“Wait,” he said, “What are you going to do?”
“I’ll be right back,” I screamed, pumping my legs as fast as they would go. Sweat started to stream down my face, both from the heat of Lachlan’s fire and from my exertion. When I reached the door to the house, my shirt had sweat stains under the arms and under my bust. I threw open the door and hurled myself inside.
The air conditioning was cold, and I got goosebumps as I pushed myself through the dining room and back to the hallway that led into the rest of the house.
God, why was that hallway so long?
I ran as fast as I could, feet hitting the beige carpet with a thump as I rushed.
Past the bathroom, and its white tile.
Past the boys’ bedroom and their empty pack and plays. Past the bedroom where Vivica had been sleeping, the bed covered in a blue bedspread.
And finally, to the room Lachlan and I had been sharing. The first thing I saw was a white blouse on the floor. I’d draped it over a chair next to the bed, but it must have fallen off. I leaped over it and skidded to a stop in front of the bedside table on my side of the bed.
There was a box of tissues—the box was pink, the tissues white—an alarm clock that wasn’t plugged in, and a little jewelry box for a ring. I snatched that up and opened it. The gold band of the ring glittered in the light from the window. I took it out of the box.
I dropped it.
I fell to my knees, palm flat against the carpet, searching…
There. Cool, smooth metal.
I snatched up the ring and slid it on my finger. Then I jumped back to my feet and ran all the way back the way I had come.
In the dining room, Vivica appeared from the kitchen. “Should I get the boys in the car? Should we run?”
“Not yet,” I said. “But if we’re not back in ten minutes, then yes.” I slid open the sliding glass doors off the dining room and was sucked into the humid warmth of the summer day outside.
I could see Lachlan down by the lake. He’d shifted into a dragon, and he had all the other dragons with him. They were pouring fire at the water, which was alive with more than one of those white tentacled monsters. Now there were at least ten, their arms swinging through the air like demented octopuses.
The dragons were breathing fire at the things, making them retreat, but each time one went under the water, another one seemed to pop up to take its place.
One of the monsters tentacles seemed to have taken on solid form. Instead of bursting into water when they hit, the white tentacles had wrapped around one of the rogue dragons. The tentacles resembled flexible ice, and they tugged the dragon down, down. It flapped its wings, clawed and breathed fire, trying to get free, but the monster was stronger. It opened its wide, white mouth and swallowed the dragon whole.
My heart raced. What the hell were these things? How were we going to fight them?
In order for me to shift as well, I’d have to get in the water, and I wasn’t sure what would happen to me if I dove in there with those things, so I didn’t. Besides, I’d just seen what one could do to a rogue, and I wasn’t any stronger than one of them in dragon form.
“Lachlan!” I screamed up at him. He was in the air, flapping his wings and reigning down scorching fire on the monsters. “Whiteflame!”
He heard me. He dove down for me, alighting next to me, raising one red claw to put it on my shoulder.
I felt his essence join mine and I threw out a hand, letting our combined power flow through us. The bright white flame burst out of us, but it was different than it had been before. Now, there were red and purple accents inside the flames, and the heat of it was so intense that the grass around the lake all withered and turned brown immediately.
The white heat surged out and licked around the tentacles and heads of the monsters. They shrieked.
And then they all exploded into puffs of steam.
The water went quiet again.
We waited.
And waited.
But they didn’t resurface.
* * *
“You feel evil?” said Lachlan. “Any desires to compel people, rule the world, have sex in inappropriate places?”
“No, no, and no,” I said, regarding the ring on my finger. “It seems like this thing works.” Even though Lachlan was naked now, having just shifted out of dragon form, and he did look pretty darned good without clothes on.
“Let’s hope,” said Lachlan. “You want to do another few little exercises just to be sure?”
“Fine,” I said.
