Page 21 of Bite Me

Ky reached out to touch the necklace but thought better of it. Manaia carried power and until he knew what it was and who’d given it to her, he’d be cautious.

“Where did you get this?” He wrapped his fingers around Jada’s hand where she clutched it in her grasp.

His shard was a gift from the White Witch. All dragon warriors received the gift when they came of age. A piece of their own souls mixed with that of the First Dragon, granting them long life, the ability to shift between human and dragon forms, and the responsibility to defend the world from evil.

How did a succubus end up with one?

“A woman in a white dress gave it to me. Right before she knocked me out with some sort of spell. I think she was a witch.”

Not possible. A witch had given her a bone carving identical to his own, that glowed with a light matching the one coming from his own soul shard.

She had to be playing a trick on him, or lying.

But she didn’t smell like she was.

Enough. He shifted his hand and touched the shard. It disintegrated beneath his fingers. The bone and shell shimmered and transformed into red, blue, green, gold, and sparkling white dragon scales.

“Whoa. How did you do that? I haven’t been able to take it off since the witch put it on me.”

“He doesn’t need it anymore. He has found you.” A small woman with the presence of an Amazon walked in through the back of the shop.

Jada scrambled out of his arms and off the counter putting her clothes to rights, hiding behind him. She’d turned red as coral upon hearing the woman’s voice.

“Ninsy, oh hell. We kind of got carried away.”

The woman smiled at Jada as if it not matter that he and Jada had been caught with their pants down, but that she approved.

“Hello, my lord Kaiarahi Tarakona Puru.” The woman’s Maori accent was perfect. But she was no Antipodean. She was also no dragon.

She shouldn’t know his full name. Only a rare few did, and they were all dragons, save his own mother and Nana Kiki.

Ky inhaled her scent and found only calm confidence. Her power ebbed and flowed in and around both him and Jada. A pure virginal caress that meant no harm.

“Hello.” He tipped his head to the side, studying her. “You can call me Ky.”

She laughed and then covered her mouth to stifle it. “You want to be called after food? That doesn’t seem like an appropriate nickname, my lord.”

Yeah, how many jokes had he heard like that growing up. Kai which was the word for food in Maori, and Ky, the name he preferred to be called. Same -same but different.

“Why do you keep calling me that?” Only during a blue dragon Wyr meeting did anyone call him Kaiarahi, much less my lord.

She bowed her head in deference. “I am but a loyal servant. Your mother sent me.”

This was no ordinary witch. Did she walk between two worlds? Maybe she wasHine-Nui-Te-PoMaori goddess of the underworld, protector of the dead. “My mother has been gone for more than a hundred years.”

“Not that mother.” She didn’t say ‘silly boy’, but he heard it in her tone.

Jada poked her head out from behind him. She’d smoothed her hair and had all her clothes back in place. Too bad.

“Ninsy, do you know this man?”

She nodded. “Dragon. I know this dragon.”

Ky narrowed his eyes and studied Ninsy. “But I don’t know you.”

“What you need to know is that we have only a few hours before Kur-Jara’s Galla demons are upon us.”

“Demon dragons?” Ky looked more closely at the witch. She had burn marks all up and down her arms. Those weren’t from any oven. Whoever she was, she’d been defending Jada, protecting her.

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