Touchdown Daddy (159 page)

Kiara recognized the spell he cast as a truth spell. One far above what she could cast. Her mouth dropped open in shock. “You’re—you’re a wizard?” she asked.

He nodded. “And I had been very successful at keeping this world from my son until he was ready. I’m still not sure he’s ready for the responsibility, and neither are you, Kiara. Clearly.”

“Wait a second,” Spence said. “What is happening right now? You’re telling me you’re a wizard and have been my whole life?!”

Mr. James nodded.

“What the hell!” Spence put his head in his hands for several minutes.

The shock settled over Kiara and her mind started whirling.

Spence turned his head slowly to look at her. “I guess you were right about one thing. I always was a wizard. Even if my parents never bothered to tell me.” He looked up and glared at them.

“Why wouldn’t you tell him?” Kiara demanded. “If my mom was a witch, she would have told me! She would have taught me and helped me, not kept it from me and hoped I never found out!”

Mrs. James laughed and she gave Kiara a sympathetic look. “Aww, sweetie, your mom
is
a witch.”

“What?” Kiara’s mouth hung open. She and Spence exchanged bewildered looks. Could they possibly be dreaming this?

“It’s in the bloodlines. Witch and wizard parents have witch and wizard kids,” Mr. James said. “And no, we don’t train them and help them. That’s not the way it’s done. You’ll see when you have kids of your own. Magic has to be discovered and harnessed and kept secret. And you both have done a terrible job of keeping it a secret from the non-magical people in this town.”

“But—” Kiara’s hand drifted toward Erica’s father, who stood at the edge of the room, watching everything.

“Erica is adopted,” Mr. Graham said. “She doesn’t even know that, so don’t you dare tell her.”

“I won’t.” Kiara gasped at him. So that meant he was a wizard, too?

Mr. James stood in front of Spence, hands on his hips. “I thought that, being raised in a household with a forest ranger, you would be much more careful of nature. And now that you use magic you know even more so how important it all is. How could you do so much damage? And besides that, where in the world did you get the magic to shapeshift? That’s a very rare thing, and no one in this town has that power.”

Spence hung his head. He still held Kiara’s hand and she squeezed it to give him some measure of comfort. If that was even possible now. If his parents knew and Erica’s parents knew, then a whole lot of people were going to die all because his hood had fallen down while he was in the moonlight. She could only imagine the guilt he was feeling now.

“The thing is, Spencer,” Mrs. James said, “We’ve had a pact in this town that if shifters show up, they are killed. They caused a lot of damage in the past. It was decided by a lot of people long ago that they should never be allowed to keep the power.”

Spence looked at his mother in horror. “You want to kill me?”

“Of course not!” Mr. James was shouting now. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re our son and we love you. But you have to understand that this is a very dangerous thing. We will do whatever we can to protect you, but if the wrong people in this town find out about you they will hunt you.”

“Then they’d be going after the wrong person,” Kiara said.

“What?” Spence whipped his head to look at her.

“You can’t keep lying for me, Spence.” Kiara took a deep breath and said, “Spence can’t shift into a dragon, but I can. I was wearing his necklace, and I carried Erica out. Obviously. She’s my best friend. She told you it was Spence because she’s still mad at him for choosing me over her. She wanted to get back at us both, I guess, and that’s why she told you what she saw and took that photo. But it’s me. I’m the one who did all the damage in the woods. Not on purpose or anything. Tails are big and heavy, and it just kind of happened. I wouldn’t purposefully kill trees or anything in nature.”

Spence took in a sharp breath when she said the last part. Right. She had killed something in nature. And that was part of the reason for this mess. If she hadn’t let Spence see her, she wouldn’t have had to kill the wolf to save him. And without the wolf Spence wouldn’t have turned in the moonlight, and Erica wouldn’t have seen. This was all her fault, not his. And that’s why she was going to be the one to fix it.

Mr. James glared at her. “I don’t believe you.”

“Then cast your fancy truth spell because I sure don’t have a counterspell strong enough.” She crossed her arms and waited, knowing exactly what she’d say. The spell hit her and she said, “Now. Like I said. I’m a dragon shifter, and I was in the woods with Erica.”

