by Chloe Adler
“Yes?”
“I won’t be changing your dragon suitor back, so if that’s the only reason you’ve moved home . . .”
My heart beats so loudly I’m sure she can hear it but I bite down on my tongue and force a tight smile over my lips. “It’s not, of course, but I can’t see why you’d keep him stuck in his shift. It’s unusually cruel and he’s done you no harm.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Nor will he. You should be asking yourself why I did it, oh daughter of mine.”
I blink at her rapidly. “I honestly don’t know why, Mom.” The only emotions I can gleam from her are the usual worry and anger, but she’s hiding something else. Fear?
Her eyes narrow. “One less male sniffing around my daughter.”
“Dearest,” Alistair comes out of the kitchen, “there you are. And Iphi, it’s so nice to see you. Would you like something to eat? I was just making dinner.”
I want to scream and pound my fists against the nearest hard surface but I don’t dare. She talks big but I can wear her down. I can’t let her keep Thorn unchanged. So I clench my teeth and put on my best fake smile. “Thank you, I’d love some.” I follow him back into the kitchen with Army at my heels, leaving my mother to stew in the foyer.
As soon as I enter the kitchen, there’s a meow at the window. Botting is perched on the sill.
“I was wondering what happened to your new house cat.” Alistair lifts the window and Botting jumps inside. Army hisses.
“Actually,” I pick up Botting and pet the top of his head, “he’s not mine. Turns out he belongs to another family down the street.” I push him gently back out the open window and close it. Botting remains on the other side of the glass, staring at me. I stare back.
Alistair chuckles. “Looks like he wants to be here. Maybe you can share him.”
Armageddon jumps up to the window and hisses, then scratches the glass. Botting doesn’t budge.
“It’s okay Army,” I pick up my cat. “He’s not taking your place.” With my kitty in my arms I turn toward Alistair. “Actually the family isn’t interested in sharing. I asked them already.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Iphigenia
Staying in bed with the covers pulled over my head to block the harsh morning sunlight seems like the most sensible thing to do. Army snuggles against me, curled in a ball, purring in his sleep. At least he and Aurelia are happy to have me back. The last thing I want to do is perform later but I can’t call it off. I’m not one to shirk my responsibilities, no matter how horrible I feel. I’m still not completely myself after casting the ward over the police station and I’m not exactly sure how I did it without my magical items. I suspect I harnessed my emotions and the emotions of those around me, like Cas and Rhys. That makes the most sense. Rhys was there the only other time I used my powers with intention only. Maybe I’m more like my sister Sadie than I knew, but where her superpower comes from sex, maybe mine comes from love.
Pfft. As if.
My bedroom door swings open, Aurelia standing in the doorway. I’ve barely been home for a week and already she’s stopped knocking.
“What’s wrong with you?” She walks over to my bed and pulls the covers off me.
“Nothing. Please don’t do that.” I reach to snatch them back but she holds them up and out of my reach, exposing me. Her eyes pan down my body.
Oh boy. I brace myself for the humiliation to come.
But instead of saying anything, she throws the covers down toward my feet. “Get up, get decent, and come to the dining room for breakfast. We’ve been waiting for you for half an hour.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“I don’t care what you feel like. Unless you’re sick? You’re not sick, are you?” She takes a step back. “I cannot afford to catch anything right now.”
Why not? I want to ask. It’s not like you have a job. It’s not like Aurelia’s ever had a job, not during my lifetime. “I’m not sick.”
“Good. Then come have breakfast. Alistair made pancakes.” She turns to leave.
“Mom?”
“Yes?” she asks over her shoulder.
“When you met Dad, how did you know he was the one?”
Aurelia turns around. There’s something soft and forlorn in her mien for just a second before she raises her chin and narrows her eyes. “I didn’t think he was. Your father pursued me relentlessly and finally he just wore me down. I’d sworn off men and I was perfectly happy being alone, but he would not take no for an answer.”
