by ReGi McClain
Harsha glared at him for speaking for her.
“Intimidated? Nonsense.” Then she noticed Seraph’s bloody muzzle. “Oh! Sephy. See what you’ve done to your poor friend with your messy eating? Here, let me clean your face for you.” She lifted Seraph and licked the blood off her muzzle while Seraph giggled and blew little puffs of smoke. “Better, Harsha?”
Harsha left off glaring at Zeeb to force a smile and nod.
“There! Everyone’s happy again.” Grandmother tickled Seraph.
The sight eased Harsha’s nervousness. It seemed silly to fear a creature who took pleasure in the same games human grandmothers enjoyed with their grandchildren. Seeing Seraph in a state of childish glee added an element of confused wonder. Such extremes in a single individual. It was disarming, enchanting, bewildering.
Nanny waved toward her stew. “Aren’t you hungry, dearie?”
No, but I don’t dare offend you . Scooping up the bowl, Harsha took a bite of steaming meat and gravy. “Mmm…This is wonderful. May I have the recipe?”
“Oh!” Nanny batted her lashes and went purple at the cheeks. “Certainly. I’ll go write it down for you.”
When Nanny slithered out of sight, Zeeb leaned over and whispered, “I thought you didn’t tolerate red meat well.”
“Shush.” Harsha shoved a spoonful of her stew into his mouth while the dragons weren’t looking. “Quick. Eat some of it for me.” He tried to speak, but she kept shoveling. She wanted to get rid of the stew without delay. Besides, it made good payback for his presumption in answering for her.
Zeeb struggled to keep his mouth shut around the chunks of meat and potatoes by the time Nanny returned in her human form. Harsha scooped a spoonful of stew into her own mouth and smiled, glad to note she got half of it down Zeeb’s throat instead of her own, though she wondered when she’d grown comfortable enough with a werewolf to share a spoon with him.
“There you are.” Nanny handed Harsha a sheet of notepaper featuring pictures of Victorian-style bouquets and smelling of artificial rose fragrance before returning to her true form.
“Thank you.” Harsha meant both the recipe and Nanny’s courtesy in staying human to give it to her. She tucked the paper in a pocket and took another spoonful of stew.
“An old drake gave me that recipe back in the first century.” Nanny stared into the distance, lost in reminiscence, it seemed.
Taking advantage of Nanny’s distraction, Harsha tried to feed Zeeb the rest of her stew. With an annoyed frown, he leaned away, took her bowl out of her hands, and plunked his empty bowl in its place.
Harsha stared at it. Her cheeks warmed when she realized this must be what he wanted to suggest before she stuffed his mouth too full to talk. She gave him an apologetic look and mouthed, “Sorry.”
He rolled his eyes, shook his head, and kept eating.
Harsha’s heart sank. Zeeb might don the hero’s cape too often, but only because he considered her a demanding, high-maintenance woman and constant source of irritation. She knew it. She tried to convince herself his opinion didn’t matter, especially not now, with so little time left to her. Her internal arguments failed. A glop of stew, the glop she intended to force on Zeeb, remained in her spoon. She lifted it to her mouth.
Zeeb’s hand closed around hers and guided the spoon to his mouth instead. He shook his head but gave her a reassuring smile.
Harsha returned the smile and whispered, “Thank you.”
Zeeb replied with another eyeroll and kept eating.
“Perhaps there’s hope for the line of the fae-mermaid after all.”
Grandmother’s statement startled Harsha. Her preoccupation with disposing of the stew without Nanny noticing made her careless about who else noticed. The implication of the statement, however, gave her a greater reason to be startled. Warmth flooded her cheeks, but the night hid her blush. She hoped.
“I believe you wanted to ask me a few things.”
“Ach!” Nanny snapped out of her reverie. “I told Sephy to message me or send an email.” She shook her head. “I check ’em in town every night. It’s nice to see you in person, of course, Sephy, but I did worry about you so, travelin’ so far without your ma.”
Harsha lifted a brow at Seraph, embarrassment forgotten. We took an eight thousand dollar, twenty-four hour, standby disaster of a flight to have a conversation we could have accomplished over the internet? Harsha forced a smile she hoped looked less irate than it felt and waited for Seraph to answer.
