Page 12 of Darkhan

“And I would win,” Zeno said plainly, “if that were my intent.” He let the words hang in the air. “Consider this instead.” He turned a glance toward the porch, looking past Harmony and into the house where she knew her mother still stood, before facing forward again. “Harmony is my mate. You will never come near her, nor upset her again, or I will take great pride in peeling that filthy hide from your tiny, feeble body and setting your corpse aflame.”

Harmony watched Ricky’s eyes go wide and his face pale, as if he were genuinely frightened.

“Mate?” Linda whispered.

Ricky forced out a hard laugh and shoved to his feet. “You expect me to believe that? You’re delusional! That girl’s mine, old man! I’ve been waiting years for her to ripen up, no fuckin’ way am I—”

Zeno stretched one arm out at his side and the skin rippled, shimmering under the nearly sunken sun as if it had suddenly become liquid and turbulent. He simultaneously stepped forward, his pace neither slow nor hurried, and in seconds his arm had transformed. Shifted. Probably double the size, flesh replaced by almost reflective blue-black scales, and four long, slightly curved ivory claws at the end of the hand. Orpaw.

Linda gasped.

Ricky stumbled back, one foot landing in the street. “F-fuck, you’re really a—”

Zeno suddenly leapt forward, his shifted arm swinging, and dirt, dead grass, and small chunks of shattered concrete flew into the air as Ricky threw himself entirely into the street. A trail of short-lived fire chased him until Ricky’s scampering feet hit the sidewalk on the opposite side.

“O-oh my God…” Linda said in her most scandalized tone.

Ricky ran to the other side of a parked pickup, leaned halfway around the hood of the truck, and shouted, “Fuck you, old man!”

Zeno straightened, his arm doing the shimmery-rippling thing again as it shifted back to familiar bronze-colored flesh.

Harmony only then realized she’d lifted a hand to her chest while she’d watched. She’d never been one to crave violence, let alone to hope anyone would fight over her. But she couldn’t deny there had been …somethingappealing in whatever had just happened. She did her best to push down that feeling for the moment and pivoted on her heel to face her still slack-jawed mother. “You know what? I don’t need to come in. I think we’ve said enough.” She waited while Linda refocused on her. “I would appreciate it if you would at least tell Dad I said goodbye.”

Linda’s mouth moved, but no real sound came out.

Harmony turned and stepped off the porch before Zeno could rejoin them. At his arched brow, she drew up the strongest smile she could manage and said, “I don’t want to be here anymore, and I don’t really want to think about the fact that I don’t have anywhere else to go. Can we grab that dinner?” Not that her appetite would last long once she started thinking about the meaning behind what she’d just said.

Or why her arm hurt again.

Or the show Zeno had just put on for half the neighborhood to see.

Or how stupidly sexy it had been.

All those things were their own problems. Well, most of them. If she could delay thinking about problematic things long enough for one more good meal, that would be great.

“I forbid it.”

Harmony blinked, her eyes tracking the way Zeno’s attention lifted from her to focus on something over her shoulder while her brain scrambled to process the words. Her mother’s words. She twisted in place, keeping Zeno close at her back, and saw her mother striding toward them with a look of fury on her face. “What?”

“I forbid it,” Linda repeated. “I will not allow my daughter to go gallivanting around with some monster clearly old enough to be her father!” Her arms swept wide. “Do you have any idea what will happen to us if I let you go through with this, you selfish, impulsive child?”

Harmony opened her mouth, but the sound of ripping fabric caught her attention and the next thing she knew she was surrounded by darkness. Only the faintest light crept in over the top of the black, leathery shroud that had wrapped around her. It wasn’t until she registered the sight of an ivory, claw-like protrusion running along the top outer ridge of both sides of her new enclosure that Harmony realized what had to have happened.

Zeno had extended his wings—also the source of the ripping sound she’d heard—and folded them around her. Probably. They were so large they layered over each other, and obscured her completely, blocking any useful line-of-sight. Of course, it didn’t help that she was short by most standards. Zeno’s strong arms wound around her middle and he pulled herback to his chest, the wings sliding faintly with the movement. At the center where they intersected, Linda’s head became partially visible, and Harmony realized she’d been tuning out her mother’s ranting. Not exactly for the first time.

“Harmonywill decide her future,” Zeno said in a low, firm voice that vibrated through her. “If you wish to be her mother, I would advise you to do a little self-reflecting before we meet again.”

Zeno moved his hands as Linda sputtered in outrage. Harmony could picture the flustered flush burning brightly on her mother’s cheeks—for the moment she continued to think about it at all. Then Zeno had her spun around, an arm around her shoulders, and he swept another beneath her knees. His wings snapped out, jarring a startled shriek from Harmony’s mother, and the breath rushed from Harmony’s lungs as he used those wings to propel them upward.

Oh my God!Harmony latched her arms around his neck, barely able to see over his shoulders as her mother and the yard grew smaller beneath them. The entire street fell beneath them as he twisted in the air with a single flap of his massive wings, the buildings sliding past almost too quickly to identify.We’re flying. We’re really actually flying!

He lowered them to solid ground at the edge of a familiar circling of trees, and Harmony watched as his wings folded in on themselves before disappearing entirely in another fleshy ripple. No one shouted, nothing caught fire, and no militia of armed men burst from the tree line as Zeno gently set her back on her feet. He let his hands settle on her hips, keeping her close, and watched her as if waiting for a response.

She had so many it was hard to grab hold of one. Harmony dragged in a breath and let her fingers trail over his shirt. “I used to dream of flying,” she confessed on a whisper. “That was … wild. Amazing. Totally reckless, but exhilarating.”Her brain was starting to re-engage and she was sure they shouldn’t have done that. She blinked up at him with wide eyes. “Will you get in trouble?”

He smiled slowly and his grip tightened. “For that short little jump? Hardly.” Zeno leaned in and pressed his nose to the crook of her neck, then his lips, before murmuring, “There are still places in this world we could go where I could truly take you flying, if that was something you wanted.”

She was never going to catch her breath if he kept doing things like that. Instead of lecturing him, she curled her fingers more into his shirt. “Really? I … I might like that. Someday.” Some people went skydiving. She apparently went flying with a dragon.

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