by Roxie Ray
They were one of the biggest clans in the states. I couldn't imagine what it would’ve looked like if someone spotted them flying from the outside. Probably pretty damn funny, actually. But if it happened, the clan witch would have to alter memories, and what a pain in the ass that would be.
We tried to avoid such things, which was why I spotted Sammy along the edges of the crowd, watching with a smile on her face. She was there to make sure nobody caught us, and she was one of the strongest witches I’d ever met. Her wards were impenetrable.
Anthony nodded at Sammy, and the clan turned toward her, most of them bowing their heads slightly or smiling, mouthing thanks. She gave the crowd a silly curtsy. “Sammy has graciously done some work to power up her ward and extend our flying range. You’ll see the ward today since it’s outside of our normal range. Sort of a shimmer in the air.”
Most witches, if with a new clan—which didn’t happen much anymore—made their wards visible for the first several flights until the dragons knew their boundaries clearly.
The dragons began to disperse to shift as Sammy yelled one more thing. “Don’t get used to it! I can’t hold a boundary this big for long.”
She met my gaze and winked. Steepling my hands together under my chin, I bowed slightly, then took off running toward the cliff. As I dove off the side, I shifted, transforming into my dragon with a rush of adrenaline and endorphins.
God, the rush of the flight was amazing. There wasn’t anything better, except sex, maybe. It was debatable, to be honest.
I flew fast, stretching my wings and enjoying the fact that I didn’t have to be careful and stay close to the tree line. Soaring high in the sky was how we were meant to fly.
Damn. I had to come to more of these clan meets. Maybe this was what I was missing, the open flight, the freedom. The exhilaration. The… freedom. There was no other way to describe it. No better word for it.
After doing a loop-de-loop in midair near another cliff face, I shook out the dizziness and realized I was looking right at my car. I’d flown back by Jace’s house. The shimmery boundary wasn’t far from Jace’s place on this side. A couple more loops got my heart pounding again, and I turned just before the border to rush back toward the meeting place, intending to go right past it and to the far boundary.
As I turned and prepared to zoom away at top speed, movement near Jace’s house made me pause my takeoff. I beat my wings in place and watched a car pull in beside mine as my scales tingled with awareness.
Kaylee.
If a dragon could smile, I would’ve been. She couldn’t see me, the shimmering boundary stretched around Jace’s place near the cliff, probably intentionally if Jace knew Kaylee was coming over.
She wouldn’t be able to see me, or the other dragons flying over the open ocean farther away behind me. I flew back and forth and waited for her to get out of her car. She’d parked at an angle so that I couldn’t see inside the shadowy interior thanks to the very tinted windows of her new sports car.
There was just enough room for me to land and still be inside the barrier, so I eased myself down. I wasn’t sure that if I landed hard, she might be able to feel or hear the thump.
Kaylee got out of the car as Skye and Bri came out of the house. I wasn’t sure if they could see me or not though.
What was wrong with Kaylee? She was moving really slowly. “Do you guys see this?” she whispered so quietly, I didn’t think the girls could hear her at all.
Her eyes were enormous, wide and round, and her gaze pointed right at me. But then a roar behind me drew her gaze and she looked over me and gasped. “This is insane,” she said breathlessly.
Shutting the car door, she backed toward the house with her arms out, moving slowly.
“Kaylee, what’s wrong?” Skye called. Her gaze darted from her friend to me, so that answered that question. Once mated, the ladies could see past the wards.
Oh, no. Somehow, Kaylee could see me past the ward. Something had gone wrong with Sammy’s shield. Shit. I had to fix this.
I surged forward, and in the split second it took for Kaylee to recognize that I’d moved and to open her mouth, I was shifting.
When her scream erupted past her lips, I was fully human again and running toward her. “No, don’t freak out!” I yelled. “It’s okay!”
Skye and Bri hurried down the stairs and threw their arms around Kaylee, trying to soothe her. “It’s okay, we know.”
