Ordinary Girl (The Dark Dragon Chronicles Book 1)

by Ripley Harper

  “I told you what Ty was going to do to you,” he says flatly. “Why won’t you believe me?”

  “Because we know you’re lying.” Chloe’s voice is so icy that a shiver passes through Jeffrey’s body.

  “I can’t believe you’d take his word over mine!” His head jerks to the side. When Chloe doesn’t respond, he turns to me. “Do you even realize what kind of person Tyrone is?”

  “Actually,” I sigh, “I’m starting to suspect I haven’t got a clue.”

  “Tell her, Chloe,” he says.

  “Tell her what?”

  “About Ty. About his mom!” He gives a high little laugh. “The one thing nobody ever wants to think about! The one thing nobody ever admits, although we all know it’s true.”

  Chloe frowns at him for a second, then shakes her head in disgust. “Oh, grow up, Jeffrey.”

  “What about Ty’s mom?” I ask, curious. “What does nobody want to admit?”

  Jeffrey smirks, obviously dying to share his secret. “Have you ever noticed how Ty is always like really tan?” he asks, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

  I shrug.

  “Well, he’s not tan,” Jeffrey crows triumphantly. “He was born that color.”

  “Huh?” I give him a puzzled look.

  “Ty’s dad is white—obviously you know that, he’s always at the games—but his mom was black. Like, totally black. She left when he was a baby, so people tend to forget that inconvenient little detail.”

  “What does her leaving have to do with anything?” I ask, mystified.

  Jeffrey’s face is outraged. “Don’t you get it? Ty isn’t really white! Everyone just pretends he’s white because he’s so good at football. But Ty shouldn’t even be an Alpha! I don’t understand why they even let him in!”

  Oh for crying in a bucket.

  Ty has light-brown skin, a tightly shaved head and dark-brown eyes. Only someone as deluded as this weird kid would ever think he’s trying to hide his racial background in any way.

  “Are you telling me I shouldn’t believe Ty because he isn’t white?”

  Jeffrey raises his hands. “Hey, I’m not being racist or anything. But facts are facts. This world is built on hierarchies. It’s science; you can’t argue with that. And in the hierarchical society we’re living in, some races are superior to others.”

  I feel my mouth falling open, but Jeffrey continues calmly, as if giving a lecture. “It might not sound fair, but that’s just the way the world works. And the truth is that it only becomes a problem when people try to undermine the system by elevating someone like Tyrone above real white males just because he’s good at sports—”

  “Excuse me,” I finally manage to splutter, horrified. “Of course you’re being racist! That’s, like, the definition of racism! I don’t know into what deep, dark internet hole you had to crawl to get those ideas but—”

  “Oh for God’s sake,” Chloe interrupts. “I’m not interested in arguing with this ignorant loser about his pathetic, backward opinions.” She puts her hands on her hips and glares at Jeffrey. “Ty wasn’t the only one we talked to,” she snaps. “Jonathan said the same thing, and as far as I know, his ‘racial purity’ is above suspicion.” She rolls her eyes heavenward, making it abundantly clear what she thinks of Jeffrey’s worldview.

  Jeffrey’s face immediately breaks out in ugly red blotches. “You talked to Jonathan? Why did you do that?” He hugs his arms around himself, starts to rock from side to side. “I told you not to. I told you. I told you. I told you.”

  “Well, I didn’t listen,” she says acidly. Then she stands up and stalks toward him. When she’s right in front of him, she leans over until she’s way too far into his personal space and pokes him in the middle of his chest with her finger. “And now I have a message for you.”

  He flinches at the physical contact and leans back awkwardly, but he doesn’t push her hand away.

  “Jonathan does not appreciate you putting private photos of his ex on your loser website. He’s had some of his father’s people look into it, and they know it was you. That, my friend, is the kind of disrespect a Pendragon will never accept.”

  Jeffrey’s eyes are suddenly fearful.

