42. Mercury in Retrograde
Mercury in Retrograde
I t was time for The Sleigh Belles and Brunch Extravaganza Drag Show at the Giggle Water. Multiple times during the year, the restaurant would host seasonal drag shows to benefit local LGBTQIA+ ventures like supporting the Rainbow Youth Center or keeping the libraries stocked with books about sexuality and gender. The singers, dancers, and comedians were always incredible to see, and they never disappointed in their fabulous costumes and makeup designed to match the theme like this was the Met Gala. Their energy was so infectious, their talent so prominent, it was hard not to be enraptured. Brunch drag shows were my favorites, and the girls and I always looked forward to them.
Not only that, but we showed up and showed out every time to match the occasion, looking for any reason to wear those outfits that were too cute not to buy, but that we knew damn well we would only wear to the drag shows. Simone wore a blazer dress that flared around her hips with thigh-high boots that made her look like a baddie girl boss. Maisie’s outfit was a three-piece, thick linen cargo pant, bandeau top, and suit jacket in a shade of purple that made her eyes pop like she was using her magic. My creamy white off-shoulder cropped sweater, wide- legged jeans, and boots were actually very sensible, but it was more of a symbolic outfit than anything. After all, it was my first time I had my wings out and proud for everyone to see. I had gotten so many compliments on them being an awesome tattoo that I knew I would definitely be wearing this outfit again.
As one of the performers closed out her set, Maisie’s phone vibrated on the table. She checked it and immediately rolled her eyes so hard into her head that I thought she was going to fall out of the chair. She mumbled under her breath, but loud enough for me and Simone to hear, “Dude, catch a hint.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, after taking a sip of my mimosa.
“He’s trying to contact me still.”
“Who? Your father?” Simone’s eyes widened with a mix of concern and shock.
“Yep,” Maisie said, popping the P at the end for emphasis.
“What could he possibly want? And how did he even get your number?” I asked.
“Good questions.” Maisie pointed to me with a sarcastic smile. “One of them I know the answer to. Who wants to guess which one it is?”
“Given how absent he was your entire life and then the scene he caused when you had to force him to show his face, it’s crazy that he wants anything other than your forgiveness.” Simone rolled her eyes.
“Preaching to the choir here, sister.” Maisie took a long sip of her extra strong Bloody Maria. “But he wants information on Byrd.”
My jaw dropped. “Why is everyone so obsessed with me all of a sudden? What does he want to know about me ?”
“I’m not sure what he wants exactly with you, but it has to do with you being a dragon-shifter. I do know that.”
My heart sank. “What?”
“He’s asking all sorts of questions about you, your powers, your family, everything. I haven’t responded to a single text from him.”
Simone snorted. “What makes him think that you would answer anything when, again, he’s the worst kind of deadbeat dad?”
“He has been making dull threats, trying to call me, and trying to visit my house to intimidate me.”
“Ohmigods, Maisie!” Simone cried out.
“Maisie, you didn’t tell us about that!” I exclaimed, leaning toward her.
Maisie moved her hand as if she was swatting away something in the air. “Because it’s like telling you both how annoying a fly was to me the other day. He’s irrelevant. There’s nothing he can do to hurt me or get me to tell him anything about my bestie. He’s stupid enough to try anything against me, then he is fucked and I will ensure that.” Magic sparked along Maisie’s fingers to legitimize her threat.
“Well, speaking of magic and threats, any news on the dagger? Weren’t you, Teddy, and Talli looking into it before the holidays?” I asked.
Maisie nodded. “We did some research together and at the Archive with Isidora, but she was supposed to be getting more books in today that would give us more information. She held onto the dagger to keep investigating it in case there was something that we missed. She said she would start looking into it as soon as the books arrived. I was going to stop by after brunch to check-in.”
“Do you mind if I tag along with you?” I asked.
“Of course not!” Maisie smiled. “Izzy has been asking about you, so I’m sure she would love to see you. And I like your company or something.”
“Then it’s settled!” Simone declared. “It’s a good thing this outfit is actually surprisingly comfortable.”
The show continued on with the next set, but their performance and the ones that followed were a blur as my thoughts raced. Why did so many people want to kill me? What did they get out of it? The hunters the day my mom had been murdered had mentioned Mom’s and my worth. Why was there a price tag on my existence? What did it mean? Why us? What made us so special that our lives meant nothing compared to the monetary value of our death? Is that why I had lost my mom and Pops? To fill someone’s fucking pockets? I lost a lifetime with them just so someone could buy a vacation home and some jewelry?
