by Jessica Gunn
I peered at him over my nose as my fingers brushed lightning. I knew his family had disowned him because everyone knew Keir was a bastard son. The only reason everyone knew that was because he’d made a show of walking around Boston without an escort in our weave a hundred times. And his answer whenever asked why he kept doing it was that maybe this time it’d earn him some attention from his royal blooded family.
Apparently not.
Apparently only a dragon and a fake title was worthy of such a feat.
“I’m still not understanding how your family issues are my problem.” I felt sorry for him. Honestly, I did. Because my family life was equally messy, albeit on a much smaller scale. But you didn’t see me resorting to stealing baby hatchling dragons to resolve it.
No, instead of resolving it, you’re running away entirely.
Keir’s eyes flashed a darker shade of jade. “Your life is complicated, Vera. I knew who you were before you were asked to join the game. Vera Varrone. Daughter to the man who owns one of the most lucrative businesses in all of Boston—maybe all of the northeastern United States. Yet you work a high-risk job at a casino for supernaturals. Home life is hard, Vera. Complicated. Your family can’t look highly on your choice of profession, either. How much good can this dragon really bring you? She can’t help you sort your problems at home, that’s for sure. You might not even be able to return home while she’s with you.”
“That’s not really your concern, is it?” I asked him as I stood, holding Zezza closer to me as she continued to growl at Keir. We’d grown a small audience at this point. But neither Keir nor I paid them any mind.
“It is when you giving me your dragon solves both our issues.” For a moment, something akin to desperation slid across Keir’s features. For a moment, he wasn’t a fae without an escort seeking to reclaim his name and his station. He was just a normal, human guy.
And it was all an act. One he thought I was believing, or he would have tried to use his control over my name by now. Maybe it didn’t really work. Or maybe he thought I’d fall for this woe-is-me routine.
I could be sure of only one of those possibilities.
“I’m not giving you this dragon,” I said quietly, but firmly. “It’s not happening. You are going to let me off this train and continue on out of the city.”
The train began to measurably slow.
Keir stepped closer, the full height of his almost seven-foot frame taking up my personal space. He wasn’t particularly muscular, but he sure knew how to stand to impose, to intimidate, and put all of his height to use doing it. He leaned in slightly, lifting a hand. Zezza tried to lunge again as she sent me the image of a lightning strike.
I held on tightly, keeping her from completing the attack. Other passengers gasped as lightning slithered along her scales, between my fingers, and singeing my jacket. Their mouths—along with Keir’s—dropped open as I didn’t even flinch.
Why didn’t Zezza’s lightning hurt me? Was she that much in control of it?
“Don’t make me do this, Vera,” Keir said coolly. “Give me the dragon and you don’t need to feel what it’s like to lose control.”
My heartbeat thundered in my ears as sweat began to bead on my head. I swallowed hard and set my jaw. I’d made my decision, for better or worse. I’d get Zezza out of Boston. Then I’d get us both to safety.
“No.”
Keir’s eyes began to glow with fire and magic. My breath hitched with the power of it. “Vera,” he started as his eyes shimmered and I felt my muscles begin to lock up. “You need to hand over the dragon to—”
Zezza opened her mouth and shot out a line of lightning right at Keir’s face as he said my name. My muscles began to lock of their own accord and my body literally started to freeze and burn all at once.
Keir dodged the attack. I shook off the freezing cold sensation of Keir’s control over me and shoved into him with my free shoulder, pushing him against one wall of the train. Panic shot adrenaline into my veins. I ran, my chest heaving, to the connecting door to the other train car and passed through it. I ran as fast as I could between the cars, not stopping until I saw the platform rapidly coming to greet us.
Then I stopped and turned back. Keir headed up the aisle of the train car behind me, with red cheeks, curled fists, and belligerent eyebrows.
I gulped, looking to the passing tracks and woods. “Zezza, hold on tight.”
She squealed in my ear, protesting at my idea as she struggled to climb out of the backpack.
