Smitten (10 page)

“Naturally. I’ll be swarmed by single mortal women if I go alone.”

“Ah, so I’m to be your guard.”

“More like an oasis of sanity. So, will you attend with me, or shall I be forced to tread lightly on eggshells in fear of destroying your hard work on this campaign?”

“At this point, Maximilian, you would have to pour gasoline over a box of kittens and spit fire on them to ruin what we’ve done.”

“I know. But one can never be too cautious.”

Chapter 8

Ēostre stood within her daughter-in-law’s favorite department store, staring flabbergasted at the piece of metallic silver fabric dangling from her hands. If one could call it fabric at all. It was more like a slingshot. Or a shiny rubber band. She turned it over and flipped it, but viewing it from another angle didn’t make it magically expand.

Struck by impulse, she whirled to face the nearest customer beside her. “Excuse me, would this suit me? Is it too small?”

The other customer looked offended by the question, her youthful features contorting into an exaggerated, horrified mask. “Too small? Pffft, if I had your legs, I’d wear that thing everywhere just to have an excuse to show them off. I’d be pumping the gas in my bikini, girl.”

“I’m not too old for it?”

The girl couldn’t be older than thirty herself. Her brows raised a mile then she tossed her head back and laughed. “Are you shittin’ me? Nah. I’m probably older than you are. Get the bikini and rock your stuff at the beach. The weatherman said we’re going to have perfect weather for it this weekend.”

“Awesome,” Ēostre said, testing the word. It felt strange, alien, but somehow right at the same time. She could get used to modern-day slang, even if her stubborn son continued to struggle with the change in the times.

She swept a few more articles of clothing from the racks and checked out to hurry home and enact her master plan. Originally, she’d gone out to purchase the perfect cocktail dress for the senator’s birthday bash, when an oversized sign alerted her to an end-of-season blowout on swimwear.

Ēostre was still on cloud nine when she reached Saul’s driveway.

“Grandmother! Happy birthday!”

While it all seemed to happen in slow motion, Ēostre felt powerless to stop it. One moment, she was crossing the driveway with shopping bags in hand, and in the next, her grandchild was streaking across the pavement as a bolt of fiery lightning and aurorous feathers, too quick for the human eye to track. “Happy birthday!” she cried again.

“Astrid, no!”

The child didn’t know her own strength or realize how quickly she’d grown into her dragon form. Two years ago, Astrid had been no larger than a shetland pony, but the creature who collided into Ēostre now outweighed a sedan.

“Oh no!” Chloe cried from the porch.

The collision sent Ēostre flying, and with no hope of coming out of it unscathed in her human body, she transformed in a blink. Pieces of Ēostre’s favorite pantsuit flew like confetti, expensive shreds of cream linen and silk fluttering in the breeze.

If she’d braced herself against the impact in her dragon body, Astrid would have undoubtedly been hurt. Instead, Ēostre rolled with the momentum, all the while clutching the smaller cub against her chest.

“Ēostre! Astrid! Are you both okay?” Chloe screamed from the porch.

“I… I think so.” She and her grandbaby had rolled into the grass for several yards where they landed against a fence bordering one of Leiv’s pastures. “Your child hits like a hill giant.”

As Saul and Chloe rushed across the grass to meet them, Ēostre lowered a sobbing dragon cub to the grass and frantically examined her for injuries.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to!”

“It is all right, sweetling. Where are you hurt? Where are you injured?”

“I hurt you. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Astrid blubbered. “I’m sorry! I don’t know how it happened, I was running and suddenly—” Her sobs intensified, shaking her entire body.

Ēostre didn’t find a single broken feather after running each of her clawed digits over Astrid’s body.

“Is she hurt?” Chloe cried.

“No. I must have protected her well,” Ēostre said, voice laced with uncertainty.