The glasses on our table shattered suddenly. Instead of their shards falling to the table, they floated just above it. They were sharp needles, rugged and angry in appearance. It was as if the glass had broken just so to create them. As they hovered above the air like tiny crystal stars, I felt an odd tiny thread to each of them, as if I could pull and control them.
“Byrdie?”
I looked up from the glass to the girls staring between me and the shards on the table. Simone placed her hand over mine, and I immediately felt more grounded to the present. “Are you okay, Bee?”
“Are you doing this?” Maisie asked in awe at the scene. “This is a lot of magic to be able to control so much at once, even if it is small.”
“Yes and yes. I’m sorry for taking you away from the show.” I shook my head. As if reading my thoughts alone, the crystals combined together seamlessly to return to the glasses they were at before, whole as if nothing had ever happened.
“Oh, girl, shut the front door! You can control glass!” Simone’s eyes were the same size as the plates for our food.
I smiled and shook my head. “Not quite glass. More like crystals.”
“But then, how are you able to control glass?”
“Glass is made of sand, which is just very tiny quartz crystals, so it’s kind of like controlling crystals still.” I shrugged.
“That is so fucking cool, dude,” Maisie complimented. I beamed at her words.
As the last notes of the show rang out and the standing ovation died down, the three of us paid and gathered our purses to head on our way. We left the cozy warmth for the crisp still-Autumn feeling December air to head over to the Archive.
A s soon as the automatic doors of the Archive opened, I could feel my dragon bristle. My scales rippled with color and power just under my skin. I felt on edge immediately.
I wasn’t the only one.
The Archive’s tree at the center of the Library blew around like it was in a hurricane. Her leaves and branches shook making the shelves and the entire building quake. The ceiling above was dark and cloudy with streaks of colorful lightning flashing frequently. All around, the pages and books were chaotically, erratically, and quickly flying. The patrons were holding down their papers and belongings, looking around concerned and confused. Something was horribly wrong.
The Archive was scared.
“Byrd! Oh, thank goodness, you’re here!” I turned to see one of my favorite Managers on Duty, Paige, standing behind the main circulation desk. Paige was an adorkable cutie pie and an owl shifter. Her brown eyes were wide with fear as I approached.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“The Archive has been like this since Dr. Rhois went upstairs a few minutes ago! She got a call, said she was headed to the Vault, and asked Journee to go with her. Not long after they left, the Archive started acting like this. I have no idea why.”
Rhois and Journee going to the Vault? That ain’t good.
“Something is scaring her.” I placed my hands on the desk. It was shivering. My heart squeezed so tight I could cry. “Archive? What’s wrong?”
A branch reached down before me. It pointed behind me. When I turned around to look where she had pointed, I heard an elevator ding. Books, scrolls, and loose pages flew over to encircle an elevator door that had just appeared.
“Paige, please get the patrons out of here and let the Night MOD know that the Archive is going to be closed tonight.”
“O-okay? Is everything alright?” Paige stuttered nervously.
“I don’t know yet, but I think we should do this just to be safe.”
“I’m on it! Be careful, Byrd. There is something weird happening, and it’s enough to ruffle my feathers.”
You and me both, girl.
As Paige left the desk to start to herd the patrons out, I ran toward the elevator with Simone and Maisie close at my heels. We were almost inside of it when I ran into something hard .
I almost fell to the floor with the collision. But then, large rough hands caught me in a dip like something in a romance movie, the hands on my back and sides touching where my jeans and sweater left bare skin were electrifying and hot. My dragon stirred in my head recognizing who the hands belonged to at the same time that I did.
“Quinn?” I breathed, meeting her golden hazel eyes and smirking face.
“What’s up, gorgeous?” She lifted me back onto my feet. When she did, I saw Simone in the arms of Cole, and Cody keeping the elevator door open with his arm.
“What are y’all doing here?” I asked.
“I could ask you the same question.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I work here, starlight.”
“On the weekends?” Her eyebrow quirked up, and she motioned behind her, using her thumb at Simone and Maisie. “With friends?”
“We are researching the dagger your ex so kindly left in my thigh.”
“Well, what a coincidence! We are chasing said ex!” Cole declared. Quinn turned and gave him a look that I could feel the heat from without even seeing it.
“So sorry, you are doing what ?!” I cried out. “I thought you had her in custody or whatever! How did she escape? What happened?”
