Chapter Nine
“What’s going on, Dailey?” Sloane asked the second she stepped over the threshold to Harrison’s office.
“This is going to sound insane,” Dailey began.
“Well, you’re in the proper place for it,” she quipped.
“Funny, now may I finish?”
Although she smirked, she remained silent.
Drumming up his courage, he said, “I think Mother is manipulating us with magic.”
Harrison’s met in the center of his forehead, and Sloane’s perfectly penciled brows rose.
“You were always her staunchest supporter, D. What’s changed?
Why are you bringing this to us now?” she asked, tucking a silky strand of her chestnut hair behind her ear and ruining the bob’s precision cut with the casual action.
By displaying her earlobe, she also revealed a one-carat diamond of the finest quality.
Another flawlessly put-together Cobb among their line.
No one could look at any of their family and see them for the actual mess they were.
“Tripp interrupted her mid-enchantment.”
“And Rowan recoiled when she smelled Mother’s perfume on him,” Harrison added. “A light touch wouldn’t have created so visceral a reaction.”
“Wait, you and Rowan are a thing?” she asked Dailey.
“No! God. I wouldn’t do that to Harry.”
A flush of color painted their brother’s cheekbones, reinforcing his embarrassment at being called out about his lifelong crush. “She doesn’t see me that way,” he said, with all the dignity he could muster.
Dailey hurt for him. Unrequited love sucked. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m not going there, ever. I value my balls too much, and she’d bust them every chance she got.”
“Look, I’ve no love for our mother. As you both know, she’s made my life a misery. But the evidence sounds circumstantial to me.” So saying, Sloane crossed to the window and peered toward City Hall. “I’m not saying she’s not capable, mind you, but we need actual proof before we accuse her.”
She hadn’t been able to hide the suspicion or disdain in her voice, and her thoughtful gaze was laser-focused. Both signs his sister was nursing her own brand of resentment toward their mother.
“It was Tripp who suggested we ward ourselves against her as a precaution.” Dailey dropped another WTF-bomb by saying, “And I agree.”
But neither reacted as expected. Sloane nodded, while Harrison went to a bookcase behind his desk and drew down a novel. Surprise of surprises, the entire damn wall shifted, revealing a hidden ceremony room.
“Dude.” Sloane laughed. “For the one who prefers to live like a mortal among witches and warlocks, you’ve shocked the hell out of us. I mean, who knew you had a secret spell room?”
Sage curled through the air in soft spirals from a small ceramic burner in the corner.
The air was made thicker with the herb-sharp scent of rosemary.
Completing the trifecta was the smoky sweetness of cedar wafting through the tiny room and flowing into the surrounding walls.
Mary-Alice Cobb, with her primordial magic, might bully her way through the wards, but she wouldn’t enjoy the price tag.
Dailey sniffed. “And what protection ward are you using? It smells fierce.”
“One from Florence Shaw.”
Both he and Sloane spun back to gape at Harrison. Flo and Mary-Alice had a longstanding feud. If their mother suspected he’d gone to her enemy for help, Harrison might as well change his last name and leave Witchmere.
“Be careful, Harry,” Dailey warned. “I mean it.”
“Mother has never paid attention to me before. I doubt she’ll get a bee in her bonnet to start now.” He shrugged as if the power of their ancestral line couldn’t wipe their tiny town off the map. Hell, it had created it!
“Okay, so you boys are better versed with all this hocus pocus than I am. How do we protect ourselves? I’ve used distance in the past, but now I’m back here at the source, I’d like something foolproof,” Sloane said as she thumbed through Harrison’s grimoire.
“Is this a replica of the Cobb original?”
“Yes,” Harrison replied, leaning against the jam and crossing his arms as he watched them inspect the space.
Dailey joined Sloane, impressed despite himself. His little brother was far more clever than he’d ever realized, and twice as stealthy.
“What about charming amulets?” he suggested. He shot a quick glance at Harrison. “Blood from the three of us, infused in stones, all working together. The strength of the three outweighs the one.”
Harrison nodded slowly as if mentally examining all the angles. “It could work, but it could also backfire if she discovers what we did and somehow breaks the bond.”
Sloane looked up sharply. “You mean hurting one can hurt the other two?”
“Precisely.”
She worried her lip, then gave a decisive nod. “I’m willing to risk it. I’m tired of her machinations and want to be free of her.”
“Same,” Dailey agreed. “Harry?”
“I’m in.”
He hadn’t realized how much he wanted—hell, needed—their support until right that second. But he was so fucking grateful for it.
“You do understand she’ll try to dig her claws in and hold on to you the tightest, D, right?” Harrison asked. “You need to be prepared.”
Dailey scrubbed his hands over his face. “Jesus! I’ve been asking myself all day how I never saw it. I feel like a turnip-brained toad.”
