Again the uneasy feeling came over Evie. Cutting the barbed wire fence, they had snuck onto the property in human form. An odd energy hummed in the air, as if warning them away.
“You sure about this?” Lacey asked.
“Of course if you’re chicken…”
Evie turned and ran for the steps. “Losers have to clean the house this weekend,” she yelled over her shoulder.
Wood steps creaked under her weight. Evie climbed to the platform and looked at the triangular handle and safety harness used to secure a rider before heading across the swamp to the treetops on the other side. She tested it in her hands. Seemed okay.
After wriggling into the harness, she looked down at the alligator swamp. If anything, the gators seemed more active. Hungrier. One lifted its snout out of the water and snapped at the air.
“Oh yeah? You may look tough, big guy, but I’m a dragon and I can eat you for breakfast,” she called down.
Evie grasped the triangle with a firm grip. “Hey Lace, look at me!”
Her sister looked up. “Careful Evie. We should get going.”
“One ride across. That’s all, I promise.”
Silly her. She was the cautious one, stuck in the past. No longer. The memory of the Burkes’ rejection stung. After ingesting Lacey’s formula, she’d be nearly invincible and no one could ever hurt her like that again.
“Here I go!” she sang out, and jumped off the platform.
With a squeaky whine, the zipline creaked downward toward the tree line. Evie laughed with pure joy. Look at me, poor little Evie, the dragon who can’t fly for long, dangling far above a pit of hungry…
The zipline stopped.
“Oh damn,” she whispered.
She’d failed to adjust the line for her stature and weight and now hung in the middle, the alligator pit directly below.
Oh well. Failed again. Evie sighed and called upon her magick to shift into a dragon.
Nothing happened.
Okay, don’t panic, it’s just a glitch. Focus.
As she did, calling upon all the cells in her body to produce the magick that made her dragon, she heard an ominous creaking sound.
Evie glanced up.
The steel cable, worn out from years of humidity and exposure, had begun to give way.
Below her a hungry gator snapped its jaws. Stunned, she watched it climb atop the other alligators to get closer to her. Her feet dangled in the air, a tempting target for the gator, but thankfully out of reach.
Suddenly the alligator’s arms began to grow. Evie blinked. Surely the heat and fear were creating an illusion…
“Evie, hang in there. I’m flying up,” Lacey yelled.
But as her sister spread her arms to shift, nothing happened. “I can’t do it. What fresh hell is this?” Lacey clenched her fists. “I’m coming up!”
The alligator opened its jaws wider. A tentacle snaked out of its mouth, purple, long and speared. The alligator flicked the tentacle and something splashed on Evie’s sneaker sole.
A hissing ensued. Panic welled up, hot and bright as the shoe began to disintegrate from the acid eating through it.
Gripping the triangle tighter, she managed to kick off the sneaker, watched the tentacle grab it and draw it into the jaws of the gator, who ate it.
What was left of it.
If I don’t die from falling into that creature’s mouth, my skin will melt from the acid it’s shooting. Gee, I wonder what’s worse?
“Lacey! Hurry up,” she screamed.
But even as Lacey ran up the stairs two at a time, the line began to give way.
Evie screamed. Desperately she called upon her magick to shift, but nothing happened. What happened? Still human. Still helpless.
Still vulnerable to those sharp teeth and snapping jaws below.
So this is how I die. What a waste. Evie sobbed as the line snapped and she went hurling downward, down… her sister’s screams filling the air.
A whoosh of wind and a flap of wings. Suddenly a giant claw folded around her midsection and she was gently plucked out of the air like a fish in an eagle’s grasp.
Evie shut her eyes, unsure if she was flying in a dream or if she’d died and was being transported to the afterworld.
With extreme care, the beast deposited her on the ground and then flew off.
Her eyes flew open.
A minute later, Lacey landed on the ground besides her, her landing not quite as gentle. Her sister winced and rubbed her bottom.