She had to choose her words carefully. She had to convince them of just enough of the truth so they didn’t ask questions that would give away all her lies and sidestepping.

The adults inspected her and exchanged glances.

“Erica was adamant that it was Spencer,” Mr. Graham said.

“She used to like Spence and he chose me,” Kiara said. “Girls get mad over that stuff all the time. In fact, I’m lucky she’s still my friend.” Of course she might not be if they hadn’t used magic on Erica to remove the fact that she’d liked Spence in the first place.

Spence spoke up suddenly. “You’re not going to hurt her, are you?” He shifted closer to Kiara and put an arm around her protectively.

They had said all that stuff about not letting shifters live. She’d almost forgotten about that. It was the least of her problems at the moment. The bigger problem was how to make sure everyone who knew about the secret survived this.

“No, of course not,” Mrs. James said. “We would never do that to her mother. She’s a very important witch in this town.”

Kiara shook her head. “I can’t believe she never told me. Or that I never saw her doing magic.”

“You probably did,” Mrs. James said. “And she probably charmed you into forgetting.”

“What do we do now?” Spencer said.

“We make sure no one else finds out,” Mr. James said.

“Erica is on her way here, and her mother and I will talk to her.”

“Has anyone talked to my mother about all this?” Kiara asked.

“Not yet,” Mrs. James said, “but we sure will.”

“Perfect,” Kiara said. So everyone who knew would all be in one place at one time.

The front door opened and Erica hobbled in on crutches, her mother helping her. Erica looked at her and Spencer, wary and afraid.

“Is this everyone who knows about the dragon thing?” Kiara asked.

Erica nodded. “I think so.”

“Yes,” Mr. James said. “Erica was charmed to prevent her from saying anything at the hospital.”

“Good. Because I know a way to keep my secret,” Kiara said.

She stood up and, with a slow, deep breath, pulled the ring from her finger and set it down on the table. When she let go of it, something shifted in her chest, almost like something had woken up and come alive. It stretched and spread through her whole body in minutes. Her fingers, her toes, every inch of her felt liquefied, like her insides had been turned to jelly and were being held together by her skin alone.

“What are you doing?” Spence grabbed the ring and tried to shove it back on her finger. “No, Kiara, you can’t do this. You can’t!”

“It’s done. I can feel it.” She kissed Spence with tears in her eyes and leaned forward to whisper to him. “They won’t remember anything about this. We need to erase the photo from her phone, and then you can live a happy life without being hunted.”

“No, Kiki.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her.

“Okay, okay,” Mr. James said. “It’s only magic. Let’s not get all dramatic. No one is going to be mad at you for being seen casting spells. So many of us in this town are magic casters, and memory charms are easy. We just need to talk about you getting better at keeping the secret from non-magic people. For everyone’s safety.”

If only memory charms undid the curse, she wouldn’t have had to take the ring off to erase the secret of the dragon shifting. And she wouldn’t have just started the timer on her own death.

Spence’s parents cast spells on Erica, the only non-magical person in the room, and made sure she forgot that anyone could do magic.

Kiara said to Mr. Graham while Mrs. Graham was casting a spell, “Can I see her phone a minute? I want to check something.”

He handed it over and Kiara found the photo then deleted it. She checked the text messages to make sure she hadn’t sent it to anyone or saved it anywhere, then gave the phone to Erica.

“Let’s get home,” Mr. Graham said. “It’s been a long night.”

They exchanged goodbyes as the three of them left. Mr. James let out a loud sigh when he came back into the room after seeing the Grahams out. “It has been a long night. Kiara, I think you’d better get home too.”

“No!” Spence said. “Just let her stay a little while longer.”

Mrs. James shook her head. “She needs to talk to her mom, and we have a few things to discuss as well.”

“It’s okay.” Kiara wrapped her arms around him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He stood up as Kiara waved to his parents.

“And no sneaking into or out of windows tonight, okay?” Mrs. James said. “I sure do hope you two are using protection.”

Spence covered his face with his hands, and Kiara felt her cheeks go warm. They hurried to the door and stood outside on the porch, their arms wrapped around each other.

“This is insane,” he said. “I can’t let you just go home. Not like this. What are we going to do?”

