“Dannan,” he barked, “a blanket for the lady, please. You’ll find one in my pack atop Oliver.”
Marty and Wanda rushed up to her as Dannan spread a rough blanket on the ground and Jon set her on it like a helpless child. He leaned down as he settled her, their lips inches apart.
As her eyes began to gain better focus, all she could see was his luscious mouth and the hear the erratic crash of her heart trying its best to get out of her chest—and the shafts of light over his head while a distant harp plucked a soft tune.
Aw, for the love of Cheetos. Enough already!
But then she realized—Jon saw something, too. In that brief, sweet moment, everything stopped. Their eyes met and held, their breath mingled, the cold air turned balmy.
“Milady?” he husked out, but she didn’t have the chance to explore what had just passed between them because Wanda shoved him out of the way.
Both Marty and Wanda were on their knees in front of her in seconds, their big hairdos flopping to either side of their heads, their dresses torn from climbing the tree.
Wanda reached for her first, grabbing her hand. “Toni! Are you all right? We tried to help but our powers are weaker today than they were just last night. Poor Marty couldn’t even totally shift. What were you doing up there? You could have been killed!”
Toni stared up at the two women who’d been so nice to her and shrugged her shoulders. “Good point. And I can’t explain what was going on. First, my feet got all tingly and warm. Then my mind was telling me I was just shy of certifiable to get on that dragon’s back, but my body wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Marty peered into her eyes, the intensity of the stare almost frightening. “What? Did you hit your head? She hit her head on impact, didn’t she?” she asked Nina, who’d followed them toward the tree.
Carl nuzzled Toni’s cheek, pressing as close to her as he could without spiking her clean through with his fuzzy antlers. She lifted a weak hand and rubbed his muzzle with a smile.
“I didn’t hit my head when we landed. I can’t explain what just happened because I’m still wrapping my brain around the word ‘dragon’. I was on the back of a dragon. A dragon. You know, wings and fire—so much fire—forked-tongues and scales?”
The three women nodded their heads, but again, no one batted an eye. Not even a twitch.
Toni’s mouth fell open. “Aw, c’mon. You guys have seen dragons?”
“I’d show you pictures of a baby dragon, but I don’t have my damn phone.” Nina grinned then, and with that, everything about her changed. Her face was no longer pinched and scowling, it was alight and beautiful with something that was obviously near and dear to her heart.
This gruff, foul-mouthed woman likely loved as hard as she fought. And that struck Toni somewhere far deeper than she was willing to go. For right now, there was the issue of a baby dragon.
Closing her eyes, Toni shook her head. “I don’t believe you. I’ve listened to you talk about genies and bottles and demons and—and—a dragon’s just too far!”
The vampire clucked her tongue. “Really? A dragon’s what sets you over the edge? I’d have thought the genie shit woulda been your end game—maybe even the cougar. So a dragon’s your emotional limit? Noted,” Nina said on a cackle.
Marty and Wanda shook their sodden heads and looked at Toni as if she were the one who’d lost all her marbles.
Marty straightened Toni’s bodice and smoothed out her rumpled skirt. “You just sat on the back of one, didn’t you? I’m telling you, it’s true. She’s precious and really just getting her wings under her. We love her to itsy-bitsy bits. See her every chance we get. Skype with her all the time. Her name’s Noa.”
Jon brought over a flask and knelt beside her, holding it to her mouth as she gratefully drank, her throat dry and sore.
His chiseled face was a mask of concern as he cupped her chin. “You must never speak with strangers, Toni. The woods are dangerous and fraught with enemies. Not everything is as it appears.”
Toni nodded her head in agreement. No shit. Pressing her back into the hard bark of the tree after another long gulp of water, she burped, fully intending to excuse herself.
But that would be difficult, considering courteous words weren’t the thing coming out of her mouth. No. Instead, a hot stream of acrid fire flew from her lips.
Jon yelled to Dannan to grab another flask as he grabbed the edge of the blanket from the ground and wrapped it around Marty’s head, knocking her to the ground and patting her big hair.
