Page 44 of Sprite Wedding
“I—I—it’s hard to explain. Can you just come over here, and you’ll see what I mean?”
“On my way.”
I ended the call and dashed out of the Network. It was dark now. I had a terrible habit of working late but had been better since Lucas came into my life. That might have been the reason why I was here so late. I buried myself in work to deal with the emotional distress from our argument. After all, that’s how I dealt with stress—work. It made me feel productive, even when the world was crashing down.
I jumped into my black Fiat and gunned the engine. I was a fast driver on a regular day. When my guy was in trouble, rubber was scorched on asphalt.
“Come on, come on!” When I had to stop at a light, I banged the steering wheel. Why couldn’t the universe work with you when you were rushed? My leg twitched as I urged the light to change. When it finally did, I accelerated and swerved around the car in front of me. That garnered a honk and probably a middle finger, but I didn’t pause to look back.
When I finally pulled into the driveway of the odd purple house, where I had spent more time in recent months than my own place, I barely put the car in park before I turned it off.
I ran down the driveway and into the back yard. Nova stared at the statue of a stone dragon while Diego paced beside it.
The form was awfully familiar. My heart plunged to the earth. I covered my chest and slowed my steps. It couldn’t be.
“Lucas?” My voice was barely above a whisper.
Diego turned and stared at me. “I don’t know what happened.”
Nova stood and stepped aside. “I’ve been trying to get some sort of read on him. A message. But nothing.”
As I approached, my mouth dropped open, and my hands trembled. What I was seeing couldn’t be real.
“Is he—” I couldn’t finish the sentence. He couldn’t be dead.
“No. I sense his energy,” Nova added.
I exhaled. Could I feel it too? I didn’t have the same type of magic as witches, but we’d bonded as mates.
Lucas was majestic in dragon form with beautiful orange scales that blended down to purple at his tail. As he soared overhead with a broad wingspan, he flew with a gracefulness that belied his massive frame. In this form, he appeared as a gray stone version of his dragon, like an intentional focal point of the garden. He couldn’t be a statue, could he?
As I reached out to touch him, my hand trembled. My fingers brushed the stone of one of his wings. It was warm, not cool like I’d expect the statue to be. I sensed he was in there, alive. How, I wasn’t sure. What did that mean? Was he trapped in a stone prison?
I glanced about his head, trying to stare into his eyes, but he was massive. My short stature wasn’t close.
Frustration and anger bubbled in me like a cauldron. My hands trembled. I turned and snapped, “What happened to him? He can’t be a stone version of himself. He’s not a damn gargoyle!”
Both of their eyes widened. It wasn’t like me to show such strong emotions, but it wasn’t every day when my mate shifted into an immovable form.
“I—I—I don’t know!” Diego exclaimed. He raised his arms, hands up, and then dropped them to his sides. “He was acting really strange inside. He kept trying to tell me something, but he couldn’t get it out.”
“What do you mean?” I snapped.Take a deep breath, Zoe. Stay calm.
“He started to tell me about what happened in the garden. He was all animated about it. But each time he tried to explain it, something went wrong. His tongue would loll out, and he’d say something likebleh. I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say. Then he got mad and said he was going outside to deal with something.” Diego ran his hand over his forehead. “I had no idea what was going on but didn’t think it was anything serious. I thought he was messing around. You know how he likes to pull pranks.”
“Yes,” I muttered through clenched teeth.
Diego paced. “I didn’t know something was odd until sundown. He still hadn’t come back in, so I went out to check on him. And then I found him”—he motioned at me—“like this.” His voice cracked. “I’m such an ass. If I had acted sooner, maybe we could have done something.”
Nova rubbed his arm, comforting him. “You acted as soon as you could. How could you have known he was in trouble?”
Diego rarely expressed such raw emotions. “I should have called you sooner, Nova. You could have gone outside and checked on Lucas.”
Although a harsh agreement had been working its way to my lips, Diego’s distress muted my judgment. I wasn’t here and didn’t know the situation. Blaming him wouldn’t help. He was as disturbed as I was.
What I had to do was stay calm so we could figure out what had happened to Lucas. That was something I could do—not panic in dire situations.
Then again, I’d never faced a situation with the man I loved turn to stone. It might be permanent, like Medusa’s curse. My throat tightened. My palms turned damp. I wiped them on my sides.Take a deep breath. One, two, three. And let it out, two, three.