“It’s actually a funny story that we can talk about on the way there,” Cody rushed, with his hands signaling us to hurry. “Quinn, she is upstairs. We need to go. Now .”
Quinn nodded before taking my hand. “C’mon, let’s go.”
The six of us entered the elevator cart. It looked just like the other elevator cart that I used to go and see Isidora with the mirrors and glamorous tiling all around. Instead of pressing the button for the thirteenth floor, the Archive unveiled a new button at the top, one that she only revealed to me and the throuple. I chewed my bottom lip and pressed the button to close the doors and hurry the elevator onward.
“So. Who would like to share with the class how the Godzilla bitch escaped?”
“Why are you looking at me?” Cody raised his hands in innocence to Maisie’s pointed glare and question. “Cole was on watch for her!”
“She had help. They knocked my ass out and let her loose. Cody was able to track her here,” Cole explained.
“Knock you out? Like, struck you?” Simone asked, worried.
“No, she used magic. One second, I was awake, and the next second, Quinn was waking me up from the floor.”
“That would take some powerful ass magic. Actually,” Maisie noted. “It would be the same magic that was used to put y’all asleep back at the resort.”
“Wait, the same? So, whoever knocked Cole out and helped that bitch escape is the same one who helped her get into the resort and incapacitate Quinn’s family?” I asked.
Maisie nodded.
The closer we got to the top, the more my dragon paced restlessly within me. My necklace heated, and my anxiety grew with its rising temperature. I could feel my dragon’s energy crackling just within reach. I could also sense… something. I simultaneously wanted to throw up, run, and fight whatever was causing this.
We will fight it. We must. It’s unnatural. My dragon snarled through her rows of fangs.
Quinn suddenly hissed in pain and pulled away the hand that was holding mine. On the back of it, we both watched as five open cuts knitted themselves together.
“Oh, no, I’m so sorry, baby! I didn’t even realize…” I tried to focus on returning my nails to normal, but instead, I felt my four fangs descend and my ears become pointed.
I was shifting against my will.
We must survive. My dragon roared.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s already healed. What’s wrong?” Quinn asked, always able to sense how I was feeling without me saying a word.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t respond. My chrysalis magic sparked around me. I ground my teeth to get my wings and tail to not unfurl. My dragon fought me hard, making me groan in pain.
“Byrd! What’s wrong?” Quinn asked.
“Something… Making… Shift,” I grunted.
“What could?—”
The elevator dinged as we reached the Vault, stopping Quinn from finishing her question.
The name was a bit of a misnomer. The Vault protected the information located within it, but it was far from a room sealed by a large locked door underground. For one thing, it was located on the top floor of the Archive. It was the closest one would come to reaching the ceiling as well as the top of the Archive’s tree. Up here, there was a wide branch leading from the elevator to what looked like an exposed part of the tree’s trunk. There were shelves upon shelves stacked in neat rows with tables and chairs on the far side. It seemed to stretch on forever, a never-ending series of stacks of scrolls, parchment pages, books, slabs, and so much more supernatural information that the public didn’t need to see. A railing of branches thick enough to be trees of their own reached into the storm clouds of the Archive’s current ceiling. They surrounded the outskirts of the trunk floor. It made the Vault appear to be like a meadow in an enchanted forest.
I could count on one hand how many times I had been here, cataloguing new materials and completing other tasks for Rhois and Izzy. It was usually magical, reminding me of my childhood home and running through the woods. I had always loved the smell of the different woods mixed in with the scent of age and history.
Today, however, the elevator door opened to pure chaos.
There were shelves that had been knocked over. Materials were flying or were scattered all over the floor, lifeless. Tables and chairs had been overturned. There were cuts in the trees that were leaking sap as if they were bleeding, and there were flames on some of the tree branches framing the Vault’s space. Golden fire, sky blue airy magic, and dark garnet red magic went flying. I couldn’t make out where the dark magic was coming from, as it seemed to be coming from multiple places at once, but I could see where the other magic was coming from.
Journee was sending their magic from one side of the air. They rode on a cloud the same color as their magic. The glow of their magic radiated from their eyes, bright enough to see even from this distance. The yellow flames were coming from a fully shifted Isidora. Her double set of dark wings flapped behind her, keeping her in air and helping her dodge magic blows. Her entire lower half was a lion, her tail whipping behind her just like her curls on her head. Her black claws stretched long and sharp from her hands and were surrounded by golden fire. She roared, fighting off who I could only presume was the source of the dark red magic. On the ground, a red wolf the size of a Clydesdale horse snarled while fighting Zaria who had a fucking sword of all things. The sword glowed blood red with an aura of power around it. My scales rippled and surfaced in patches on my skin. The feeling here was lethal and all consuming. It was like the aura from the dagger times a hundred. I growled loudly, my control slipping.