“What is happening?” Kaylee screeched. When I grew closer, she threw out her hands. “Stay back!”
I stopped; my arms still outstretched in a gesture to indicate I meant her no harm.
“Can you see the dragons?” Bri asked, looking from her friend to the dragons still streaking around over the water, blissfully unaware of the human freak-out here on land.
Kaylee laughed. “You can’t? I just watched Porter morph from one into himself and you’re saying that you didn’t see it?”
“No, I did. I just didn’t think you could.” Bri and Skye exchanged a scared look. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.”
Kaylee jerked away from both of them, her skin white as a ghost. “Did I really just witness you turning from an enormous reptile into a man?”
I sighed. There was no story I could make up, especially considering she could still see them behind me. “You did.”
Kaylee burst out laughing before her eyes rolled back in her head. I rushed forward and scooped her up as she fainted, a dead weight in my arms.
“There’s Anthony,” Skye said. She rushed toward the cliff, waving her arms, and he peeled off from the pack followed by Jace and landed. They both quickly shifted and hurried forward.
“Come on,” I said. “Before she wakes up.” Leaving them to follow and the ladies to explain to their mates what had happened, I carried Kaylee into Jace’s house and laid her out on the couch. “Where’s Hayden?” I asked. I didn’t want to have to explain this mess to a little girl.
Bri stuffed a pillow under Kaylee’s head. “At my parents’. We’re good.”
Sammy appeared beside us in Jace and Bri’s living room, making all of us jump.
“Bell, I’m buying you a bell,” Jace muttered, but Sammy ignored him.
“The wards are still up,” Sammy said as she stared at Kaylee in awe. “Nobody has crossed them.” She moved forward and tapped me on the shoulder. Reluctantly, I slid down out of her way.
With one hand on Kaylee’s head, Sammy closed her eyes. “There’s no reason that I know of for Kaylee to be able to see beyond the wards.”
“I knew there was something different,” I whispered as Sammy delved into Kaylee. “I felt it on her even before I developed feelings for her.”
Every head in the room except Sammy’s swiveled to look at me in surprise.
I shrugged. “I asked Jace once if he knew anything about her past because I kept sensing… otherness on her.”
Sammy hummed with her hand still on Kaylee’s head. My dragon growled just under the surface of my skin, and he knew how I felt about Kaylee.
My arm erupted in burning pain, making me hiss and clutch it, and as it did, the overwhelming need to protect Kaylee washed over me. All I wanted to do was rip Sammy away from her. Unbuttoning my shirt, I yanked it up and sure enough, the first outlines of the clan emblem had begun to tattoo themselves on my skin.
Sammy shot me a scathing look. “Do you think I’d ever hurt Kaylee? Especially knowing what she is to you?” She turned her head. “Not to mention how important she is to other members of the clan.”
I froze. Hell, I had no idea what all Sammy knew.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to read Kaylee’s DNA, but I can’t do it if somebody else is touching her.”
Anthony stared at Sammy with one eyebrow up. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
“How do you think I knew what the twins would be?” she asked as she stared at my hand on Kaylee’s leg. “Could we?”
I sighed and stopped touching
her, but it was physically difficult to do so.
Sammy sighed and went quiet as Jace pulled on my shoulders and helped me to my feet. “Come on, brother, sit down.”
I let him guide me to the chair closest to the sofa, near Kaylee’s head.
“You were right,” Sammy said several minutes later. “She’s something special. Something magical is inside her, but it’s not strong. That’s why I didn’t sense it before.”
Rocking back on her heels, Sammy shook her head at Kaylee. “Fucking pixies,” she muttered.
“I should have known with the blonde hair and blue eyes. A pixie trait. But her blood is really diluted.” She stood and brushed off the knees of her pants. “There’s enough magic in her that she could see past the ward. Small world.”
Kaylee groaned. She was waking up.
15
Kaylee
“Dragons are a thing. And my two best friends are mated-slash-married to them. Porter is a dragon.” I burst out laughing. This was insane. What were the odds?