  “You will destroy every single photo of me that you have in your possession. Every. Single. One.” She claps her hands together on every word, and Jeffrey winces at the sound. “As I’m sure you’re well aware, your grandmother has been employed by Pendragon Enterprises for almost thirty years. If any of those photos surface again—anywhere, ever—Jonathan will make sure she loses her job, and this house, and her pension. She will never work in this town again, and you will never be able to go anywhere without looking over your shoulder.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. No ifs. No maybes. You’ll destroy those photos, and you’ll destroy them now, or you’ll bear the consequences. Get it?”

  “Yeah,” he mutters sullenly, looking down at his feet. “I do.”

  She picks up her car keys. “You coming?” she asks me as she heads for the stairs.

  I scramble up to follow her, shocked into silence. She’s already out the house when I find my voice again. From the top of the stairs I turn to look down at Jeffrey.

  “You need to delete the other girls’ photos as well,” I say. “Not just Chloe’s.”

  He nods.

  “Did Jonathan really make all those threats?” I ask when Chloe drops me off at school.

  She snorts. “Of course not. He couldn’t care less about any of this.”

  “So why…?”

  “Did you even listen to that guy? Jeffrey totally buys into all that crap about ‘social hierarchies’, and having ‘respect’ for the ‘top males.’” She mimes shoving a finger down her throat. “I knew the idea of disrespecting Jonathan was the only thing that would scare him. So that’s what I did.”

  “It was all a bluff?” I gape at her. “How did you know he was lying in the first place?”

  She flicks a glossy lock of hair over her shoulder. “The whole story didn’t compute. Sure, most of those guys are total assholes, but Cayden really likes Maggie; he’s just too cool to admit it. And Ty’s always had a soft spot for you, for some reason I’ll never understand. And why would Jonathan go through all that trouble just to hurt me? He couldn’t care less if I lived or died.”

  “Shouldn’t we rather have just told Jeffrey that, instead of making threats?”

  She gives a short, hard laugh. “For someone so unlikeable, you’re almost touchingly naïve. Nothing we can say will ever get through to him. For someone like Jeffrey, life is a power game between guys. Girls’ thoughts and feelings don’t matter; they don’t even really exist. At best, we’re status symbols, something you ‘have’ so you can brag about it to other guys.”

  “You got all that from our conversation the other day?” I ask skeptically.

  “I’m a remarkably perceptive person.”

  “But…” I lift a hand, not even knowing where to start. “What if Jeffrey speaks to Jonathan and realizes you were lying to him?”

  “He’s never going to speak to Jonathan.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’m sure,” she says. “Now get out. I am so over all this.”

  When I pull up in front of Ingrid’s house, I remain sitting in my car for a while.

  Not only because I’m reluctant to enter that bugged house (although that’s a big part of it; not gonna lie), but also because I have that awful sense of wrongness again, as if something terrible is about to happen. I look down to see the hairs on my arms standing up, my entire body thrumming with the knowledge that something is badly off.

  Gunn has taught me to trust my intuition. According to him, intuition is the body’s way of processing information outside of our awareness: when we overly censor our thoughts, the subconscious mind tries to break through this blindness by sending a direct physical message of distress and unease.

  And so, to try and understand wh
y I have this horrible sense of impending doom, I focus purely on what my body is feeling—the hollowness in my gut, the slight elevation of my heartbeat, the gooseflesh on my arms—as I go through the events of the past few days, trying to find a piece of the puzzle that doesn’t quite fit.

  What am I missing? What am I not seeing?

  And why am I suddenly so terribly afraid?

  Chapter 21

  Magic that flows directly from the ancient bloodlines—body to body, blood to blood—is thus an inherent gift or intrinsic ability, which can be depleted by improper training, great suffering or prolonged disquietude, but seldom fails completely.

  In this way it differs from magic that is taken from another: stolen magic is quickly spent, while magic inborn remains largely inextinguishable.

