by Riley Storm
“Okay, so that’s good, right? Where’s the bad in all that?” Cheryl wanted to know.
“Valla said he wanted to be there, to help, and I told him no. That I was going to raise the child on my own, without him. That I couldn’t risk him not being there.” Liz looked skyward for a moment in recollection, wondering if she’d made the right decision. It felt right to her. Didn’t it?
“Let me guess,” Cheryl said dryly. “He didn’t take that too well, did he?”
“I didn’t give him much of a chance to say anything,” she admitted. “I kind of cut him off, brought him back in here to have the meeting. I didn’t want to let him try to convince me otherwise.”
Cheryl was silent for a moment, thinking. “And why do you think you did that?”
Liz didn’t follow, letting her face do the talking.
“Why do you think you just cut him off and didn’t give him a chance to argue?” Cheryl explained.
“Because I’d made my decision,” Liz said, rocking back in her chair, looking curiously at her boss and friend, and the future aunt of her unborn child. “You know this. I told you this. Why do I feel like you’re changing your mind now?”
Liz had thought Cheryl would be in her corner. She didn’t have much of a support team otherwise. A few friends here and there, but there wasn’t anybody else to turn to. When the two of them had begun to grow closer, it had been a blessing for Liz, one she hadn’t meant to do anything to jeopardize.
But now she had to wonder, was Cheryl changing her mind because she knew who Valla was now? Would she go to backing him because he was Victor’s brother?
“I’m not changing my mind,” Cheryl said gently. “I’m trying to get you to think through your decisions thoroughly. To understand why you’re making them. So that you make the right one.”
“Basically, you think I’m making the wrong one,” Liz stated, feeling a little irritated that Cheryl wasn’t just backing her decision to cut Valla out of the child’s life like she had before.
“I honestly don’t know,” Cheryl told her. “I’ve met Valla before, but that doesn’t mean I truly know who he is as a person. Only Victor and Aaric do. I can ask them if you’d like…”
“What? No!” Liz said, her frustration growing. “I made my decision. Why isn’t that good enough for you? I need someone who can be there, who will be there. Someone I can trust. That isn’t Valla. I’m sorry. It just isn’t.”
“All I’m saying Liz, is that you don’t know him. Don’t know who or what he is.” Cheryl bit her lip and looked away.
“What do you mean?” Liz pressed, wondering what it was that her friend had been about to say.
“You need to ask him,” Cheryl said, still looking the other direction. “Talk to him. I…”
“I can’t believe you,” Liz said, feeling tears well up in the corners of her eyes. Why was she crying? This wasn’t something worth crying over! She wasn’t that upset. Just a little frustrated with her friend.
“Are you okay?” Cheryl asked, sitting upright abruptly, looking concerned.
“I’m fine,” she said, hating the way her voice sounded. “Must be pregnancy hormones or some other crap.”
Cheryl smiled patiently. “I’m still your friend, Liz. I’m just urging you—now you know who he is, where to find him, that sort of thing—to get all the information before you make a decision. That’s all.”
“I’ve made a decision,” she said, knowing it sounded petulant, but not rightly caring.
“I know. Just think this over,” Cheryl said, pulling a little pouch of tissues from her bag. “If Valla really isn’t reliable or a good father type, then no harm done. You’ve already told him he’s not going to be involved. But what if you’re wrong?”
Liz bit her lip.
She didn’t have an answer to that one.
“No matter your decision, I’ll be your friend, and I’ll support it,” Cheryl told her, packing up her bag.
“Thank you. I really appreciate that. More than perhaps you can imagine,” Liz said.
“I know there’s something you aren’t telling me,” Cheryl said, looking down at the table as she put stuff into her bag. “Something personal. I can see it in your eyes. If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here for you, okay?”
“Thanks,” she said again, not really sure what else to say.
Cheryl slung the bag strap over her shoulder and walked around the table yet again. Liz got up and accepted the hug she saw coming, more thankful for this woman than ever before.
“Anytime. Any issue,” Cheryl said, then walked out, leaving Liz to her own private thoughts.
The thing of it was, Cheryl wasn’t wrong.
There was more to it that Liz wasn’t telling her. That she wasn’t telling anyone. But she didn’t have to. This was her life and her decision to make.
And she was going to make whatever one would provide for the best possible upbringing for her child.
Because nobody should have to go through what she had.
8
They rode home the entire way in silence.
“You seem…upset,” Valla finally remarked as Victor guided the SUV into the underground parking garage, taking it past several rows of sleek exotic sports cars before pulling up next to a half-dozen or so other nondescript SUV’s in various colors.
“Upset? Why would I be upset?” Victor said with a laugh, killing the engine and getting out, heading immediately for the elevator that would take them to the main floor. “No, I have no need to be upset. Do I?”
Valla hesitated a long moment before getting in the enclosed space with the water dragon. The ride out of Plymouth Falls and back to Drakon Keep had been long enough, and he wasn’t sure he could stomach the pious holier-than-thou attitude of Victor for much longer. Still, it was not like whatever was brewing was going to go away anytime soon.