I cringe and reach down to pull the covers back over me. Wow, in today’s political climate, that would not go over well, but I know Dad and I know Mom. He was nothing but charming and kind and she’s always been melodramatic.
“Same with Alistair?” I ask.
She sniffs, her signature sound that melds a sigh with disgust. “Alistair is nothing like Taylor.”
“Oh I know that.” I sit up in bed and Army nuzzles my arm. I wait.
“Iphigenia.” Her voice is breathy with exasperation. “Things were different in my era. Men pursued women, but the woman made the choice. Alistair expressed interest, and yes, it was one-sided. But he courted me, properly. He knew how to do that and eventually he won me over.”
“But do you love him?”
Aurelia crosses over to me and for the first time in my entire life, she sits down on my bed. Army screeches and I let him go. He darts out the open door.
“Love is an elusive emotion for me.” She pulls her strawberry-blond curls over one shoulder and begins to braid them.
“But you do feel it, I know you do.”
Her eyes narrow. “Not like you.”
“Mama, your heart is not made of coal.”
She cracks a smile and shakes her head ever so slightly. “Very close my dear, very close.”
“What happened to you?” I hold very still and extend my feelers, like ray of sunshine breaking through the darkest raincloud on a blustery, overcast day.
Aurelia continues braiding her hair without answering but her eyes mist over and finally, the past begins to emerge.
Aurelia is young, so young and so beautiful. My mother has always been a striking woman, and full-blooded witches and vampires age much slower than humans. But in her memory, in this vision, she looks around Chrysothemis’s age. Her long hair flows down to her waist and she’s wearing a ragged, stained dress of undyed wool and yet it looks stunning on her. She stands in front of a hut of some sort, clutching a little girl. The most remarkable part of the vision is the intensity of her love. It sucks the breath from my lungs with its power.
A young man emerges from the hut, holding the hands of two other young girls, one with straight brown hair and the other with a mass of red curls. He approaches Aurelia and she lights up in a way I’ve never seen in my entire life. My mother has never looked at me, Alistair, my father or either of my sisters the way she looks at this man. Her face transforms so completely I almost don’t recognize her.
“Aury,” the man says. “Why are you standing out here? Come inside where it’s warm.”
She looks around as if she hadn’t noticed the fine mist of snow on the ground. I didn’t notice it either, because when she started the memory it wasn’t there.
“Mama.” The older of the two girls, the one with the darkest hair, lets go of her father’s hand and moves to take my mother’s.
She lets her and follows them back inside. I have to stifle a gasp at the simplicity of the hut. It’s not dirty, though the floors are made of packed dirt, but it’s the direct opposite of everything my mother stands for now. In one corner a cauldron is suspended over a fire, the water inside boiling. Herbs hang drying from the rafters, just like in our kitchen now. The dirt floor contains a smattering of straw and in the far corner is a larger straw pile. And that’s it, that’s the whole living space.
“Here, treasure, let me take Iniga.” The man lifts the young child from my mother’s arms and again I have to hold bac
k a gasp. She looks a lot like me. Golden curls and piercing blue eyes. “Why don’t you sit and rest? You’ve done too much work today.”
My mother nods and sits on the floor. The red-haired girl crawls into her lap and my mother looks down at her and smiles. That smile is a brilliant, radiant light, bright as the noon sun and just as blinding. She pets the girl’s hair, putting her face down close and cooing.
“Girls, go outside and play. Carina and Speranza, watch your little sister.”
The older girl collects the little one from her father. “Speranza, come,” she calls to the girl in Mother’s lap. Iniga stands on wobbly legs.
Mother leans down and kisses the child’s forehead, pushing the mass of red curls from her face. “Go have fun with your sisters.”
The girl reaches up and wraps her arms around my mother’s neck. “I love you so much Mama.”
“I love you too, little star. More than anything.” She leans down and rubs her nose against the child’s nose.
The girl giggles and runs over to her father. “Papa!” She holds her arms up and he picks her up and swings her around. Her delighted screams fill the cabin. Her father kisses her cheek and places her back down. She runs outside with her sisters.
