A Dragon’s Witch

by Tina Glasneck

  I hadn’t been one of those in centuries, though.

  In my reception dress of tulle and lace, I attempted to enjoy the moment. Such fine fabric back then wouldn’t have been so easily available, I chided myself. After all, living now afforded me certain pleasures and comforts not known then. History was so romanticized, with their dashing knights and ladies in distress.

  Not every lady-in-waiting had a handsome knight arrive in time, though. Again, I pushed down those sullen thoughts, and rubbed the back of my neck.

  My existence now, was not for me, but for the gods. I was a Chosen One, a hand of the gods who worked on their behalf. And this was no easy feat. I’d laid down my life on an altar long ago, but still deep in the recesses of my mind, something fluttered. A discontent I’d dared not poke, like a sleeping bear in a cave. It was more likely to devour me, than lead me to peace.

  As I embraced well-wishers and tried not to recall what it was I’d wanted way back when, back when I was truly a young woman in my twenties—a spinster, really, at those standards with a short life expectancy—and not a woman of more than five hundred years, like now.

  Immortality was a fool’s gift. It came with an awful price.

  I could still recall when Henry VIII wed Anne Boleyn, even more when she’d lost her heart and her head.

  Such love was not worth it.

  Over the years, those of the crown had grown more and more in the shadows. I followed the various houses as assigned, as the Chosen indeed had faithful servants on all continents and in all kingdoms to act as the hands of the gods.

  The ravens of Odin flew around to report, and the Chosen, a division of the Valkyrie, acted in instances of cleansing, and making sure the stars truly aligned.

  Yet today, I couldn’t get my body to quite function. My skin crawled as if wishing for me to shed it. Phony? Fake? I dug my nails into my arm leaving a trail of scratches where my dress did not cover.

  Only a few knew the real me, as they were magical, too. In this world, we didn’t belong.

  I gripped my bouquet, unable to release it. The lovely nosegay bouquet, with a splash of color from the wild lupine, was the only thing which reminded me of home, a time and place I often longed for more.

  “Abele, here,” my new husband called out my name, and to his side I went. To many, he might have been dapper, handsome even. But he was a bad penny, and no matter how much I tried to spit-shine him, nothing changed.

  I could go on and on about what he lacked, but this failure and sham of a marriage wasn’t his fault, but the gods.

  A part of me wanted to race toward the nearest cliff and jump in order to see if I could finally die. This was neither a love match, an arranged marriage, nor a marriage of convenience. This was a marriage ordered by the gods to occur.

  Following orders. Always following orders.

  But never answering prayers.

  I’d watched temples burn, the faithful perish. I’d listened as we were pushed further and further into the underbelly and hidden realms of society, always moving like shadows. Working alone.

  If it hadn’t been for Erich, my brother in all but blood, I may have lost it centuries ago.

  I observed him and Jaz, the destined dragon queen, head out of the reception hall, all to the laughter of those left behind. They didn’t know this was their awakening and the beginning of their shared fate. A bumpy road it would be.

  A part of me pushed down what this now meant, this change of having to let go.

  A rousing polka started, and Shem took my hand, and together we danced as those gathered clapped and joined in. Around and around he turned me. The room spun.

  It should have been the happiest day of my life. I’d gone along with the plans, an unwilling lamb led to the slaughter to marry a man based on the orders from command, but it wasn’t the wedding I wanted. Especially not the groom. It was an arrangement, as declared and decreed upon for the greater good.

  But not my greater good.

  The dance ended with a smile and the loud music then blasted the latest pop hit. Guests tossed back alcoholic drinks, and ate decadent desserts. Despite the volume inside, I heard the commotion outside.

  It started out like a hum, like a pesky mosquito whizzing by. The air sizzled and crackled with expectancy, and the air stank of burnt popcorn: death magic. You must protect the queen!

  Easing away from my bridegroom, still all smiles, I dipped away.

