by Lily Cahill
She held up a vial of something that was—lilac. Felicity felt her stomach drop and tried to hide it. The potion was supposed to be deep purple. It was the right color family, so the potion had been made correctly, but the lack of color meant that whoever had made it wasn’t strong enough to brew something that potent.
“They said their strongest witch made it, and it’s entirely the wrong color. They don’t have someone competent enough on staff, and you know what will happen if it’s not correct.”
Felicity flinched. A poorly brewed potion could have dire consequences, especially once that required a large amount of power.
“I do not want Joy to suffer,” her mother added.
And I do?
“She’s not suffering. She feels no pain whatsoever. Should the potion not work for whatever reason, she will experience nothing different.” Felicity drew herself up. “And we’re doing it. We’re administering the potion.”
Sarah’s eyebrows went toward her hairline, and she gave a patronizing smile. “Oh, Felicity. Your little legal document—”
“—it’s a power of attorney, and that means—”
“—is useless against the might of the Valdez name.”
Felicity ground her teeth together. “A name that is mine to yield, now, if you’ll recall.”
“You only want it when it’s convenient to you. You were more than willing to give it up a year ago,” her mother spat back. “And it didn’t mean anything to you until you could get something out of it. Well, I’m done. I will not let you do this to my baby. She’s suffered enough, and she should be allowed to pass peacefully.”
A warm hand touched Felicity’s shoulder. Damien. Her muscles relaxed under his soft grip, and she gave herself a moment to soak in his presence, calming herself. He was there, behind her, giving her his strength and support, all through a simple touch.
Her mother’s eyes narrowed, and Felicity felt her stomach drop.
“Who is this, anyway?” Sarah’s eyes flitted over Damien, most likely taking in his rumpled clothes, his hard, tight body, his mad, postsex hair. “Is this Joy’s boyfriend?”
The words were like a knife in the chest. Despite herself, Felicity felt her resolve crumbling. Her mother always knew exactly what to say to hurt her the most, and this was no exception. All throughout Felicity’s life, Sarah had made her feel like she’d never be enough of anything: not strong enough, or smart enough, or magical enough, or pretty enough.
Especially not pretty enough.
She was too tan, or her hair was too dark, or her hips were too wide. If there was a way to find fault in Felicity, Sarah found it. And until Felicity had met Damien, she’d assumed that everyone else had found those same flaws, as well.
But he’d never treated her that way. He’d only ever worshipped her body, complimented her mind. He made her feel beautiful—ridiculously beautiful.
And only a few minutes in her mother’s presence made that feeling of pride, of self-assurance, all but vanish.
“I’m Felicity’s boyfriend, actually,” Damien cut in. He sounded … dangerous. His voice was low and angry, a tinge of a growl there that she figured only she could hear.
Sarah gave him a once over. “If you say so.” She looked at her daughter. “You do realize he’s only with you because of who you are, don’t you?”
Had this been any other boyfriend, any other man, Felicity might have been swayed by those words. It had happened before. Being an heiress meant there were a lot of hangers-on, and being the less glamorous heiress meant that she had to be extra careful about who was paying attention to her, and why.
But Damien didn’t love her name—he hated the Valdez for what they had done to his family, and loved her for who she was.
Her mother had always known how to make her feel small. Now, however, Sarah had helped Felicity remember why she had no reason to be cowed by her mother anymore.
Damien was tense beside her, his skin running a little hotter than usual, his breath heavy with anger. She laid a calming hand on his arm, feeling his muscles taut beneath his skin.
Squeezing lightly, she said, “I won’t dignify that with a response. You have no idea what you’re talking about, and it’s not why we’re here. Regardless of what you think is best, we have the dragon’s blood, and that makes a cure a possibility. This is Joy’s only chance. Are you seriously going to condemn your own daughter to death?”
“If it means saving her from any pain, yes. You’ve never had children, Felicity. You don’t know what it means to know they are suffering, or what you’d do to spare them that.” Sarah shuddered lightly, raising her hand to her throat and fiddling with her necklace. “I read about this potion, you know. If it’s made even slightly wrong, it causes unbelievable misery. There’s no dragon’s blood anymore. You’re setting yourself up for failure.”
Felicity bit her lip. There was no way she could reveal the source of the dragon’s blood, not without telling her mother Damien’s secret. She couldn’t break that confidence; she wouldn’t.
“I promise you, this is real dragon’s blood. We can cure her.”
When Sarah opened her mouth to argue, Felicity held up a hand.
“I know it sounds too good to be true, but you have to believe me. I know what I’m doing here. I know the risks. I wouldn’t put Joy in harm’s way recklessly.”
Sarah scoffed. “And yet you moved her here, to this godawful place, and encouraged her drug habit. She’s in here because of you. You failed her, and now she’s dying.”
Felicity felt her throat close around all the words she’d planned to say. There was no response to that, nothing that made her feel like she could adequately defend herself. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to defend herself; she’d insisted on the move, she’d convinced Joy that distance from New York City would help her gain control of her life. But she had been wrong, and Joy had indulged her old habits here in nearly the same quantities as before. She hadn’t been able to force her sister to grow up, no matter how hard she had tried.