Seraph shrunk into herself like an embarrassed cat. “I wanted you to see Maura, Grandmother, and listen to her talk. I think she speaks Irish.”
“Let’s hear it, then.”
Nanny slithered over to the sleeping girl and removed the jar. She changed to her human form, lifted the girl without the slightest hint of strain, and carried her to Grandmother. Maura’s eyes fluttered open. She shrank away but remained conscious this time.
“Speak, little one. In your own language.”
Maura spoke, her nervousness obvious in her tone of voice. To Harsha, the fast stream of words sounded like nonsense. Zeeb’s furrowed brow hinted he felt the same. Seraph looked back and forth from Maura to her grandmother, a look of mingled concentration and curiosity on her face.
Grandmother’s expression changed as Maura spoke. At first, she listened with brow ridges raised. As Maura continued, they descended into a sharp point. Her mouth curled into sneering disdain and thick plumes of smoke flitted from her nostrils. Nanny moved in a pacing pattern, her tail lashing the ground and leaving furrows. She pounded her palm with her fist, gritted her teeth, and made snorting noises accompanied by flashes of fire.
Beads of sweat dribbled down Harsha’s sides and back. Gooseflesh raised the hair on her arms and the back of her neck. She folded into herself, with her knees hugged tight to her chest, and caught herself rocking back and forth. When Grandmother reared onto her hind legs, spread her wings, and blew fire, she scrambled forward, yanked Maura away, and retreated to the safest place to come to mind.
Chapter 24
Grandmother landed with a thud, sending clods of dirt spraying into the air. Harsha tucked Maura’s head against her chest to shield the girl.
“There are those who deserve a fate worse than death.” Smoke wafted from Grandmother’s mouth as she spoke. “That Thing , whatever it is, which Maura calls SoPHE, is one of them.”
Nanny nodded in agreement. “Aye, and I’d love to be the one to hand it to them.”
Harsha took a deep, shaky breath and let it out in a massive sigh of relief. The dragons were angry at SoPHE, not Maura. She bounced in surprise when Zeeb’s whisper tickled her ear. “For future reference, it’s easier to defend damsels in distress when they’re not sitting on my lap.”
Refusing to be ashamed or embarrassed, Harsha maneuvered herself and Maura off Zeeb. She considered it his fault she had reacted like that. He’d stepped in as hero so many times, she’d learned to expect his protection. A werewolf stood a better chance against a dragon than she did, anyway. However, she made a mental note to drag Maura behind him next time.
That she expected a next time caused her a flutter of chagrin. What happened to the quiet, routine existence of a glorified accountant? She supposed, if she counted her search for a cure and her time in Vegas, it never existed. Not for long. Perhaps during interludes of time, she experienced life as normal people lived it, but from the day her father left her family, her life had ceased to resemble the ever-forward march others took for granted. It took on a new form with each death. The latest incarnation simply involved dragons, werewolves, and the secret societies formed to kill them off.
Thinking about it, she decided she preferred that to the previous versions, though her heart ached for Jason. She wanted him back.
“…is a selkie.”
Harsha wrenched her thoughts away from their regret-paved path to focus on Grandmother.
“SoPHE burned her skin. Do you know what that means?”
>
Seraph looked wide-eyed at Maura and nodded. Zeeb cringed. Harsha felt left out of an important secret. “I don’t.”
Nanny snorted. “It means she can’t go back to the sea, those…” She lapsed into a series of words resembling English, but which made no sense to Harsha.
Harsha looked to Zeeb for further explanation.
“Selkies are seal-people. Most of the time, they look like ordinary seals. To take their human form, they take off the seal skin. Anyone who captures the skin can force the selkie to obey, but to destroy the skin…” He rubbed his hands over his face and sighed. “She can’t go back to her people because she can’t go back to the sea. If we took her back, she’d be ostracized. Worse than ostracized. They wouldn’t even recognize her as… anything. The sea is like their lifeblood, but she’s doomed to live on land.”