“You love her, D,” Sloane said. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she rested her glossy head on his shoulder. “It’s harder to see when you’re so close.” She drew back and cupped his jaw. “But it’s a betrayal of us anyway you look at it.”
“It’s difficult to deny the bond between a firstborn and their mother. But what made you aware of her nature today, of all days?” Harrison watched him with undisguised curiosity. The doctor in him was already examining his motives and reasoning.
“Don’t analyze me unless asked,” he ground out. Dailey wasn’t prepared for anyone to peel back the layers of his emotional onion quite yet. He had to live in his newfound feelings for a bit.
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m curious about the catalyst, whether external or internal,” Harrison replied mildly.
“Could be external. I’m thinking it has something to do with the Trickster’s boots.”
“Trickster Boots?” Sloane asked.
Harrison’s calm dipped. “Shit. Not again.”
“Yep.”
“Who?”
“Payton.”
Payton was halfway back to Elara’s old apartment when she decided she didn’t really want to be alone to lick her wounds. If things went as expected, with her life heading straight down the crapper, a few margaritas with Rowan would be a pleasant memory to dust off now and then.
After shooting off a text, she headed for The Winking Wyvern pub. She was ten feet away from the entrance when a shadow passed over the sun. The window-rattling roar from directly above was disconcerting, as was the rapidly warming air melting the snow into a puddle at her feet.
The sound of heavy flapping, like canvas in a gale, caught her attention, and she glanced around for the source. That’s when she saw him, and holy dragon fire, was he a sight!
Screams rent the air, drawing the midday bar crowd out to investigate.
The creature dove straight for her like a falling star, but her self-preservation took a holiday so she could take in the sheer magnificence of the beast. For a split second, Payton considered the possibility of a magical-boot hallucination, but others were running away or frozen, gaping at it, too.
Then, he landed.
The dragon shifted mid-step onto the sidewalk, landing in human form, naked, with smoke curling off his tanned, tattooed skin. The symbols, like nothing she’d ever seen, went from glowing to ink in a blink.
“Where are my children?” he growled, sending shivers throughout her body and causing onlookers to squeak in fear.
But his magic called to her Titan blood, and fool that she was, she threw caution to the winds as something remarkably like courage stiffened her backbone.
“Look, buddy, I don’t know what that ridiculous entrance was all about, or where these so-called children of yours are, but you can’t go around terrorizing others with your raging display of…” She made the mistake of glancing down his body. “Holy dragon dicks, dude!”
When she could tear her eyes away and meet his, there was a distinct twinkle in those amber depths.
“You were saying?” His voice was like velvet dipped in danger.
“I was?” she asked, distracted by the way the sunlight shone off his sculpted chest. And when he ran his hand through his dark, jaw-length hair like Fabio on an 80s romance cover, her ovaries sighed.
The man was broader than a barn, half feral, and barefoot.
In other words, perfect.
It had to be the whole Dragon Daddy vibe, gray streak and all, right?
“It would help if you were clothed, Vorren,” a deep, amused voice said from behind her.
“Hermes.” With a wink for Payton, Vorren the Viking-like Dragon Daddy—this is likely how she would always view him in her mind—snapped his fingers, clothing himself in a casual black, muscle-enhancing tee-shirt that highlighted all the perfectly placed ridges a woman loved to ogle, and a pair of jeans. His feet were left bare.
“Won’t your toes freeze? Dragons don’t have to worry about frostbite?” And why did she care?
“Roll up your tongue, Payton,” Hermes ordered with a light laugh. “We have work to do, my dear.”
“Work?” She glanced up at him. “What work? I’m going in for a margarita with—”
“Holy fuckballs!”
Rowan had arrived, and her eyes were locked on Vorren the Vision.
“I know. They don’t make them like that here in Witchmere,” Payton agreed.
Hermes frowned. “I’m a god.”
“Yeah, but you don’t count,” she said, giving him a pesky-fly wave. “No one trusts you enough to boink you.”
“That one really hurt.” And damned if he didn’t appear wounded.
“You’re the one gifting town-destroying boots. What woman wants a pair of gorgeous shoes with a warning label?”
Vorren grinned. “At it again, Hermes?”
“Stuff it.”
“Oh, I’ve got something he can stuff,” Rowan said in a low, only meant for my bestie to hear voice.
Too bad both Hermes and Vorren, the Viking-like Dragon Daddy, had supernatural hearing.
Their amused laughter sent Rowan flying into the bar.
“It’s her fight or flight instinct,” Payton explained lamely. “Okay, nice chat. Try not to scare the residents, Dragon Daddy. Later.”
He stepped into her path and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You have something of mine.”
Dailey appeared from the alley beside the bar.
“You’re going to want to remove that hand before I break every bone you possess,” he growled.
A second later, a baseball-sized meteor shot straight for Dragon Daddy’s head.