We must fight this. We must kill it. It’s wrong. It’s wrong. It’s wrong.
What was wrong? Why was my dragon acting like this? What was she sensing?
“What the fuck is going on?” Simone asked from behind Cole toward the back of the elevator.
“Looks like a good ol’ fashion magic fight to me,” Maisie answered. With a wave of her hand, a barrier of neon purple magic formed in front of the elevator door. It was just in time to block a blast of that horrible energy before it hit us. The magic was powerful enough to almost crack through Maisie’s barrier, and it left her shaky on her feet.
“Maisie! Are you okay?” Simone exclaimed.
Maisie nodded as she righted herself. “Yeah, I’m fine. That magic… It’s the same powerful magic from the blade and the spell keeping everyone asleep. It’s all connected. It has to be done by the same person, and they have to be who the guardians are fighting. That’s what’s making Byrd shift. If I feel it, I can only imagine how suffocating it is for her.”
Oh, you have no idea, I thought.
“So, what do we do—Ohmigods, is that a gun , Cole?!” Simone asked. I heard the click of the safety on a gun behind me.
Something else snapped and clicked into place near where Cody stood. “We have a crossbow, too, princess, and Quinn has tiny swords.”
Quinn unsheathed Amy and Tina from underneath her pant legs. When I glanced at her and our eyes met, her face was the most serious I had ever seen it. Her eyes were aflame with focus. She nodded before asking Simone and Maisie. “Do we know who Zaria and the witch are fighting?”
“Isidora, Journee, and Rhois. They are the Archive’s Guardians and Byrd’s bosses. They are trying to protect the Vault. I’m sure those two didn’t come in through the front door to check out the latest Brynne Weaver book,” Maisie said.
“Understood.”
Another stray blast of red magic hit. A crack formed in the barrier. Maisie cried out. “That barrier won’t last much longer! We need a plan!”
“Waiting on your orders, Quinn,” Cole said.
Quinn’s voice took on a tone and inflection that I had never heard before, but had caught glimpses of. It was deep, commanding, and definitely made me feel things I shouldn’t be feeling before going into a fight with a witch and huntress and keeping my dragon at bay. It didn’t go beyond my dragon’s notice as she purred, pleased with Quinn’s strength and power. Girl, same here.
“Cole and Cody, Zaria is the priority. I want her taken alive by any means necessary. Totally fine if the bitch gets tortured in the process, but I need her breathing. The witch is secondary. If we capture Zaria, we can get all the information we need about the witch and anyone else she’s working with. Am I understood?”
“Copy that,” Cole and Cody said at the same time.
Quinn glanced between me, Simone, and Maisie. “What are the odds that you girls would leave this to us?”
“I’m sure I can speak for all three of us when I say low as fuck,” Maisie replied. “What can we do?”
Quinn shook her head, a nerve flicking in her jaw. I loved how much she loved to be in control. “I suppose we don’t have time to argue. Distract the witch as much as you can so we can take Zaria. Once we have Zaria, we’ll help take?—”
Quinn never got to finish. Something crashed into the barrier and burst through it, crashing into everyone in the elevator and sending us to the floor. It was Rhois, shifted back into her human form with healing cuts on her skin and open slashes to the fabric of her outfit. The cuts, I noticed, were healing slower than they should.
“If I had known I was going to be dealing with a fairy freak, I would have brought some iron along! Now, I just have to find out how many stabs with this sword it will take to kill you!” Zaria cackled like a cartoon villain on the far side of the Vault.
“This little bitch is really starting to piss me off,” Rhois snarled, her fury coming off of her in waves before looking toward all of us. Her rage shifted to concern. “Are you all okay?”
“I was about to ask you the same question,” Simone said. “What happened?”
“Isidora was in the Vault when someone attempted to break in. She called me and Journee up to help, thinking it was better safe than sorry. By the time we arrived, she was fighting the huntress and blood fitch at the same time.”
“Excuse the fuck out of me, a blood fitch ?!” Maisie exclaimed. “A witch-fae that can use blood magic? That’s a thing?!”
“Blood magic?! But that’s forbidden, even among water beings,” Simone gasped.
