The Queen's Wings

by Jamie K. Schmidt

  “Can you try and think of someone other than yourself for a change?” Reed snapped.

  “What did you say to me?” I asked, barely breathing. All the air had suddenly left the car. Tears formed in the corner of my eyes. But he wasn’t done with me yet.

  “The future of an entire race is about to be decided and you’re whining about one human? There are billions of you on this planet and only about two thousand of us. This spell of Lerisse’s will give us back our women, our future generation.”

  “Three humans,” I said quietly, but matching his shout in intensity.

  “What?” He blinked at me like I was speaking pig Latin.

  “She killed three humans. You promised me revenge,” I said in a small voice. “You said Jane would not be forgotten.”

  “And she hasn’t been. I’ve been on the phone with her heir, a brother who lives in North Carolina. I offered him an excellent price for her house. It’s where Joachim and Mei Hua will stay. I will give it to you if you want.”

  Lame.

  “Joachim is going to kill Lerisse, right?” I wanted to make sure we were clear on that at least.

  “Absolutely not,” Reed said.

  “I mean after the spell fails and you all are feeling very foolish. Then it’s off with her head or stabbing her with his trident thing, right?” I cut my forefinger across my throat and crossed my eyes.

  “No, if the spell fails, we’ll need Lerisse more than ever. If her own spell doesn’t kill her, that is.”

  I counted to ten. All attempts at levity fled. My pulse pounded in my temple so hard I could feel the throb all the way down to my toes.

  “How will Jane be avenged, like you promised me?” I snarled.

  Reed smiled. “If her spell fails and she survives, the Council will not let her cast any more spells. The dragons she stole from will want redemption. She’ll be penniless and powerless and will have to start from the beginning again.”

  “But Jane will still be dead.” I shouted the last word.

  “Carolyn, even if Joachim killed Lerisse, Jane would still be dead.” Now he was doing the quiet deadly voice.

  “She tried to kill me on two separate occasions. Both times I was in your care.” The muscle worked in his jaw when I scored that hit. “You need to be more worked up about that,” I told him.

  “It was a misunderstanding,” he said, but even he seemed to realize he was making excuses.

  “I thought you cared for me.” I shook my head. “I’m an idiot. All you ever do is dance to these Queens’ tunes.

  Reed pulled the car over to the side of the road. He seethed for a few minutes, flexing his fingers and a flake of black scale filtered between us.

  “If you shift, you’ll wreck the car. I am not riding on your back to the embassy. I’ll hitchhike first.”

  “You don’t think I’d like to grab Lerisse by the neck and shake her until it snaps like a twig?”

  “No, I don’t. She’s too valuable. It was a misunderstanding…blah, blah, blah.” I made a talking motion with my hand.

  “Bullshit,” Reed exploded. “If I kill her, I die. Then you have Jack as your consort if someone else doesn’t get there first. She’s going to botch the spell, and it will kill her. She will die horribly. You will be safe. You and I will be together.”

  “That’s very logical,” I said, hugging myself.

  Reed rested his head on the steering wheel. “This isn’t easy for me. I’m not used to a Queen like you. None of us are. That’s why everyone wants you. That’s why Lerisse was trying to kill you. They don’t want more Queens to take away their power. That’s why Mei Hua was taken. Arianna would have been hidden away also. The five Queens would lose their power over us.”

  “And you would lose your power over them.”

  Reed nodded. “Change is coming. I don’t know if it will destroy us or save us.”

  I reached out to hold his hand. “We will never see eye to eye on this, will we?”

  He squeezed my hand and then put the car back into drive.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Sixteenth Rule of Dragons: Dragons are made of magic and legend and if we remember that, we will live forever

  The embassy was buzzing, but I couldn’t be a part of the excitement. I sat in my old seat and stared at Jane’s empty desk. I called my parents, but they didn’t pick up their phone. In desperation, I called my brother.

  “Yo,” Evan said. “Have you given up the idea that you’re a dragon?”

  “Pretty much,” I said. “I’m too human.”