“Get out.” Damien snarled the words, making Felicity jump.
She turned to look at Damien, and he looked—strange. Less human than she had ever seen him. He was still a man, still in the same form she recognized, but he seemed to be vibrating beneath his skin, eyes flashing inhumanly gold.
If Felicity hadn’t known him, she would have been terrified. She looked over at her mother; Sarah was staring, wide-eyed, backing toward the door.
“What—what are you?” Sarah whispered.
“I am someone who will not stand by while you berate your daughter.” He looked so angry, so otherworldly. Felicity reached for him, standing closer. He wouldn’t lose control if she was near, she knew. He would never hurt her.
Her touch calmed him. Drawing in a ragged breath, he let it out slowly. His eyes became dark again as he did so.
“What am I?” he parroted back to her, voice still on the edge of too dangerous. “Let me tell you what your daughter is—she is smart, and capable, and so beautiful. And you? You’re vile. Me, however. What am I?” He drew himself up to his full height, all broad shoulders and bulging muscles. He smiled, cold and terrifying. “I am a dragon.”
The room went silent, save for the steady beep of the machines helping Joy to breathe.
“That’s impossible,” Sarah said. She’d gone ashen pale and looked sickly beneath the harsh fluorescent lighting. “Jorge killed them all, twenty years ago. He locked them all in that palace and made sure they burned to death.”
“You bring up the slaughter of my family and friends very casually.” Damien took a step closer to her. “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”
With a few stumbling, backward steps, Sarah was in the doorway of the room. She stared at Damien, eyes-wide, mouth hanging open in surprise. Sarah Valdez, nee Morningstar, was a crafty woman. Felicity could not remember seeing her mother so surprised in her entire life.
It was a little delicious to watch it happen.
“We’ll be
recreating the potion.” Felicity could hear the assurance in her voice, the finality.
Her mother nodded quickly. “Right,” she said. “Of course.”
“You can leave now.”
Sarah turned and fled, not looking back once.
As soon as her mother was gone, Felicity threw herself into Damien’s arms. He held her close to his body, molding them together. She could feel every part of him, could smell his scent—there was something so wonderful and calming about all of him surrounding all of her. She breathed him in deeply.
“Thank you,” she murmured into his skin. He still felt a little too hot, but she didn’t care.
“I didn’t do anything.” He pulled back so they could see each other. His hand skimmed her cheek, fingertips pushing a lock of hair back behind her ear. She leaned into his touch. “You were amazing.”
She wanted to argue, nearly did—but what was the point? He had helped her, and she had done what she’d never been able to do before. There was no way to put it into words, but he kept giving her the tools to be bigger, greater than she’d ever been before. She just hoped that she was able to do the same for him.
A nurse went running by the room, and it snapped Felicity back into reality.
Now wasn’t the time for this.
“The potion.” She frowned. “It’s dangerous. My mother is…”
“Horrible,” he supplied.
“Unpleasant. But she is not entirely wrong to be worried.” She stepped away, sighing. “Potions require a lot of power. It’s not just about the chemistry of it all. It’s about the strength of the magic of the person brewing it. A potion like this needs a lot of magic, and the one we have here isn’t nearly vibrant enough to be correct … Usually I would just offer to brew it myself, but I have such an investment in this. It could throw me off, make me try too hard.”
Damien nodded, brow drawn together. “You’re not detached enough, can’t get the right distance in order to work with a clear head. I get it.”
A light came over his face. Felicity cocked her head to the side, studying him carefully. “What did you think of?”
“Do you trust me?”
That wasn’t even a question. “Of course.”
“I think I might know someone who can help. I don’t know her well, but she’s powerful. Very powerful.”
It was a risk, but Felicity couldn’t see another option. The hospital didn’t have a witch with the kind of strength necessary to create the potion, and she couldn’t brew it herself, not when she knew what—or, more precisely, who—was at stake.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Chapter Twelve
Damien
“YOU DID WHAT?”
BLAYZE SOUNDED furious, and Damien couldn’t blame him. Had their positions been switched, Damien would have found his brother and dragged him back to the safe house by his ear.
There was no way to describe what was happening to him, no words to prove that he knew what he was talking about. All he had was his own conviction that this was the right thing to do, and for his brothers, who had spent their lives in fear of the prophecy, that did not amount to anything.
“I’m not going to repeat myself,” Damien said into the phone, making sure to keep his voice even. He refused to let himself be dragged into a shouting match with Blayze. “I know you don’t understand, but—”
There was a scramble, like the phone was being shuffled around, and then Arryn was there.
“You actually went and gave your blood? Damien, you’ve just signed out death certificates. What the hell were you thinking? You can’t trust Felicity Valdez.”
Damien sighed. He hadn’t realized he’d been on speaker phone.
Guilt gnawed at him, burrowing deep inside him as he thought over Arryn’s words. He knew he could trust Felicity. She had sworn him her protection, her allegiance, and her love. She was the one from the stories, the girl who could love him as man and beast, and he would not make the mistake of doubting her again.
