city of dragons 03 - fire magic (4 page)

BOOK: city of dragons 03 - fire magic
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“Listen, there is a possibility that these drakes could get out of the tunnels. The tunnels are filled with water during high tide, but during low tide, the drakes might be able to get out and begin stalking the populace. If they did, they would attack whatever they saw first. They could be quite dangerous.”

I eyed her. “Either you’re lying about how powerful you are, or you’ve got some other reason for coming to see me.” I strongly suspected that it had something to do with my blood bond with Lachlan. I didn’t know much about it, only what some mage named Esther had told me, but apparently the blood bond had created power-hungry monsters in the past. If this Order really did contain magical creatures who got out of control, maybe they were sniffing around to see if I was a threat.

“I assure you, Penny, I have no ill will toward you.” She smiled at me.

But there was something about that smile I didn’t like. Still, she hadn’t involved Lachlan, had she? If this were about the blood bond, wouldn’t she want him on board? I cleared my throat. “If I did this for you, I don’t know if I would want to work alone.”

“Oh, yes, you have a drake and a gargoyle who usually work with you, yes?”

Hmm. Still no mention of Lachlan. I nodded. “That’s true.”

“Well, of course. You must use whoever you would need.”

Part of me wanted to say yes just to get inside this place, get access to this Order, so that I could determine if they were a threat to me. But I hadn’t shifted lately, and I didn’t have any magic, and I wasn’t sure if I should shift, and besides this whole thing sounded ridiculously dangerous, and I was pregnant…

But if I didn’t agree, could it prove even more dangerous for me and my baby?

I stood up. “I can’t give you an answer right now. I need to think about it.”

“All right, I can see that,” she said, standing up as well. “Please let me know what you decide. I’ll give you my contact information.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER FOUR

 

I spent the rest of the morning searching for whatever information I could find on this Order of Rasmossen and Wolffe. Nothing.

When I started getting hungry and nauseous again, I realized that I hadn’t had anything besides the Greek yogurt. But it was now mid-morning and I’d missed the continental breakfast. Whatever. I went to the Flamingo anyway.

I ordered some food to go, and then I went back into the kitchen, hunting for Ophelia.

I found her at the sink, washing dishes. Even though she owned the cafe, she still did menial work when she had to, pitching in wherever she was needed. But when she saw me, she handed off the dishes to someone else, and we went back to a little office she had, which was messier than mine, to talk.

“You look worried,” said Ophelia.

“What do you know about the Order of Rasmossen and Wolffe?”

She made a face. “Nothing. Never heard of it.”

“Is it possible that other people would know about Lachlan and me?” I said. “Like you sensed that we were powerful when we came into the restaurant a few months ago. Are we causing some kind of rippling disturbance that mages can feel somehow or something?”

She considered. “Well, maybe. Not recently, of course, but when you were using your magic against Alastair, I think it’s possible that could have been felt by mages. Not by anyone far away, I don’t think. Only sensitive, powerful mages close by might have sensed it.”

“So, they’d know that I had a blood bond.”

“Not necessarily,” said Ophelia. “The magic isn’t like that. It doesn’t feel any different than other magic, if you know what I mean. No, all they might be able to know is that you’re very powerful.”

I nodded slowly. “Huh. Well, that might explain why she didn’t mention anything about Lachlan, then.”

“What’s going on?”

I explained to her what had happened this morning, all about Darla Tell and her strange request. “There’s something fishy about it,” I finished. “It doesn’t add up. And I feel like if I help her out, I might be walking into a trap.”

“Maybe,” said Ophelia. “Or maybe she’s just feeling you out. She wants to see you in action in a controlled environment. Wants to determine if you’re a threat.”

“Could be, I suppose,” I said. “But there’s got to be something else going on. Why would someone so powerful want my help?”

“I can ask around if you’d like,” said Ophelia. “See if anyone knows anything about this Order of Rasputin—”

“Rasmossen,” I said.