Which was, of course, on fire thanks to Toni.
Maybe dragon was her emotional limit…
Chapter 5
“So, you gonna get the fire going for the troll roast, or am I?” Nina quipped, cackling as she slapped Toni on the back.
“Only if you fan it, Sunshine Wings,” she quipped back.
This time, Nina didn’t appear to take offense. Instead she snickered and said, “Touché.”
She’d breathed fire. Real fire. From her mouth. Still unable to address that, she asked Nina with a sheepish glance, “I’m really sorry. It was the last thing I expected. Is Marty okay? Does she want to eat me for dinner?”
Nina flapped a hand and hiked up the front of her torn and tattered yellow dress. The bluebirds scattered momentarily then returned to their rightful place above her head, chirping their happy tune. “Nah. Her hair grows back because she self-heals. She’ll be right back to her gelled-up, sprayed-to-within-an-inch-of-the-ozone-layers life in no time flat. I think. I dunno. Our powers seem to be doing weird shit here. It’s like we’re all off or something. But don’t you worry your pretty little fire-breathing head about it.”
They’d stopped for the night in a place Jon thought was safe enough, as long as there was always someone on guard. While he set up their camp, she and Nina were doing their part by making a fire as Marty and Wanda looked for the sugared winterberries Jon had told them about.
Carl and Dannan huddled close together as the ogre told Carl stories and they pitched tents made of a fabric Toni couldn’t identify.
The wind howled a desolate cry and though the snow had stopped, when the sun dipped, the temperatures had, too.
“What did Brenda mean when she said you couldn’t use your special powers to get to the castle?”
“I’m bettin’ that nutty Hee-Haw honey meant I couldn’t throw your ass on my back and fly you there. Which is some kinda stupid bullshit, if you ask me.”
Toni gulped and tried to act unfazed. “You f…fly?”
“I do. And as you saw, Marty shifts into a hairy ass-sniffer and looks like she popped right off a damn movie set, and Wanda has fangs and she’s pretty strong, but she shifts, too.”
“Because Wanda’s a halfsie, right?” She couldn’t even believe she was having this conversation when just a day or so ago she was asking Bree what she wanted her to do with the new shipment of ponchos.
“Yep. Half vampire, half were. But she can’t fly. Sucks hairy donkey balls at it.”
“So you guys are all friends? You really did meet because you used to sell makeup before Marty was turned into a werewolf?”
Nina threw some stray branches into the pit they’d made in the ground and nodded. “Yep. It’s been almost eight years since that shit went down.”
“That’s nice,” she whispered.
If only Nina knew how nice. As they’d walked, Marty had told her stories about how they’d all met via her cosmetics company, about their children and baby dragon’s incredible birth, and hearing her talk about their families and barbecues and birthday parties and Christmases past brought back the empty ache of loneliness Toni had fought so hard to keep from eating her alive.
“What about you, Dragon Slayer. You have family back home?”
Turning her back to Nina, she pretended to search for more branches. “Nope. Just me.”
“Friends?”
“Nope.”
“So you wanna tell me what the fuck made y
ou latch on to that dragon the way you did? It was damn impressive, but risky as all hell, considering you’re a human. Do you have a death wish or some shit? Because if that’s the case, that makes you dangerous, and I won’t have you risking everyone else’s lives just because you don’t feel like you have anything worth dropping your feet on the floor for every morning.”
Toni swatted at a stray tear with her thumb and inhaled, stooping to grab a thin limb. Did she have a death wish? Had she been that reckless because she was alone in the world and there was nothing left anywhere for her? Was she unconsciously looking to end it all?
Toni fought that notion even as she denied it, trying to keep her voice light. “No death wish, promise. I can’t explain what happened. It just happened. I just instinctively knew what to do to disarm the dragon. And I guess I’m not so human anymore if I’m breathing fire, huh? Does that make me one of you?”
Nina grunted and yanked up one of her ripped sleeves. “I don’t know what the hell it makes you, but I’d sure like some answers. Usually when we have a client, we have a source that’s bigger than just making a random wish in your lady brain.”