“Oh, hoofed bitch! Come out, come out, wherever you are! I know I didn’t toss you that far! I’m sure those wounds aren’t healing quickly, either!”
I growled, sensing Zaria and her sword closing in on us.
“Could someone please explain to the folks at home what in the fuck y’all are talking about?” Cody groaned as he tried to get up. “And I suggest we make it quick.”
“Blood magic is one of the few types of magic anyone can practice, but a magical being using it amplifies its already incredible power. Blood fitches and witches who use blood as a source for their magic can use aspects of the blood to control people and wield it as a weapon. It is very strong, especially with the right blood, but magic like that, that takes away anyone’s will, comes at a high cost. It’s unnatural, ancient, and brings only corruption and darkness,” Rhois explained as Quinn and I helped her stand.
Maisie’s eyes widened. “The right blood? Does that mean?—?”
“Dragon blood? That and more, actually.”
Wait, did she say dragon blood ?
“OMG, I can actually talk about that now?! Thank fuck! The whole ‘not talking about shit’ is annoying. How else am I supposed to do my witty banter?” Zaria materialized in front of the elevator with that fucking sword. My growls echoed off the elevator cart, sounding loud even to my ears.
“You’d have to have wit, first of all,” Maisie said under her breath.
Zaria ignored her. “Honestly, Quinn, love, I don’t know how you date outside of hunter circles, especially a fucking lizard.”
My dragon quieted for the first time since we entered the Archive. I locked eyes with Quinn, whose eyebrows were just as furrowed with confusion as my own. Had Zaria just outed me to Quinn? Also, was Quinn a—? My brain struggled to comprehend so much all at once. Zaria must have caught onto this because she burst into loud rambunctious and grating laughter.
“ Oh, my fucking god! You two don’t know! Oh, what did I do to deserve this gift?! Okay, let me dumb it down for you two.”
Zaria pointed her sword at Quinn, making me growl on instinct despite all my confusion. “Quinn here is a huntress. She comes from a family of hunters that date back to when hunters were created.”
Zaria directed the sword at each of Quinn’s cousins in turn. “Every member of Quinn’s little family are hunters, trained at birth to carry on the traditions.”
She then angled her sword at herself. “I am also a huntress. Now, my family does it for the money, hunting whatever is worth the most fortune. That usually means dragon-shifters and other rare shifters like them. Now, my ancestors were not built for dragon-hunting, but I like to think that we have gotten just as good as the Hesse family line. We got good enough to arrange a union between us, right, lover?”
Quinn threw one of her daggers at Zaria, but she deflected it with her sword. Before the dagger landed on the ground, it rotated and came back toward Zaria of its own accord. Guessing this, Zaria turned again and veered the dagger off track before it returned to Quinn handle-first without a drop of blood on it. Quinn sneered, but Zaria clicked her tongue.
“Now, now, we both know that a hunter’s weapon can’t kill another hunter. Besides, we haven’t even gotten to the best part! So, get this, you scaly freak. Quinn’s family specifically hunt dragon-shifters, but they will kill anything with a pulse for the right price—oh, I’m sorry, as long as it meets their code . What is it again, lover? ‘Kill those who have killed? Hear, observe, speak, execute?’ It’s some bullshit like that, right?”
Before Quinn could say anything, Zaria pointed her sword at me. My snarl filled the entire elevator cart. I could hear the others behind me cry out at its volume, but I didn’t care. Zaria stared at me with her contacts that were as fake as she was, looking down on me like I was an insect to be stepped on. It fueled my rage that was boiling just underneath the surface. “Which leads to you. This hussy here is a dragon-shifter from a long line of dragon-shifters, including ones that have killed hunters in front of witnesses. She has killed hunters in front of witnesses. You, Quinn, are dating a bounty , which means money in my pocket and some nice revenge for killing your little cold-blooded whore?—”
My control snapped at last, and I lost it. With my dragon taking over, my tail came to life and whipped out at her. The crystal spikes on it bit into Zaria’s skin, slicing her, as it sent her flying into the vault. My wings unfurled behind me, and I pushed off toward her. A part of me could hear Quinn and some of the others call out after me, but I didn’t care.
This bitch has to die.
It took no time to catch up to Zaria. She was bleeding from her wounds still, the smell of blood stinging my nose but making me smile with a mouth full of fangs at the satisfaction of weakening her. She swung her sword at me, but it was easy enough for me to dodge. Because of the amount of energy radiating from the blade, I could anticipate its movements easily. It didn’t help that clearly a sword wasn’t her weapon of choice. Her moves were sloppy and lacked any precision. The sword was large enough to do damage despite the clumsiness.
