by L J Andrews
The feeling was painful, burning my blood like it was wild electricity. Sometimes I hesitated to use the new strength, yet at the same time the power was something I couldn’t live without. The potential ability I knew was in the earth was a thought never far from my mind. I wanted to sculpt my abilities, learn all I could. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept through the night. I was often either consumed with thoughts of Jade or studying mage power. Thankfully, the bond between us in the moment kept fatigue at bay.
Jade’s fingers were tracing the wyvern marks on my forearms when we stepped onto the lawn of the house. Mini was hesitant to praise the seal spreading across my back, but I wasn’t lying when I’d said it was my favorite of all the marks. I wondered what would happen if ever the armor built around my body as it had when Graham had attacked.
“Look, Eisha is here,” Jade said, breaking me from my thoughts. Eisha’s dark BMW was parked right along the curve of the drive. Though the students of the reform house would be buried in school work by now, I still worried someone would overhear anything Eisha or Sapphire said. I never wanted to see another hideous thing like a zomok come into Wyvern Willows with the pure intent of harming Jade. Though as I had the thought, I knew I didn’t want any of them to be harmed. Raffi and Dash were having more trouble concealing their respect toward me, and Eisha—even though I sensed her distrust, I didn’t want anything to happen to her. The woman had practically raised Jade, she’d kept her safe for so long. No, nothing would happen to any of the wyverns hiding in plain sight in the Willows.
Jade stopped short of walking up the stairs, her jaw was pulsing slightly, and her smile fell. “You okay?” I asked.
Jade’s eyes were fierce like there was green fire behind her irises, and every time she looked at me I found myself lost for words. “I don’t know…” She looked at the ground as though the words were hard to gather. “I can’t believe I’m going to suggest this, but I think we should just go.”
My brow furrowed and my throat dried slightly when Jade glanced toward Eisha’s car. “You want to leave without telling them? So, I’m supposed to run off with you, leaving four dragons who have basically raised you behind.” I chuckled nervously, thinking of Raffi and Dash in their true form. They weren’t exactly kittens.
Jade grinned and tugged me toward the car. “They won’t let us leave, I know they won’t. Don’t you want to know the truth about your family? How can we really defend ourselves if we don’t know the whole truth? You heard Mini, even she wishes she knew where you came from. Sapphire and Eisha barely let me stay alone in the forest with you. You think they’ll let me leave Wyvern Willows—and before you say it, you’re not going without me.”
My voice caught in my throat, the exact suggestion building on my tongue. Jade’s eyes flashed with intensity. “You know cars run with keys, right?”
Jade’s expression was full of mischief I hadn’t seen before—it was hard to look away. “I think the reason you came here is for stealing a car and joyriding, wasn’t it? Or did you take the keys with you?”
We hadn’t. I thought back to the night we’d taken Kent’s dad’s car. A few online tutorials and we’d hotwired the car, never realizing the risk involved at the time. Hours of drinking sort of took the care of risk out of the mind. I shuddered thinking how close I’d come to killing someone—or myself.
“You want me to steal Eisha’s car?”
Jade laughed and opened the car door, her hand sliding along the driver’s seat. “It would be interesting to watch you and your rebellious side, but I know where she keeps a spare key.” I released a long breath when Jade held up the key tucked in a plastic bag with tape around the center. “You’ll have to drive, though. I’m afraid a royal wyvern has no need to get a license. Too much risk, apparently. Unless you want to teach me.”
I chuckled, taking the key slowly from her fingers, leaning my face just inches from her lips. “Maybe when it’s lighter, and we aren’t in the middle of grand theft auto.”
Jade pecked my lips, and I wanted her to stay but she was already slipping through the driver’s side toward the passenger seat. “Well, let’s go. I’ve already convinced them that the car is in the driveway, and it will stay that way for several hours.”
“That might be calling it close,” I said, plopping behind the steering wheel.
“Where’s your sense of adventure, Mr. Ward?” Jade pouted, her fingers tangling in my hair.