Harsha looked back at Maura, whose sorrowful eyes pleaded with her. She knew she lacked the depth of understanding to grasp what Zeeb hoped to communicate, but she understood Maura was an orphan, like herself and Kel. Her heart surged with a need to do whatever it took to make Maura’s life, if not truly better, less awful. “We’ll adopt her.”
Zeeb’s brows shot up. “We?”
“Yes. Well, you.” Oops. Probably shouldn’t have volunteered him without asking first. “But she can stay with me while you make arrangements,” she hurried to add. “One of your forgery friends can do the papers, right? And you won’t need to worry about money. I’ll leave half my estate to her with you as trustee. In a few months, she’ll be loaded.”
Her enthusiasm crumbled under Zeeb’s gape-mouthed stare.
“Or, we can find someone else to adopt her, I guess.” She folded her hands in her lap and stared at them, her old shyness returning. Feeling the need to rationalize her impulsive words, she muttered, “I just thought you’d be good at the whole dad thing.” It made a lousy apology. Later, she planned to write a proper one, but she felt too awkward about opening her mouth in the first place to manage an eloquent speech.
After a moment of utter silence during which it seemed everyone held their breaths, she slid her gaze sideways to look at Zeeb out of the corner of her eye. He stared at Maura for a long time before puffing his cheeks and blowing out a breath. “Yeah. I guess it works.”
Harsha lifted her head, hopeful. “Really?”
One side of Zeeb’s lips pulled up in a wry smile. “Yeah. Really. As far as I can tell, she’s still a pup, but not much of one. I doubt I can arrange an interspecies adoption before she reaches adulthood. I’m not sure how good I’ll be at the ‘whole dad thing,’ but my parents will help. Mom always wanted a daughter.”
“Thank you!” In a fit of gratitude for going along with her latest impulsive, life-altering scheme instead of ridiculing it, and admiration for his compassion, Harsha threw her arms around his neck and kissed the whiskerless part of the cheek closest to her. Then, mortified by her demonstrative response, she skittered several yards away.
Maura’s head had been swiveling to look at Harsha, Zeeb, and Harsha again, throughout the exchange. “What is ‘adopt’?”
Grandmother translated for Maura. The girl’s eyes brightened. “Yes! Adopt me. Thank you!” She planted her own kiss on Zeeb’s cheek, and one on Harsha’s, and sat between them.
Harsha felt a little better.
Grandmother settled back into her cat-like sitting position. “I think it’s a wonderful idea. You have a generous heart and a practical mind, Harsha, like your ancestor.”
“You knew her?” Harsha straightened, her spine tingling with awe. This was the real reason she came, to hear about the fae-mermaid.
“No.”
Harsha deflated.
“But Sephy’s father met her. She defeated him in battle once, while she was but a young mother nursing her first child.”
The awe returned. “She defeated a dragon?”
“Mmm, and no ordinary dragon. The eldest and greatest of our kind.” Grandmother stroked a claw under Seraph’s chin. “Do you remember meeting your father, Sephy? You were newly hatched when last he visited.”
“Yes.” Seraph nodded. Her tone sounded reverent and full of wonder. “I remember him.” She touched her wooden medallion.
Grandmother turned back to Harsha. “If you ever visit him, Harsha, ask him to tell you about your ancestor. She faced him down with the babe in her arms, no less. I believe there is no one he holds in greater respect.”
“Can he heal her, Grandma? Can you?”
“Ah, yes. Unicorn horn would do it,” Nanny interjected.
“There are only three unicorns left, Nanny, and they won’t give up their horns easily. Especially not for someone with human blood in her veins.” Grandmother tapped a claw on the ground, sending up puffs of dirt. “You’ve consulted the fae?”
“One of them. It gave her the unicorn horn for her brother, but it came close to killing her first.”
Grandmother snorted. “Do you know the humans considered them monsters for centuries? More feared than dragons, in some places, they were. Deserved it, too.”
Grandmother stood and arched her back. “I’m afraid, Harsha, the properties of faerie blood are not easily altered. Dragon magic is powerful, but it won’t help in this case. I think you’ll need to consult the merfolk if you want to find a cure for your condition. Since you share their blood, too, it is logical to assume they may be able to help you.”