If it was a tree.
Zaria went to slam her blade down on me when a black blade sailed through the air and impaled itself into her stomach. She cried out and went to pull it out when another blade struck her hand.
“What the f—?“ She screamed in pain.
“Hunter weapons may not be able to kill you, but it can hurt like a bitch, I’m sure.” I turned to see Quinn approach.
“I had her!” My tail slashed through the air angrily. I didn’t recognize my voice. It was so feral and full of rage.
Quinn held her hands out, calm and steady in the face of my fury. “I never said you didn’t?—”
I cut her off with a snarl. “She was trying to kill me for fucking money. Something that your family does apparently?—”
Quinn shook her head. “No, Byrd, that’s?—”
My tail hit the floor hard enough to dent it. My fingers sparked with power and anger. She was so lucky there weren’t any crystals nearby. I had no power over myself, and I didn’t know what I would do if I had that power right now. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me, Quinn?”
Quinn’s eyes glistened with tears. It hurt seeing her like this, but I couldn’t stop the heat of my anger boiling over. A part of me tried to get me to stop this, to remember that this was my Quinn and my fated mate. I loved her, didn’t I? The problem was that I didn’t know if that part was me or my dragon.
She continued. “I wanted to, baby girl. I wanted to desperately?—”
“But you didn’t! Why?!”
“We can’t !” She yelled. “Hunters can’t talk about what we are with those who don’t know about our existence. There have been so many times I wanted?—”
“You are a hunter, Quinn! You hunt me . You hunt dragon-shifters like me and my parents. I should have fucking known that you were a hunter by your daggers and your powers. I was so stupid . You kill people like me for fucking profit ,” I roared, making her flinch like I had struck her. I hated this. My words were spit with venom, but I didn’t feel them in earnest. They were weak. I believed Quinn. My heart knew, but that didn’t matter. My life had been put at risk too many times now because of naivety and blindness. Something had to give.
Quinn shook her head. “No, no, we don’t. Please, let me explain. We hunt dragons, yes, but only those who have killed. It’s just like other supernatural creatures, like vampires or shifters?—”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?!” I roared at her again, shaking the Vault. “You could kill me?—”
My words were cut off then as burning pain radiated from my side. I looked down to see a shard of hard blood red magic sticking from there with a smiling and bleeding Zaria holding it.
“Oh, she could kill you, but it’s way more fun if I do it.” She chuckled. I snarled at her before my tail slammed down on her back, knocking the wind out of her as she flew to the ground. My spikes struck her back. She cried out just before Quinn kicked her head. The force was hard enough to knock her out completely.
Finally, she was fucking silent.
My knees buckled under me as the poison from the magic took hold. I groaned in pain. I reached to pull it out.
“Baby, no, let me do it. That’s going to burn you if you do it,” Quinn said, crouching before my injured side. “This is going to hurt like hell. I’m so sorry.”
Why not just leave it in? That’s your job, right? I thought, but I couldn’t bear to say it. It felt wrong. This whole thing felt wrong. I just knew in my gut?—
Quinn pulled the shard out, and my roar echoed off the branches of the Vault. The fires in my blood grew for just a moment before I felt the same chill flow through my system as before, killing the flames of agony. With it, the heat of my rage died, too. My dragon and I became less intertwined, and I was able to gain some control back and clarity back. My tail and wings calmed their frenzied movements behind me. Just like before, the blood from my wound hardened and crystalized into rubies on my skin. I wiped it away, watching the crystals fall to the ground like falling red stars.
“ Nunca dejas de sorprenderme con tu belleza, mi tesoro. You never cease to amaze me with your beauty, Byrd.” Quinn whispered in pure awe. Her golden voice and proximity showered me in warmth. Her eyes glittered with admiration and love at my magic.
At me.
We maintained eye contact until the shard melted into fresh blood in Quinn’s hand. She broke our eye contact to wipe it on her jeans.
The magic of the moment melted with the blade. I stepped away and crossed my arms around my sides.
So many emotions and thoughts swirled in my head, and I didn’t know what to tackle first. I didn’t know if I even wanted to unravel anything. My tail flicked, and my wings fluttered with nervous energy. I wanted to run away. I wanted to take flight and keep flying until I met the horizon. I wanted to scream until I couldn’t talk ever again.
I … I just…
I didn’t know what to do.