He turns to Aurelia, sitting next to her on the dirt. They gaze into each other’s eyes. His are dark brown, deep and expressive. He reaches for her face, cradling it between his hands, and then pulls her in for a kiss.
She sighs into his mouth and murmurs against him. “Alessandro, my love.”
He murmurs back, still pressed to her. “Aury, my everything.”
She pulls back and they gaze at one another like two kids in a Nicholas Sparks movie.
He touches her hair gently, her face, moving one finger down a cheek. “Can we discuss that little creature that’s been buzzing around you? You’re not going to run off with a . . . what did you call it?”
Aurelia snorts, sounding more like my present day mother than any other time during the memory. “A pixie, and he’s nothing to concern yourself with.”
He chuckles. “Well he does claim to be in love with you and maybe if he was the size of a full grown man instead of, yay high . . .” He holds his finger and thumb apart several inches. “. . . he’d be a contender?”
“Never.” My mother launches herself on him, kissing his face and clutching his hands in hers. “I will never love another as much as I love you. I want no other man. I will find a way, a spell, to make you live for hundreds of years by my side. I can’t imagine life without you. I don’t want to live a life without you.”
“Even though your parents have disowned you for falling in love with a lowly human?”
“A human with a bigger heart and more to give than all the warlocks in the world.” She kisses him gently.
“And the pixie? If he doesn’t stop buzzing around you, the townspeople will see, and you and our girls could be in danger.”
“Darling, you worry too much.” She kisses him again and he wraps his arms around her, pulling her onto his lap. “If he doesn’t leave me be, I’ll come up with something. Maybe I’ll turn him into a hideous beast. Rawr!” She curls her fingers into claws and leaps on him, and together they collapse into a puddle of laughter.
Aurelia shifts on the edge of my bed, and the vision recedes. She squeezes her eyes shut. Her braid is finished and she stands up, shaking her head to clear it.
“Dining room, ten minutes, no excuses.” Then she turns and storms out of my bedroom.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Thorn
Nolan’s walking through town, all hunched over and sad sack. I swoop down and squawk at him. He turns, fists up. Like he could fight me. Ha!
“Oh, it’s you. Following me to make sure I don’t hurt anyone? Like you’re the poster boy for self-control.”
I land on his shoulder and nip his ear, not hard, but hard enough. He swats at me.
“Quit it.”
He keeps walking and I just sit on him. It’s my way of keeping him company, letting him know I’m not leaving him alone, not this time. We’re silent for a while, and then he walks by the V Club.
I squawk, fly off his shoulder and hover over the entrance.
“You want me to go in there?”
Squawk.
“Fine, whatever. I guess I could use a drink.”
Shifting isn’t allowed inside the club but most everyone in town knows I’m stuck as a dragon at this point, so I jump back on his shoulder. I’ll deal with the owner, Benedict, if he says anything to me.
Nolan pushes open the door and the music inside streams out, washing us and the street behind us in waves of electric energy. He makes his way to the bar, glancing toward the stage. Perfect timing. Burgundy and Tiyah are performing their sexy-as-hell striptease. I’m not spoken for, more’s the pity, so I watch.
Burgundy is pulling her girlfriend’s bikini top off with her teeth. The crowd cheers, throwing bills onto the stage. Elijah collects them while the women gyrate against each other and then start making out.
Nolan’s watching too, drink forgotten.
In the span of thirty seconds, the women are topless. Burgundy has turned Tiyah around and is rubbing her body along the darker women’s back, cradling her breasts and pinching her small nipples. Tiyah’s head falls back against the Latina bombshell’s shoulder. Wow, this sure as hell isn’t a striptease. Everything is onstage, for all to see. Hell, yes. If I could get off in my dragon form or join in, I’d be doing just that, but as it is, I’m one frustrated minidragon. I jump off Nolan’s shoulder onto the bar top and give the girls my back.
