Page 168 of Scars Like Wings

My dragon growled in my head as I started shifting back, but I reassured her.We are reunited. It won’t be forever this time.She settled hearing my words, making herself comfortable underneath my skin, always close by.

I closed my eyes and focused. The chrysalis returned to encircle me in its shimmering light. I felt myself shrink returning to my five feet frame. My scales receded to theirpatches across my body, bringing back my tawny human skin. I was more human in appearance, but I knew I was nowhere near it. I hadn’t felt my horns, fangs, talons, wings, or tail leave. I now had elven ears I could feel peek out from between my locs. My vision and other senses remained sharpened, too. When the chrysalis vanished after I had finished my transformation, I felt the chill from the altitude and beachy air immediately, making me shiver.

That was when I remembered a less-than-ideal side effect of shifting without any preparation?—

“Fuck!” I landed on the balcony, trying to cover my nakedness.

“Yeaaaah, shifting for the first time isn’t kind to non-magicked clothes,” Simone said.

I went to step into my room when I had to stop dead in my tracks. The whole space was a totalmess. There were holes and dents in every wall. No furniture had been left unscathed, with everything being reduced to shards of wood and rubble. It was like a tornado had gone through the space.

Well, of sorts.

I sorted through the pile of wood that once was the dresser and was able to find my duffel bag. From it, I pulled out an oversized t-shirt and a pair of shorts. I folded my wings down and close to my back to put the shirt on. It felt weird keeping them like this, and I could definitely feel the beginnings of a cramp no matter how many times I readjusted them. How did Everett do this all day with his giant wings?

“Are you not able to shift back into a full human?” Simone asked as I struggled to put on shorts because of my tail.Gods, had everything always been this shifter unfriendly?

“The first time a dragon shifts, they instinctively know how to fully manifest their dragon and revert back,” I explained. “But, they don’t know how to fully revert to human. It usually takes alot of training or some magical intervention. So, this is the best I can do for right now. I think Talli helped my parents with their shifts before.”

“Wait, Talli helped your parents shift? You remember that now?” Simone asked.

“The spell on your back is nonexistent now, so it must have been broken earlier tonight. I think that Forget-Me Spell was tied to your back and your dragon. I didn’t even see your scars or anything when you shifted,” Maisie noticed.

Only Byrd will be able to break this spell, and that’s only when she’s ready and wants to do so.Talli’s voice echoed in my head from that night that everything changed.

“Yeah, the spell broke as soon as I was ready.”

“Ready? Ready for what? That still sounds like such a vague spell term,” Simone said with Maisie shrugging but not disagreeing.

“When I was ready to fully grieve everything that had happened. Like, everything that hadreallyhappened. It’s a really long story,” I sighed, suddenly exhausted.

So much had happened and that was just including the memories surfacing in my head. They were so fresh as if they had happened yesterday instead of well over a decade ago. Mom was killed by hunters. Pops and Max were killed by hunters. They threatened mine and Everett’s lives twice before. And now, tonight? With Zaria? I clawed at my sides, apprehension beginning to take hold of me and gnawing at my insides. My tail swished behind me while my wings buzzed.

“Did it have anything to do with that weird knife? It seemed to be cursed or something. Where is it, anyway?” Simone asked.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched a neon purple orb rise from the ground. Inside was the dagger in question. It still had those blood red shadows floating around it like wisps of smoke. I couldn’t feel its aura and power through Maisie’s bubble, but italso still gave me the creeps and put me on high alert. I growled softly at the sight of it as it flew over toward Maisie.

“Whatever is attached to it causes an adverse reaction in Byrd.” Maisie glanced at my bristling before looking back at the knife in her orb. “It definitely has a pretty powerfulsomethingon there. It’s not quite an Archaic, but the magic is just as old. I haven’t seen anything like it before in my studies, but you can usually feel the intent of magic. This felt like it might be a ward of sorts? Something to protect, maybe?“

“Or to defeat,” I said before my pointed ears perked up at the sound of pulsed rumbling near what once was the bed. I used my wings to fly over all the debris to reach it. After some shifting through the remains of the nightstand, I found my phone. My heart skipped a beat at the Caller ID.

“Quinn, are you okay?” I answered, immediately breathless.

“I was going to ask you the same thing, sweetness.” Just hearing her voice on the other line was enough to make me sink to the floor in relief.

“I’m fine. Better than fine actually,” I answered. The tip of my tail started to thump against the floor. Maisie raised an eyebrow while Simone snickered. I ignored them. “Where are you? Are you hurt or anything?”

“I’m outside, and I’m fine. She got some good hits in, but it’s nothing I couldn’t handle. What I couldn’t handle was if anything happened to you, which it did. She hurt you today. I heard it. I practicallyfeltit. It’s all my fault, Byrd. You got hurt because of me. I’m so, so sorry.”

“No, honey, don’t do that. This isn’t your fault. None of it is. You didn’t ask Zaria to attack me, and you did everything in your power to stop it. Don’t take this burden on yourself. It’s not yours to take.”

“If I had lost you today?—”

“But you didn’t,” I interrupted. “I’m right here, Quinn. I’m not going anywhere. I’m okay. I mean it.”

I could practically hear Quinn shaking her head on the other line. “I promise you that she will pay for this. I’m going to make sure of it.”

I honestly didn’t know if I should be scared for Zaria’s sake at the fire in Quinn’s voice or turned on. I shook my head to start thinking more with it, rather than with my pussy again. “What do you mean by that? What happened to her after y’all went in the hallway?”

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