  “Good, glad to see the therapy has been working out for you. Hey, I gotta go. Football’s on. I’m glad I’m not going to be embarrassed by you anymore.”

  “Me too,” I said and hung up.

  And that was the sum total of my human friends, not counting Joachim, who hadn’t landed yet.

  Zhang came and sat next to me. He squeezed my hand. “I’m going to miss her, too. She was a great person.” He let me cry on his shoulder for a while. When I was all dried out and his shirt was a sopping mess, he said, “I’m sorry, Carolyn. I’m needed elsewhere. Do you want me to send Reed over?”

  “No, he’s busy spreading the word.”

  Zhang patted my knee and hurried off.

  Jack came over and pulled me up off the chair. “Want to fool around?”

  “Yes,” Arianna said and we opened our arms.

  He pulled me into a bear hug. “Reed threatened to cut my dick off.”

  “Reed’s on my shit list,” I said into his shirt. Why, oh why couldn’t I have fallen in love with Jack? He was hot. He was funny. He wasn’t Reed.

  “You might feel differently after the ritual. They’re doing it here in the parking lot at dawn.”

  “What do you think about all of this, Jack?”

  “I think we solved several cases, and we couldn’t have done it without you.” He stroked his big hand down my hair, and I really wanted to feel something more than comfort. No dice. If it had been Reed, I’d be unbuttoning his pants right now.

  “I want her dead. Dead for what she did to Jane.”

  “You may get your wish. Niall says if the spell fails, she’s done for.”

  “When I finally shift to a dragon and if she’s still alive, I’m going to kill her,” I told him. I was still hanging onto him for dear life.

  “Have you ever killed someone before?”

  “No,” I said.

  “It’s harder than you think.” He rested his chin on the top of my head and rubbed my back.

  “I’m harder than you think.”

  “You feel pretty soft to me.” He kissed the top of my head. “I’m not saying you don’t have the desire to kill Lerisse and as a dragon, you certainly will have the power. But in the end, in that last minute, you may change your mind. And Lerisse will use that hesitation to end you. I’m afraid for that.”

  “I won’t hesitate,” I vowed.

  “You have a soft heart, but the will of a dragon. Perhaps you won’t. But once you kill her, you will cease to be Carolyn anymore.”

  “I’ll still be me,” I said, stubbornly.

  “You’ll be Carolyn, only forever changed. Trust me on this.” He tilted my chin up. “I’m going to risk my dick to do this.” He dipped his head down and gave me a sweet kiss. I had an iron hold on Arianna to keep the kiss G-rated. Well, maybe PG. He was so nice. It was a change from Reed’s asshattery. His kiss was sweet and poignant, but it didn’t light any fires.

  “I’m going up to Zhang’s office and lie down. Do you want to come with me?” Arianna added.

  “Yes,” Jack said. “But I won’t.”

  “I understand,” I said and went up in the elevator.

  I managed to choke down some dinner and lay on the couch watching a dull sitcom until sleep finally took me. Zhang woke me up just before dawn, and I saw I missed Joachim’s call. I listened to the voice mail as we rode down the elevator to the parking lot. Joachim was at Jane’s house with Mei Hua and
there were men in the crowd outside the embassy to protect me.

  And what a crowd it was. I stood on the outskirts of it. There were over two hundred dragons in a circle with a few humans scattered about. I tried to pick out Joachim’s men, but couldn’t. My eyes were on Lerisse, who was in her dragon form, a deadly yellow-and-black Oriental dragon with a fire-orange mane. There were dragon runes drawn in the air around her. On the ground, thick lines made with blood and chalk and ash from the treasures she torched with her breath glowed in the morning air. I’ll say this for her. She really put on a show.

  When the first rays of dawn lit the sky, I shivered in the chill, my nerves jittering and my teeth chattering in anticipation. I felt the pull when the spell went off. Was it going to work?

