The chalk had been the best thing she’d ever bought and it wasn’t just because it was the only thing she had been allowed out of the castle to buy in five years.
She could feel the power flowing out of her hand into the simple circle she had drawn with clean, thick lines.
The human realm dampened power, but the chalk made it so much easier as she fed her trap a little more water.
This far in the forest, no one could see the faint glow from her shield. Too bad, she couldn’t burn black like Jill.
Task completed, she headed back to the playground.
It was a complete mess of hazards.
George was a weapon junkie. He made Victor look like a novice, with a dozen knives, three swords, a whip she had never seen him use—and now, mostly melted—various ninja stars, darts that she hoped weren’t poisoned, and metal cuffs.
She didn’t want to know how George had planned to use the cuffs.
Having all these weapons around the dragon was a bad idea. Victoria wished she had her simple robes, where she could have hidden most of the weapons, even if they would weigh her down.
She didn’t have George’s earth strength. The best she could do was wrap everything in her coat and tie it closed with the half-melted whip.
She’d shield the whole thing with water to keep the fire lizard out of it.
The throaty roar of a motorcycle sounded as she finished tying up her heavy bundle. It had to be her twin, his preference for motorcycles something she remembered well from the last time he had been with her in the human realm.
Jill probably had an interesting ride. It must have been why they had taken so long, a detour to torment Jill for all the trouble she had caused her twin.
It was a simple enough payback, if a bit childish, for Victor. He didn’t usually scare witches for fun.
Running under the slide, she waited to see her brother before revealing herself. It was a public park, and although it was close to 3 a.m. now, anyone could be out there.
She might have ash on her face and the dragon had definitely given her blowout hair earlier, with his big wings flapping so close to her.
“Elizabeth!” screamed Jill’s voice, the bike revving as it hopped the sidewalk.
Victoria ran back out into the open, waving.
“Over here!” she called.
The bike swerved back and forth on the soft ground, making its way toward Victoria, although its course needed a lot of correction.
She didn’t see a second rider, just Jill.
Victor wouldn’t drive like that even to scare Jill. He didn’t take stupid risks, calculating everything.
Was her brother still looking for Jill?
If so, that meant Victoria was stuck in a quandary. Did she warn Jill or cause a delay for her brother to catch up?
Damn it. Vic was going to be so mad.
“Where’s my sister?” Jill asked, still driving towards her.
The bike hit the playground sand and slowed down more, swaying precariously.
“Stop!” Victoria shouted, holding her hands out.
Didn’t Jill say she had never ridden on a motorcycle?
“Help,” Jill pleaded just as a car turned the corner onto the side street in front of the park.
Victoria jogged over to the bike and helped Jill squeeze the handle gently for the front brakes.
“Push your foot down on the rear brake, too,” she instructed.
The sand made the rear brakes more important.
A car door slammed shut. Victoria looked back to see someone exiting a taxi.
“We have to go,” Jill said, not dismounting. “Does George have my sister?”
Victor fired a warning shot of water at the sand, turning it into mud. That would make the bike more difficult to get moving again.
Victoria looked back at where her brother was coming up on them, very fast.
He looked . . . What in Maeren was her twin wearing?
“Go without me,” Victoria said, releasing the front brakes. “Get your mother and leave. George has Elizabeth in Maeren, already.”
If her twin caught Jill the way he looked right now, then he might make a liar out of Victoria and flip Jill belly down on the bike she had stolen to deliver a punishing spanking.
Victoria had never seen him so furious at a witch.
“No. Come with me. I’ll get Elizabeth back from George. We can surprise him.”
Victoria had to stay in the park to slow her brother down, besides which, she still had another big problem.
“Can’t go. Got a dragon tied up and circled in the forest. Long story.”
“Dragon? Seriously?” Jill asked, peering around Victoria’s shoulder to the forested path, although there was no way she could see anything more than a faint glow from Victoria’s shield. “It is the one from your dreams? The prince?”
“Go now,” Victoria urged, not ready to answer questions.
There was no doubt that Victor would get Jill eventually, but in a day or two, to let things cool between the two of them, would be better.
The growling noise coming from Victor as he realized Jill wasn’t going to wait, prompted Jill to get going like a fire lit under her ass.
It was frightening to watch, but despite some dangerous sliding, Jill got the bike going again, revving it as she sped out of the playground. Her wide turn almost turned into a disaster as she pointed the bike in the opposite direction of Victor, relying on sheer grit and determination to keep the ground under its tires.
“Nice of you to give her a head start, Tor,” her twin snarked as he jogged past.
“Make it sporting,” she snarked back.
Victor was wearing jean shorts ripped so high, his ass cheeks were in danger of frostbite, and the t-shirt had been torn just below his nipples. Give him a belly button ring and some eyeliner, and he’d have the boy-toy look down pat.
He had always hated his pretty boy looks, feeling they made the rest of his brothers underestimate his power.
He pivoted and slipped in the mud he had made earlier, trying to speed up to run the motorcycle down. He was barefoot.