I’d freaked out at first, because, well, who wouldn’t?
Once I woke up in Jace’s living room with half the people I knew staring at me like I’d been the one to do something crazy, I sat up and made them explain.
Dragons. All the guys were dragons. And all the girls were humans, and they knew about the guys and most of the town was involved with the dragons somehow.
Of course. It was some huge conspiracy theory that I’d known nothing about. “What are the odds?”
I chortled to hide my absolute horror at the whole situation. Why was I the last to know? How was this even possible? My best friends. And Porter!
Sammy wouldn’t stop staring at me, either. “What?” I asked. “Are you a dragon too?”
She shook her head and grinned. “No.”
“That’s good.” At least it wasn’t everyone.
Arching an eyebrow at me, she gave me a half-smile. “Is it? You shouldn’t have been able to see the dragons. I’ve got a ward up out there that makes sure that non-magical folk, the humans, are none the wiser. But somehow, you did.”
“Humans? So, the dragon shifters aren’t human? You’re not human? What are you?”
Sammy waved her hand and a black pointed hat with a wide brim appeared on her head for a few seconds, then disappeared again.
A witch. Well. Okay, then.
“Somehow, Kaylee, you’re also special, though I don't think you have the first clue about it. I need to ask you some questions, will that be okay?” She was treating me like I was going to freak out at any moment, but to be fair, I kind of felt like I would.
“I’m not anything special,” I whispered. “Just plain Kaylee.” Was this why Porter had asked me what I was instead of who I was?
“I assure you, that’s not true. There’s nothing plain about you. What do you know about your parents?”
I furrowed my brow. “What does it matter? They aren’t in my life.”
“Is your mother also blonde like you?” Sammy leaned forward and her gaze raked over my light hair.
“I don't see what that matters, but yeah, she is. Or was.” I scooted back and pulled my legs up, ignoring the rudeness of putting my feet on Skye’s sofa. I didn’t care, I’d buy her a new one. Right now, I felt more vulnerable than I had in a very long time.
Sammy adjusted in the chair across from me and crossed her legs while everyone else stared on, including Porter. “Have you ever experienced things you couldn’t explain? Things that might seem fantastical or insane?”
“I’m not sure what that means,” I replied as my gaze darted from one friend to another. Their expressions mixed from concerned to full-out worry to speculative.
“The magic is always stronger when they are younger.” Sammy waved her hand. “Remember anything?”
“Magic?” I whispered, then strengthened my voice. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“You’ve got pixie magic in you,” Sammy said. “That’s why you were able to see the dragons past my wards.”
I burst out laughing at her ludicrous statement. But as I shifted my gaze around to look at my friends, I realized I was the only one laughing.
“Everything you’re experiencing is real,” the little witch said. “And the fact that you have magic in you means I can’t erase what you’ve seen.”
The laughter died in my throat. “Erase?” I asked. “You’d do that?”
Sammy nodded solemnly. “If a human finds out about this, ninety-nine percent of the time, we have to remove that exposure from their memories. It’s necessary for our survival and the survival of the various magical species of the world.”
“Give her a break,” Porter said in a rough voice. He looked pissed. “Let her absorb some of this.”
He stood near the door and hadn’t taken his eyes off of me. Somehow, he looked ready to jump into action, as though I might bolt, and he’d have to catch me. Was I being held here?
No. Surely not.
Besides, I didn’t feel the need to flee. As absolutely fucking outrageous as all this was, I trusted Skye and Bri completely, even if I did have a bone to pick with them about keeping secrets. They’d never let me be hurt in this. But still, this was confusing as hell, and damn hard to believe at all.
“Give me a moment with Kaylee,” Porter said. “Please.”
He looked at me for permission. I nodded once, and everyone else filed out the front door. Sammy winked at me as she shut it behind her.
Porter walked toward me slowly and settled into the chair that Sammy had vacated. “I have a lot to tell you, and I’m not really sure where to start.”
