“I’m sorry, Kaitlyn,” she’d said after the last attempt when my scars stubbornly remained in place, though she had cut herself three times for me. (Megan does Blood magic—something else that’s supposed to be outlawed in the Other World but she has a habit of making her own rules, as Avery puts it.)
“It’s okay.” I sighed and shook my head. “It’s not your fault—thank you for trying.”
“It almost feels like they’re resisting me magically—your scars, I mean.” Megan had frowned, a furrow forming between her green-gray eyes. “But how can that be? How can I have enough power to abolish the Edict but I can’t get rid of your scars?”
I could see the frustration on her pretty face and knew that my Coven-mate wanted to help me so badly she could almost taste it. But I had no answers.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged helplessly. “But, well…thank you for trying.”
“I’m not giving up,” Megan had declared. “I’m going to have a look in Corinne’s grimoire. There are tons of healing spells in there. Maybe one of them will work for you.”
The book she was talking about had belonged to her ancestor, Corinne Latimer—one of the most powerful witches to ever have lived. Megan seemed to have all of her power and then some…and yet she couldn’t heal my scars.
As Allegra slipped her fangs out of my scarred wrist with a contented sigh and the tingling faded, I wondered if Megan was right—if my scars were somehow magically resistant to healing. But that didn’t make any sense, did it? The house fire that had taken my parents and marked me so horribly had been caused by faulty wiring—or so the fire marshal’s report had said. There was nothing magical about it—it was just terrible luck.
That was what I told myself, anyway, as I cuddled Allegra closer and slipped back into sleep. I might be scarred for life, I told myself, but at least I had people who loved me. People who cared enough to stick by me—no matter what I looked like. My coven mates, Megan and Emma and Avery to name a few, and sweet little Allegra who was already fast asleep in my arms to name another.
People who loved me. People who wanted to protect me…
A new thought entered my mind—the image of a vast black shadow with wings like sails hovering in the sky, looking down on me…
Watching over you. Protecting you, whispered a strange little voice in my head.
I shivered and pushed the disturbing thought away. I didn’t want to think of that shape—of what it meant—of who it might be. Better, far better, to snuggle under the covers with Allegra and let myself drift back to sleep knowing the nightmares were in the past and that nothing worse than The Fire could ever happen to me.
Or so I thought.
2
Ari
I woke up in the night, knowing she was upset, though I didn’t know how I knew it.
I felt her terror—it woke me in a cold sweat, my heart pumping, my muscles bunching as everything inside me drove me to go to her.
My Drake woke with a roar. I felt him inside me—spreading his wings—trying to emerge.
“Wait—wait a minute!” I shouted at him mentally. “Para, estupido!”
Only a few months before he had broken free of me and gone flying to where she was—a stunt that had nearly earned me an expulsion. The humans don’t believe in dragons—or witches, or fairies, or vampires for that matter. And they don’t like to have their beliefs challenged by a ten-ton Drake flying over their heads in the middle of the morning.
In the end, Headmistress Nightworthy who runs Nocturne Academy, had let me off with a warning—that I must keep better control of the beast which lived inside me. I had agreed but what could I do when he was so attuned to her—to Kaitlyn, the little human girl I had somehow become linked to?
I don’t know how it happened—maybe it was because I spilled blood for her. Not mine—Pedro Sanchez’s. I had punched the pendejo in the face when he had mocked her and made fun of her scars. Unfortunately, many of the Drakes that ran with his crew had joined in his mockery. I only wished I had punched them too.
I swear I had no feelings for her before then. But seeing Sanchez pick on a helpless female like that enraged me. I had been raised in the Sky Lands, the home world of the Drakes, to protect and champion those weaker and more vulnerable than me. My father was constantly lecturing me about the importance of caring for those that were unable to care for themselves.
“History will judge you by the way in which you treat the least of your people, Ari,” he would tell me, his voice echoing through the vast and cavernous Audience Chamber where he sat to hear grievances every month. “You must be certain you can look back later and be proud of your actions.”
But at the time Kaitlyn was being bullied, I can’t say it was my father’s words that drove me to action. It was my own internal fury at seeing her hurt and abused.
And something else as well.
For the minute I punched Sanchez and spilled his blood defending Kaitlyn, the Drake inside me woke up. He usually sleeps here in the human world—he might as well—it isn’t as though I can let him out to go flying. But the scent of blood and the threat of violence brought him out of his somnolent slumber and for the first time since I had come to the human world, he spoke.
I don’t mean he spoke just to me—I hear him in my head often, though he communicates more in emotions than words. My other half can be a restless partner to share a body with. When I say he spoke, what I mean is that he actually came forward and talked