“No, don’t. Stay put. This is gonna hurt me more than you, I promise.” I moved a hand to her back to help keep her in place. The train wasn’t moving super fast—but fast enough. “I promise I’ll get you to safety, Zezza. You have my word.”
Lightning slipped along my hand again. She was giving me her reluctant blessing.
The door shot open and Keir approached. I spun on him and lifted a hand, instinct taking over. But instead of pushing him away with my hand, a strong wind seemed to gather in front of my palm and shove him out of the way. The wind sent Keir careening back into the train car. He slammed into the first row of seats and cried out in pain.
My eyes went wide and I glanced to Zezza, but we had no time for me to ask questions.
I closed my eyes and pressed her down against my shoulder.
And jumped.
Chapter 8
For a moment, there was nothing but silence. A flight. Falling. Then impact and a screeching pain that sprouted from my left shoulder down my arm and through my spine as we landed, crashing hard against wooded ground.
I hung on tightly to Zezza, trying to keep her from getting squished beneath me or flung from my arms. But the same second we crashed, a warm sensation of what I was beginning to recognize as Zezza’s magic enveloped us. A cocoon of lightning and energy and wind. The same wind that had seemed to come from my hand and pushed Keir away.
What happened back there?
We rolled and rolled after impact with dirt and rocks, Zezza and I, until my back slammed into a tree. Pain sprouted anew, burning every nerve ending. Zezza whimpered beside me, nudging me with her snout. I blinked, trying to gain any amount of awareness after the hard impact. I reached out to her, letting our weird connection settle between us.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
Zezza showed me images of the fall from her point of view. Then how her lightning magic combined with the air around us to slow our fall. Except it really hadn’t slowed us that much.
I glanced up as the rest of the train passed us by. “Thank you for trying, Zezza. Are you hurt?”
She maneuvered out of my grip and shook herself out, stretching her wings and tail wide. Then she pranced about a little.
“Guess not.” I lay my head back against the tree trunk. “That makes one of us.” There weren’t any broken bones, I was pretty sure of that. But my shoulder screamed in agony that slipped along to every part of my body.
What am I even doing? Jumping out of trains, playing guardian to this little mythical miracle.
“I can’t,” I mumbled. I couldn’t do this alone. But aside from Halley, there wasn’t a single soul in Boston I was sure I could trust. Except…
I plucked my phone from my pocket and cringed at the cracked screen. It hadn’t faired as well in the fall as Zezza. Still, with a few swipes and taps, I’d managed to open my contacts and hover my thumb over Maddie’s picture. My younger sister. The one I’d almost lost the night of the meteor strike because I had been partying rather than waiting to pick her up from theater rehearsal.
Mom, Dad, Rachel—I was sure they’d hang up on me the moment they realized who was calling. But not Maddie. She’d been heartbroken about me leaving the family house, and I regretted breaking her heart over it. But winning a dragon in a poker game aside, it hadn’t been all that bad a path in life.
Maddie was the only person in my family I could trust to stay on the line. To ask for help. And then maybe she’d convince my parents t
o give it to me.
I tapped the image of Maddie’s face and drew the phone to my ear. In that moment, it all came rushing back. The meteor strike, the pink sky. Wading through downtown past vampires, werewolves, and fae to get to Maddie. All of which could have been avoided if I hadn’t failed her and put her in harm’s way.
A hallow ring sounded once, twice, three times as scenes from that night replayed themselves with stark focus in my mind. Maddie’s worried texts. The way her phone just rang and rang without answer.
The call clicked. “Hello?”
My mouth was dry, my tongue heavy. My lips pursed to speak words but in my fear and guilt none came.
If I involved my family in this, they’d be wrapped into this insanity too. And I wasn’t yet sure the extent of everything that was happening right now.
I was alone. As I had been for the past several years. And that was simply the way it had to be.
