meant he was a wizard, too?
Mr. James stood in front of Spence, hands on his hips. “I thought that, being raised in a household with a forest ranger, you would be much more careful of nature. And now that you use magic you know even more so how important it all is. How could you do so much damage? And besides that, where in the world did you get the magic to shapeshift? That’s a very rare thing, and no one in this town has that power.”
Spence hung his head. He still held Kiara’s hand and she squeezed it to give him some measure of comfort. If that was even possible now. If his parents knew and Erica’s parents knew, then a whole lot of people were going to die all because his hood had fallen down while he was in the moonlight. She could only imagine the guilt he was feeling now.
“The thing is, Spencer,” Mrs. James said, “We’ve had a pact in this town that if shifters show up, they are killed. They caused a lot of damage in the past. It was decided by a lot of people long ago that they should never be allowed t
o keep the power.”
Spence looked at his mother in horror. “You want to kill me?”
“Of course not!” Mr. James was shouting now. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re our son and we love you. But you have to understand that this is a very dangerous thing. We will do whatever we can to protect you, but if the wrong people in this town find out about you they will hunt you.”
“Then they’d be going after the wrong person,” Kiara said.
“What?” Spence whipped his head to look at her.
“You can’t keep lying for me, Spence.” Kiara took a deep breath and said, “Spence can’t shift into a dragon, but I can. I was wearing his necklace, and I carried Erica out. Obviously. She’s my best friend. She told you it was Spence because she’s still mad at him for choosing me over her. She wanted to get back at us both, I guess, and that’s why she told you what she saw and took that photo. But it’s me. I’m the one who did all the damage in the woods. Not on purpose or anything. Tails are big and heavy, and it just kind of happened. I wouldn’t purposefully kill trees or anything in nature.”
Spence took in a sharp breath when she said the last part. Right. She had killed something in nature. And that was part of the reason for this mess. If she hadn’t let Spence see her, she wouldn’t have had to kill the wolf to save him. And without the wolf Spence wouldn’t have turned in the moonlight, and Erica wouldn’t have seen. This was all her fault, not his. And that’s why she was going to be the one to fix it.
Mr. James glared at her. “I don’t believe you.”
“Then cast your fancy truth spell because I sure don’t have a counterspell strong enough.” She crossed her arms and waited, knowing exactly what she’d say. The spell hit her and she said, “Now. Like I said. I’m a dragon shifter, and I was in the woods with Erica.”
She had to choose her words carefully. She had to convince them of just enough of the truth so they didn’t ask questions that would give away all her lies and sidestepping.
The adults inspected her and exchanged glances.
“Erica was adamant that it was Spencer,” Mr. Graham said.
