Page 13 of Dyson

“My father is a vampire and older than dirt. However, my mother is much older than him and can do things that not even my dad can do. Amy too. She has some traits of a vampire that is even older than Dad, and he’s as proud of her as he is one of us. Dad loves all the women in the family.” He told her how Amy could jump from flame to flame and move all over the world in just a few seconds. “She even saved my brother’s life once when his head had nearly been removed.”

When she started to walk around him, he made sure to keep his tail under control. His beast would sometimes wag his tail, much like a dog did when he was happy. He was careful not to swing it around too much and kill her. At the very least, hurt her in some way. When she came back to his head, she had a large scale of his.

“Does it hurt when you lose these?” He was so shocked that she had it in her hands that he didn’t answer her right away. “I’m sorry. Should I have left it where it lay? I thought that you could put it back or something.”

“No, I can’t…Emma, those weigh nearly five thousand pounds each when they’re fresh. And you just picked it up. They weigh a great deal less when they get dried out. That’s what the faeries count on when they get one. For it to be flexible and easily cut down.” She asked him if she could have one of them make her a bracelet of it. She had an idea that she needed it. “Whatever you wish, my love.”

Calling to the faeries that were forever around, Emma explained to them what she wanted. They got to work right away on it and even on some of the pieces that they’d use for their homes. Roofs and doors. Sometimes, when the weather was bad, other shingles would blow off their homes but not dragon scales. They were perfect for keeping a home nice and warm. The faeries used them for other things, too, and were excited to have one that was so fresh so that they could cut it down.

It didn’t take them long to cut down to size the bracelet that she wanted. Once it was put on herarm, one of the little people helped her seal it around her wrist. Asking her what she needed it for, she put her hand with the scale encircling her wrist into the air, and she was encased in scales that covered her from above her head to several inches into the ground. Nothing would be able to get to her if she were in trouble. Once the scales disappeared, she looked at him with a large smile. It did his heart good to see it.

“While I’m not sure of all the things that this can do, I know that it will protect me against anything that comes after me.” He asked her if she could breathe all right. “I can. It’s as if all the comforts of being in a room are right here for me. Light, air, and even a little cot that I can lay on while whatever is going on, I’ll be rested.”

While she sat in his palm, telling him what she could do with the scale of his, they watched the faerie cut down the scale in no time and fly away with its parts. The only thing that was left that hadn’t been used was a small sliver of it that she picked up and showed him what she was going to have done with it.

“It’ll be a beautiful gem for me to wear with my other piece. I think that I’ll wear them when we go out to dinner. With all the colors that are around it, I’m betting that it will match anything that I wear. I just love it.” He said that he’d make sure that if he had any more fall off, he’d make sure that she didn’t want anything from it first. “No, the faeries get the most use out of it. They need it. I have everything that I need from your scales.” She fingered the bracelet and told him how much she loved having a part of him with her at all times. He was going to have to think of something that he could get from her so that he had something similar when they weren’t together. After a while, he realized that she’d fallen asleep in his hand, and he laid his own head down and watched her. She was perfection to him.

When the sun was fully down, he woke her so that he could shift into his other self. Walking hand in hand back into the house, he asked one of the little people to help out his mate by having a necklace made just for her. They were nearly falling all over themselves, wanting to help their new mistress. He knew when they were in the big bed together that, by morning, not only would she have what she wanted but that every one of the faeries had had some small hand in making it for her. Dyson again thought of how lucky he was to have such a wonderful mate as Emma Walsh in his life.

Chapter 5

Darling couldn’t believe that her own father would leave her in the shape that he had. She didn’t have any money now that he took back over his accounts. Her mortgage was passed due by several months—had she been paying the bank instead of buying new things for it she supposed that she’d be all right about now. But there were other things as well. The credit cards were overdue. There was no money in the bank, no savings to speak of, and she needed to have her hair and nails done last week. Nothing was going her way.

Deciding that she was going to go and talk to him, she went out to the garage to drive to his home. Of course, the car that she loved to drive was in the shop. For a little fender bender, they charged her well over four thousand dollars. And instead of billing her like they normally would have, because she’d not paid them the last time, she wasn’t going to get anything fixed until she paid off the last fender bender that she’d had. Darling hated people. All of them.

Driving a stick shift was nothing that she’d ever learned how to do in her youth. So now that she was older, she couldn’t believe that she was in her fifties now; she didn’t want to learn a new thing this late in her life. Why they didn’t make all the cars the same was beyond her. If they did that, she thought that people would buy more. But no one had ever asked her so she wasn’t able to put her opinion in about it.

The drive over to his house, the Manor, shouldn’t have taken her nearly an hour and a half. But every time she stopped for a light or something, she’d forget to put it in the first gear. If that wasn’t enough, she’d forget to put her foot on the brake, and the car would leap forward, scaring ten years off her life every time. By the time she got to the Manor, she was exhausted and a mess. The top had been down on the car, and since she didn’t know how to put it back up, she had to drive all the way there with it down and it had made her hair look a fright. While blaming it on Emma wasn’t really fair, she did so with every stop, studder, and leap that she made. Cursing the younger woman all the drive to her father’s house.