No, this guilt was different. He remembered the smoke and ash in the air, the inability to shift no matter how much he willed his body to become its secondary form, the choking fear as his mother had made him swear to protect him brothers, his only remaining family, forever.
He’d made that promise as a teenager, and for twenty years, he had upheld it faithfully. He had protected his brothers’ identities, had kept all four of them as safe as possible. It had been his reason for carrying on; he had never strayed from his sacred duty. Now, however, he could see how doing this had cut him off from the world. He’d been alive, but he hadn’t been living.
It was like he’d been sleepwalking for the past two decades, and he hadn’t woken up until he’d asked out a pretty witch in a coffee shop.
He loved his brothers, but he couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t go back to a life that was full of nothing but running and fear. That wasn’t a life so much as an existence, and he had tasted more. Felicity had shown him what he’d been missing, and now he was determined not to miss it any more.
“I do,” he told Arryn. “I trust her. I trust her completely.”
There was a long silence. Damien could imagine his brothers sitting in the living room of the safe house, gathered around the phone.
Blayze cleared his throat. It had to be him; only he could manage to sound so self-important without actually saying anything.
“You’ve always been the one to insist on no relationships, no attachments. How do we know this isn’t some kind of spell, or …?” His voice trailed off.
Damien laughed. He couldn’t help it. They couldn’t understand how ridiculous they sounded. Felicity would never hurt him, or do anything terrible to him. He knew that now.
“Blayze, you’ve done nothing but complain about hiding your entire life. Now I’m telling you we don’t have to hide, and you’re suddenly skittish.”
He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. He needed to wrap up the call. Felicity had already gone downstairs to get her car started, and she was likely wondering where he was, why he was taking so long. They didn’t have enough time to dally. Joy wouldn’t survive more than another day or so.
“You three have trusted me your entire lives, and I’m asking you to trust me now. We are not in danger from anyone. Felicity Valdez—Morningstar, whatever she wants to be called—is not a threat to us. The prophecy was wrong.”
“But—”
That was Arryn again, always practical. Damien couldn’t bear to listen to his objections any longer.
“I have to go. I’m coming close to you, to the town nearest the safe house. Felicity and I are going to visit the witch there and save her sister.” Damien paused, forcing the words out before he could lose his courage. “Come meet me there. Talk to Felicity yourself. So you can see ….”
He let the words die. He had either convinced them, or he hadn’t. There was no in between, and nothing he said beyond this point would make a significant difference.
“I hope to see you all there.”
Damien hung up the phone.
The town was a four-hour drive away. Damien hadn’t realized it’d been such a long way away; it had seemed much faster when he’d flown.
He wondered if he should have offered to fly her there, but dismissed the thought. Even though she knew his secret, no one else did. He didn’t want to cause any sort of panic. There’d be a time and a place to reveal his true nature.
When they pulled into the tiny town, Damien gave rough directions, leading Felicity to the little shop with the cauldron sign. She frowned, looking at the shabby exterior.
“You’re sure she’s as powerful as you think?”
Damien nodded. He didn’t know as much about magic as Felicity did, but he knew enough to recognize true power when he was in the presence of it. The store front made the place look strangely abandoned, which was crazy, since Damien had seen it only just the day before.
The door burst open, and the squat witch leaned ou
t of the doorway, waving at both of them. Relief flowed through Damien’s veins. He’d thought, for a moment, that his whole experience there had just been some sort of crazy illusion.
“Well, come on, then,” the witch yelled. “You’re terribly late. I didn’t think you’d come at all.”
She disappeared inside the front door, and Felicity cut the engine. He could feel her nerves, and he reached out, grabbing her hand in his and squeezing.
“We’re going to save Joy,” he said.
Felicity smiled, small and anxious. It didn’t reach her eyes. “When you say it like that, I almost believe you.”
They both got out of the car and hurried inside. The front lobby looked completely different than it had yesterday—no mangy cat, no old, staticky television. Instead, everything looked sleek and modern. The counter was a dark black with chrome finishings, the decrepit looking cash register replaced with an iPad facing out toward the customer.
The witch sat in one of the chairs, tapping a vial against her knee and glaring at them both.
“You’ve wasted so much time,” she lamented, motioning between them with a gnarled finger. “You’re lucky I knew you’d be coming and whipped this up in preparation for your arrival. All that’s missing is ….”
She made a slashing motion in the air, and Damien felt invisible claws rake down his arm. He shouted out and looked down to see four long cuts on his forearm, weeping tiny rivers of blood down his arm.
Then, suddenly, the blood seemed to take a detour, no longer flowing down his skin but up into the air. The witch uncorked the vial, and the blood traveled neatly into it.
He growled, the pain in his arm negligible to the anger that was coursing inside of him. Beside him, Felicity picked up his wrist, looking over the gashes with wide eyes.
The crazy old woman hadn’t asked, had only taken, and—
“Keep your shirt on.” The witch’s voice cut through his thoughts. She waved a hand and the cuts on his arm closed, the blood on his skin disappeared. He looked exactly as he had before. He lifted his eyes to hers, knowing he was gawking but unable to help himself, as she shook the vial.
