Like the garden, the familiarity was comforting.
Like my raven friend.
“But she still thinks I’m a kid. I know I...I haven’t been very good at acting like anything but a kid, but I’m over thirty. I’m doing okay for myself these days. I did choose a career, and I’m good at it. I can be helpful. She should—she should know that, shouldn’t she?”
“Not at all,” the raven answered. Ouch. Before I could respond, though, she continued. “Not because of you. Not because you’ve done anything wrong. Because she’s your mother. You’ll always be a baby to her. Even more, because she’s who she is. She’s older than most of the world’s existing nations. Compared to her, you’ll always be a child. Most beings will. Your father is a rare exception, and even him, she wants to coddle.”
It was a fair point. My father had been kidnapped and held prisoner for years, and instead of contacting him to discuss his protection, she was making all the arrangements herself. Not that he was awake to discuss the issue with, but still. Taking charge was simply something she did. Like with Twist’s food. I was grateful she was feeding my kitten, but she hadn’t asked. She’d just done it.
“It’s not going to serve her here, though,” the raven mused, drawing me out of my thoughts, because what? Everything always served Mother. “The vampires,” she clarified. “The lot of them will be more than happy to help here, in Southern California, where your mother lives. To eliminate one creature who’s likely a threat to Fiona herself. But are they going to start a war on behalf of dragonkind? Doesn’t sound very vampiric, does it?”
It did not.
Mother wanted it to happen, because of me, and because of my father. But vampires, on the whole, were creatures of stasis, not change. They liked a good rut. A status quo. Mother made an excellent status quo, and they wouldn’t want anything to affect that...but they wouldn’t start a war for it. That didn’t make any sense to creatures who didn’t want change.
“They’ll handle Fearson,” I told her.
She scoffed. “They’ll try. Vampires are powerful creatures, but in the game of supernatural rock paper scissors, dragons make fire, and fire most definitely beats the aged tinder of vampires.”
I tried not to laugh, because that was horrible, but...no, it didn’t matter. A moment later, I was laughing like a man in the middle of a mental breakdown.
My raven friend was quite proud of herself, too, chin up and eyes shining.
“Can I tell you something that sounds nuts?” I asked her, when the laughter slowed, and we were just sitting there on the table together again.
“Always.”
It was the answer I’d expected. She’d been the one I had gone to when I thought there was a monster in my room—the monster that had turned out to be a hunting owl. She had never assumed I was ridiculous or a child. She’d always listened and helped.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly before starting. “I think...that is, I’ve been thinking for a while now, that maybe what dragons are missing is people. Maybe other dragons, or maybe just a community, but...when I first turned into a dragon, it’s because the people I cared about were in danger, and I had to protect them. And now, when my father turned, which makes two of us in who knows how long, it was because he was worried about me. Because he built a family and cared about people outside himself. It sounds ridiculous, I know, butwhat if what dragons are missing by cutting themselves off from other sentient beings is that? What if they’re making themselves weaker by refusing a community?” I trailed off, turning to look at her, then sighing. “I sound ridiculous, even to myself. It’s like Grady said, some after school special stuff.”
“I think you’re the cleverest dragon I’ve met in thousands of years,” she answered, firm and matter of fact. “And caring about others is a weakness, but it never, ever makes you weak.”
I was the cleverest dragon she’d met . . . in how long?
Thousands of years.
I turned to look at her, and the gleam in her eye told me she knew damn well I’d caught that, but before I could ask a single thing, there were tires in the driveway that indicated Davin was back...
Except not.
It wasn’t one car. It was two, at least.
I turned and jumped off the table, rushing around the side of the house into the front, to find that, yes, Davin and Doc were getting out of one car, and next to it was a huge, familiar Mercedes.
Sexton’s Mercedes.
What the fuck?
CHAPTER 15
Iran straight to the front driveway, worried that there was a threat, but climbing out of the driver’s seat of the Mercedes was an exhausted and frustrated-looking Sexton. There were purple circles under his eyes like he hadn’t slept in years, and when he turned to look at me, he didn’t have to roll his eyes for me to know he wanted to. “Your father woke up,” he informed me, deadpan.
I winced.
“Father?” Doc asked, sounding surprised, standing beside Davin’s car, which had clearly just parked right in front of the Mercedes.
That was when my father sort of...slid out of the passenger seat of the Mercedes. Not in a cool, dexterous way, but in a liquid, not in control of his body way. He was only stopped from becoming a dragon puddle on the ground next to the car by Davin’s incredible speed, at his side before I even saw him moving, one hand under his arm and another around his back.
