Chapter 4 #2
“Twiggy Girdler?”
“Long story…” Once again tapping her temple, she seethed, “Just check it out up here. I promise it’s front and center in big, flashing letters in my brain.”
Torn between finding out who and what a Twiggy Girdler was and explaining everything to Glo, Chris instinctually knew apologizing to his Mate was infinitely more important. “Okay, here goes.” Letting go of her hand so he could focus, the youngest Archer Dragon opened his mouth and went for it.
“You wanted the Reader’s Digest version, and your wish is my command, Mo ghrá .” With a wink and nod, he was off and running, “Yes, we got home a little over four years ago. Thank the Ancients that we were here, or there in Nowhere, to save Molly from our dickhead parents. I can’t even imagine what would have happened if Big Daddy and Mother Archer had even a drop of Magic.”
Shaking his head at the thought, he pushed on before getting lost in thoughts of what might have been that would do nothing for anyone. It was time to get it all out and he was going to do just that. “Right after, Mick and I were called back to the Isle of Skye to help Uncle Diar with a disturbance in the Arctic Circle. When we got back from there, we found out that our parents were up to their old tricks and we needed to go help your Cousin, Ella.”
“After that, I freaked the hell out. If Mom and Dad could get people to do their dirty work and come after our Mates, what would I do if they came after you?”
“You would have…”
Not letting Glo derail him, Chris smiled and just kept going, happy when he felt her understanding fill their Mating Bond. “I was all ready to come out here to Purdy Petals, sweep you off your feet, and tell you how much I loved you and never wanted to leave your side ever again, and once again, I was called into service. No sooner was that over and my feet touched down back in Nowhere, USA, than we had to run off to help Vi because yeah, once again, Big Daddy and Mother Archer were up to their old tricks.”
“At that point, I was shook. Like shook all the way down to my BVDs. There was no way I could put you in danger. So, I started driving over here and sitting at the end of your lane just to be sure you were okay.”
“You were on your Harley, weren’t you?”
“Yep,” he smiled.
“I knew I heard that motor.” Swatting his arm, she held up her hand and kept right on going. “And that’s enough of an explanation. I never could stay mad at you, and I damned sure can’t do it now. And I need to say is, I accept your apology. There is no need for anymore. Yeah, you took an extra-long time gettin’ around to comin’ to findin’ me, but shit and Shinola, I didn't come to find you, did I?” Shrugging with a mischievous grin on her face and a twinkle in her eyes, she added with a chuckled, “So, how about we call it even?”
Before he could so much as take a breath or think of an appropriate response, Glo moved faster than even he could track. The wonderfully magnificent woman made for him and only him by the Universe and The Powers That Be coaxed Hillary K. Hippo to hop off her shoulder and float to the ground, then instantly closed the scant distance between them. Pushing up on her toes, she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulled him down to her height, and slammed her lips to his with an “I accept your apology and hope you accept mine too’ kiss of her own that curled his toes and made his heart race.
Opening even deeper to one another than before, it was just as he always hoped it would be. Just as he knew she would, Gloria took control of their embrace, and that made it all the better. Needing to feel her in every way possible but not wanting to take the time to strip her out of the weird, silver space suit, Chris slid his hands from around her waist, down the outside of her thighs, and under the beautifully full globes of her butt.
Lifting his Mate's feet off the ground, his heart soared, and Rí roared in his mind when Glo wrapped her legs around his waist and hooked her ankles together to hold on tight. Walking into the shed, mostly because he didn't want to share even one second of their first real kiss with anyone, Chris continued until Glo's back was against the wall.
With the tips of her fingers pushing through her weirdo gloves and digging into his shoulders, Glo climbed his much larger body in all the right ways. Holding each other so closely, so tightly, that Chris had no idea where he ended and she began, the Earth literally moved.
The ground beneath his feet shook. Little pebbles, dust, and bits of debris fell from the rafters overhead. The Heavens roared. Their passion and their reunion were so powerful that the tiny four-pane windows on either side of Glo's little red shed rattled with such force that Chris feared they would shatter.