“Oh shit, Thorn?” Alec, behind the bar, offers me a glass of water. “Jared told me you were stuck in your dragon shift. I can’t imagine what that would be like. I had to stay in my snake form for way too long once. It was anything but easy. I feel for ya, man. I really do.” He slides the water toward me. “Nolan.”
He turns partway around but his eyes are still glued to the stage.
“What can I get you?” Alec asks.
“Beer on tap, whatever.”
I hop up on Alec’s shoulder and extend my foot in the direction of their best Scotch. “Good idea, buddy,” he whispers and pours Nolan two fingers, placing the drink in front of his back. “Here you go, on the house.”
Nolan reaches back and grabs the tumbler, taking a hefty swallow without stopping to look. Coughing, he turns back to Alec. “Good shit, thanks.”
The music stops and the lights go on, signaling the end of their set. Nolan swings his barstool back around and Alec tops him off. I hop off so he can take care of patrons stampeding toward the bar from the stage.
Burgundy makes her way to the bar and sits next us. “Nolan,” she purrs and he reddens. She flashes him a smile full of teeth. “You came to see me.”
“I . . . I . . .” He looks away. “You were amazing.”
“Why, thank you.” She looks at me, sitting on the bar top. “And Thorn, so nice of you to join your cousin for my set.” She holds out an open palm and I slap my foot on it. She closes her hand around me and leans in. “Do you think I should take your cousin to the back?”
Oh damn. I nod furiously.
Burgundy lets go of my foot and drops her hand on Nolan’s shoulder, sliding it down to his bicep and giving it a squeeze. “Wanna go talk in the back?”
His eyes are wide as barbell plates as he looks at her. Then he looks past the bar and down the long hallway she’s referring to. The sex rooms.
Tiyah and Elijah appear at Burgundy’s other side.
“Who you taking to the back rooms?” Tiyah asks.
She turns toward her lovers. “Nolan, if you’re both okay with it.”
“Nolan.” Elijah pats him on the back. “Lucky dog.”
“You’ll get yours later,” his wife teases.
“I better.” Elijah reaches for Burgundy and kisses her, his hand still cradling his wife’s ass.
“Burgundy’s been telling us about you,�
� Tiyah says to Nolan while Elijah and Burg make out.
He shifts uncomfortably on the bar stool. “Telling you what?”
“How much she wants to fuck you.” Tiyah winks.
Poor Nolan doesn’t know how to respond so I put one paw on his chest and push to get him off the stool. He falls off instead. Damn dragon strength. Burgundy catches him. Damn vampire reflexes. His scarred face turns crimson, but she doesn’t seem to notice, or she’s ignoring it. She hooks her arm around his waist and practically carries him through the bar.
“Don’t wait up for me,” she calls to her lovers over her shoulder.
“Oh we won’t,” Tiyah calls back.
“Have fun,” Elijah says.
Nolan
“Thorn. Coming?” Burgundy calls and the dragon glances at me. I shake my head no. The bastard winks in response, turning back to Alec.
I really should kiss him right now but I’d rather kiss the crazy hot Latina vampire I’m trailing. Watching her delicious proportions sway in the dim light during her pussycat walk already has me going. I can’t tear my eyes away from her. I haven’t had sex, or an approximation of it, in almost a year, which means I’m about eleven months and twenty-eight days overdue.
My brain basically stops functioning as she leads me into a blue room and sits me on the bed. I’ve never been in the sex rooms here before. I haven’t exactly been in my right mind since coming to the Edge but I’ve heard plenty of stories.
I run my hands over the vinyl-covered bed. They weren’t lying about that either. Burgundy sits down and turns to face me.
“Let’s talk first, okay?”
I nod. Until she said those words I hadn’t realized how much I needed to. “I’d like that, thank you.”
“Good. You look like a man with a lot on his mind. Spill.”
I look at my hands and then back up at her. “I’m the odd man out.”
Burgundy purses her lips but says nothing. Kudos to her for not asking me for more clarification.