I never imagined a girl would have such an effect on me. Looking back, it wasn’t my finest attitude, but I had started viewing the opposite sex as part of my wild direction. They were just part of the fun. I thought the idea of pounding hearts, and yes, love, was for wimps. When Jade’s hand traced along my face, I was certainly the biggest wimp of them all. Clasping my hands on each side of her face I kissed her. Her lips were always so soft, I hated stopping. Jade was beaming when I pulled back and started the ignition.
“You’re not helping me reform,” I said when I drove the car away from the reform house, away from Jade’s family—who could literally tear my head from my neck—and still I didn’t stop.
“I never want you to reform, or change anything,” she whispered with an underlying meaning. Jade settled in her seat, but her hand was still clasped tight in mine as we sped toward the town limits.
There was a notable shift in power when we’d crossed the border of Wyvern Willows. Jade seemed to sense my unease, her touch ever constant on my arm as she spoke of anything but the idea of leaving the only town she’d known.
“It’s so wide and open,” she said, leaning her head out the window and breathing in the air.
I watched her for a moment. She seemed so at peace, almost like she’d come home. I knew the feeling, it was the only thing that kept me sane growing up. The easiness of nature, the peace of the trees. Though watching Jade and all her freedom tonight brought a painful concern rippling along my skin.
“Can I ask you something?” I muttered.
Jade pulled her head back into the car, brushing her hair out of her face and scooting as far as she could in her seat to sit closer to me. “Of course. Anything.”
Clearing my throat, I kept my focus on the dark road, wondering if I wanted to know the answer. “You’ve mentioned before someone tried to hurt you, and then some people at school mentioned there was a problem with a guy.”
“By people at school, you mean Jenna,” Jade said, a flick of a sneer passing her lips.
I glanced at her, my pulse rapid in my ears as I tried to read her expression. She’d seen me with Jenna, but we’d never spoken of it before. “I…she might have said something, but I wasn’t really listening.”
Jade snickered. “It’s fine, Teagan,” she said, her eyes narrowed and her lips pressed in a smug smile. “I mean, you don’t have Jenna’s seal on your back.”
My eyes widened. “Is she…is she a—”
Jade laughed. “No, definitely not. Jenna is certainly not a wyvern.” Jade paused, her attention drifting toward our linked fingers. “I’m hesitant to tell you,” she admitted, taking a deep breath.
“Jade, you can tell me things,” I replied, squeezing her hand tighter.
She sighed and traced my knuckles; the simple interaction sent a swirl to my stomach. “Alright, but I’m rather embarrassed about it. There was a boy three years ago. It isn’t surprising Jenna and her posse said something, I’m pretty sure they wanted to get to know him, if you catch my meaning. I wanted to feel normal—you know? I couldn’t shift, I felt as though I was useless and just a burden to everyone else. So, I determined I would behave more like humans.”
I didn’t like the way her shoulders curled forward and she looked away. Already my hand was clammy as I waited.
“He was interested in me,” she continued. “I tried so hard to be like other girls at school. Raffi and Dash, they warned me. They said he wasn’t kind, that his heart wasn’t true. I should have heeded my own warnings,” she said in a soft whisper. �
��Anyway, he convinced me to meet him at the edge of town.” Jade paused, and I felt my jaw clench so tight I feared my teeth might snap. I didn’t want to hear, but then again, I couldn’t stop her from speaking. “We weren’t alone in the end. He’d called six friends from another town. They’d been drinking that same alcohol that you spoke of,” she muttered, a tremble in her voice. “He tried to do things, they all had weapons, but I fought back.”
“Jade…” I said my stomach rolling in sick waves.
“It’s alright,” she said a sad smile on her face. “Nothing happened. I am stronger than I look and held my own for a while, but Dash had followed me. He fought them in his human form at first. They harmed him, but then—he shifted.
“It took some doing to make certain they wouldn’t remember what happened. Dash killed one of the guys, so that only added to the trouble. I blamed myself, I was so ridiculously stupid. That’s why when you came Raffi and Dash kept you away. They thought you were…like him. So did Eisha.”
