Page 166 of Memories Like Fangs
Mesmerized, I reached out and grazed my fingertips over a peachy sapphire that looked so familiar to me, yet I couldn’t place it. When I made contact with the stone, it was warm. I felt a distinct hum vibrating from the gem. While soothing, it was packed with age, a lullaby of the past. I knew this song. It pulled at the base of my skull, tugged at something deep within my very cellular structure. Then, it hit me.
It was my ancestral song.
The same one that my mom taught me.
I gasped, stepping back in stunned silence at the revelation. When I did, I bumped into another crystal. I wouldn’t have taken notice, especially since we were in a cavern full of gems, but this one…
Hackles raised, Clarkson’s low and uneasy growl bounced off the stones and walls of the cave. It made the girls jump, pausing in their childlike wandering and admiration of the cave.
I turned around to take in the crystal that had me and Clarkson both on edge. It was definitely different from the other sapphires. For one, itwasn’ta sapphire. This obelisk was one of a few lurking in the cave. It was a little taller and wider than me. It stood straight as if it had been placed there. These towers were darker than any of the sapphires around. They were black, making me wonder if they were maybe obsidians or onyxes, but… the more I stared, the more I noticed how the black curled like liquid smoke trapped behind glass. Even more interesting were the red veins streaking down from the red tip of the obelisk. The crimson color was vivid, shimmering with what seemed to be metallic dust. While I had no idea what the black part of thestone was, Ireallyhad no idea what the red top of the stone was. It wasn’t ruby nor garnet. It wasn’t carnelian nor rhodochrosite.
It was something else entirely.
I had never met a crystal I couldn’t identify. It was my power after all. They always told me what they were, if I didn’t know it already. However, I didn’t recognize this stone at all. I only knew that it looked strange, unlike any I had ever seen before. Its whispers didn’t grant me any insight into what it was, but it felt like it was watching me tensely. There was something in its energy that also felt like a… warning? A part of me wondered if my mind was playing tricks on me. Before I could stop myself, my fingers reached out and hovered mere inches from the stone’s surface. The darkness inside of it plumed like a smoke cloud. The red streak through the blackness of the crystal twitched, jumping up like a vein. The glitter within swirled intensely like a brewing storm. My dragon stretched, brushing against my bones with a tense intrigue. My scales cascaded down my skin.
The crystal was so foreign to me.
Yet, the energy coming off of this tower was so familiar.
The color, the shimmers, the pulsating vein…
It reminded me of…
Dragon’s blood.
A slow clap rang out that I knew all too well.
Clarkson barked first, a sharp and guttural warning ripped straight from her throat. Driven by pure instinct, I blurred to gather Talli’s girls and pull them behind me. My wings buzzed above their heads. My tail encircled them with a viselike grip to keep them close to me. To their credit, they held onto me for dear life, unsure what threat I perceived just yet. They were so young. I would be damned if I let anything happen to them.
A shadow fell over us, stretching long and distorted across the crystalline floor, but I knew who it was even before I saw her.
“Lilah!” I roared, the name ripping from my chest like a drawn blade.
“In live-action, Byrdie-Pie!” She called out with a sickening smile. Lilah didn’t walk in like a normal villain with something to prove. No, she floated down from seemingly nowhere. Her arms were outstretched in the most ridiculous display of theatrical grandeur and smug confidence. Her black dress hugged her curves like it had been poured onto her skin, as if it had been spun from spilled ink, midnight, and darkness. It was backless with a cowl neck that dipped scandalously low and a slit that ran high past her hip, toeing the line of indecency. The fucking bitch even had the nerve to wear leather opera evening gloves. I hated how much cunt this bitch was serving. Evil like her didn’t deserve to look that damn good.
How did I not sense her ass sooner? Ishouldhave felt her slithering magic the second we entered the cave, but there’d been nothing. Now, her energy pressed down on me. Overwhelming and stifling, it felt like a hand on my throat, cloying and thick. Had she cloaked her powers? Had she just appeared? I tried to reach for Quinn, but the thread between us was slack and distant.
Because of course.
Offuckingcourse.
I could kill this bitch for doing this again.
My lips peeled back into a snarl dripping in venom. “Manipulating children to get me here? On theday of my mother’s funeral? That’s a new low, even for you, Lilah.”
Lilah gasped, putting a hand dramatically over her heart. “Manipulate? Oh, please! Don’t be so dramatic. She’s a child. I just… bent the truth a teeny tiny bit.”
Betty pulled herself up above my tail, her face red with fury and eyes glistening with betrayal. “You said you were agoodwitch! You said this was the perfect place for Mommy. Yousworewith pinkie-promise!”
“Hey, onlyoneof those is a fib, sweet pea.” Lilah beamed, utterly unrepentant. “Thisisthe perfect place for your mommy and all of her silly little friends to be buried. You’re already having one funeral. What’s a few more among friends?”
“Lying to a grieving kid isdiabolicalwork, you evil wench.” I glared up at Lilah as she shrugged.
“I can’t believe you talked to a stranger!” Leah snapped at Betty, voice trembling with fear barely held in check. “How many times have Mom and Dad told you not to do that? Why don’t you listen?”
“I’m sorry, Leah!” Betty sobbed, breaking down and covering her eyes with her tiny fists. “She really didseemso nice…”
Bless her heart…I placed a hand on Betty’s head, and she turned to cry into my dress. “Hey, Leah, she didn’t mean to, and she’s seven. Go easy on her.”
