Page 7 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
And clearly came from thedragonthat’s formed before me. With sharp white teeth and gold-and-onyx eyes and a tail. Andwings. Andtalons.
Actual talons.
I’m dreaming. Sleepwalking, per usual, and the dreams have gotten really, really realistic. I’ll wake up with a crick in myneck on the stairs like I always do, but then I can talk aboutthiswith my friends tomorrow instead of Sage.
But his voice is sleek and sharp andreal. It reverberates through the room and me. “I thought you were better than this, Georgina.”
“Better than what?” I find myself asking.
As if I am actually having a conversation with thedragonthat materialized out of anewel post. A newel post that’s just been sitting there, very much a newel post and nothingbuta newel post—okay, one with a little enchantment, sure—since I was achild.
“The kind of witch who can’t believe intruemagic.” He huffs out a strangedragonbreath that sizzles into the hazy smoke still hanging in the air.
I want to laugh. Maybe this is hysteria, and actually, that’s comforting. I’ve had a break with reality, that’s all. I ammagic, all on my own, but this isn’t magic. This isdragons, anddragonsdon’t exist.
And while most things that you’ll find in the witchlore existed atsomepoint, it is common, accepted knowledge that dragons and unicorns and the like went extinct long before witches set footin St. Cyprian. Or Salem, for that matter.
But there is a dragon looming there before me, and I amnotwaking up. I push myself to my feet, wondering if that’ll get the dream to stop.
He looks up to the ceiling like he’s seeing the chandelier for the first time and blinks his large golden eyes. Then the scalesbegin to melt away, and he shrinks down, slowly morphing from scaled, winged dragon to... a man.
A big man—a very big man—but still. Aman. Dark-haired and -eyed, though there’s still gold in his gaze. And somehow he seems just as dangerous now that he’s no longerthe size of the entire room.
He’s tall. And broad. Muscled in ways it would be rude to study more closely. It’s as if he’s still carved, only now in flesh,not wood.
More importantly, he’s stillhere, not fading away into dream or imagination.
I take a breath and I can feel it in my lungs, laced with smoke so it tickles, and there’s no waythat’sa dream.
And I think, very distinctly,Oh. At last. It’s him.
It hits me so hard I don’t know how I’m still standing. It’shim.It’s all my daydreams come to glorious life. Passion and loud, wild sex and the way my friends take care of each other andlife-alteringkisses and intensity andhim—
But before I can take that on, my friends appear. My coven. The Riverwood, the new leaders of the witching world.
All six of them land around me, looking alarmed andpissedand ready to fight. They look around, as if searching out an enemy—
“No one’s here,” I manage to croak out through the thunder inside me.
“Georgie! You’re home early.” Emerson tosses her arms around me and squeezes. “We felt a very strange disturbance and came...”
She trails off as she seems to realize there’s someone else in the foyer with us.
“Did you bring home... a guy?” Rebekah asks, sounding impressed.
“Ahotguy at that,” Ellowyn mutters to Rebekah, and I try to take comfort in the fact that since she can’t lie, Azrael is not onlyreal, but really and trulythathot. “Can you sayupgrade?”
“I’mright here,” Zander complains.
“Yeah, yeah. You’re hot too.” She waves him off, one hand resting on her ever-expanding belly. She smiles at me. “So, areyou going to introduce us?”
But before I can think of even one word to say, becauseoh it’s the dragon newel post come to lifeseems like not enough, Nicholas Frost steps forward.
The unknowable former immortal witch turned Riverwood coven member narrowly regards Azrael—apparently not just a newel postany longer.
Then they speak the same word at the same time, fury and hate sparking off each other.
“You.”