“Rasmossen,” she repeated. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

* * *

“I barely got out of bed during my second pregnancy,” I said to Shirley the therapist, “and it ended up not making any difference. So, in my third pregnancy, I figured that if it was going to happen, there was nothing I could do about it, so I just did everything normally. But that didn’t make any difference either.”

“You’re worried about losing this baby too,” she said.

“Of course I am,” I said. “Given my history, it only makes sense. But I also wonder if Alastair beating me during the pregnancies caused the miscarriages. I always shifted to heal, and I assumed that healed the baby too, but I never really talked to a healthcare professional about it.”

“Because you were ashamed.”

“Exactly,” I said. “So I haven’t been shifting because I’m worried that could cause problems. But that also makes me nervous, because now I don’t have magic, and if something went wrong, I wouldn’t be able to protect the baby.”

“What’s stopping you from consulting a healthcare professional now? I assume you’re seeing a doctor that specializes in dragon prenatal care?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess nothing. I should just ask. You’re right.” It seemed simple enough. I was often amazed at how old ways of thinking had become such ingrained habits for me that I didn’t even think to challenge them or do something different.

“And with your ex-husband’s body having been found, you should be a little less on edge about danger, right?”

“You heard about that,” I said.

“I work for the police department and that bust is big news. So, yes, I heard. How are you dealing with the news?”

“It’s, um…” I debated lying about it, but then I figured lying to a therapist sort of defeated the purpose. “It’s actually great news. I feel like a weight has been lifted. It’s so amazing that I can hardly believe it’s true.”

“I see,” she said, her face expressionless.

“Should I be feeling something different?”

“Do you think you should?”

“Well, I guess you’re supposed to be sad when someone dies, but Alastair was a waste of space as far as I’m concerned. I’m not going to miss him. He terrorized me.”

She only nodded.

I furrowed my brow. “I’m sorry that I feel that way.”

“You feel guilt about Alastair?”

“Well… not really, but I guess I sort of should, maybe.”

She surveyed me, waiting.

“But the truth is, no, I don’t. I only feel grateful to whoever killed him. I hate slayers on principle, but this one really did me a favor.”

“So, that’s what you think happened, then? A slayer killed him?”

“I haven’t thought about it,” I said. “But he was killed by an arrow, right? So that makes sense.”

She waited some more.

“Why are you asking me about this?” I said.

“You’d rather talk about something else?”

“Well, last time, you said that I wasn’t free of all the things that I said don’t bother me. I got the distinct impression that you wanted me to face my fears or something like that. I don’t even know how one faces one’s fears, but whatever. The thing is, I’m ready. I want to work through all of this and put it behind me.”

I was terrified of losing this baby, and it was holding me back. I had threats now—actual threats from weird magical orders—and I needed to be able to put the specter of Alastair and abuse behind me. I needed to move forward. If that included facing my fears, I was ready to try.

She looked surprised. “Well, that’s a very positive step. You seemed a bit resistant last session.”

“Well, things have changed.”

“Because of Alastair’s body being found?”

“Sure, I guess,” I said. That was as good an excuse as any, I supposed. “So, how do we do it?”

“Well, it’s not exactly something we can do in an afternoon.”

“It’s not?”

“It’s a bit of a process,” she said. “It will involve your doing work on your own, away from me.”

“Like what?” I said. Work? What did she mean?

“I mean that you’ll have to change the way you think. You typically shove aside the things that bother you, refusing to confront them. You probably have a whole set of defense mechanisms built into the way you think. You’ll have to dismantle them and truly feel your emotions. Only then will they stop having power over you.”

I chewed on my lip. This really wasn’t helping.

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk some more about Alastair’s death?”

“Why do you keep bringing that up?” I said. “It’s over. It’s done with.”

“This,” said Shirley, “is another classic example of the way that you push things aside without dealing with them at all.”

* * *

“Penny,” said my doctor over the phone, “I understand you have some concerns. Is everything going okay? You don’t have any spotting or pain or anything?”

“No, nothing like that,” I said. “I just… I haven’t been honest with you about my medical history regarding the miscarriages.”