  Under the night sky, the large harvest moon still hung. Laughter and happy voices were all around me. But still, so alone, a longing settled over me like I’d not had in centuries.

  The face of the one I’d loved drifted before my eyes, and the sense of loss overwhelmed me. My eyes welled. I quickly wiped the unshed tears away.

  His name was whispered on the wind.

  I made my way into the courtyard, hiked up my dress where my blades were strapped to my thighs. And rounding the bend, I saw him.

  He was venomous.

  He was life.

  And together, those two couldn’t survive.

  But no matter how much I opened up a vein, how much I poured out my soul to him as a waiting vessel; the more I gave, the more he took.

  Some things weren’t worth crying over: love was one of them. I couldn’t make him love me or for me to be enough. This was our curtain call, and I would give him nothing more, I promised.

  I’d given him a chance at life after all and felt guilty about it every damn day.

  I hoped he’d find heartbreak; I wanted him to feel damned like me. Still, I lied to myself. I wanted him to soar, to have the best of it all, even if it meant without me.

  Over the years, the thought he’d come to say thanks disappeared. I wondered less about him, and as the decades soared by, hurt crusted over, leaving only scars. I pushed it all so deep down and cursed it. Nothing could grow in the soil of my heart where his love might have fertilized.

  Maybe one day, I’d be free to not worry about what could have been, or what should have been. I’d been thinking about him for five hundred years, and those years of pining away had brought me nothing but bittersweet heartache. I’d built up walls that no one could scale, leaving a secret path through, in hopes he might show up and want to scale them.

  I’d considered my options. I wasn’t a vampire. I wouldn’t turn into a heap of ash once this heart stopped beating. But this was enough. This shit of killing or being killed was wearing me down.

  I had nothing to live for. Killing vampires didn’t scratch the itch of purpose and destiny. In comparison, I was like those soulless monsters. They fed on the women outside of the clubs. I killed things, too, to stay alive.

  Surrounded by sinners, they still all reminded me of saints. I passed through the throngs of people, invisible. My tally of kills grew. But I wasn’t free.

  The chokehold of immortality squeezed out the hope for better.

  Until I saw him again.

  Confident, he moved like he owned the space. My heart’s hiccup betrayed me.

  It was not love at first sight. I remembered what unrequited love was. The way he smelled, like he’d stepped out of the forest—a mixture of pine and sunlight. The way his gray eyes were flecked with silver. Even more, the lilt of his laughter. Yep, even after one hundred eighty-two thousand, and five hundred days, I recalled what it felt like to be baptized in his gaze, and to love him as one does a first love.

  I rubbed the back of my neck and glanced away.

  He burned me, scorched me to the core, where no one since him had compared. I pushed down the lump in my throat. His nearness was not to affect me. I could be a mature adult. I could pretend that he’d never meant anything to me.

  He was even more beautiful than I remembered.

  He had to take me for a fool. Broken clocks and all, as time meant nothing to the immortal.

  My whole life had been about playing pretend, after all.

  Standing there across from him, my worst fears came to fruition. I wasn’t suppo
sed to remember: the feel of his eternal bite on my neck, or the way he’d lied and made me believe and hope. Not his fault, though, as I’d lied to myself, too. I thought I was good enough. I thought I loved him enough to fix our mistakes. Love might repair the broken, just like unrequited love damned the hopeful.

  Whoosh. My knees shook; my hands lost their strength, and I could barely muffle the cry on my lips. It was like all of the air was sucked from my lungs, and I’d forgotten what it was like to breathe, walk, think.

  There, charging toward Erich, my brother, and his beloved (and my best friend) Jaz, was my one regret.

  Dressed in black leather, his hair windblown and swept behind him, he was the most beautiful of men I’d ever seen. Too beautiful.

  On his handsome, chiseled face, was a rage I knew too well.

  There he finally was: Leif, the man I loved, and who’d I’d made into a vampire.

  Chapter Three

  Tink

  Two weeks later

  I served the gods, and the one rule had always been: protect the Dragon Queen.