Evie stared up at the magnificent black dragon dipping and soaring over the alligator pit. Sunlight glinted off his wings, making them gleam, and highlighting a patch of cobalt blue on the tip of his left wing.
Only one dragon had that marking, indicating he had apprenticed himself to the Coldfire Wizard.
Chase Burke. The dragon she loved…and lost.
Her heart clenched even as she stared in longing at Chase, flying high above them. One of the gators, having been deprived of his meal, left the swamp and began crawling toward Evie.
Chase swooped down, opened his mouth to breathe fire at the beast, and the gator changed its mind, making a hasty exit for the water.
Then the dragon landed with a thud upon the ground, folding back his wings and grinning at her.
Showing a mouthful of white, sharp teeth.
“Good to see you’re keeping up the dental appointments, Chase,” Lacey said, getting up and dusting off her jeans. “I’d had a nice fuck you saved for that stunt you pulled with ditching Evie at the ball. However, since you rescued her, I guess that makes you less of a dickwad.”
Not quite. Humiliation crawled over her, turning her face crimson. Did Lacey have to bring that up in front of him?
An eyeblink and the dragon vanished, replaced by a man of medium height with short black hair. His white shirt was starched, but he rolled up the sleeves to reveal muscled forearms. Pressed chinos, the crease so sharp it could cut grass, were tailored to his legs, and his penny loafers were polished leather. A day beard and mustache outlined his perfect mouth and strong jaw.
Oh Chase, why did you come here? Maybe I’d have been better off with the gators. At least they don’t care about my social status and I stood a fighting chance. With your family, I have no weapons to defend myself.
“Hi Evie,” he said softly, his gaze turning soft. “You okay?”
She nodded, the dragonflies in her stomach fluttering faster, as they always did in his presence.
“She’s fine. Thanks. Gotta go now.” Lacey picked up her bag, slung it over one shoulder and pointed to the fence. “Come on, Evie. Let’s hustle.”
“Not so fast.” Chase swept her sister with a long, cold look. “Your actions have called upon the Coldfire Wizard.”
“We didn’t do anything wrong.” Evie stood and drew herself up to her full five feet, three inches of height. “Lacey was here to pick water lilies and this is an amusement park owned by Skins. If anything, we broke human law, not dragon law.”
“Why do you think Skins left the land vacant?” Chase sighed, and the sound echoed in the air. “The park is veiled with magick to keep out Skin trespassers. Its former owner, a wealthy werewolf, sold it to the Brehon for their practice sessions. Ordinary Otherworlders cannot shapeshift on these premises, unless they are granted the magick by a wizard from the Brehon, as I was.”
Horror crawled through Evie as she recalled the snapping jaws and the red gaze of the alligators in the pit. “The gators…”
Chase scowled at Lacey. “Haven’t you noticed the alligators are no mere reptiles? They are ten times more dangerous. But of course Lacey already knew this. She’s been spying on me since I became Drust’s apprentice. It’s how she knew about this place and the lilies.”
Evie’s breath caught in her throat. Lacey did not meet her gaze.
No wonder Lacey had wanted to leave so quickly.
“Lacey, did you know this? What did you do now?” Evie demanded.
Lacey ign
ored her and glared at Chase. “I wasn’t spying on you, you nit. I was watching out for my sister so she wouldn’t get hurt. And I knew about this place from… well, I read about it in a book.”
“Maybe you should change your reading habits,” Chase taunted.
“Maybe if you weren’t such a cold-hearted lizard, I wouldn’t have to do what I did. I did it for Evie, because she needs a confidence boost after what happened at your parents’ ball. And now that you’re here, maybe an explanation for my sister is in order. She deserves it, even if you don’t want to see her anymore. Although I think she’s too good for you.”
Ignoring Lacey, Chase turned to Evie. “Evie, I’m sorry. I had family duties at the ball and never realized you were gone until it was too late.”