Now that Grandmother mentioned them, Harsha wondered why she hadn’t thought of it herself. “How do we find them?”
“I think Maura will be of service to you there. Selkies occasionally encounter them. The hardest part will be luring them without being killed in the process. They’ve moved to hidden places and I can only think of one human observer they let survive in the last two centuries.”
Harsha wanted to press for details, but Grandmother gazed toward the eastern horizon and seemed not to notice her guests. Thin streams of smoke spiraled up from her nostrils before she curled herself in front of the castle. “Time to go, children. Goodbye, Harsha, Zeeb, Maura.” She nuzzled Seraph. “Goodbye, Sephy. Tell your mother I said hello.” With a final flickering kiss for Seraph, she misted into the plant-covered wall of the castle.
Harsha got to her feet, followed by Zeeb and Maura. Seraph rubbed her cheek against the wall a few times before misting back into her human form.
Nanny, likewise, changed into an old woman. “These ancient ones do like their rest. I’ll just borrow the farmer’s car and take you all into town. Will you and your friends be coming back, Sephy?”
Seraph shook her head. “No, Nanny. Hotels are expensive. Our flight leaves in a few hours, so you can take us straight to the airport. I’ll come on my own sometime.”
Harsha sucked in air and refrained from rubbing her temples. Last-minute leave of absence, eight thousand dollars, twenty-four hours in the air with nervous flyers, and all for what? They were in Ireland, and they weren’t even going to visit St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Her friends had dropped the tour guide ball on this one. Although, few visitors to Ireland got to talk to dragons as part of their planned activities, which she supposed made up for the lack of traditional tourist fun. Still, she felt gypped.
“Not on an airplane, I hope.” Nanny shuddered. “Nasty, noisy contraptions. You’re too young to be traveling so far on your own, dearie. See if you can get your ma to bring you next time.”
Seraph rolled her eyes.
Nanny waved at the gesture as at a bad odor. “Before you go, Zeeb, Sephy tells us your unique origins allow you to control your change whenever you have access to moonbeams.”
“That’s right.”
“In all my years, I never met a werewolf before. Before the moon sets, do you mind?”
“Not at all.” He took off his shirt and fumbled with his belt buckle.
Harsha decided to find a particular fading star on the horizon fascinating.
“How disappointing,” Nanny commented. “I’ve seen wolves befor
e. It’s the middle part I’m interested in seeing. Can you slow it down?”
Maura shrieked. Harsha’s head whipped around of its own accord. She suppressed the strange, screechy laughter that bubbled into her throat. Standing by her side was a dreadlocked, man-like beast with claws, elongated snout, and thick, blond hair covering every inch of his body within Harsha’s line of sight. She forced her eyes to stay on his face, to keep herself from finding out whether the hair covered him further down, too. Stuffing the fearful and disgusted part of herself into a corner of her psyche, she lifted an eyebrow in amusement. He shrugged, his expression sheepish, though his teeth looked decidedly un-sheepish.
“Very nice.” Nanny circled Zeeb. “Very interesting. The change is nothing like a dragon’s. No misting at all. Remarkable. Well, dearies. Let’s get you back into town before the farmer has time to miss his car.”
“Uh, before we go…”
Harsha jumped at the guttural noise that came out of the werewolf’s mouth. It sent waves of unpleasant shivers up her spine and loosed her revulsion. She edged her way toward Seraph, away from him, pulling Maura with her.
On their way past her to Seraph, Zeeb’s eyes met Harsha’s for a split-second. Despite his disturbing appearance, she thought she caught rejection pain in them. She stopped moving away from him. In all the time they’d spent together, he never gave her reason to fear he might harm her. When he spoke again, she listened past the strange distortion of his midway form for the voice she recognized and heard it ring through.
“Do you have anything that’ll help a dragon sleep?”
“Of course, dearie. Give me two shakes of a tail.” Nanny went into the castle.
Without warning, Zeeb completed his change back to human. One moment, he looked like a storybook werewolf, the next, he stood in the middle of a meadow in his all in all.
Harsha gasped and snapped her head down, cheeks warming. Her quick movement and the dim light kept her from seeing all the noticeables, thankfully, but not from being sure there were things to notice.