Faeted: A Dark Prince New Adult Bully Romance

by Deiri Di

  "What about social services?" Harry said. "Don't you think they are better equipped to step in and help with this sort of thing?"

  "I'm eighteen," Mari said. The person she was two years ago was shy. That girl would run away from confrontation, her heart pounding in her chest with the audacity of the moment. The girl she was now – this girl had blood on her hands. This girl wasn't interested in fear. "I'm not going home. If you don't take me in, I'm just going to hitchhike until I find a place that will."

  "No need to get defensive, girl," Harry said. "We're going to talk through all the options, that includes calling your parents."

  "You can't call them if I don't give you their number," Mari said. "If you don't want me here, I'll leave, but I'm not going back there."

  "You got some mouth on you, girl," Harry said.

  "You got some mouth on you, boy," Mari retorted.

  Harry stared at her.

  Mari held his gaze until he looked away.

  "Now that's enough of that," Buttermoon put her arm around Mari's shoulder. "Jonathan and I are going to take responsibility for her. She'll stay with us until we figure the next thing out."

  "YAY!" Persephone shouted, thrusting her hands in the air. "HUZZAH!"

  She was their daughter, a fifteen-year-old red-headed bundle of loud.

  A puff of air blew into the room as Miss Kitty landed on the gravel outside.

  She trotted into the room, through all the ordinary humans who wouldn't quite see those ribbed wings folded along her side. She pranced right up to Mari, blood dripping from her jaw.

  She dropped a dead rabbit in Mari's lap.

  Mari sighed as the blood-soaked into her shorts.

  "GOOD DRAGON," Jonathan said. "WHAT A GOOD DRAGON!"

  "I thought the dog's name was Miss Kitty?" Persephone said.

  Mari grabbed the rabbit by the ears and offered it back to Miss Kitty. The dragon reached out and settled down to eat it on the carpet.

  "Outside!" Jonathan said, pointing out.

  The dragon growled.

  Mari slipped sideways into the dragon.

  She choked the growl in her throat before it became a snarl. She arched her neck down, grabbed the rabbit, then took it outside to devour.

  "Good dragon!" Jonathan called after her.

  Mariposa watched the world through two sets of eyes.

  She couldn't let her dragon threaten people.

  She wouldn't let her monster hurt anyone.