We were still standing by the lake, and Lachlan’s rogues were flying overhead in a circle around us. Lachlan gestured and they all flew to the ground. He went to the edge of the lake and picked up his pants. He tugged them on, but one of the legs had been singed off, so they weren’t really wearable. Still, they covered the important bits.
We held hands. We sent a blot of whiteflame—this new, supercharged hot whiteflame—at a nearby tree. The tree lit up a brilliant orange, perfectly outlined. Each leaf, each branch was a glowing cinder. And then we let go and the bright cinders all dissipated into the air and there was nothing left. We’d incinerated the tree.
Lachlan raised an eyebrow at me. “Still good?”
“Still good,” I said. “I don’t think we need to test it anymore. We do want to leave some trees in your father’s backyard.”
“And some grass,” said Lachlan, pointing. The path of the whiteflame to the tree had burned the grass away completely. There was a big black scorch mark on the ground and smoke was rising from it.
Wary, we both turned back to the lake, waiting for more monsters to appear in it. But none did.
Finally, we trudged back to the house.
We found Vivica and the boys standing at the door. She had the keys in one hand as if she was ready to drive off at a moment’s notice.
“Oh,” she said when she saw us, “you guys are okay.” Then she gulped. “You are okay, right? Because didn’t you say that using that whiteflame stuff makes you both go nuts?”
“We’re okay,” I said. “I have a special ring.”
“And the things in the water?”
“They’re gone,” said Lachlan.
“I don’t think we should stay here any longer,” she said. “That lake is bad news.”
“It’s not the lake,” I said. “The Green King can follow us anywhere there’s water.”
“That’s our theory, anyway,” said Lachlan. “We could leave here, but we wouldn’t be safe anywhere.”
Vivica’s hands were shaking. “Oh, God,” she said. “Oh, my God.”
“No,” I said. “It’s okay. The whiteflame works.”
“Yeah, and it seems even more powerful than it ever was before,” said Lachlan. “I know that Wyatt was destined to have these powers, but I have to say, I can’t understand why, because they aren’t enough against the monsters, and what we have together is.”
“I was thinking something similar,” I said.
“It’s almost as if I was always meant to have these powers,” said Lachlan.
“Yeah, I thought that too,” I said. “But then I started thinking about you and me together, and the truth is that we fight our destiny. I refused to stay with my destined mate. We both refused to be drawn into the evil siren song of the blood bond. You refused to let Wyatt be the blood dragon. We’re the ones who are deciding our own futures.”
He smiled. “Yeah, okay, maybe you’re right. Our choices are better than anything that’s meant to be.”
“Yes,” I said. “And I think that together, we can face the Green King. Maybe we can do better than just going and defending Corpus Christi. Maybe we can actually take the fight to the Green King himself. Go on the offensive instead of the defensive.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” said Vivica. “I mean, I thought this guy was really bad news.”
“That’s why it’s a good idea,” said Lachlan. “Actually a great idea. Because we need all
the advantages that we can get, and attacking him when he’s not expecting it is definitely an advantage.”
Vivica threw up her hands. “Well, God knows that I have no idea what you two should do. But if you’re going to be here, fighting those monsters, then I think I should take the boys as far away as possible.”
“No,” I said. “What if something comes after you? You’re not as capable of protecting them on your own as we all are together.”
Vivica stuck out her chin. “I’m a dragon, same as you.”
“When was the last time you shifted?” I countered.
“I’ll shift before we go,” she said. “And anyway, what if something happens to you two? It obviously took the Green King some time to find you when we all came here. Isn’t that what we decided the message meant when it showed up in the lake before? So, if I go somewhere with the boys, it will have to look for us.”
I was quiet.
Lachlan rubbed his forehead. “She might be right, Penny. They might be safer if they hide.”
“I think they’d be safer where we could protect them,” I said.
“We’re not going to take Wyatt with us when we go after the Green King,” said Lachlan.