For whatever reason, she couldn’t get the car to drive up the drive. It would leap forward and then stop like there was some kind of wall in front of her. And wouldn’t you know it, the man at the gate, she’d forgotten about there being someone out there, he said that he couldn’t help her if she couldn’t get by the magic.

Magic? Not believing in magic had served her well all her life. But now that she was faced with it, not being able to get into the drive to her family home, she had to think why this particular magic was keeping her from talking to her father. There had to be some way that she could get to him and get things straightened out. She pulled out her cell phone.

“Father, I can’t get up the driveway. The man you have at the gate said that it’s magic. Whatever. Tell him to let me through so that we can talk about this letter I got yesterday.” He said ‘no’. Nothing else but no. “What do you mean no? Father, this isn’t going to bode well for you. I need to talk to you. And if you think that you’re leaving all your wealth to Emma and Poppy, then you’d better be rethinking that, too.”

“You’re wrong about me leaving my things to Emma and Poppy. I believe I made it crystal clear that I’m not leaving Poppy anything. I’ve asked you this before and it bares repeating, what sort of name is Poppy anyway? Who did you name her after.” She told him that she’d name her after him. “My name isn’t Poppy either, you old fool. My name is Emitte Marshall. I don’t even have a middle name.”

“I know that. I called you Pop when I was a child. I thought that you’d like her better if I named her after you.” He pointed out to her again that his name wasn’t Poppy or Pop. “Father, this is not aconversation to have on the phone. Just tell the man that I’m allowed to come up to the house from now on, and we won’t have to have a conversation about how you’re treating me.”

“I’ve already answered that. No. And he’s not forbidding you from coming up. There is real magic there that keeps anyone with ill will in their heart from coming up to the house and doing terrible things. If you want to know the truth, Darling, I never expected you to get this close. I wish we would have had that sooner. Your mother might well still be alive. I know you killed her off, Darling. Just proving it has been a hardship.” She was too shocked to say anything to him about her mother. She had killed her but didn’t know that her father was looking into it. “Now, as I was telling you, no, you’re not going to be coming up here. We’re settling in just fine and dandy and don’t need any of your trouble up here while we do it. Why don’t you get yourself a job, Darling? Most people with debt as large as you do have to get one.”

“I don’t want a job. I want you to keep taking care of me the way you’ve always done. This is all Emma’s fault, isn’t it? She’s convinced you to take me out of your will so that she can have it all.” He told her that she didn’t need it. “Of course she does. Everyone needs money. The more, the better.”

“It just so happens that she’s gone and married herself up with one of them Walsh men. Got more money than they can count, I’ve heard.” She sputtered about that, not believing for a moment that someone had more money than they needed. Or could count. “I gotta go, Darling. You’ve wasted enough of my time and I have things I need to get done. I’m having the whole house done up so that it’s a might friendlier than it was when you lived here. You have yourself a good life now. Or don’t. I don’t care one lick if you do or not.”

When he hung up on her, she held the phone to her ear, yelling at him to come back to her. The nerve of him. What the hell was he thinking about hanging up on her? Darling put her phone in her purse. She was fearful of what the phone company had said when she broke it the last time. She wasn’t going to be getting any more free phones because she kept tossing them across the room.

The man at the gate, she’d never bothered with getting his name, told her that she was going to have to move on and that others were coming in. She didn’t want to move but was afraid that he’d have her arrested or something. That would just be the candle on her cake today.

It took her four tries to get the car turned around and another twenty minutes of her trying to get the stupid thing to go forward so that she could get out of the drive. She couldn’t see who was in the car behind her, but she just knew that it was either Emma or that rich husband of hers. Not that she believed that it was the Walshs that she married into, but she just didn’t know what to believe anymore. Everyone was lying to her.

Sorting through her credit cards she found one that she’d taken out in Emma’s name that she’d applied for. Going to have her hair and nails done was such a treat for her that she was nearly giddy with excitement. Once she was seated, they asked her how she was paying.

“With a credit card.” The woman, someone that she didn’t know, put out her hand for it. “You can’t charge me before we even get started. That’s not fair.” Still, her hand was out. “You can bet that I’m not going to tip you after this either. This isn’t right. If you must know, my sister gave me her credit card so that I could have a pamper day.”

Finally handing over the card, she asked whose name it was in. Of course, the woman took it away, and before she could come back to her with the card, her cell phone rang. It was Emma the bitch.

“That’s not going to work for you. I don’t have any idea how you did that with my name on the card, but I’ve asked the young woman who took it from you to tear it up. Why on earth would you think that I would allow you a pamper day when I don’t even like you.” She told her that was harsh and unnecessary. “Be that as it may, I can’t stand you, and I’m not going to be paying for you to have shit done to you. As Grandda had said to you, get a job. Oh, speaking of which, David is going to lose his job today. Did you know that he’s been taking from the petty cash for the last several months to supply you with money to go on your little tantrums? Or whatever he calls having to give you money so that you aren’t pissy with him when he comes home. That’s a big no-no in any job. Whatever will you do now?”

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