I hung up the call and sighed heavily, laying my head back against the tree. Rustling sounded in the trees nearby. I opened my eyes in time to hear a high-pitched squeak.
“Zezza?”
No response.
My heart rate sped up as I stood awkwardly from the ground without putting too much pressure on my left arm. “Zezza? Where’d you go?”
A flash of bronze and blue scales trotted through the woods. Out came Zezza with red stains around her mouth.
I gulped.
“What did you… eat?” I asked her. Please don’t let it have been someone’s dog. Out this far, we were no longer in the city. But the residential area spread far and wide—an area belonging mostly to vampires, werewolves, and witches more so than any humans.
Oh, god. What if she’d eaten a witch’s familiar?
Zezza came forward and brushed her snout against my leg. Walking on all fours, she kind of looked like a scale-covered cat with wings. She showed me an image of a squirrel as she dove onto it, then lifted her head up in the air in pride.
Now that it was on my mind, I did smell the faint scent of barbecue in the early morning air…
Ew. But I guess dragons had to eat something and she hadn’t really eaten anything of substance since hatching.
“Exactly how… often are you going to need to do that?” I asked her.
She tilted her adorable, scale-covered head in a way that I took to vaguely mean: As often as I deem necessary.
“Fair enough, little one.”
She then disappeared, scuttling along the ground, back into the brush.
“Hey!” I called after her. “We need to get moving. We’re not far away from—”
The branches split as Zezza returned, another charred squirrel in her mouth. She trotted over and plopped it right in front of me.
“Um.” The contents of my stomach sloshed around. “Thank you.”
Zezza lifted her chin for a moment then began exploring around. I moved the squirrel a bit, trying not to touch too much of it, to make it look as though I had at least tried to eat it. But my shoulder throbbed and reality was setting in.
Generally, I knew where we were. Somewhere southwest of the city, close to the station—and Keir. After the meteor strike had happened and the nation’s government had sort of collapsed beneath the weight of the truth about our world and the supernaturals coexisting with us humans in it, anywhere outside of the major cities had kind of become wildlands. Not like true wildlands or jungles, but in the sense of an easing of laws. For example: vampires out here could prey on whoever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Sunup or sundown.
While the sun was up, Zezza and I traveling on our own toward wherever we were going was fine. But as the sun set later tonight, I’d have to find us a place to stay and pray that the whole “vampires can’t enter your house” thing applied to hotel rooms. Assuming a hotel would allow me to have Zezza to begin with.
I groaned and rolled my head back on my shoulders. What the hell am I doing? Really?
Yes, Zezza and I had some weird sort of connection. And no, I didn’t know what that meant. Yet here I was taking her away from everything I knew and into… where?
Some areas were still safe. Wherever the vampire and werewolf communities hadn’t grown too large. But I knew for a fact that the areas around Boston, where ties to the supernatural had run deep for hundreds of years, were home to plenty of foul beasts as well as dark witches. The sort that practiced black magics like necromancy and unnatural alchemy. Curses and madness.
I bent down and picked Zezza up. “I need you close by for now. We might not be safe yet. Can I put you back in the backpack?”
Zezza’s golden-cobalt eyes met mine. There was understanding there, weird as it was. Intelligent as it was. But also a small bit of sadness.
“I know, Zezza.” I brought her small body closer to mine and hugged her for the first time. “I’m scared too.” Although I’d never thought I’d admit it.
Lightning crackled over her form. It sizzled the sleeves of my jacket as if to say she wasn’t afraid.
“Hey! Okay, fine. I alone am scared. You’re a ferocious little beast whom no one will mess with. Happy now?”
Zezza flashed me that wide, toothy dragon smirk again and honestly it melted my heart and my fear. For some reason, this little impossible dragon meant something to me. Something I couldn’t explain.
I started walking with her in my arms, holding her like a baby or a small dog. “We have to be quiet here, okay? There could be vampires. Or werewolves.”
She gave a low growl.