No, I guessed we weren’t.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “Maybe it makes sense.” I reached down and picked up Wyatt and held him tight, pressing my cheek against his. He pushed me away, wrinkling up his nose. “But we don’t even know how to get to the Green King.”
“I thought you went and got Santa Claus from the Green King,” said Lachlan.
“We did,” I said, “but Dasher was the one who got us there, and it’s not like we can get back into that spirit realm or whatever.”
“You think the Green King is in a spirit realm?”
“No, but Dasher is,” I said. “So we can’t ask her to tell us the way. He’s on some island somewhere. It was out in the middle of the ocean, in the regular world. If we could find him, that’s where we’d have to fight him. And we didn’t even see him when we were there. We just fought one of the water monsters.”
“So, what are you saying?” said Vivica. “If you can’t get to the Green King, then I shouldn’t take the boys?”
“Well, I don’t know what the point would be,” I said.
“You’re still going to fight, aren’t you?” said Vivica. “Whether it’s in Corpus Christi or on some island, you’re going to do it.”
I sighed, squeezing Wyatt again. “I guess you’re right.” I kissed him on the forehead and started to set him down.
But Lachlan took Wyatt from me and hugged him tightly too.
Wyatt struggled again. He didn’t like being captured by our arms, unable to move.
And just like that, I had an idea. I sucked in breath. “I know how we can find the Green King.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Where’s Logan?” Connor was saying.
There was a crowd of us gathered in the house that Naelen had rented. It was this huge thing on the ocean, and apparently, he’d gotten it for a song considering no one wanted to be at the beach in Corpus Christi with killer waves coming. The house had three levels and maybe ten bedrooms, but we were all gathered in the living room, which also opened onto a recreational room with a pool table and a wet bar. We sat on white couches and white easy chairs, flanked by a white rug and a glass-topped coffee table. We stared out a wide window ahead of us that gave us a view of the crashing surf.
It was after midnight. Connor and Felicity had just arrived.
Felicity was floating in their luggage. “Little help here?” she asked Connor.
Connor turned and gestured with one hand. All his suitcases piled up against one wall in a neat row. Then he turned back to Clarke. “So, where’s my fellow gargoyle?”
“He’s, uh, not coming,” said Clarke. “It’s a long story.”
“Damn it,” said Connor. “What’s up with that? I thought I was going to have hot gargoyle to ogle. I never have hot gargoyle to ogle. I don’t have any hot guys to ogle except Lachlan.” He gave Lachlan a perfunctory eye-to-toe glance. “And that’s starting to feel incestuous, because he’s Lachlan.”
Naelen cocked his head to one side. He was standing behind one of the couches. “You’re gay.”
“You didn’t pick that up before?” said Connor. “And, uh, hello.”
Naelen cleared his throat.
Connor came around the couch where I was sitting and flopped down next to me. “Why don’t you have any other gay friends, hmm? I’m like the token fag.”
“Don’t call yourself that,” I said. “And we have Christy. She’s a lesbian.”
“It would be nice,” said Connor, “if there were lots of hot gay guys for me to ogle at these things.”
Naelen cleared his throat. “Um, forgive me, but should any of us be ogling at all?”
Clarke shot him a look full of menace. “Wishing your mate was around?”
Oh, crap. So, Naelen had met his mate. I’d warned Clarke that once that happened, there would be nothing he could do about his overwhelming feelings. As far as I knew, I was the only dragon who’d ever left a destined mate, and I hadn’t had an easy time of it.
Naelen paled. “You’re going to bring that up in front of everyone?” He looked at me. “Didn’t you ask us here to help with violence or something?”
Felicity scampered around the couch and sat down next to Connor. “Yeah, what’s the plan? How do we vanquish the Green King?”
“Well,” I said, “mostly what we need to do right now is wait.”
“Wait?” said Connor. “You serious?”
Lachlan nodded. He was sitting on another couch. “We’ve got to wait for him to attack us first.”
“And then what?” said Felicity.