“Enjoy our time together.” She was surprised at how resigned she sounded about the whole thing. But maybe, after coming so close to losing him, after all that had happened, after finding out about her mother and the town, maybe it was too much for her brain, and she’d feel something later. Maybe in a few hours she’d start to freak out over dying.

“I’m going to figure something out.” He looked at her with eyes frantic and wild. “There has to be a way.”

“It’s over, Spence. It’s okay. You’ll be okay.” She kissed him and hugged her arms around his neck so tight that his shoulder choked her.

“Don’t say that. I’m not going to lose you.”

She released her arms. “I do want to talk to my mom, though. I’ll text you later?”

“Okay. And I’ll see you first thing in the morning.”

“Sounds good.”

They kissed again and she walked away slowly, looking back at him several times. As she walked home Kiara made sure to notice everything around her. The way the stars twinkled in the sky, the way the trees smelled when she walked by them, the way her legs bent and moved her body forward. How much longer would she experience each of these things? How long did she have? A day? Two? She wanted to appreciate everything she could before she got too sick to enjoy it.

She paused to look up at her house before unlocking the door. She walked inside and locked the door behind her. Her mom sat in the living room, watching her. She motioned for Kiara to join her.

“Hey, kid,” she said when Kiara walked in.

“Hey.”

“I just talked to Spencer’s parents.”

“And?”

“Well, they told me the magical cat is out of the bag.”

“Yeah.” She let her bag fall to the floor with a thump. “You could have told me sooner.”

“No, I couldn’t. Mr. James said they explained all that.”

“I guess.” She slumped onto the sofa across from her mom.

“So now that you know and we can talk about it, do you have any questions?”

She swallowed and noticed that her throat hurt. Her eyelids drooped with exhaustion and she wanted to sleep. But this could be the last time she had a serious talk with her mom. Her last chance to get answers to any questions she might have. “How often did you use magic on me?”

“Oh, often enough. You’ll find that the children of magical parents are surprisingly well behaved.” She chuckled. “You’ll see when it’s your turn. Don’t be mad about it; we all do it. When your baby won’t sleep or your toddler is throwing a fit or your ten-year-old gets made fun of at school. You just want a way to make them feel better, and when all it takes is one spell there’s no reason not to use magic.”

Kiara nodded. If she’d lived long enough to have her own kids then she probably would have done the same. It seemed like a much easier way to parent. Would her and Spence have stayed together that long? Would they have had kids and grown old together? Tears came to her eyes at the thought and she just wanted to be alone to think and cry.

“I’m really tired, Mom. And I think I’m getting sick. Can we talk more tomorrow?”

“Sure.” Her mom walked over to hug her and feel her forehead. “You do feel warm. I’ll bring you something.”

Kiara trudged up to her bedroom and got into her pajamas, adding a sweatshirt to keep away the growing chills running through her. Her mom came up later with some medicine and water. She cast a spell over her, and it did make her feel a little bit better. But she knew even her mother’s more practiced and powerful magic wouldn’t last long against this curse.

“I do have one more question,” Kiara said as her mom pulled her blanket up to cover her. “Was Dad a wizard?”

“Yes, and that’s how he died. A powerful spell went wrong.”

“What kind of spell?”

“That’s not important.”

“Mom. What kind of spell?”

Her mom sat at the edge of her bed. “When you were little, you fell into the ocean from a fishing boat. He jumped in to save you. You were under for too long and he cast a spell to give you oxygen because you were so far under the surface. It pulled all the oxygen out of the water and surrounded you so you could breathe, like being inside a giant bubble of air. But it took that oxygen from anything close to you. Including your father. He was too far down to make it up in time, but since you were in a bubble you floated to the surface.”

“He suffocated himself to save me?”

“Basically, yes. I don’t think he realized what would happen, but he did it to save you, yes.”

Kiara stared at the wall, where the photo of her and her dad hung. She was a toddler in the photo. She didn’t remember the place it was taken or anything about her father at all. Maybe when she died he would be there—wherever it was she was going—and maybe she’d finally get to know him.

“Now you know why I never wanted to give you details about how he died. Saying he drowned was a much easier explanation. And technically, that is what happened.” Her mother kissed her forehead. “Get some rest.”

Kiara’s eyes closed quickly and she fell into a dreamless sleep.