I didn’t know what to say as I eased the car into town and turned down my old street. Bringing her hand to my lips, I pressed a kiss to her skin and met her eye when we stopped in front of the small, wood-siding house where I’d been raised. “What happened…to him?”
Jade rested her head back on the seat and seemed to be studying the roof of the car. “He left, Eisha settled him in another school for the gifted. It was the easiest way to convince the human boards to get him away from Wyvern Willows. You know, convince them he didn’t belong in ordinary high school. As much as possible Eisha tries to stay by the book so as not to draw attention to our people. I tried to make sure he didn’t remember anything. It seems to have worked.”
“So, he’s in a top notch school after what he did?” I snapped.
She smiled, her thumb brushing over my cheek. “It’s over,” she whispered. “This is why I didn’t want to say anything. You feel the same protectiveness as Raffi and Dash, and they wanted to eat him. I’m fine. I wasn’t going to let him harm me.” I shook my head, the burn of sick bubbling in the back of my throat. Never had I thought of murder, but in that moment those thoughts were the only things rumbling through my mind. “Teagan, you must let it go. There is nothing more we can do.”
I faced her and turned off the car. “I can think of a few things,” I insisted. Jade only sighed and rested her head on my shoulder. Tilting her chin toward me, I made certain she could see how serious I was before I spoke. “Jade, I won’t ever hurt you. You know that, right?”
“I know.”
“And I’m not going to let anyone else hurt you. I would die before I let that happen, and it isn’t because I have these,” I said holding up my arms. “You’ve become the most important thing in my life.”
Jade’s chin quivered slightly before her lips found mine, and her arms wrapped around my neck. She spoke against my mouth when she stopped after a perfect moment. “I can’t imagine life without you,” she said. “Should we stay here, or are you ready to go inside?”
I smiled, brushing her hair from her face, but enjoying the way she was still clutching to me. “We came all this way, I guess we should ask some questions.”
Jade stood strong at my side when we walked toward the house. I found my head had a subtle spin the closer we came to the front door. Aunt Liz had to know something. She had to. If she didn’t, I had the fear I might never learn the truth. And it was suffocating.
Chapter 24
A single knock, that was all it took for Aunt Liz to answer the door. Her pale eyes were wide and glistened with tears when she realized it was me on her porch. Then, within seconds, she looked angry.
“Teagan, what in heaven’s name are you doing here? Have you been removed? I swear it, Teagan, if you’ve been kicked out I will personally toss you in prison—”
“Aunt Liz,” I interrupted, my cheeks flushing as she ranted about my indiscretions. Jade didn’t need to hear everything. “I haven’t been kicked out. I was given a visit…for good behavior.”
“Oh,” she said through a breath. Her shoulders relaxed, and she quickly straightened her T-shirt that had oatmeal stains on the hem. “Well, then come on in. Who is this lovely lady?”
I gripped Jade’s hand tight and ushered her into the house in front of me. She smiled pleasantly and took Aunt Liz’s hand. “I’m Jade,” she said. “I go to high school with Teagan.”
“Oh, and how do you like…Wyvern Reform,” Aunt Liz asked with caution.
Jade laughed lightly. “No, I’m not a student at Wyvern Reform. We go to Wyvern High together.”
“Oh, forgive me, I misunderstood.” Aunt Liz seemed relieved, until her eyes scanned my arms. “So, those are what nearly gave me a stroke? Probably the most idiotic thing you’ve done, Teagan. Forgive me for reprimanding him in front of you, Jade, but sometimes boys need to hear from the women who raised them.”
I shook my head, suddenly self-conscious of the jade armor. Aunt Liz would pass out if she saw the enormous seal on my back. “They aren’t a big deal anymore, even Mr. Sapphire likes them,” I said.
“Oh, I don’t believe that,” Aunt Liz teased, shaking her head once more when she glanced at my arms. “Well, come on in. I just made cookies. Mark’s birthday is tomorrow, and he’s bringing a treat for his class. I have loads extra. Have a seat, I’ll get a plate.”