I leaned forward. “Well, and then I have a plan. So, gather up, everyone. I’ll tell you what I’m thinking.”
* * *
I talked for a long time, giving them all the details that Lachlan and I had worked out. Occasionally, Lachlan would break in to clarify something that I hadn’t explained properly. But for the most part, I was the only one talking. Everyone else was silent.
And then I finally finished. “And so, that’s what we’re going to do.”
“Wait, what?” said Clarke. “You called us here for that? You don’t even need us.”
“We do need you,” I said. “But I guess if you do need to go, we could make it work without you.”
“No,” said Clarke, “I’m not saying that I want to leave. I’m saying that we want to do more. You’re going to need more than what you’re asking of us.”
“I don’t like it either, Penny,” said Felicity. “It’s too dangerous for you and Lachlan.”
“It’s not,” said Lachlan.
“Yeah,” I said. “Did you miss the part where he can turn into a dragon and breathe really hot fire these days?”
“Maybe that will be enough. But what if things don’t go the way you’re hoping? What if they just try to kill us all?”
“Worst case,” I said, “we have the whiteflame.”
“Look,” said Lachlan, “it’s a good plan. And it’s going to work. All we need to know is if you guys are on board.”
They exchanged glances, and there were sighs all around, but eventually, they all agreed that they were in.
And we set out to wait.
Most of us went to sleep, but we needed to have someone keep watch on the shore in case there was any activity. We needed to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. Since Connor would be awake the rest of the night, he volunteered to take the first shift.
Lachlan and I had a bedroom on the top floor of the house. The entire wall facing the ocean was made of glass.
We slid between the sheets and gazed through the glass at the dark ocean outside.
Lachlan’s voice was quiet. “This the kind of place you always vacationed when you were a dragon? Something glitzy like this?”
I snorted. “Dragons don’
t vacation in Texas.”
He rolled onto his side, grinning at me and adopting a shocked tone. “You don’t have attitude about Texas, do you?”
“I’m just saying that the only people who come to the beach in Texas are people who live in Texas.You Texans think you’re too good for the rest of us, staying in state for vacation instead of going somewhere else. ”
“Well, when your states are the size of a postage stamp, like they are in New England, you’ve got to get out of your state to go anywhere.”
We grinned at each other, but there was a nervous undercurrent to our teasing.
I pressed close to him. “We can do this, can’t we?”
“Well, the fate of the world depends on it,” he said. “So, no pressure or anything.”
* * *
But late that night, I woke up from an awful dream that I couldn’t quite remember. I knew that Wyatt had been involved and that seaweed had been involved, and that was basically all I really wanted to remember. I wanted to drive all thoughts of it from my head.
Lachlan was fast asleep next to me, and it seemed cruel to wake him, so I got out of bed, tugged on a robe and went wandering downstairs. I thought I’d tell Connor that he could be relieved from keeping watch, and that I’d take over for however much longer the night was.
But by the time I got downstairs, the sky was already starting to lighten. It wasn’t late at night, but actually very early morning. And Connor was gone from the post at the window in the living room, and instead Naelen was there. He was clutching a mug of steaming coffee, wearing a t-shirt and a pair of drawstring pants. I guess he’d just woken up.
He heard me coming across the room and turned. “Penny,” he said. “What are you doing up?”
“I had a bad dream,” I said. “Thought I’d volunteer to take over watching here.”
“Beat you to it,” he said.
“Yeah, I see that.”
He held up his mug. “You want coffee?”
“I’ll make it,” I said. “You’re keeping watch.” I backed away from him and padded through an enormous dining room with a table big enough to fit at least twenty-five people. I went into the kitchen, which was pretty formidable as well. Stainless steel appliances, a six-burner stove, and an industrial-sized sink. The coffee maker was on of those kinds that you put the pods into. I kept thinking about getting one myself. I wondered if it was going to be difficult to figure out how to use it.
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