What a disaster.
19
Bethany
I was completely losing my mind. Utterly disconnected from reality. Maybe I’d been drugged. Because there was no way dragons were real or that my boyfriend and his family were packed full of them.
As Tiffany ran toward me, I gathered her into my arms and yanked her as far back as I could. She held out her arm and showed me a scratch. It was shallow and slight, but long.
After he promised nobody would be hurt, that he and his family and his dragon—his dragon—would never hurt us, that was the first thing that had happened. I’d watched as the beast tried to grab Tiffany into his big, dangerous claws.
“This is unreal,” I said, holding Tiffany close. “You said you’re not dangerous,” I yelled at the dragon.
I am not a danger to you.
Shaking my head, I blinked as if that could keep the creature from projecting his thoughts into my mind. “You obviously are. You tried to grab my daughter.”
I tried to catch her. She was about to fall down the stairs.
How could I know if that was true?
“He won’t hurt you,” Ava said. “The dragons, they can be dangerous, of course. They can hunt and kill game, and they protect us. But he’d never intentionally cause you injury.”
“He just did!” I pointed to Tiffany’s arm. It had quit bleeding, but God only knew what sort of germs were in the cut from the dragon’s claw. “I need to tend to her arm.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the dragon. He began to shift back again. It was hard to see exactly how it happened in the waning light, but within a few seconds, a naked Maddox stood where the dragon just was, holding his hands over his privates. My body trembled, rejecting the notion of what I’d just seen.
Ava shaded her eyes and tossed his jeans off the deck railing to him. Maddox caught them and tugged them on, then lurched toward me with concern on his face. “Artemis didn’t mean to do that. He was trying to help.”
I slid sideways toward the door but didn’t realize Maverick was in the way. Suddenly, I felt like a bunny cornered by predators. “Stop,” I said forcefully, the way we were taught as teenagers when approached by someone we feared wanted to rape or kill us. “Don’t come any closer.”
Tiptoeing around Maverick, I darted in the door. “Stay out there,” I yelled. “I need to breathe and take care of Tiffany’s arm.”
Hailey stood in the kitchen with a crestfallen look on her face. She reached for Tiffany, but I hugged her tighter. “No,” I said. I tried to inch past her without touching her. They were all tainted now like they had a disease. They’d known all this time, all of them.
And if it was all Kingstons, that meant Jury was a freak like them, too. And that meant Abby knew.
She’d become one of my best friends. How was it possible that she hadn’t told me? A real friend would have warned me. Broken it to me gently that the man I was sleeping with was a ravenous murdering beast.
I locked Tiffany in the bathroom with me and turned on the water. “Wash your arm, baby.” As I pumped antibacterial soap all over her arm, the tears began to fall.
“Mommy, don’t cry.” Tiffany patted my arm with her wet, soapy hand. Ignoring her, I scrubbed her scratched arm with my hands and tried to combat the panic rising in my throat. As I rinsed her arm, my emotions went into full meltdown mode. Because why not? If shifters were real, I had the right to melt down. If shifters were real, then this should’ve been my fairy tale.
Cinderella, I was not. I bit back my sobs and gave myself a few minutes to fully cry and freak then mopped up my face. I used Ava’s hand towels to neaten up my makeup and cool off my hot face after crying.
Tiffany tried to comfort me the whole time. Eventually, I got her arms dried and blotted her clothes where the water had splashed. I straightened my clothes and prepared to walk out with Tiffany in my arms. I wanted to get to my car and get home as soon as I could. These creatures were clearly a danger. I couldn’t have that around my baby.
“Mommy?” Tiffany looked at me with big, pleading eyes. “Can I have a pet dinosaur?”
I burst out laughing but choked it back as fast as I could. It was time to try to leave, and that meant facing them. Nothing about this was funny.
But when we stepped out, everyone looked at us. The bathroom was directly across from the open living room. They all sat on the couch, with Hailey in the armchair. That left the loveseat for Tiff and me.
Maddox had fully dressed, but he looked like he was about to come out of his skin. Ha. That was ironic. Just seeing him terrified me all over again. Now that I knew what he was, what he was capable of, how could I ever look at him the same again? He’d already hurt Tiffany. Yeah, it was probably an accident, but there was way too much unexpected with a creature that had claws and could breathe fire.
I assumed they could breathe fire. Part of me was curious, but no way I was about to ask. I wasn’t even sure I was going to sit down and let them try to explain further. This was too damn much. My child had been through too much in her short life already, losing her father the way she had. I couldn’t subject her to this insanity, too.
“Are you okay?”
Might as well be honest. “No. No, I’m not. I can’t be here. I can’t have Tiffany here. It’s not fair to subject her to this.”
“To what?” Maddox asked. “I wanted to keep it from her, at least until she was older. Until she could understand.”
“This
