Page 14 of Dyson

“You’re a liar.” She asked her why that was the first thing someone said when they didn’t want to hear what you were saying to them? “I don’t know. But you are a liar about David. He’s a good attorney, and he knows how much him having a job means to me. To us.”

“Yes, well, that bird has flown.” Half the time, she didn’t understand Emma. She had hung out with her father too much and sounded just like him all the time. Damn it to hell and back. What was this world coming to when everyone was against her?

Not even waiting for the woman to come back with the card, she gathered her purse and headed out to the car. She was there just in time to see it being loaded onto a large truck and being strapped down. Asking the driver, a burly-looking man, what he thought he was doing, he said that she was going to take it up with Shuttle and Shuttle, the law firm on Main. She knew where that was, but she didn’t understand why they’d be taking her car from her. Pulling out her phone when it rang, she nearly screamed at the picture showing there.

“What has happened, David? You told me that your job was in the bag.” He told her what Emma had said, that he’d been taking from petty cash. “Isn’t that what it’s there for? For someone to use when they’re running low?”

“Running short, not low. I used all twenty grand of it. And when they had an audit done on my cases, they took a look at that as well.” He spoke to someone else before coming back to her. “How the hell did you find out already? I didn’t even have time to call you.”

“I don’t know how she found out, but Emma told me the same thing. What are we going—why are they taking my car? How the hell am I supposed to be able to get around without something to drive from now on.”

“The company owns all three of our cars, including the one that I drove to work today. They’ve already been to the house to change the locks.” She asked him why they were doing that. “They lent me the money to purchase the house and since I’ve never made a payment on it, apparently, they’re taking it and the contents too. They’re not even going to let us get anything personal from the house as they said that I owe them that, too. Why did they say that I’ve never made a payment on the house, Darling?” She changed the subject.

“What am I supposed to do to get back to the house. And they will, too, allow me to get things from that house, or I’ll call the police on them. There is no way they have the right to do anything of the kind, David. You tell them that.” He asked about the mortgage. “So I missed a few payments. It’s not like it’s the end of the world. Christ, they can well afford it.”

“They’re saying that I’ve missed every payment and balloon payment. Christ, what the fuck did you do with all that money? You couldn’t have been getting your hair and nails done that much, could you?” She told him to get back on the subject of her. “You know, it’s always been about you, hasn’t it? No matter what I do, it is all centralized on you and what you want. You know what? I’m kind of glad this has happened. Now I can start fresh without you and that damned daughter of yours. Christ, when I think of all the money…You didn’t make a single payment when you assured me that you had been.”

When he hung up on her without even saying goodbye, she wanted to call him back and tell him there was no need for him to be rude. But she saw Emma, and she made her way across the street, not even watching the street for cars. She nearly got herself killed by simply plowing across to her. Darling completely ignored the man who was with her.

“You’ve done this.” Emma didn’t even try to deny it. She just smiled at her like a simpleton. “My husband is out of work. I don’t have a car to get home and speaking of which, they think that they’re going to take that as well.”

“You should be better with your money, I guess.” When she turned her back on her to leave, Darling saw red. Her body stiffened up so tightly that she could feel her head pounding with the anger that she had. Reaching for her, going to jerk her around, all she ended up with was her arm jerked up behind her and in more pain than she’d ever been in her life. “Don’t. Touch. Me.”

“You’re hurting me. Let me go, and when you do so, you know I’m going to slap the piss right out of you. Let me the fuck go.” Her arm was pulled tighter until she was on the ground. When sheheard the pop, then the pain, it was all she could do to remain conscious. She did scream when she was let go.

“You mother fucker, you hurt me.” Instead of yelling more, Darling leaned over to her side and puked up her breakfast. It wasn’t any better coming out than it had been doing down. She hated oatmeal but needed it as badly as her dad did. “I’m going to have you arrested. See that I don’t.”

“I’m not worried about you anymore, Darling. To be honest, I’m not worried about Poppy or David either. For the first time in a long time, I’m happy and doing what I want. Grandda is going to outlive you and your family, and I think that’s wonderful.” She told her to fuck off. “Brave words for someone who has just gotten their arm dislocated and can’t get a ride to the hospital or home—not that you have one. I think I’ll buy it just to see what sort of shit you have in that house you had. I hope you rot in hell.”

Someone called the police, for which she was grateful, but they took entirely too long to get her an ambulance. She was hurting so badly by the time she got there that all she wanted to do was be knocked out. There were several people there who were willing to do it for her—people that she’d dealt with before, but finally, she was given something and let it roll over her. She could plot Emma’s demise later. Right now, she was in too much pain to even think about where she was going to rest her head tonight.