  For a moment nothing happened, and I let out a nervous titter, but then ghostly shapes came out of the ground to dance in the circle with Lerisse. I tried to find Niall in the crowd, but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I backed away, feeling the shapes wing through my body and take a more solid form. The crowd grew animated and there were shouts as the ghostly figures became more recognizable. Soon the entire sky was filled with silky-white ghost dragons. A small explosion rocked the circle and the figures spiraled out of control in a dizzying aspect. I took another step back—even as the voices called to me to dance.

  It was a dance of joy. Of life. I wanted to walk into the circle and join my sisters. I stepped forward. But the figure of Jane stood in front of me. Whether her spirit was really there or it was what I wanted to see, it snapped me out of it. Jane’s hands clasped mine. I gave her quick hug and then she was gone. I stayed away from the circle.

  Lerisse thrashed and leaped up, looking around wildly. Her gaze locked with mine and I took another step back. “You come to me now!” she ordered, but I was no longer compelled.

  “You need a sacrifice,” I whispered. “That was the missing piece. You were going to give them my life essence. And now that you can’t, they’re going to take yours. Good.”

  The crowd started to get restless as the ghostly dragons dove and each bit a piece out of Lerisse. I backed farther away. The ghosts grew form as Lerisse tried in vain to banish them. She darted away, trying to get out of the circle but they dragged her back. The fifty ghosts ate her piece by piece and Lerisse’s own people watched them do it. The good of the many. In the end, fifty female dragons flew above the parking lot.

  “Amalia.”

  “Keelia.”

  “Brenna.”

  “Faye.”

  Their names were called out from the people who remembered them. The dragons would not let these Queens be ravaged and captured. I continued to back away. I was shadowed by two humans but knew they had to be Joachim’s men. I was free. The hoard stealer was dead. Mei Hua had been rescued and Esmeralda neutralized. The cult of Nidhogg had no power, for the time being.

  I was still pissed at Reed for his callousness, but I didn’t think it was something we couldn’t work around. And now there were more Queens, maybe he would give exclusivity a chance.

  Each rebirthed Queen roared as light exploded from their mouths. They flew out in fifty directions. One came right at me.

  The bolt knocked me off my feet, and I gazed up at the sky in a daze. It was such a lovely morning. What was the poem? Red skies at morning sailors take warning?

  Reed, Jack, and Niall were at my side instantly. They were in dragon form, and it was a little overwhelming to see three large Western dragons looming over me. Reed snapped at Jack, and Jack belched back a small flame at him in warning. Niall, however, pinned me with his eyes.

  “Are you all right, dear?”

  “Father!” I screamed. “It hurts.”

  “Niall!” I moaned. “Help us.”

  “What is it?” Jack asked and wheeled around for an enemy to fight.

  The two Dragon Slayers closed in, but Reed glared them off. “No one will harm her while I breathe,” he said. I thought that made up for him being a jerk earlier.

  “Try and ride through it,” Niall said.

  “Will they eat me like they did Lerisse?”

  “Child, they freed you. Maybe freed the others like you.”

  “Others like me?” Tears leaked out of my eyes. “It hurts so much,” I said. “I think I’m dying.”

  “Not dying,” Jack said. “You are being reborn.”

  “I want to be Carolyn. I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “I know,” Jack said. “But sometimes, you change anyway.”

  “I want to be Arianna. I want to live.”

  “This is quite irregular,” Niall said. “She is not only a dragon. She carries one inside her.”

  Jack stared down at me. “Are we sure?”

  “I know my own daughter. What I don’t know is how much of Carolyn was really Arianna.”

  “This is too much. I want to go home.” I tried to get up, but invisible bands held me in place. “I don’t want this. I change my mind. Joachim!” I shouted.

  But it was too late. There was no turning back. Part of me was going to die like Jane did and part of me was going to live and explode out into the sky with large green wings. I was going to eat a cow. I was going to fly over my brother Evan’s house and poop on him. I laughed, cried, and screamed.

  “Can’t you do something?” Reed ground out and shifted to his human form to hold me.

  “Why can’t you be like this all the time?” I asked.

  “Like what?” he said.