The pounding of his heart was so profound, so life-altering, that he finally understood why the giant bellowed. "Fee–fi–fo–fum!" He felt it everywhere. The moment that the elusive piece of his soul–the one that had Glo's name written all over it–slipped into place was so overwhelming and awe-inspiring that currents of electricity, the vibrations of their connection, came from the Goddess of All and from the center of the Earth. It entered the soles of his feet, shot through his body, and filled his soul with renewed life and a sense of purpose that he knew was because of his One True Fated Mate.
Lost to their kiss, to all they were together, he felt as if he was flying without wings. It was everything he ever wanted. It was…
"Snap out of it, you two!" Hillary shrieked. "You are NOT making the Earth move, you freakin' boobs!"
“No, don’t…” he moaned when Glo’s lips left his. But when she yelled, “Holy crap!” His eyes snapped open just in time to see the roof of the shed being ripped away.
Bending at the waist and taking Glo with him, he used his body as a shield to keep all the falling debris from harming a single hair on his Mate's head. But the Brown Witch of Peace, Protection, and Eternal Love was having none of it.
Letting go faster than he could react, she let herself drop to the ground. Scooting out from under him, she spun on her butt, jumped to her feet, threw her head back, and yelled so loud that what was left of the shed literally shook. "Damn you all to hell, Twiggy Girdler! I'mma gonna kick your exoskeleton-covered ass all the way back to whatever rock you crawled out of! You're gonna wish you'd stayed wherever you were, eatin' shit and layin' eggs!"
"Awww, did I interrupt?" The sarcastic, loud, booming, nasally voice cackled. "Lookie there, Little Gloria finally got kissed."
Looking up, he took in the gigantic monstrosity of a shadow that literally blocked out the midday sun and tried to make sense of what he saw. Blinking past the dancing black dots, he shook his head, blinked his eyes, and tried to process the massive, fourteen-foot-tall insect that his Mate knew and, sadly, who knew Glo.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Chris knew he should’ve been paying attention to what his Mate was doing when she was rifling through the shed, but he simply could not make sense of what he saw. It wasn't that he hadn't seen some seriously crazy shit in all his years on the Isle of Skye and everywhere else as he protected the world as one of the renowned Dragon Guardsmen–but he really, truly, honestly had never laid eyes on a fourteen-foot bug.
Long, thin, stringy, wiggling, squirming antennae poked out of the top of her head and slithered into the roofless shed with grotesque purpose. Then his eyes landed on the barbed tips with a mind of their own that reached even further into the structure, and he instantly knew what they were in search of–Gloria!
Her memories flooded into his mind. He saw the night the tall, beautiful woman with long dark hair appeared at Glo’s house. He watched the conversation unfold between them. Saw the moment that his Mate realized the woman she’d thought of as a sister was no longer even a friend.
His heart broke watching Gloria try to explain again and again, and over and over to the Twig Beetle Shifter that there was nothing she could do to stop her Shifts. That giving over to her alter ego was part and parcel of being a Child of Tithonus and by extension, the goddess Selene. Over and over, Glo explained that using her Magic to do anything against the will of the Universe, Mother Nature, The Powers That Be, or any god or goddess was a mortal sin against the Great Goddess and was punishable by death.
He was instantly furious when Twiggy jumped to her feet, screamed and yelled at his Mate, and called her horrible names no one should ever be called. Ríoghnán roared when the Beetle Shifter spat, ‘Why is your life more important than mine, Gloria? You’re just a stupid little Witch who watches over a stupid little plant. I am Twiggy Girdler, Super Model of the World!’
Then he felt, sensed, and literally smelled it as if he’d gone back in time. The acrid scent of sulfur, the burning stench of brimstone, the stifling reek of ash, then the unmistakable sting of Black Magic. He watched Twiggy contort and expand into a grotesque representation of the Insect she was meant to be.
Lunging at Gloria, the nasty Bug nearly touched his Mate’s beautiful face with her gnarled claws. Thankfully, Gloria was quicker and jumped back just in time.
For the briefest of moment, it looked like Twiggy was having second thoughts, but it couldn’t have been farther from the truth. For in the next second, she suddenly burst into flames and ran out of Glo’s living room into the night–never to be seen again.