“My daughter is strong,” Saul said. He brimmed with pride as he set his hand atop Astrid’s head and stroked the growing nubs curving back from her brow. Female dragons didn’t develop their horns until they reached breeding age. “There is no need to cry, little one. Your grandmother is fine.”

“But I hurt her. I didn’t mean to hurt her, I didn’t mean to.”

Chloe gazed helplessly up at Ēostre. Her daughter, in her dragon’s body, was taller than her by a foot and twice as broad.

“Shhh, my love. I know. Come. Let your mother and I clean your face. I am quite fine, see?”

Later, after Ēostre and Chloe had washed Astrid’s face and given their reassurances again, they enjoyed a peaceful family dinner. It was Ēostre’s 2244th birthday. Even though dragons only celebrated their bicentennials, Astrid always insisted on her father and grandmother acknowledging each year.

“Has she gone to bed?” Ēostre asked when Chloe returned downstairs.

“Oh yeah. She’s knocked out. All of the drama must have exhausted her, I guess. Plus she was outside with the zebras most of the day before you came home. She’s teaching them to trust her dragon form.”

“Ah.” Ēostre pursed her lips and gazed out the window into the fading twilight.

“What? You think it’s a bad idea?”

“Oh, no, it was not the zebras on my mind. It was Astrid herself.”

Concern wrinkled Chloe’s brow. “She feels really bad about it all still. I’m sorry about your suit…”

Ēostre waved away her distressed apologies. “No true harm done. Only…”

“Only what?”

“She hit me dead on, Chloe. I… don’t understand how she came out of it uninjured. I tried my best to protect her, but something is wrong.”

“I know.”

“No, Chloe. You do not understand. The way she came at me was…” Ēostre slowly inhaled and closed her eyes, reliving the experience through her memories. “She became as a bolt of lightning itself. It is enough to make me believe the legends of St. George. Like Saul, she is fire and lightning, I believe, and perhaps something more.”

“But I’m human. I don’t understand, Ēostre. A dragon and a human shouldn’t produce a stronger half-dragon.”

Ēostre shook her head. “While I do not understand it, I know what I saw and felt. Your child is very, very powerful, and if we do not begin to teach her to harness her powers safely, someone may be hurt next time.”

Chloe loosed a long, slow breath. “Okay then. What can we do?”

Ēostre liked that about Chloe. The woman took everything in stride.

“I would like to ask Maximilian’s help with honing her fire abilities.”

“Saul can’t teach her?”

“Who do you think taught Saul?” she asked, chuckling. “You must understand, Astrid may not grow as fast as a human, but as far as dragons are concerned, she is a prodigy and far ahead of our learning curve. I nursed Saul until he turned thirty-one.”

Chloe wrinkled her nose, failing to suppress the horror emerging on her face. “Ēostre. That’s ahh…”

“That is equivalent to a human toddler.” Ēostre raised a hand about two feet from the floor, indicating a very, very tiny person. “I told you that for the sake of comparison.”

“Oh. Okay.” Chloe’s face smoothed and the furrow in her brow disappeared. “Whoa. That kinda sucks. I hope he was at least a good one.”

Ēostre laughed again and hugged her daughter-in-law. “Our children develop slowly, Chloe. Very slowly, but for us the years seem to pass as days. Saul was an amazing cub, with none of his father’s temperament,” she said. “My friends envied me, and we loved him dearly.”

As Ēostre curled up on her corner of the sofa with the remote to the television, Chloe fiddled with the corner of a couch pillow. Time together as friends came naturally, a relief to both women when they began to explore everyday activities together with Astrid.

“Saul makes it very easy to love him,” Chloe chuckled. “Ēostre, can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“How did Saul and Brigid wind up promised to one another? As far as I could tell, they didn’t even like each other.”

“They didn’t,” Ēostre replied. “It was a match made between Max and Fafnir. We had hoped to ally our families through a bond stronger than friendship.”

“And it backfired.”

