Page 13 of Heart On For Dragon

“Hush y’all,”I sassed right back.“I’ve got a plan.”

And with those fateful words and the groans of my Conscience and my Familiar I went in for the kill – so to speak…

Stopping just close enough to lay my hand on Harvey’s upper arm and give it a lovin’ (Well, pretend loving at least.) rub, I giggled like the idiot I most certainly was not. “I am so sorry ‘bout that. Auntie Lindy could be ever so overprotective. I tried to stop her, really I did…”

(I was hoping I wouldn’t go to Hell for lying. As you know, I was cheering her on like the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders in the last five seconds of the 1996 Super Bowl. Don’t you think the Goddess would forgive me? I was, after all, doing it to try and find my hunka-hunka- burnin’ love. She would do the same thing to save her Mate, right?)

“But she said you were climbing the tree outside my bedroom window with a camera in one hand and binoculars around your…”

"They're called Spectanoculars," he proudly corrected, shoulders rolling back, spine straightening, and his eyes glowing in the eeriest of ways. "My own invention, one I have patented, and I might add, is sellingvery wellin the Asian markets.”

(See? I told you he was thatkindanerd. His glasses even got a little steamy as he proudly touted his brainy accomplishment.)

“Oh, wow,” I gasped, laying my free hand over my heart and leaning in just a little more as I feigned awe and batted my eyes. “I always told the other girls that you were gonna make it big someday.”

“You did?” He growled, his bushy eyebrows furrowing so much they resembled a caterpillar sitting atop the nosepiece of his glasses. “Seriously? I always thought…”

“Oh, please,” I tsked with a shake of my head and another, more convincing pat on the arm as I got a little closer. “You have to know how much I always admired you. It’s not like I tried to hide it or anything. It’s just that Mick…”

“Mick was always in the way.”

At his snarled response the scent of mesquite, and fresh swamp air, and sexy male Dragon that I loved with all my heart filled my nose.“I told you something was up with this buttbrain,”Bernie hissed into my mind.“Let me turn him into a worm, or a flea, or a speck of dust under Madam Misty’s bed at the Best Little Whore House in Nowhere, USA.”

“No,”I hissed.“We have to…”

But I was too late. There was no stopping Bernice the Beautiful, Bountiful, and Beloved. For all her blustering and taunting she loved Mick probably more than she loved me and she was not going to let Nerd Boy harm a scale on my Mate’s sexy behind.

Racing past me at the speed of light – something I can tell you I had never seen before – Bernie launched herself into the air like a rocket shot out of a launcher. Bright red tutu flapping to give her extra propulsion and accurate aiming, she dropped her head to her chest and wailed, "You stupid, four-eyed, no good, rat bastard, if you've harmed a single hair on that Dragon's head, I swear to all that's… What the hell?!"

And just like that, I came as close to being literally shocked to death as I ever want to come. From one bat of my long eyelashes to the next, Harvey went from five-foot-eight and probably a hundred-and-fifty pounds…

(I told you he was bigger than the last time I saw him, although no matter of weight and height could stop him from still being kinda whiny and wimpy.)

…to an honest to the Goddess, real life, standing right in front of me Minotaur – and no, I am not exaggerating, embellishing, or pulling your leg in any way, shape or form.

Towering at least six feet over my rather lovely five-foot-five stature…

(Yep, that adds up to at least eleven-foot-five.)

…with a chest so wide an unpregnant Molly, a tiny Ella, and I could’ve camped out in the smooth, stiff, black-as-night fur…

(I have no clue how wide that is in inches or centimeters, just that it was at least as big as the floor of the pillow forts we used to build.)

…he had the head of a bull – massive, leathery nose with nostrils so big just one of them could’ve swallowed up my whole head - the body of the last three Mr. Universes all mushed into one BIG guy…

(I swear, even old Arnold S. in his heyday would’ve looked like a baby chipmunk next to Minotaur Harvey.)

…his hands were so big they could’ve palmed three basketballs, and where his feet should’ve been there were hooves so huge Shaq’s tennis shoes would’ve looked like baby booties next to them.

Taking all of that into account was daunting, to say the least, but it was the ginormous, long, thick, absolutely huge, curved, and carved horns jutting from his head that I know measured nothing short of twenty feet from tip to tip that scared thewitchy bejeezusright out of me and had me screaming, “Pull back! Abort! Stop, Bernie! Stooooooooop!”

But it was not meant to be, and pretty much a waste of breath because as I was shrieking at the top of my lungs, Harvey - aka the Minotaur in the room – snatched my perfectly pink and precociously petulant Potbellied Pig right out of the air. Massive hand wrapped around her tummy, he held her over his head, shook my poor Bernie till her little black eyes bounced from side-to-side and roared, “You will be mine, Violet Brown! Mick will die! Big Daddy and Mother Archer will be avenged, and YOU WILL BE MINE!”

"Wait!" I roared, the sound reminding me more of Esau than the little Witch who lived inside of me. "What the hell did you just say?"

Up from my crouched position, hands flying off my head, I slammed one fist onto my hip as the index finger of the other snapped into a wagging position and I snarled, "Did you just have the utter nerve to mention those idiots?"

A step forward, my finger leading the way with blinding rage and burning Magic bringing up the rear, I continued to growl, “To me? The worst parents in the history of parents? The people who tried to kill my beloved cousin? Who wanted to steal all the Brown Family Magic? Who didn’t give a good gosh darn about their boys or anyone else? The same…”

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