“A source?”
“Yeah, like the person who ends up accidentally turned had tangled with someone or something to get in the fix they’re in. Case in point, Wanda’s yappy, rambling bookworm sister, Casey. She had demon blood spilled on her at a bar when she was chasing after her out-of-control twin charges. Poof. Instant demon. But you have an entire realm doing this to you, an unseen entity. How the fuck do you fight that?”
Yeah. Good question. How the fuck?
Pushing her tangled hair from her face, Toni nodded and turned around. “I’d like to know, too. Listen, I don’t know if I thanked you properly for saving me today. I would have been a grease spot if not for you. I guess I didn’t think the whole thing through, but it was like not being in control of all my faculties. Brawn over brain or something…Anyway, thank you. I’d have never survived without you.”
Nina stopped gathering limbs for the fire and looked her directly in the eye. “The best way to thank me is to not wander off by yourself. There’s obviously some crazy shit out there, and I don’t know if it was luck or what that saved your sparkly ass, but we might not be so lucky next time.”
“Who’da thunk a Starbucks could cause so much trouble?”
“You do realize the Starbucks was basically Snow White’s apple, don’t you, Boogie Shoes? A metaphor or some such shiz?” Nina asked, her gaze hard and unflinching as her wings pumped softly.
She’d thought long and hard about it as they’d continued their walk to the campsite earlier today. “I do now. I guess at the time, because I was desperate for coffee, my impulse control got the better of me.”
“From now on, just stay close. I can’t protect you if I can’t see you, dipshit.”
Toni chuckled, bending at the waist to arrange the limbs. “Is that what you’re doing? Protecting me? You’re not such a bitch after all, huh?”
Nina cracked a branch in half, the sound harsh in the silence, reverberating off the trees. “I’ma say this once. Respect for having the balloon-size clangers to stand your ground with me. I like a chick who can handle her own shit. You’re in a small class of people who’ve lived to tell the tale. But do it again? Die. And it’ll hurt. Oh, Jesus and your lady brains spattered from here to kingdom come, it’ll hurt.”
Toni shivered, wrapping the blanket Jon had given her from his pack tighter around her. She didn’t doubt Nina meant what she said. She also didn’t doubt there was much more to Nina than met the eye.
Nina came around to her side of the fire and plopped down on a fallen tree trunk next to her. Pointing to the pit they’d made together, she said, “Breathe, Fire Starter.”
Tension coiled in her stomach. “What if I can’t do it again? Or worse, what if I can?” What if, for the rest of her life, she was going to set things on fire? Like Marty’s hair again? Or a house?
Not one to mince words, Nina looked right at her, her pale face sharply contrasted by the dark night. “Then you’ll deal. We’ll help you.”
Help. No one had given her much of that in a long time. Not the police. Not the people she’d once worked with. No one. “Why would you help me? You don’t even like me. I’m the one who’s responsible for this whole mess. You should hate my guts.”
“It’s just what I do. It’s what we all do. I bitch about it plenty. I complain. I swear. But I do it because the other two windbags need me to do it. We’re ride-or-die partners for life.”
She did it, whether willingly or not, because their friendship meant something deep, something she cherished far more than she’d ever let on. “Would you do this OOPS thing if it wasn’t for Marty and Wanda?”
Nina paused for a long moment as she looked off into the depths of the forest before she said, low and husky. “I dunno. We’ve come really close to losing each other, and even a client or two. That fucking sucks some harsh ass—to always be so damn freaked about the safety of the people you love. Not that I’d take any of it back, because we found some awesome shit and some awesome people along the way. And that’s not to say if somebody needed help, I wouldn’t help. Because nine times outta ten, I would. Injustice pisses me off. And it’s unjust to land in a place called vampire or werewolf or whatever with no one to hold your goddamn hand and help you through it. But sometimes I wonder…”
“Wonder what?” Toni asked softly, placing a hand on the vampire’s arm.