  “Human,” I said and then the pain shot through me again. Pressure was building up inside me, and I was going to explode and take everyone around me with it.

  Reed flinched back at my words.

  “Stand back,” I said. “She’s going to blow.”

  “She’s hysterical,” Jack said.

  “Give her room to breathe,” Reed ordered.

  “That means you, too,” I said and gave myself up to the light.

  I never felt that blue, magical aura around me until it snapped off like a rubber band, stinging me deep into my soul. Jumping to my feet, I dimly heard Reed shout my name. The change was coming. It was agony, but I was grinning until my face hurt. My face was elongating. It was happening. I was finally happening. I would be able to fly and feel my wings glide against the air. I would be powerful and strong and my brother would have to eat crow for the rest of his life.

  There was a tremendous pulling sensation and the pressure and tension heat up inside me. My skin was being unzipped like a coat and then I saw it. The emerald-green dragon inside of me stepped forth and my human body flopped uselessly to the ground. She was lovely and huge. Her tail flipped over my body, and it was as thick as my torso with barbed spikes on the end. The other dragons in the sky bugled out their welcome of a new sister. Thank you! I cried as the pain faded and I was staring out at the glorious dragon. Jack and Niall nudged her and coddled her close. But Reed stayed in human form. He was studying my body. His stare was analytical and cold.

  “Arianna,” I mewled.

  The dragon glanced over her shoulder and gave me an apologetic shrug. Hot tears leaked out of my eyes. I was still human. I slapped the pavement and tried to get up. Reed rushed over to me, but I cringed back. I would not look at him, could not see the disgust or disdain, or worse, the indifference, in his eyes. My arms were weak, and I sank back down and laid my cheek on the asphalt. I watched her preening for her father and flirting with Jack.

  “She stole my dragon,” I whispered.

  “That’s impossible,” Reed said and I closed my eyes at the ache his words caused.

  “What’s to happen to me?” I asked, crying without a sound. Watching as my dream literally prepared to fly away.

  “Arianna will, of course, take Connecticut as her territory.”

  “Of course,” I said in a small voice and tried again to get up. I managed to push myself to a sitting position with shaking arms. I scrubbed at my eyes with the back of my hands.

  “You will come with me.”
>
  “Where? To Texas? Hoboken?”

  “Where ever you want,” he said.

  Reed tried to help me up, but I shook him off. “I don’t need your charity,” I said bitterly. Was it because I lost faith? Was it because in the last moment I wanted to be human? Did I blow my only chance at happiness?

  “We are grateful for your assistance in bringing my sister back to us.”

  “Did you know this would happen?” I asked, staring at my palms that still had bits of pavement stuck in them from the force of the shifting, although it wasn’t as much of a transformation, as I exploded a dragon out of my chest. I rubbed my chest. It was sore, but a broken heart will do that for you.

  “No, of course not. No one knew what Lerisse’s spell would do.”

  “At least that bitch died with it.”

  Reed closed his eyes. “Yes.”

  Why didn’t he take me in his arms?

  Clearing his throat, he said, “We are very grateful to you.”

  “We, who?”

  “All of us, the North American dragons.”

  “Which means what?” I snapped out at him.

  “You can ask us a boon, and we will grant it.”

  “Can I ask for you?”

  Reed frowned and glanced away. “I will stay with you. I already said I’m prepared to keep you with me. I may not be your consort, but I will stay with you.”

  “Will you be faithful?” My lips trembled. Maybe all wasn’t lost, after all.

  “There will be no other human for me.” He leaned in for a kiss, but I turned away.

  “What if a Queen wants you?”

  “I can’t say no.” He reached out to hold me, but I scooted away from him.

  “So, you will want to impregnate a Queen with your eggs?”

  “If I am chosen,” he said. “But it’s unlikely.” He took a step forward. I crawled backward.

  “Tell that to Mei Hua.”

  “Mei Hua has gone through a trauma. The last thing she’s looking for is a mate.”

  “But if she is. If she asks for you, you’ll go?”

  “I won’t want to,” he said.

  “But you’ll go.”