“What do you mean?”

“I may have left out the fact that during each of my previous pregnancies, I was in an abusive relationship, and that I was shifting into dragon form frequently to heal. Is it possible that had any effect on my ability to carry to term?”

“Oh, very possible,” said the doctor.

“But dragons have miscarriages a lot.”

“They do,” said the doctor, “but not late term miscarriages such as yours. Most dragon miscarriages happen in the first trimester.”

“Oh,” I said. I hadn’t known that. That was true for humans too, although dragons were much more likely to lose pregnancies than humans.

“Actually, it makes a good bit more sense to me now, your history,” said the doctor. “I was looking through your files, and I felt that the last two pregnancies were consistent with traumatic injury, but you didn’t seem to have any.”

“I thought…” I took a deep breath, trying to steady my voice. “I thought that if I shifted it would heal injuries.”

“Heal your injuries, yes, but not the baby’s.”

I bit down hard on my lip. I couldn’t speak.

“In general, there’s nothing wrong with shifting during pregnancy,” the doctor continued. “The influx of magic is good. Your body creates a magical barrier of protection around the uterus and each shift brings that back to full capacity. So, you should definitely shift at least every two weeks if you can manage it. It obviously becomes a bit more difficult in the final trimester, getting in and out of a pool with a belly isn’t always feasible, so don’t feel as if you must, but I do encourage expecting mothers to shift.”

I parted my lips, and a tiny painful sound came out.

“Penny?”

“I have to go,” I said. I hung up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER FIVE

 

“Penny.” Lachlan stood up from his desk at the station. “What are you doing here?”

“Can you take lunch?” I said. “I know it’s a little early, but I just… It’s daytime, so Connor’s asleep, and every time I try to call Felicity, I get her voicemail, and I need to talk to somebody, and I didn’t know where to go, and—”

“Sure,” he said. “It’s fine. Let’s go.”

I sucked in an unsteady breath.

He put his arm around me. “Are you crying?”

“No,” I said, but my voice cracked.

“Hey.” He brushed my hair away from my face. “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head. “Let’s go somewhere else?”

He nodded.

He drove us back to the hotel, and we went upstairs to my apartment.

I sat down on the couch in the living room, put my head in my hands, and started sobbing. I couldn’t stop. The waves of sadness just kept racking me, and I thought I might cry forever.

It was hormones, partly, I knew that. But there was also something deeper underneath it all.

Lachlan held me, but it was like before, like he was holding himself back, afraid to touch me.

Finally, my sobs subsided enough that I could talk. “I found out today that it’s my fault that my babies died.”

“What?” he said.

“Because they were getting traumatized by Alastair’s beatings, and I thought that every time I shifted, they were healing, but they weren’t. And I just stayed there and let him hurt us, and he killed them. He killed my babies.” I was overtaken by a wave of fresh sobs.

Lachlan pulled me against his chest. He kissed the top of my head. His voice rumbled. “That wasn’t your fault, Penny. It was Alastair’s.”

I yanked away from him. “But I
stayed
.”

“Still not your fault.”

I got up off the couch. I felt like I needed to get out of here, just go and run and hide someplace from all of this.

Was that what the therapist had been talking about? Was this the shift in my thinking I was going to have to do? I hadn’t really listened to her much after all that. I’d just gotten out of there.

I thought of the way that I’d been sobbing, how the pain of this new knowledge had brought me to my knees.

No, if I had to sit and wallow in that, it would kill me. I needed to get away from it. Numb it somehow. I turned back to Lachlan, who was still on the couch.

“Listen, you can’t blame yourself,” he said.

I went back to the couch, and I climbed into his lap. I kissed him.

He kissed back, but carefully.

I thrust my tongue into his mouth.

He pulled away, surprised. “Penny?”

“I just…” I swallowed. “I need to be close to you. I want to feel something good right now. And we’ve been apart for so long, and now here you are, and I…” I kissed him again.

BOOK: city of dragons 03 - fire magic
12.55Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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