Jade didn’t sit. Instead, she walked toward the small mantle over a soot-filled, wood-burning fireplace. The house was small but comfortable. Wood panels on the walls matched the wood slats on the outside. Aunt Liz had finally updated the green shag carpet to a darker, more modern flooring. It helped not to date the place so much. Jade seemed at ease in my childhood home, and I liked the way she looked in the living room. She drew her fingers across numerous pictures on the mantle. Some were of Aunt Liz and her two best friends who lived upstate. Most were of me. There I was learning to ride a bike, digging in the sand, when I’d gone to high school—I had braces and found it embarrassing the way Jade stopped and ogled for a moment. She stopped at the last frame and grinned, taking one of the pictures off the mantle.
“How old were you?” she asked, holding up the frame.
Stepping by her side, I stared at my own face grinning back at me. A front tooth was half way grown in, and my face was scrunched enough my eyes were little slits. One of my eyes was bruised and swollen. Aunt Liz had her arms wrapped around me, helping me hold up a tiny silver fish on a hook. The memory of the day brought a smile. “I was eight I think. It was one of the few days I just got to be with Aunt Liz, no other kids,” I said, taking the picture. “She took me to Glacier Lake to fish and hike, just me.”
“It was after your first fist-fight,” Aunt Liz said, scurrying into the room holding a plate of cookies. “I wish I could say it was the first and last, but then we both know that isn’t the truth.”
I chuckled and nodded. “Well, Tyson Killman deserved it. He pushed a girl off the swings and she got a bloody nose.”
Aunt Liz smiled. “That’s why I took you. I wanted you to know there were other ways to stand up for good. Well, I tried, anyway,” she finished in a somber tone staring at the pictures. “You were such a rambunctious boy, but so happy.”
Jade met my eye when my grin faded. I knew Aunt Liz was disappointed in my choices. Being in a reform house probably hadn’t earned her any bragging rights with the neighbors.
“Teagan is very kind,” Jade said, taking me slightly off guard. “Did he tell you he helped me at school once?” Aunt Liz seemed interested, but only shook her head. “He did, without a second thought. There was a young man who, well let’s say he didn’t know how to treat a girl like Teagan, and your nephew stepped in and helped me. You raised him well.”
“What a lovely thing to say,” Liz said, offering me a sweet smile. “So, Jade, tell me about yourself. Have you always lived in Wyvern Willows?”
Jade nodded, taking a cookie Aunt Liz offered, though she never ate it. I’d observed enough to know none of t
he dragons enjoyed sweets. Savory was more their taste. “Yes, all my life. It’s a nice place to grow up.”
Aunt Liz nodded. “I’d been there once before, but never found my way back.”
“You’ve been to Wyvern Willows?” I asked. The entire drive to the house, Liz had never mentioned anything about knowing the slightest detail about the unusual town protected by earth magic. Of course, she wouldn’t know that detail either.
“Oh, a long time ago,” she muttered, clutching a pillow over her lap. “When you were just a baby.”
“Oh, I bet baby Teagan was adorable,” Jade said, but I sensed she was after something by the way she eyed the walls of pictures and the mantle. “Do you have any pictures?”
Aunt Liz swallowed and bit into a cookie, but was still grinning. “Stored in an endless slew of photos I need to scan or put into photo books. You’d run away screaming if you saw the mountains in the attic.”
Jade nodded pleasantly, but her hand found mine again and squeezed tightly. Already the heat was flushing my cheeks, and I found the meaning in the question. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of me as a baby.”
“Oh, of course you have,” Aunt Liz said. “You just don’t remember.”
My brow furrowed and my heart was thumping painfully in my chest. Jade was gripping my forearm tightly, and I sensed her calming power rushing in my blood—it helped. “No, I haven’t,” I said softly. “Aunt Liz, I came home to ask you something. I want…I need you to be honest with me.”
Liz stopped chewing the chocolate chips and met my eye. Was her chin quivering? “Anything, T. What do you want to ask?”