Ēostre sighed as she thought back to the century before Fafnir’s death. Saul had felt utterly betrayed when the two elder dragons proudly informed him of their decision, but he’d been a good sport about it, agreed, and said he would do his best to earn Brigid’s love. Easier said than done when the self-absorbed female dragon snubbed him at every turn.

“Brigid was a… willful child. Headstrong. She saw the betrothal as an opportunity to toy with Saul. You see, at the time, Fafnir and Maximilian were certain her age factored into her refusal. They believed she would change if given time to travel the world as our young often do upon reaching adulthood so they waited eagerly to put their theory to the test. Before they could, Fafnir was killed by a traveling dragonslayer.”

“You mean, like, a knight in armor and all that?”

“Yes, Chloe. This happened in the late 1800s… There were and still
are
humans who realize we exist, but their numbers are few and the stories, as well as the training, are passed through their families. From parent to child, they teach their methods to kill all of us without discriminating good dragon from bad.”

“I didn’t mean to make you rehash all of those memories, Ēostre. I’m sorry.”

“No.” With a sad smile on her face, Ēostre shook her head and turned her eyes to the nearby window. The starlit world beyond their living room reminded her of long nights in the grass beside her beloved with their cub tucked between them. How she missed those days. “My memories are precious, and sharing them with you brings me joy.”

Saul stepped into the room, oblivious to the weight in their discussion. “Mother, would you mind giving us a moment? I need to speak with Chloe alone. We’ll be right back.”

Ēostre waved him off and rose from her seat. “I intended to retire to bed early this evening in any case. Don’t trouble yourselves over me.” With a pause by Saul to kiss his cheek, she bid them both a good night and ascended the stairs to the upper level.

Since Saul didn’t trust his daughter with more than a window, afraid she’d sneak out for late night flying lessons, Ēostre slept in the only other second floor bedroom with a full-sized balcony. The second story view overlooked stretches of grass and beautiful California valley. It was difficult to believe it was the same territory she and Fafnir once claimed centuries ago. Still, it remained unchanged in many ways, remote and out of the way of humankind.

Not that she had anything against humans. Her third most favorite person in the world was a human. Chloe had been mortal once before Astrid’s magical blood mixed with her own.

And then there was sweet Astrid, who was half-human, half-dragon, a perfect blend of both worlds with the advantages of both races and seemingly none of the flaws.

How could other dragons like Tlaloc not understand how amazing human beings could be once they saw past their differences, prejudices, and hatred for one another? For every wicked mortal, there were fifty who were better, but convincing her fellow drakes of such seemed an impossible feat.

“Grandma?” Astrid called from beyond the door. Her small fist knocked gently.

“Yes, my love? Come in.”

Astrid cracked open the door and peaked inside. Typically, she turned in hours before the adults. “I noticed your lights were off. Are you going to bed early? May I sleep with you tonight?”

Ēostre eased into a sitting position and rolled her right shoulder. She winced when the muscle protested, but at least it was no longer tender and swollen. A little magic made everything better.

“Of course you may. Come.” She patted the empty space beside her and pulled back the sheets. Astrid wasted no time in wiggling into bed beside her and snuggling close.

“Grandma?”

“Yes, sweet?”

“Was Grandpa like Uncle Max?”

“Very much like him in some ways,” she told the child. “And they were the best of friends for as long as I knew them both.”

“I wish I’d met him.”

Ēostre squeezed the girl close and kissed her golden head. Me too, my sweet. Me too.”

Once Astrid’s peaceful face went slack and her chest moved in the tranquil rhythm of sleep, Ēostre took her mobile phone with her to the balcony. There, she lowered into one of the patio chairs and dialed Max.

“Happy birthday, Ēostre. Pleasant night with the family?”

“You remembered?”

He laughed. “I could never forget your birthday Ēostre, but you beat me to the call. Was the day enjoyable at least, or did you spend it working hard?”

“I purchased my dress for Duhane’s party, spent time with the family, and then Astrid joined me in bed.”