Jill was going to regret this. Victor was flaming mad, literally coating himself in the black as he prepared to give serious chase.
The odds of Jill making it out of the park were dwindling.
There wasn’t guilt unsettling her stomach, because she had warned Jill and Elizabeth, too. She was not going to get in the middle of them and her brothers.
Just because they were her friends and had proven themselves loyal, if misguided at times, and—
Flaming farts. She was going to distract Victor.
A hand covered Victoria’s scream and another wrapped around her chest, popping her off of her feet before she could go anywhere.
She closed her eyes and cursed against the dragon’s human hand.
He was in half-form. It was the only way he could have slipped under her shield without breaking it, using his familiar’s magic. His full dragon form would be impossible until he regenerated enough magic after George destroyed it.
Seemed the prince of dragons had a few tricks up his sleeve.
Victoria hated not knowing what to expect. Dragons were so secretive, hardly anyone knew anything about them, and even what was written was all second-hand knowledge.
She read and studied about Maeren more than all of her brothers, even William, prepared to defend herself and never be the helpless female again.
Victor wasn’t the only one that craved control over his life. Victoria may not be as anal retentive about her daily life as her brother, but she had made herself a witch to fear.
All that knowledge and magic seemed so insignificant when matched against the unknown power of a dragon.
He handled her like a doll, using one big arm to squeeze her against his side and cover her mouth, so he was free to bend over and pick up the bundle of heavy steel weaponry that Victoria had kindly packed up.
His half form was bigger than h
is vampire form, making Victoria feel incredibly small as she dangled in his grip, cuddled by at least eight and a half feet of muscle.
He was a massive dragon when fully transformed, so she shouldn’t have been surprised. Now wasn’t the time to develop a fear of heights.
He walked quickly back to the forest, ignoring her twin yelling at Jill to slow down before she hurt herself.
Victor was firing orders on how to drive the bike without crashing, ironic when he no doubt planned to get Jill off of it as soon as possible.
The dragon could have used his wings to fly them faster, but she supposed he was trying to be discreet. The effort was wasted with the noisy distraction Jill was providing.
Victoria didn’t know what the dragon wanted in the forest, anyway. The treetops would definitely hamper his escape.
“Gaisa, gather your magic, so we may depart,” the dragon whispered in her ear, leaning over, with her still held fast in his arms.
Victoria uncorked her gourd and slapped her hands down on the chalk to absorb her magic back.
Who was she to argue, if her captor wanted to keep her fully charged?
The magic drain would have been significant if her circle broke, reinforced so heavily to lock in the powerful prince.
A quick plug of her gourd kept the water safely plugged up, the actual magic she’d used on the spell sinking back through her skin and into her blood.
She shouldn’t have been lazy and had added those dragon glyphs, after all. Lesson learned. He wouldn’t have such an easy time escaping next time she circled him.
As soon as her water circle dropped, the dragon straightened again. He started running back toward the open park.
His words bounced around in her head, along with his pounding gait.
‘…so, we may depart.’
Hell. No.
Victoria wasn’t going to be the princess kidnapped by a dragon. That stuff could be saved for fairy tales.
Water magic was all she had left, having burned her fire on the tiger to stop George, earlier.
She couldn’t reach her gourd to uncork it again, with the dragon tightening his grip as he prepared to take off.
Foolish male, thinking he had her under his thumb.
No good deed goes unpunished.
She breathed out of her nose, collecting all the moisture with her water magic, so conveniently retrieved from her circle.
It took a few good exhales to have enough water to do damage. The dragon’s lungs were so much bigger.
Her twin wasn’t going to be any help. He was at the edge of the park with Jill, the bike wedged in too much mud for the tires to pull free this time.
There hadn’t been rain for days, so Victoria knew her twin had set a trap, driving Jill to it with the cacophony of his orders. The two of them were oblivious to everything going on, locking lips.
That was new, even if not completely unexpected.
Victoria directed her exhaled breath towards the dragon, feeling her magic enter his body as he inhaled.
She didn’t have much time. He was bunching the big muscles of his back and shoulders to take off.
She quickly bit his thumb over her mouth and he sucked in the rest of her spelled breath with a surprised inhale, sealing his doom.
Turning the mist into icy particles, she tried to relax her body.
He would drop her to grab at his chest, ice ripping the delicate tissues of his lungs, coughing out blood and the sharp irritation.
She didn’t expect the ice to last long inside a fire-breathing dragon, only long enough to get him to release her.
She could freeze him longer, once she uncorked her gourd, icing his muscles from the outside, so she could reach her oblivious twin and beg a little of his divided attention.
The three of them ought to be able to handle one dragon before he made the front page news and got them all in a heap of trouble.
“Gaisa, you wound me,” the dragon rumbled at her, through his chest, not releasing his grip one bit.
There was no coughing, only a flapping of wings.
She hadn’t prepared for a drop from a height. Her water grabbed the gourd, debating on trying to steam it from inside to pop the top.