  From Elements of Knowledge: An Instruction into Selected Wisdoms of the Black Clan (1823), author unknown; translated from the original French by Genevieve Bernard (2006)

  When I finally get out of the car, I’m none the wiser. The problem is that none of the puzzle pieces fit; since that night Gunn told me the world was more complicated than I knew, everything has—

  A man in a dark suit blocks my path.

  I take a step backward.

  Out of nowhere, two men appear on either side of me.

  I spin around. Three more behind.

  I’m trapped.

  All six of the men keep a careful distance from me. They’re wearing reflective sunglasses, and two of them are talking into half-hidden earphones, their voices just low enough that I can’t make out the words.

  “Can I… help you?” I say uncertainly.

  Nobody says anything as they spread out to form a tight, neat circle around me. They move swiftly and silently, their faces completely expressionless, giving me the unnerving impression that I’m being surrounded by robots.

  I clear my throat nervously. “Um. Is there some kind of problem?”

  They ignore my question. By now they’re so close I can hear the faint metallic voices coming from their earphones. I take a small, tentative step toward the house.

  The man closest to me pulls out a gun and aims it straight at my face.

  I gasp, raise my hands in immediate surrender.

  Oh God.

  My body goes boiling hot and then icy cold as I look into the barrel of the gun, its short black tunnel like a portal to hell.

  The guy with the gun makes a slight motion with his head, and in my peripheral vision I see the men on both sides of me moving closer, slowly and warily, their arms outstretched and their bodies half-turned away in a weird, defensive kind of crouch. Exactly the way you’d approach an exotic, very poisonous snake.

  I give an involuntary little shiver.

  That small movement is enough to make the other five draw out their guns too.

  “No! Please! Don’t shoot!” I lift my hands higher, force myself to stand absolutely still.

  Nobody moves. Nobody says anything. All six guns are aimed at my face. The man closest to me is grimacing as if he’s afraid of me, his hand shaking, finger on the trigger.

  In his mirrored glasses I can see the tears running down my cheeks.

  When the two men on either side of me slowly approach, I don’t move a muscle. I don’t even breathe. The one grabs my arms and cuffs my hands behind my back; the other grabs my neck and pulls a bag tightly over my face. The bag is made of a coarse black material that allows me to breathe but leaves me unable to see.

  I don’t try to fight back. There’s no point.

  They march me toward some kind of vehicle and they bundle me inside. They handle me roughly, but not in a sadistic way. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have said they were nervous. Afraid of me.

  We drive in complete silence for what feels like hours.

  When they lift the bag from my head, I’m standing in an enormous room. The pitch-dark, cavernous space is lit by hundreds of candles, some resting on elaborate silver candleholders and some hanging from crystal chandeliers. The golden glow warms the darkness, the interplay of shadow and light spooky but strangely beautiful. For a moment I imagine people sitting in the thick darkness just outside the candlelight, but then a shadow flickers and they’re gone.

  In the middle of the room, five elaborately decorated chairs have been arranged in a half circle. A man is sitting on the golden chair in the center; the rest of the chairs are empty. The man must be somewhere in his thirties, and his hawk nose, olive skin, long brown hair and large silver earring make him look like a pirate.

  “The accused may approach,” he says, his voice as cool and unwelcoming as his eyes.

  Not knowing what else to do, I slowly walk forward until I reach a low black bench positioned in front of the five chairs. Now that I’m closer, I can see that the chairs are on a small dark stage, so that the man in the golden chair is looking down at me even though he’s sitting.

  I feel small and scared and weirdly guilty, and it takes all my courage to cross my arms and raise my chin. “Have I been kidnapped?”

  The man frowns. “The accused shall address the court in a respectful manner.”

  Oh God.

  So this is really happening.

  “What accused?” I ask, relieved to hear my voice sounding snarky rather than terrified. “And what court? All I see is two people in a dark room, one of which has just been kidnapped by six thugs with guns.”

  The man’s face remains expressionless, but I notice his knuckles whitening on his armrest.