That was it? After four weeks of anguishing over why Chase had let her go, then refusing to answer his texts when he did contact her because she refused to get hurt again by him or his family?
“You had duties,” she said slowly. “So you invited me to the ball, said hello and left me standing there with your cousin Helen when I didn’t know anyone? Because you had duties. And you couldn’t set aside those duties for ten minutes to make me feel welcome?”
Chase had the good nature to flush. “Uncle Drust made an appearance and my family fussed over him and by the time I spoke to him, he had an urgent request of me. I had to leave immediately. Helen assured me she would find you and explain and take care of you. Again, I am sorry, Evie.”
Oh, she took care of me. Took care to make sure I went flying out of the door on my bottom, and then laughed and walked away.
“And you couldn’t introduce me before you left? Or you wouldn’t because you feared your family’s reaction if they knew you and I were serious?”
Silence draped the air between them. Lacey, good-hearted soul that she was, walked away to give them privacy.
“The time wasn’t right. I was going to tell me parents about you at the ball, but circumstances,” he began.
“Instead, you left me standing there by the bar with Helen, who left as well when Drust arrived so she could fawn all over him. And then she returned after you left and asked where my invitation was, and I said didn’t have it, she called over the ogre bouncer.
“You weren’t there,” Evie continued. “Not when Helen and her twin sister Lynna took their cell phones and snapped photos of me getting tossed out on my behind. And by the end of the night, I was a social media pariah amongst dragons. Everyone knew who I was – the dragon who would never be good enough for Chase Burke.”
The social media posts had been almost as humiliating as the eviction from the gala. She was on the ground, bleeding from her cheek, her dress hiked up to show her panties and secondhand shoes. Helen had posted on her Instadragon account, Climbing the social ladder major fail. When your darling cousin Chase’s sex toy shows up at a private social event, this is what happens.
Evie began to see everything clearly. Oh Chase had invited her to the ball, but all the other times when family gatherings pulled him away, and he insisted they were boring events and she’d be better off having fun with her friends… and their relationship had to remain secret…
“I guess it’s not polite to introduce your fuck buddy to family,” she said tightly.
His jaw dropped. “Evie, it’s not like that…”
But it was.
“No excuses, Chase.”
“I’m not making any, damnit. You’re not a fuck buddy, vulgar as that term is. You’re my girlfriend.”
“When we’re alone…”
“All the time! I didn’t know about the photos. I’m not on social media. Drust needed my assistance with an urgent assignment regarding an older dragon who was losing his mind and running amok on the west coast, threatening to slay tourists. I went to look for you and Helen said you had left because you were too shy to mingle,” he said tightly.
Evie rolled her eyes. “And you believed her?”
“Since you were together and getting along when I was called away, I had no reason to not believe her. And then you refused to talk to me, Evie. I wasn’t in a position to make our relationship public before that night.”
He sighed. “That’s not important now, Evie. But you need to know I meant no harm. Perhaps it was not a good idea to invite you to my family’s ball.”
The admission stung.
She was tired of being treated like a second-class citizen.
Maybe if her life had been different, if she had a family and lacked a malformed right wing, she’d fit more into his social circles. Then again, Chase’s proud family crest boasted two dragons bearing lances, while the closest she came to a sign was the NO SMOKING warning in the orphanage where she’d been dumped as a baby.
Even Lacey wasn’t her blood. They’d been raised in the same foster family together, two dragons in human skin trying to survive together. Only when Lacey’s mother finally found her daughter after years of searching, and Lacey insisted on Evie coming to live with them as well, did she find a real home.
They were closer than blood sisters. Evie would do anything for Lacey.
Now she sidled closer, standing in alliance with her sister. “Lacey’s right. I am too good for you.”
Something changed in Chase’s expression. “You are,” he said quietly. “I’m the one who’s a total cad. How I wish it were different.”
His tone gave her pause. “It could be, if you had the courage.”