A chuckle bubbled on my lips. “Right, you scare them away. You and that magic of yours.”
The streets here were even, made from pavement and pavement-cobble hybrid. It made it easy to start and keep up a quick pace toward the south. Maybe if I could get across Massachusetts somehow and down into Connecticut, we’d be safe. I hadn’t heard much about Hartford, but there was no way Connecticut’s capital city was worse off than Boston in the supernatural department.
A quick flash of Zezza and me on the train swam into my mind’s eye. Or rather, of me from Zezza’s point of view… She was showing me lifting my hand up in front of Keir and a swirl of powerful wind with lightning sparking inside of it pushing him away.
No, shoving him away.
I shook my head. “Yes, Zezza. You were fantastic.”
She showed me it again.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Enough. I need to focus on where we are. And how we’re going to get out of the state unnoticed.” I had to wonder if Treya was after me too or just waiting for me to end up dead somewhere so she could try to claim the prize. Humans were funny like that.
The real threat was Kristian and Milani and whatever exactly Keir had up his sleeves.
Which…
Keir had witnessed us jump off the train. Even if he’d waited to get off until the train had fully stopped at that platform, he wouldn’t be far away now.
“We have to go,” I said, pushing on again, pacing myself at a jog now. I winced through the pain. Forward movement was the only choice. “Please keep my mind clear for now, okay? Unless you hear something I don’t?”
She huffed as though disappointed. About what, I wasn’t sure. So I let her be and continued on.
The morning was eerily quiet despite it still being early. The farther we walked from the train platform, the emptier it seemed to get. The area was still very much a New England suburbia: not quite straight roads, plenty of Cape Cod and Colonial-style houses, with pretty gardens and white fences and wraparound porches. Picturesque in its stillness despite what lurked beyond in the night. In the stillness of after.
And then there they were: the witches’ charms. Pentagrams hanging from windows and archways. Gargoyle statues on front steps. Shells beside doorways.
Silver and iron for the werewolves and the fae. Things townhouses and apartments in Boston didn’t have. Things we didn’t have to display.
I gulped. Dammit.
Zezza growled, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“What?” I asked.
That was when I noticed we were fully surrounded by people in heavy, black, hooded coats and dark sunglasses. Their mouths opened to reveal shiny white canines. Vampires.
“Shit.”
Chapter 9
We were surrounded. Just like that. Vampires in daytime without seemingly a care in the world despite the risk of being burned by the sun above. Which also meant this situation was worse than I’d figured at first glance. If these five vampires were here in sunlight, guarded by clothes and sunglasses as they were, they had to be incredibly powerful. Incredibly old. Possibly even endowed with magic.
I pulled Zezza closer to me and straightened my shoulders. My left arm screamed in protest. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out. “Nope,” I said to them. “No way. Tell your king he lost and that’s it.”
Maybe I could bluff my way out of this problem too. Because as extraordinary as Zezza was, a little lightning and strong wind probably wouldn’t be enough to fight five ancient vampires. Except… I switched Zezza to my other hip, freeing up my dominant hand. I still had Halley’s gun tucked into the pocket of my jacket.
Fire. Wood through their heart. Holy water. Those things killed vampires, not bullets. But man, would bullets at least hurt like hell.
“My boss does not enjoy losing.” The words came from the tallest vampire with the darkest clothes. Red hair peeked out beneath the hood of his jacket, although his dark eyes remained hidden by the protective lenses. “It is his one downfall. And he knows it well. So he would like to offer you a deal instead.”
I chuckled dryly, disbelieving. “Yeah, I’m all set, thanks.”
Glancing around at the other vampires, I took in any defining characteristics I could in case it would matter later. Not to call the cops or something—that would be pointless. But just the same as I did while on shift at the casino. All information was valuable to someone.
The other four were shorter and stockier than their leader. They had hunched shoulders from the sunlight or due to some other reason, I wasn’t sure. And though they all bore their teeth there was… something off about them.