May as well get it over with, I suppose. No sense in dragging it out.
With a heavy sigh, he got into the elevator.
“Already acting like you’re the one being hard done by?” Victor snapped in response to the sound.
“It’s better than acting like I’m some perfect angel who’s never made a mistake, and thinks he’s better than everyone else,” Valla shot back, not willing to back down.
The doors shut and the elevator shuddered into an upward motion as it ascended toward the main floor of the Keep.
“At least my mistakes didn’t involve sneaking out of the House, nearly revealing our secret to the entire world, and then knocking up some random!” Victor’s voice was little more than a snarl. “She doesn’t even know what she’s carrying, Valla. How do you plan to tell her that?”
“I haven’t thought that through yet,” he ground out. “But I’ll figure it out.”
“So typical of you. You don’t think through anything!” Victor said with disgust as the doors opened and he went to step out.
“I thought through this,” Valla said, not caring that it was a lie.
“Through what?” Victor said, spinning around.
Valla’s fist flashed up and out, cracking the water dragon across the jaw and throwing him down the hallway where he bounced and rolled until he came to a stop, aided by a pair of tree-trunk-like legs that simply did not move when they were hit.
“Not again,” a soft voice moaned from off to the side.
Turning, Valla saw Francis, the Drakon family steward retreating from the hallway, likely to someplace safer.
Wise move.
“Am I interrupting something?” Aaric asked, stepping over Victor’s downed figure.
The water dragon wouldn’t be out of it for long, but he’d been caught completely unprepared and Valla had flattened him. That just left him with Aaric, if the fire dragon decided to get involved. Valla had no idea. However, he knew that Aaric was a much bigger foe than Victor, who was also no walkover.
“Just showing Victor that I sometimes think through the consequences of my actions,” he said
, casually brushing off a knuckle.
Behind Aaric, Victor got to one knee, shaking his head.
“I take it the meeting with the city went well then?” Aaric drawled, rolling his eyes skyward in clear disgust.
“The meeting went fine,” Victor said, speaking up. “It was the revelation that our little brother’s escapade into the city several months back resulted in some unintended consequences. Or will, in another six months.”
Aaric frowned in confusion at first, looking over his shoulder at Victor, then back to Valla. It wasn’t long before comprehension dawned on him, however, and his full attention turned to the ice dragon.
Well shit. So much for smoothing things over.
“You sired a child with one of the humans?” he asked very quietly. “A dragon child?”
Valla hung his head, though not out of defeat, but out of frustration. “I didn’t mean to,” he growled. “It was an accident. I’ll handle it.”
Aaric sputtered. “You’ll handle it? And exactly how are you intending to do that, I wonder? Since you seem to have done such a masterful job of handling things so far.”
“I’m going to get to know her, and then when the time is right, I’ll show her what I truly am.” He spoke bluntly, without hesitation. Why was this so hard to understand?
“Right,” Aaric said. “Of course, you will. What, might I ask, are you going to do if she doesn’t take to this news? If she denies it. What about later, when the child begins to mature and learns to commune with his dragon? To become one of us. If proof of that ever gets out, Valla, the consequences could be disastrous.”
“I know that, Aaric. It’s not like that’s any different than it was a hundred years ago. If it comes to it, I’ll…” he hesitated, not wanting to say the words.
“You’ll what?” Aaric pressed, stepping closer, letting true fires blaze in his eyes. “Can you do it? Can you bring yourself to imprison her here, against her will? How will that affect things I wonder? Do you have the stomach for it? What if you require more extreme, methods? Will you go to any lengths to protect our secret?”
The dragons did not like openly talking about it. In fact, they often skirted the subject, knowing full well that occasional dire circumstances required action that made them feel dirty, being full at odds with their desired mission to protect humanity.
Valla snarled and punched a hand into his own fist. Icicles shattered and fell to the ground, a sign of his growing anger. “It won’t come to that,” he insisted.
“You. Cannot. Know,” Aaric said, emphasizing every word. “That is why you must be careful! You must take precautions.”
“I did,” he snapped. “I did everything. This isn’t my first time being with a human you know. I’ve never had this happen before. It shouldn’t have, especially with her being on birth control.”
“Well it can, and it did. Now you have created a mess that we must help you clean up,” Victor said, walking up behind Aaric.
“Nobody asked you to intervene in my life!” Valla shouted at his brother, taking a step forward.
“You did, Valla, when you acted like a child who needs to be parented, that cannot be trusted,” Aaric said.
Valla’s anger snapped, and he lashed out.
A blunted spike of ice extended from the end of his fist as he punched Aaric square in the face. The fire dragon’s nose broke and blood began to flow almost immediately as the big shifter reeled backward in surprise.
Water hissed at him in a tight spray, but Valla let it come. Scales the color of pure snow rose from his skin. As the water hit him, it sprayed across the near-albino creature, freezing instantly into a myriad pattern of spikes, all of which seemed to be pointing forward.
At Victor.
With a roar, Valla unleashed the barrage, and Victor was forced to cut off the stream of water to dodge the attack.