It wasn’t surprising that Gloria spent the next ten years looking for whatever remained of her best friend. Her Aunties and Cousins helped too, but there was never a sign that the Twig Beetle Shifter had survived. His poor Mate spent the next decade grieving the loss of the one she’d thought of as a sister, and it broke his heart that he hadn’t been there for her.
But times had changed. He was there now and no one and nothing, not even a fourteen–foot bug was going to fuck with his Witch!
Reaching for her, Chris wrapped his arm around Glo’s waist from behind and lifted her feet off the ground. Ignoring his Mate as she yelled at him to put her down and she tried everything possible to unhook his fingers from the belt of her strange space suit, he just kept going.
“Chris! You have to…!”
“Nope!” He countered directly into her mind. "We're finally together, and there is no way…"
"Hold it right there!" The Beetle snarled less than a second before her top set of pinchers reached down, grabbed two of the outside walls of what was left of Gloria's shed, and pulled them right out of the ground with a crazy strength he could only guess was powered by all the evil Sorcery racing through her veins. Tossing them over her shoulder like they weighed nothing, it was then that Chris saw the beastly bug was wearing the biggest, brightest pink stilettos he'd ever seen on what he thought of as her feet but knew from all his years in school were really another set of big–ass pinchers.
“Are those…?”
"Yep," Glo snapped. "Those are pink stilettos size fifty-two. They’d make Dragon Queens all over the world drool, and that idiot has them. UGH! And yes, that's Twiggy Girdler, my ex-best friend, former model, and Twig Beetle Shifter puffed up on enough Black Magic to burn down the entire Eastern half of the world." Looking over her shoulder, those flames back in her eyes, she growled through gritted teeth, “A lot happened while you were gone.”
“Yeah, I saw that shit in your memories! Sorry I wasn’t here.”
“No worries. You’re here now.”
“How about we kick her ass?”
“That was my plan before you scooped me off the ground. Remember that, Hot Stuff?”
“I damned sure do, and I’d do it…”
“Enough!” The massive Arthropod Shifter bellowed. “You’ll have plenty of time to get reacquainted in…”
“Oh, put a fucking sock in it, Twiggy. Your nasally twang is giving me a headache. You must seriously just love the sound of your own craptastic voice, because there is no one else on planet Earth who could endure the torture for longer than five seconds. Well, nobody other than my Aunt Nettie who refuses to wear her hearing aides.”
“Why I never…”
“Yes, you did! And you will again!” Glo yelled, squirming with such strength that Chris had to put her down before she fell from his arms.
Stomping forward and slamming her hands onto her hips, his Mate just kept going. All her pent-up anger, frustration, and more than a little hurt came pouring out like a broken fire hydrant on the corner of a city block on a hot summer day.
“You came into my home! You tried to make me break the Cardinal Law of Witchcraft! You called me a selfish little brat! You attacked me you crazy Bug! You…!”
“And I was right! You had everything and you refused to help me even the littlest, tiniest bit! You were and still are a selfish little bitch! You loved those fucking ugly little flowers more than you loved me!”
“Oh, my Great Goddess, you are such a raging bitch! I never…”
“Well, I fixed your ass didn’t I! I took it all away from you just like you took everything from me! It took me years to recuperate and heal, but I did it! I did it just to see the look on your face when I paid you back for ruining my life!”
Raising her top two arms above her head, the insane Insect leaned back so far that the exoskeleton covering her neck cracked like a two by four being karate chopped by Bruce Lee–God rest his soul. Clicking the pinchers at the ends of all four of her ‘arms’ as if they were castanets and she was about to dance the Fandango, the Bug looked even crazier, if that was insectly possible.
Then it started, the worst hissing, clicking and shrieking he’d ever heard came roaring out of her mouth. “I called them all! Every Beetle, Earwig, Grasshopper, and Cicada serves me! They are my Warriors! My Army!” Her chin snapped down and all million or so of her beady black eyes zeroed in on Gloria as she shrieked, “They came for your nasty, hideous, parasitic pieces of shit! And they are still coming! They will eat them all! They will devour their roots, then start on the trees where they live! They will consume and demolish everything you ever loved, and then they will come for your Aunties, your Cousins, and even that old Crone, Granny Esta!”