It was purposely clamped to prevent others with water from hijacking her supply, but the loss of her gourd would be better than the loss of her life if she fell to her death.
“My thumb may never be the same,” the dragon complained and blew out an icy breath on her ear.
A fire dragon with water.
No wonder her plan hadn’t worked.
Screw stereotypes, Victoria thought, wriggling to free one of her shoes as the dragon took them to the air.
Her sneaker would have to substitute for Cinderella’s slipper, left behind. She hoped this was the last fairy tale trope she had to live.
This time she bit the dragon’s thumb like she meant to amputate it.
He yanked it away.
“Stop sucking face and look up!” she screeched at her brother, her mouth finally freed.
Her twin’s shocked face was slightly improved by her shoe smacking him in his gobsmacked mouth.
Jill could thank her later. Victoria might have even broken a fang with the hit. He wasn’t going to be troubling Jill with his demands for a while.
She yanked her other shoe off and started smacking the dragon with it.
He would learn not to kidnap a fire princess if he couldn’t handle the heat.
She lectured him as he flew, their flight path bobbing up and down as he tried to twist to avoid her smacks. She kept up a litany of complaints as she hit him.
“The only birds as dumb as this flying dinosaur exposing himself in the human realm had gone the way of the dodo.”
“He had better fly her straight back to her brother before a 747 got him in the ass.”
“She wasn’t his precious gaisa and he shouldn’t be flying at all if his eyesight was so poor that he hit Elizabeth. That was definitely a felony, or at least, a punishable offence. He wasn’t going to get off with a warning.”
Her arm tired out before her mouth.
The Secret
Childhood
Daemon
The first time Daemon visited the human realm, he had been with his father.
He hadn’t been invited or known where they were going. Daemon had followed his father, crawling out from under his bed, where he had been hiding.
His father had fire-locked his room and opened the fireplace entrance.
The first portal ride had been a shock to the senses, with no shield to protect him, and then landing in an edge cave, with such thin magic.
He had just barely gotten his lightning to work in time to hide him from his father’s eyes.
The second portal from the cave to his mother’s home, in the human realm, was tolerable with a shield, although it yanked at Daemon’s magic harder than he had expected.
This time, he had to hide from his father’s mind and the mind of a witch. The suffocating feel of the human realm had to be why he didn’t recognize his mother as soon as he touched her thoughts.
Her first words had been of him.
“How is Daemon?”
“Dae is fine,” his father answered. “He’s got the castle maids in a dither about being just a little too good at hide-and-seek, suddenly popping out of nowhere. I’m going to have to send him down to the barracks for training, so he doesn’t have so much time to spend on childish games.”
“He’s only eight. Why that’s barely old enough to hold his first sword,” the witch had said. “You’re too harsh on him.”
“He is my son.” His father handed her a cloth-covered basket that was filled with prickly aeria berries that Daemon had helped pick that morning. “He needs to learn to do a lot more than simply hold a sword.”
The lady scrunched her nose at his father but didn’t disagree again. She unwrapped the basket.
“Aeria fruit,” she happily exclaimed, popping one of the pur
ple berries into her mouth. She looked at his father’s bandage-wrapped hands. Daemon’s hands were similarly dressed. “What have you been doing to yourself?”
“This is all in service of you, wife.”
Aeria trees were quite thorny. Daemon had decided the sweet-sour fruit wasn't worth the sting.
Although, if it was for the pretty lady, he might risk the scratches to please her. Too bad, she was yet another of his father’s wives.
Most of them didn’t like Daemon.
He had never met this one in his father’s harem, and as a child without a mother, he fed from them all. At least, he would until he was old enough to form his own harem.
Some of the witches hated to feed a demon, but this kind lady didn’t look like one of them. He hoped.
The lady peered nervously around. “Even here, you shouldn’t bandy about our connection.”
Daemon felt her fear.
“Dae has been asking about you again,” his father said, deliberately avoiding the lady’s name.
Daemon caught it in his father’s surface thoughts, anyway.
The pretty lady was named ‘Kim.’
His father’s words didn’t make sense. Daemon had never asked about Kim.
He studied the lady’s eyes as she looked around, peering into the corner he was standing in as if she could see through his lightning right to him.
It was impossible, of course.
Her eyes were the same shade as his own, brown with a little ring of green, but the muddy hazel looked beautiful on her.
With trepidation, he wondered if the green would be fluorescent, like his own, when he used heavy magic.
She looked back at his father. “My son shouldn’t be asking about a dead witch,” the lady said, her voice sounding cold but the sorrow in her thoughts told Daemon she lied.
His mother wanted him to know about her very much. His safety was the only thing stopping her from demanding his father return her to Maeren to see him, herself.
Daemon almost dropped his lightning hold on his parents’ minds in his shock. His mother was the pretty lady!
“Dae can never rule. You should take your son and hide in Maeren. He’s nearly old enough to take a couple of feeders, and with his power, you wouldn’t have to worry about assassins sneaking up on you again,” his father said.
No Witch Way Out (Maeren Series Book 2) Page 30