They never made it to their target. A sheet of fire erupted between the two fighting dragons, and the spikes simply exploded into a cloud of steam. Victor flicked his hand and the cloud whipped back at Valla, surrounding him in its superheated embrace.
He roared in fury and fell to one knee.
The other two hesitated, believing him to be surrendering, but he was simply redirecting his efforts. The steam cloud disappeared as he cooled it faster than nature could ever handle, and sent it flowing into the floor.
Victor had a moment to realize what was happening before weaving tendrils of ice ripped through the carpet and circled about him, closing fast in their tight embrace, sealing the water dragon in a ball of ice.
It wouldn’t hold him forever, but now Aaric couldn’t risk freeing his ally without hurting Victor either. Leaving the two of them to square off.
“Stand down,” the fire dragon growled, his voice deeper, more melodious as he spoke in tune with his dragon.
“You aren’t in charge of me,” Valla stated bluntly. “You cannot control me, or what I do. So stop acting like it!”
“We’re doing what’s best for you,” Aaric said. “The world is different, and you needed to learn about it before you went out into it. We never intended to control your life after that. Only you, through your rash, immature actions, have shown us that you cannot be trusted.”
“I don’t need your trust!” Valla screamed. “You are not in charge! You are not an elder. You are not the King of our House. You’re not even on the Council. None of the Council is awake! You’re but a member, like me. You do not get to order me around. At all. Get that through your head!”
He lashed out, his fury overwhelming any remaining restraint, striking Aaric before the fire dragon could respond to the argument. Not that any argument would make sense, of course, because Valla was right. There was a Council that ruled over the dragons, over all of House Draconis. The King was in charge. None of the three dragons currently awake had a spot on the Council, and without it, they had no ability to order others around.
Valla had put up with their bossy ways for long enough, but now that he’d completed their course and could confidently call himself up to speed on the new world he inhabited, he was growing tired of their restraints. They weren’t his parents. He owed them nothing.
Ice met fire, and the room disappeared around them as it filled with steam and smoke. Neither side could gain an advantage, though Valla wasn’t so naïve as to think that would last. Aaric would—once he took a moment to analyze the situation—likely wipe the floor with him.
The fire dragon had nearly two centuries on him. Two centuries to hone his power, to grow stronger, for dragons continued to increase in strength until they reached the last decade or so of their lives, at which point they faltered rapidly. There was no slow decline for their species.
In all likelihood, he’s just trying to figure out how to do this without hurting me.
A giant crack echoed down the hallway, and abruptly Valla knew what had happened. He hadn’t been holding off Aaric’s full powers as he’d thought, but instead, Aaric had held him off, while he worked to free Victor at the same time.
“Aww crap.”
It was all he had time to mutter before a wave of water surged out of the fog and smashed into him. It moved faster than rapids, tumbling Valla around and around as he bounced off walls, and the ceiling, and the floor.
He slammed into something rather hard that left him woozy. A moment later, he realized it had been the massive brass front doors of Drakon Keep.
Several seconds later, they gave way under the pressure and Valla spilled out into the circular driveway and courtyard beyond as the water dissipated.
He tried to get to his feet but had only reached his knees before a blistering—literally—fist crunched into his jaw, dropping him to his face.
A moment later, darkness closed in and he passed out.
9
The wind immediately caught her hair and messed up what little sense of style she’d been able to impart on it.
Sighing in frustration and knowing there was absolutely not
hing she could do about it, Liz stepped out of her little hatchback and looked around. The first thing she noticed was the assault on her ears from the noise of various construction equipment. The second was the progress that had been made in six months of work.
“I really need to get out here more often,” she remarked to nobody in particular, relishing the warmth of the sun as it washed over her, working to dispel some of the chill of the cool day.
“Won’t be long before we have larger amounts of snow and they have to stop working.”
She turned to see Cheryl walking over from a little mobile building that looked like a smaller version of a school portable.
“Well they certainly have made impressive progress already,” she replied, looking around.
The Drakon Family Outreach Center was going to be a one-of-its-kind facility that would house all sorts of services and equipment for the people of Plymouth Falls, all of it paid for by the Drakon Family.
Valla’s family.
She immediately tensed at the thought of Valla, his scruff and his icy-blue eyes, then scolded herself for letting him have such a hold over her. He’s just a man. Nothing more. You don’t need to react like that to his name or the thought of him. Grow up!
“Thanks for coming out,” Cheryl said, gesturing to follow her back to the little office building on wheels.
“I’ve actually never been here,” she said. “Not since the ground-breaking ceremony. I only realized that when you asked me to come by. I see pictures, I read reports, sign forms, but I’ve not actually laid my own eyes on the progress. It’s bigger than I imagined.”
“They certainly don’t do things small,” Cheryl said with a little smile. “But it’s not all good.”
Liz’s eyebrows went up as the smile disappeared, replaced by a scowl. That wasn’t a look she saw on her boss’s face all that often. When she did, however, it meant something was wrong and not immediately fixable.