  Yep, I knew she’d become Queen before a crown ever set on her head.

  That didn’t make it any easier, though. I followed the letters of the orders, as propounded by the gods and my faith. Assigned to protect her had gotten me into the situation of marrying the man who repulsed me to my core, but orders were orders. When the gods ordered a trust fall, I threw out my arms and obeyed. I knew they’d catch me.

  My rule thus far had been: don’t get attached. And until I met Jaz, I’d lived by such a motto. After all, how many times had I had to move around, assume another identity (made increasingly more and more difficult with technology), practice my aging make-up until it appeared believable, and keeping this heart cold and frozen?

  But when I met Jaz, the one the gods assigned me to help, I almost cried in relief. Life made no sense if you didn’t have anyone to share it with.

  And for the first time since my new birth, I didn’t have to fake the funk. No more dirty looks. No more apologizing for social faux pas. I could be me. All thanks to a phone call that made it possible for me to skedaddle out of a marriage that meant more on paper than it ever would in this heart.

  “Should I congratulate the happy couple? You must be his wife,” the chick on the other end of the line said. Her voice hadn’t sounded surprised when I answered Shem’s phone any more than her sigh of acceptance.

  “Excuse me? Who’s this?”

  She laughed. “He calls me butterscotch.”

  “Ugh, nasty. I guess you never took a look on Urban Dictionary to see what it means. If he called you Butterface you’d probably take it as a compliment, too.” I could hear the woman pause. Some men never learned what love meant, and Shem was one of them. But I wouldn’t feel worthless.

  “I’ve been waiting for a chance to talk with you. To hear what you have that I don’t.” Her voice was raspy and husky, like she smoked three packs of cigarettes a day, with a Northern Boston lilt.

  I’d married him for all of the wrong reasons, and despite the trainload of lies he uttered every night, I wanted to believe in the beauty of the world he’d wished me to embrace—unbeknownst to me, when he said “I do,” it was something he’d been saying to a slew of other women.

  “Yeah, and has nothing to do with you being another woman, or his tool. He’s not going to play me against you. I’m not mad at you, but him. But thanks for calling me. He can go ahead and enjoy himself, and you can, too. I don’t think I care as much as you want me to.”

  In Shem’s overstuffed leather chair, in the apartment I’d called home and shared with him for the better part of the last three years, I sat in the dark and waited for the sound of his key turning in the lock. And still held the phone.

  “Hello? Are you still there?”

  No matter what assignment I’d been given, I’d been faithful in my execution, biding my time as they ordered me to. And now, here I was filled with power but supposed to act powerless.

  “If you want him, have at it.” Click. I wasn’t sorry for my answer. I might be immortal, but I didn’t have time for bad relationships.

  There would be no apologizing. I’d let him get too close, and in it, I’d let him hurt me.

  I retrieved my wand from its sheath, after all, I needed such to always be handy. I casually rolled it along my knuckles sparking fire, until a blue flame grew and danced on my fingertips. The brand new China dishes rose and fell, crashed into the exposed brick wall and shattered into hundreds of pieces.

  Yelling wasn’t an option. Nor was burning down the house. I’d done enough. I’d served my time. Love, this wasn’t it. Whew. This was like the sun after a hurricane.

  Confrontation was something normal, part of life, and I could hear in her tone that she was gearing up for battle. I’d had sex with Shem. He didn’t lay down the piping that good to act a damn fool. I could have told her that what he knew in the ways he’d pleased her, he’d learned from me. But that, too, would have been tacky.

  Men could be easily distracted by the idea of procreation and sowing their oats. But then again, I didn’t care. This was my way out. That thought caused a small smile to tug at my lips. This assignment was finally over, too. Whew.

  A part of me still wanted to be vindictive, to pay him back.

  Not because I cared, but just for immature shits and giggles. To punish him for being an asshat.

  I wasn’t a scorned woman. I was a free one.