~*~

That night, when the two of them went to bed, she wasn’t as exhausted as she had been before. She was more aware of him being in the bed with her. More aware of his chill, too. She turned to ask him about how he could be so cold and a dragon too.

“We’re cold-blooded. All of us are.” He pulled her back to him, but she escaped so that she could at least warm herself up a little before falling asleep. “If you would just let me get a little warmer, then I’ll be all right. I can get another blanket if you wish.”

“Yes, please.” He left the bed, and she shivered. It was like it was ten below in the room, and she didn’t think that she’d be able to sleep at all. When the second thick blanket was over her, she tried to keep as far from Dyson as she could. Christ, he was so cold that she thought it might be warmer outside. And it was in the sixties out there.

“Did I tell you that Layla is the fire starter for our kind?” He was rubbing his hand up and down her back. It felt better, but she was still chilled. “She is the one that will give new hatchlings their fire or whatever they need when they’re big enough to handle their flame. It might not be fire. It could be ice or wind, too. I don’t know any dragons that can breathe wind, but my mom said that it’s hurricane-like and has been known to topple buildings and sink ships it’s so strong.”

“What about the ice dragons? I mean, how does that work?” He explained to her how dragons, with their icy cold breath, could kill a man in an instant. “Do they look like regular dragons? I mean, how will I know which kind they are if I were to see them?”

“They look like regular dragons but for their breath and beard. You’ll notice first that they have a beard on their chin that is made of ice. Their eyes are silver, too. They are not really silver in color but like ice when you look at them. And since they’re ice cold all the time, I mean, like when they rest as their dragons, they form a protective shell around them that is solid ice. When they move suddenly, the ice around them flies off and kills those around them. They’re very dangerous dragons even when they’re not in fighting mode.”

“I’m assuming that breathing air is dangerous too. Can they blow wind or whatever it’s called over water and make it devour the lands surrounding it?” He said that was just what they did. “Getting the three kinds of dragons together much be a terrible day for weather.”

“Those aren’t the only three kinds of dragons. Just the most dangerous. There are colored dragons as well. I’m a green dragon, as you noticed. My brother Fowler is a red dragon. He has the hottest heat of us all. The rest of us are blue dragons. We all should have been, but Mom thinks that because there is some vampire in our line, that’s what changed me to green. I have green eyes as well like the others have blue.” She said that she’d never noticed that before. “Mom has blue eyes. Very dark and almostlook black. When she’s her dragon, she’s bigger than the rest of us, too, with the exception of Fowler. Since he’s the leader of our group, he’s bigger than our mom by a little.”

When he started massaging her shoulders, she felt herself relaxing. The bed was warmer now, and she wanted to lean back into him. But she knew better. Just because the bed was warm, it didn’t mean that he was warm yet. She was going to have to ask the other wives how they were tolerant of the cold bed. They had to be doing something different than she was.

He told her of the different colored dragons. Most of them were blue and green, a normal color for them. But there were ones that had diamond scales on them that made them blend into the things around them, thus keeping them from being seen. Then he told her about the other realm.

“My great-grandmother was the queen when I was born. I didn’t know until recently why she was asked to step down. I always thought that she’d gotten tired of the job. Grandma Morning got bored, too, and turned it over to my mom. But anyway, she was asked to step down because she was taking money from people in order for them to pay their way out of trouble. She used that money to fund this dragon by the name of Grail. Now, there was a terrible dragon. He was black.” She turned in the bed and looked up at Dyson while he told the story of his family. “Great-Grandma didn’t care for being asked to step down, so she devised a plot that would kill Fowler by having Grail removed his head. Her plan was that since he was so well-loved and the oldest of the children, everyone would be in a state of mourning. While we were having our hearts broken, she and Grail had planned to move into the other realm and take over. Their plan was to kill off all the dragons but for the two of them and form their own magic.”

“Would that work? I was to understand that if there are no dragons, then there isn’t any magic. Isn’t that right?” Dyson told her that was exactly right. “Then I don’t understand how that was going to work if there was no more magic.”

“You’re right and thinking better than they did. You see, they nearly did kill off Fowler. And if not for the help of Amy, his mate, then he would have died right then. But there was just a flap, they called it, of his neck still attached to his head and she put it back on his neck where it sealed up. Then, she killed Grail. She did that by putting both her hands, which were covered in flames, to his head and burnt it right off his shoulders. For her to have been able to do that was unheard of. But she did it, and in a huge ceremony to write her name in the Book of Dragons, we were all together. When Grannie, what we’ve all been calling her since she was dead, found out about it, she took the sword of fire starter and nearly killed Amy with it. Instead, Fowler changed into his great beast and removed her head with one bite. That destroyed the trouble that we’d been having all along, and we’ve been happier since.” He laughed a little. “It was a great deal more dramatic than that, but you get the picture, I think.”

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