Page 452 of Flirting with Darkness

Dan’s eyebrows rose and he took a bite, his eyes widening as soon as he started chewing. “This is good. No wonder we lose business to frozen pizzas sometimes.”

“You just have to add a bit more sauce, cheese, and basil and it really brings out the pizza,” Rhys said. “It’s great because you can also add as many toppings as you want for free, unlike buying from a pizza place that makes you pay extra for each topping.”

Dan frowned as he finished his piece. “I think we need to look at changing our marketing and pricing strategies. I wonder if we could sell some of ours as frozen and still make a profit?”

“Wouldn’t hurt to look at the numbers and see,” Katar said as he finished his slice. “I hope you made more than two pizzas.”

Fox laughed. “Duh, Dad. We all eat a lot, even Jolie.”

“Caleb can eat an entire pie by himself,” I said.

“So, that means you made me three, right?” Dan asked.

Deryn shook his head. “We made you four; we knew you’d love it and would eat a lot.”

Nico opened a beer for each of them, and a cider for me, and we all clinked our bottles together. “Cheers!”

We switched up the games, wanting to watch them play one of our other favorite party games, one where you fought each other on two-dimensional platforms and could get knocked off and explode.

It wasn’t long before they were yelling curse words each time they died and teasing each other when they managed to kill the other person’s character.

Fox’s alarm went off and I leapt to my feet, ready to go get Caleb.

“I’ll come with you,” Fox offered. “We’ll leave the others to stay and play. They’re having more fun than I’ve seen in a while, so I don’t want to interrupt.”

I nodded. “Sounds good.”

“I’ll come, too,” Nico said and followed us out to the car, the sound of half-hearted cursing and laughter behind us.

“We need more days like this,” I said and leaned my shoulder against Nico’s as we walked.

“Agreed,” he said.

The drive to the school was quiet, but comfortably so.

Instead of getting into the line of cars that would just pick up the kids from the drive, we parked and walked up to the sidewalk in front of the building’s opening.

It was full of parents, but they all looked nervous.

“What’s going on?” I asked one of the nearest parents.

“Princess! There was an explosion and we heard howling and now we can’t get into the building. There’s a ward or something!” she shouted and put her shaking hands over her face.

“Nico,” I called, but he was already headed towards the building, staff in hand, as he examined the ward.

“Can you break it?” Fox asked.

“I think so,” Nico whispered. He reached his hand out towards the ward, closed his eyes, and muttered words beneath his breath. His brows furrowed as he concentrated harder and just as he opened his eyes, the shimmery barrier fell and with it, the illusion it had presented fell as well.

The front door of the building was gone, a smoking hole in its place. All of the windows were broken as well.

“Come to the school now, it’s been attacked,” Fox ordered someone over the phone.

Nico ordered the parents to wait as we investigated, promising to do everything we could to keep the children safe.

We walked inside the building side by side and I took slow breaths to prepare for whatever might attack us.

“I smell blood,” I whispered and headed in the direction of the scent. It led us to the cafeteria where we found Caleb standing in front of all of the other students, his body in a warrior shift mixture of dragon and wolf.

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