Bending in the middle, where the bottom rim of her chest plate overlapped the top ring of the bottom piece of her reddish-brown thorax, Twiggy lurched forward and added with a hiss, “And then I am coming for you, Gloria Angelica Brown!”
“Bring it on, Bitch!” His Mate seethed. “Bring all you got! You should’ve stayed dead! I ain’t scared of no bug! You are a pest! An insect! A creepy crawly that runs when the lights get turned on. You’re nothing a good spray of Raid wouldn’t stop!”
“Oh, you’re tough now, are you?” The Beetle taunted, moving to the side, trying to get around the one wall of the shed still standing. “You’ve got your Dragon to back you up now, and you suddenly have a spine?! Pfft! You are such a fuckin’ loser, Gloria bo boria! He. Left. You. And you came runnin’ the first time he crooked his finger. What a sad excuse for a…
“I swear to all that’s holy!” Glo roared. Then Hillary bellowed, “Burn that Beetle down!”
Watching in stunned silence as Hillary flew to Glo and landed on her left shoulder, Chris was immediately prouder than he was shocked when the Pygmy Hippo and his Brown Witch lifted their arms in unison and Magic filled the air. Zooming bolts of deep purple Mysticism, slashing spears of crimson red Enchantment, and thick clouds of Pure White Brown Magic shaped like arrows flew through the air and they were all aimed at Twiggy’s head.
Sadly, the Beetle Shifter was ready. Zigging and zagging, weaving and bobbing, and ducking at all the right times, it was as if the bitch knew what was coming before Glo and Hill fired the shot. The freaking Black Magic she was full of gave her powers he hadn’t expected and it pissed the Dragon Guardsman and the Dragon King with whom he shared his soul right off.
“Nanny, nanny, boo, boo, you missed!” Twiggy goaded.
“Oh, my Great Goddess in gold Go-Go boots!’ Glo yelled. “Will you ever grow the fuck up? You are seriously a waste of shell and antennae!’
“I will rip you limb from limb! I will suck the Magic from your bones! Then I will eat that pink excuse for a Hippo in one chewy little bite! Then I will…!”
Chris had had enough. He'd waited long enough. Yes, it was his fault that he and Gloria hadn't been together for the past four years, but now that they were, no fourteen-foot Beetle was going to take it away from him.
Besides the bitch was dissing his Mate, and that shit simply would not stand.
Speaking directly into Glo’s mind, he said , "Give me ten seconds, then hit that bitch with everything you've got!"
“Aye, aye, Captain Dragon,” she breathed,
Feeling his Mate summoning even more Strength and Power from Mother Nature and the core of the Earth Itself, he called to Rí, “Hit it, Old Man!”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Welcoming the burn of the Magic of all the Ancient Dragon Kings, Chris leaned into his Shift, embraced the fire, and reveled in the utter shock and dismay in the Beetle’s hundreds of thousands of beady black eyes. Reaching about fifteen feet tall, just big enough to look down his snout at the wretched bug.
"You have until the count of three to back the fuck off," Ríoghnán's deep, grumbling baritone resonated with such supremacy that, once again, the ground shook.
Naturally, the audacious Arthropod doubled down. Stepping forward and raising her head, she attempted to look more intimidating. But Chris and Rí were having none off it. They let her get as far as, “Never, you overgrown…!”
Before blasting her with enough Dragon Fire to burn away the Black Magic flowing within and all around her, reducing her to a pale facsimile of the woman he'd pulled from Glo's memory. Laying on the ground, unconscious, with steam rising off her body, Twiggy Girdler looked every bit the pain in the ass his Mate remembered. It didn't matter that she wasn't awake or that she was curled in a fetal position. She had deadly written all over her aura.
Holding perfectly still as the Dragon King with whom he shared his soul pulled back the Magic of the Ancients and receded to the back of his mind, Chris turned towards his Mate just in time to catch her as she jumped into his arms. Peppering his cheeks with kisses, she whispered directly into his mind, “Welcome home, Dragon Man!”
“There’s no place I’d rather be, my love. No place in the whole wide world.”