Page 20 of Mistletoe Wishes and Dragon Kisses

“You came intomyhome! You tried to makemebreak the Cardinal Law of Witchcraft! You calledmea selfish little brat! You attacked me you crazy Bug! You…!”

“And I was right! You hadeverythingand 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 ofher ‘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 thenIam 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 Witchlifted 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 reveledin 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.”

5

“So,” he drew the word out way longer than usual. “I guess your Auntie Bridgette wasn’t really happy to see me?”

"Oh, hush," Glo readily reassured, swatting at the air between them as she whipped up sandwiches for not only her Mate but also Em and Nostradamus's trip home. "She just acts like that when she's being the Brown Witch of Justice and Accord. She feels like she has to be very stern and stoic, so she is taken seriously." Making air quotes, she looked over her shoulder and winked at her Mate. It took everything in her not to abandon the lunchmeat and cheese, grab his hand, and take him upstairs to have her wicked way with him, but she needed to make sure her friends had something to eat since they were going to do a little sightseeing and visiting on their way home. And even more so, since they were going out their way to stop and meet Gustav and Greta in person and give two of Glo’s favorite people their overdue Christmas presents. "Come on, you have to remember when she caught us trying to burn ants with that magnifying glass like those horrible bullies at school. She didn't get mad or lose her cool. She just explained that ants areliving, breathing beings. They are the Goddess's creations, and we have to be respectful. Then she showed us all the cool ways to use a magnifying glass properly and gave us each a quarter to buy penny candy at the corner store."

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