What sort of secrets could he possibly have been keeping from me? I’d only known him a few weeks. “Okay,” I said guardedly.
“So, all sorts of supernatural creatures exist. Stuff you’ve never dreamed could be possible, including many, many different types of shifters, different Fae, witches and warlocks, and more.”
I blinked and tried not to look totally floored, but I was completely overwhelmed. I didn’t really pull off the look, judging by Porter’s pinched eyes and pursed lips.
“Dragons, and I’m pretty sure other shifters, have what’s called fated mates.” He sucked in a deep breath. “It’s magical and special, and if a dragon has a fated mate, this tattoo shows up on his arm.” He pulled his sleeve back and showed me a tattoo on his arm with a dragon twined around a trinity symbol. “That’s mine.”
“You have a fated mate?” I asked. Could he mean me? That wasn’t possible.
“No.”
Oh, why did my heart clench so hard when he said that? I couldn’t have wanted it to be me.
“I do have a chosen mate.” He sucked in a deep breath.
“Oh,” I whispered. “What’s the difference?”
“A chosen mate is what it sounds like. When a man and his dragon, who are the same and yet slightly different, which is impossible to explain without sounding nuts, both fall for a woman, she becomes his chosen mate.” He smiled encouragingly. “And from that point, it’s a lot like being a fated mate. Tattoo, overwhelming urge to protect her, insane sexual attraction.”
As he said the word sexual, a surge of desire pounded through me. I was his chosen mate. I knew it before he said the words. “You chose me?”
His grin widened. “I did. And as soon as I knew it for sure, my tattoo burned like a son of a bitch.” He showed me again. The tattoo looked darker this time, but that didn’t quite seem possible. “I knew something about you didn’t feel normal. Not wrong, but different.”
“Am I different?” I asked, nervous. What if something was wrong with me?
“Turns out Sammy found traces of pixie DNA inside you. You’re a magical creature, though heavily diluted.” He looked like he was bracing for impact, with the corners of his lips downturned and his eyebrows furrowed.
But I wasn’t going to explode. It felt too right, too settling to think about being part pixie. “Okay,” I whispered. �
��This is all very… insane.” Everything that was out there with most people being totally ignorant was terrifying.
I sat for a minute and thought about it. What would this mean for me going forward? Maybe I had cousins out there that could tell me more about being a pixie. I had to admit that it would be so cool to develop some magical powers like Sammy. Maybe do a little witchy spell or something.
“Are you okay?” Porter asked.
I shrugged. “Kind of. I’m not as upset as I think maybe I should be?” I chuckled nervously. “I’m processing.”
“Well, you’re doing a good job of it,” he joked.
Glaring at him, I decided to find out more about him and the dragons. But my dirty look only made him smile harder. “I can’t believe you’re a dragon,” I said in a low voice. “It’s just so insane.”
He spread his hands. “Do you have questions? I’ll tell you anything.”
“I have a bunch. Why do you keep talking about dragons as if they’re all male? Don’t you have females?” I wasn’t much interested in some paternal society whatsoever.
Porter blinked several times. “Oh, no. Sorry. We have plenty of female dragons. A dragon can only be made by birth, and until very recently, a dragon mating with a human, fated or chosen, was so rare we all thought it was impossible.”
“But Skye and Bri?” I asked.
He chuckled and threw his head back. “Yeah, Anthony started it all. Skye is his fated mate and Bri is Jace’s. And you are my chosen mate.”
I skipped over that tidbit for now. It was enough to think about all this stuff. “Does it hurt?”
Porter stopped and sat back. “Uh, does what hurt?”
“Does it hurt when you shift?” I asked.
“Oh, no. It can and sometimes does, but most clan witches have the ability to take the pain away and make it a quick, simple process.”
I breathed deep and nodded. “That’s cool. Okay. Um.” My mind buzzed with information. I’d processed so much. “You said you can’t change others into dragons. What about your kids? Will they be dragons?”