There was turmoil in Nina’s tone, in her body language. It was almost as though she was at a fork in the road of her pending eternity despite what Brenda had said about her happiness. Something was troubling her, and right now, it was far easier to try to figure out Nina than it was to delve into her own problems.
But then she clammed up and the old crusty Nina returned, front and center. “Nothing, Designer Duds. Just breathe and it’ll all be fine. We’ll get Mick and Tess to show you how to control your fire breathing when we get back to Jersey.”
Mick and Tess were the parents of the baby dragon they’d spoken about with such love, something she was still digesting along with everything else.
Sighing, Toni looked down at her gleaming shoes, unmarred from the day’s events. “Jersey seems pretty far away right now. I feel like I’ll never get back there.”
“You won’t if you freeze your sissy ass off. Now breathe and stop yammering with the girl talk. I suck at squishy feelings.”
Inhaling deeply, Toni closed her eyes and blew, the heat rising in her throat as she expelled a long breath and coughed from the burnt taste filling the interior of her mouth and settling on her tongue. An acrid puff of air fell from between her lips and then voila.
Fire.
Holy Hannah, she was really breathing fire.
Nina slapped her on the back with approval. “Good job, Puff.”
For some reason, maybe because she suspected it was likely hard to win, Nina’s approval made Toni grin.
* * * *
“And then, the big bad wolf ate the Three Little Bears’ porridge. All of it. Nom-nom,” she said as she rubbed her stomach for Carl, who leaned against her. “But then Papa Bear comes home and he sees the wolf has eaten all his porridge and he says, “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down!”
Carl stomped his hoof on the ground in gleeful approval.
Nina’s sigh rasped in the air. “Southey would fuck you up if he could hear you trashing his shit. It’s Goldilocks and the Three Bears, knucklehead. No wolf. No huffing and puffing. Yer killin me, Smalls.” She quoted The Sandlot with a roll of her eyes. “I’m outtie for guard duty. Try not to hack up any more fairytales, huh?”
Reaching down, she rubbed Carl’s antlers with a smile. “Okay, so maybe it was Goldilocks. But seriously, who wanders into someone’s house and eats their porridge right off their table? It’s rude.”
“Milady, you shouldn’t be out here without escort. The hour is late and ma
ny creatures roam the forest.”
Toni’s eyes flew upward to Jon’s, who’d just finished his patrol of the perimeter of their makeshift camp, with Nina taking over so he could rest before they headed out again at dawn. His hulking figure cast shadows against the forest walls with the fire as his backdrop.
He stepped forward toward her, and the usual happened. Prisms of light shone on his head and that infernal harp twanged its usual introduction of his arrival.
She let her eyes rise skyward and lifted her hands. “Seriously?”
“Milady?”
Toni sighed with a slump of her shoulders. “Sorry. It got a little cold in the tent. Plus, Marty snores something fierce and I couldn’t sleep.”
Jon chuckled, sitting beside her on the log in front of the fire, their thighs just touching. “She has hearty lungs, that lass.”
Toni nodded, twisting the ends of her hair to avoid looking at Jon. Suddenly she felt awkward, as if she were at her first high school dance, sitting on the bleachers while the Backstreet Boys played and everyone had coupled up, instead of the grown-ass woman she was today.
“She does.” Carl stirred at her feet, and she reached down to stroke his head, settling him back in.
Jon poked the fire with a stray branch, making a rush of embers soar upward. “These maidens, have you known them long?”
“Just over a day now.” But it seemed like much longer. So much had happened in just a day.
“They’re fierce, these women who assist you. I admire that.”
“You’re not at all afraid of them, are you?”
“What’s there to fear?”
“Oh, I dunno. Maybe having every ounce of blood sucked from your body—or being torn limb from limb and your liver used as pâté on a cracker?”
Jon chuckled, the sound deep and rich in her ears. “Bah. They are no worse than Queen Angria and her henchmen. In fact, they are quite likeable in comparison. I rather enjoy their banter.”
Accidentally Ever After (Accidentally Paranormal Novel Book 11) Page 7