  He would be a part of my past, one who’d helped me ensure that Jaz ended up where she needed to be.

  “No second chances. I’m so done.”

  I moved to the counter and placed a sticky note and my wedding band on the counter: Butterscotch called.

  And waited. Tonight the fireworks would fly.

  TINK

  “Jaz, we have to talk.” I stomped into her apartment and plopped down on the sofa. “You might want to have a seat for this one.”

  Jaz was banging around in the kitchen, and even though she was my best friend, I wasn’t sure what she’d say when I told her the big news.

  “I have news,” I chirped. I sort of felt like a canary in a mine about to share words of doom and gloom.

  “Oh, gosh, it’s way too soon for you to tell me you’re pregnant.” I heard the oven door bang shut, and the sound of plates rattling.

  “What are you doing in there?”

  “Trying to cook.”

  “You know cooking is probably not the best idea. The last time you cooked, we got to meet a lot of men from the local fire station—no I take that back. Burn something up, as I need someone else.”

  It didn’t take long until I heard a plate shattering on the floor.

  “But you only got married a couple of weeks ago.” Jaz rushed into the living room and fell down next to me. “What are you thinking about? I mean, it’s only been a short time. You married Shem. I thought you knew what he was like.”

  “That’s why annulments were made.” I reached forward and took a sip of the margarita she’d obligingly made. “Well, there were a few changes, and this is a great example. He wanted me to dress conservatively, like I didn’t have my own voice. Started asking me to work less, like I shouldn’t have a career, and then, the final straw—get ready. He had a girlfriend on the side and spouted off about men’s rights, and how he should have the right to bring in a sister wife, all after I confronted him. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about gender equality. There was no discussion about the wage gage. Instead It was like his head changed after the ring exchange and came back as someone new.

  “You know, he had the nerve to tell me that women claim independence because they are subsidized by the government.”

  “Wow,” Jaz chimed in. “I guess he never heard of the pink tax.”

  “Or that we’re paid less money for the same job a man does. Heck, he shrugged and said, ‘that’s how it’s meant to be, as if it makes sense for women to be penalized for not having a penis. ‘Men
provide,’ he said, ‘and women cook.’”

  “What did you do?”

  “Well, I’d already taken off my wedding ring and placed it on top of the counter with a sticky note with his girlfriend’s message.” I splayed my hands out in front of me. “He told me I’d never think such if it hadn’t been for you. That was the final nail in the coffin. I don’t need him or his half-wit arguments.”

  “He said what?”

  We’d been the best of friends, even though Shem had been Jaz’s before me. They’d been together, and he’d even called her a placeholder, the douche—a nice modern word I’d picked up along the way. “How can I put this? Since the gods are letting me leave, I’m leaving him.” I paused, and tilted my head. “Did you still want him?”

  “Hell no! I don’t know how you were able to overlook so much after Philip.” Her hand rushed to her mouth. I tried not to remember Philip. I wanted him to be long dead, and gone.

  Secrets abounded, even between best friends. The grave held more of my secrets than I could ever allow Jaz to know.

  “Philip’s heart had been corrupted, but through no fault of his own. I was one of many of his sisters.” The venom of my words echoed in my ears.

  “I thought you loved him?” Jaz whispered.

  I shrugged. “Love was not something of worth or even an issue. You must remember, during my time, women were not like you: equal. Everything we had was at the whim of one man or another. Love and happiness were for sonnets, but not marriage. My brother held all of those cards after my parents died. He was my guardian, after all.”

  This was a complicated matter, and one I couldn’t so easily answer. Was I to tell her I came and swooped up her then-boyfriend to make sure she was available for the fated mate that the gods were sending her way? Was I supposed to tell her the gods made me pretend to adore a man who reminded me of my abuser (they resembled one another enough though, although they weren’t twins in appearance), and who had denied me my chance at true love? Maybe I was supposed to scream from the top of my lungs that I did it all out of love and honor to her, to save her from something worse than death. I was an agent and lived by their sacred oath.