  “In that case,” he says coldly, “perhaps introductions are in order. My name is Amit Dara. I am the Red Lord, leader of all the Bloodkeepers, and it is my duty and privilege to act as Chief Justice of this Extraordinary Court today.”

  I keep my face neutral, my arms crossed, my chin lifted, but I cannot suppress the slight shiver of fear running through my body. He notices the movement and smiles, his face splitting open almost grotesquely, a predator spotting his prey.

  “You, Jezebel Sarkany, trueborn daughter of the Tenth and heir to Lilith, stand accused of appropriating the magic of Sofia Rodriguez, a fully initiated Skykeeper, without the consent of either the White Lord or the White Lady. The Order of Keepers are therefore charging you with the theft of another’s magic—a crime of which the prescribed sentence is death by fire. How do you plead?”

  Death by fire?

  I swallow a few times before speaking.

  “There must be some misunderstanding,” I say. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re wasting my time,” he says impatiently. “We know that your keepers have warned you about the possibility of a trial, so spare us the fake confusion. You know what you stand accused of. If you do not use this opportunity to plead, an automatic guilty plea will be recorded, and your sentence will be enacted first thing tomorrow morning.” His lips stretch into a cool, cruel grimace. “You will not be the first trueborn daughter to be burned alive, of course—but you will certainly be the last.”

  I clear my throat, try to swallow my panic. “I want a lawyer.”

  “Hah! What a quaint idea, even for one such as you.” He leans back in his chair. “The Order of Keepers is not subject to the laws of any nation and completely unconcerned with any so-called ‘rights’ to which you might believe you are entitled. This court has only one goal: to get to the truth.” He leans forward again, his face hardening. “And you may rest assured that is exactly what we will do, with your willing participation or without it.”

  When I don’t say anything—mainly because I’m too terrified to speak—he curls a finger to motion me closer.

  “On the other hand, seeing that it’s just the two of us, for now, perhaps we can expedite this tiresome process. Approach my throne, girl. These candles are very pretty but, alas, not terribly effective. I’m struggling to see you clearly.”

  The Red Lord has a rich, persuasive voice, but I don’t trust him, not for a moment. Only then he smiles at me again—that disturbin
g, compelling, predatory smile—and I feel myself helplessly moving toward him.

  His cool smile widens, the cat that got the cream. “That’s better,” he purrs. “Why don’t you step a little closer? Come all the way up to my throne if you want.”

  I know full well that I’m walking into danger, but I’m unable to help myself. And—oh!—suddenly his magic is rushing toward me in wave after wave, a rich, delicious, seductive warmth that belies the coolness in his eyes. I feel my stomach loosening with desire as I move closer and closer to the Red Lord, shamelessly lusting after the power flowing through his veins: that thick, hot, tantalizing magic that throbs all around him.

  I move closer, mesmerized, until I’m barely a step away from him.

  “My, my.” He reaches out a hand. “So this is the daughter of the infamous Bella Sarkany.”

  The sound of my mother’s name is like a slap in the face, waking me from my trancelike state. But it’s too late: my hand is just a hair’s breadth away from his, we’re already touch—

  WALL!

  Out of nowhere an image flashes through my mind: well-defined and clear and perfectly formed. It happens faster than conscious thought, faster than will, faster than instinct. One moment I’m standing helpless in front of this man, completely Enthralled by his power, and the next there’s a wall between us to protect me from his spell.

  It’s a thick stone wall, overgrown with moss and ivy. Old, solid, and unbreakable.

  Ah yes. It is a wall I know well.

  One that kept my people safe for centuries.

  He takes my hand in his, gently at first, but then squeezing harder and harder.

  I have to concentrate so as not to laugh out loud.

  How ridiculous this puny little man is, keeper of such a tiny borrowed flame!

  The fool truly believes that he is touching my hand for he is too weak and too human to see the wall between us: an ancient, unscalable wall, built of solid stone by the most talented masons the world has ever known.

  “Enchanted,” he says as he brings my hand to his lips and places a soft kiss on my knuckles.