Chase went to her, cupped her cheek, stroking over her skin and making her shiver. “It’s not courage I lack, but a clear path. I have one now, if you will be patient. I don’t want to lose you, Evie.”
For a moment she was tempted to reassure him, as she had many times in the past. But Lacey’s scowl and everything her sister had risked reminded her of the gap between their worlds.
The old Evie would have simpered and done everything to get Chase back into her arms.
The new Evie would not surrender her pride. She stepped away from his caresses. They had not officially broken up, but what was the point? Was it worth it to hang onto this relationship by a slim thread, waiting on Chase as he rushed off to serve Drust? What if he left one day and never returned? Ghosted her and left her pining after him?
“It’s too late, Chase. You already lost me.”
“No, it’s not too late. Not for us. Everything I’ve been doing is for you, Evie.” Chase stared at her mouth as his palm encased hers. “But let’s get back to the real reason why I’m here. What Lacey has done is not only wrong, it’s dangerous. There’s a small window of opportunity to make amends. Did your sister really hope to harness enough power to become equal to the wizards of the Brehon themselves?”
“She wasn’t the one who found the recipe for the potion or wanted to make it.” Evie stepped back. “I found it and encouraged her to experiment to have something of real value to sell at The Sage Shop.”
“Where did you find it?” Chase demanded.
Evie fell silent. Lacey had insisted on keeping the Book of Shadows a secret.
The Book of Shadows would give her sister the means to finally level up her income, which in turn would help her acquire stature in the dragon world. Because right now, it sucked having to listen to the condescending remarks tossed their way as wealthy dragon shifters frequented their shop and looked down their noses at them while they browsed for herbs, potions and other items Lacey sold. It bothered Evie when these shifters argued down the price as well, haggling to the last cent. Lately Lacey had grown tired of the criticism and constant browbeating. She planned to close later this year if income didn’t improve.
Chase refused to drop her hand. “Evie, you can’t do this. If it’s money…”
“You’ll give Lacey a loan for her store?” She gave a grudging laugh. “Oh, your family would love that.”
“It’s none of their business what I do with my money,” he said tightly.
“But they would find out and trust me, they’d use it to the
ir advantage. Especially Helen and Lynna, the ones who love to post everything on social media, mocking Others who have less power. I can hear the snark now and see their posts on Instadragon and Dragontweet now – hurry up and grab your potions and magick candles and incense from The Sage Shop before they go out of business for good!”
A frown creased his forehead. “They’re truly that horrid?”
Evie rolled her eyes. “Hello?! Of course they are. They’re vicious, especially when they discovered you and I were dating. They’re not dragons, Chase. Your cousins are trolls. Worse than the real trolls, they’re social media trolls.”
Chase went still. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this after the ball when I tried to contact you?”
Evie felt a ripple of guilt. “What was the point? You couldn’t stop them.”
“You underestimate my influence with my family. For what they did, Helen and Lynna will be punished.”
He looked so sincere and intense, she wanted to believe him. Believe that Chase Burke could sway the opinions of the mighty Burke family of Palm Beach, dragons with tremendous wealth and social influence in the dragon world.
But a tiny voice inside her urged her to stop hoping. Because as she’d learned in the past, when you put your trust into someone outside of family, they not only broke that trust.
They shattered it.
She sighed. “Chase, your parents hold influence with you, not the other way around. Your father pressured you into running the store on Worth Avenue…”
“Which I no longer do. My father released me of that obligation after I apprenticed myself to Drust.” He framed her face with his warm, strong hands. “It’s a tremendous honor to serve one of the wizards of the Brehon. I don’t care about the honor or how it increases my parents’ social ranking among other dragons. I did it because it was the only way I could break free from the family business.”
This was news. “I thought…”
Chase’s gaze snapped upward and his body tensed. “He’s coming.”
Chapter 3
Fear rippled through her. Only one man could strike Chase to total attentiveness like that.
THE MATING MAGIC: Werewolves of Montana Book 13 Page 2