Page 6 of A Very Dragon Christmas (The Dragon Guard #51)

With every step she took, the closer she got to the only home she’d ever known, and every single time, the little butterflies in her tummy danced with excitement and joy. The Thorntree Reservation was special in so very many ways. There was no place like in the whole world. The Great Creator, the Universe, and The Powers That Be had taken a little piece of Heaven, Blessed with all their extraordinary powers, and created a haven that could never and would never be duplicated.

Sure, it was Magical. Everybody knew that. All a person had to do was get close to its borders, and they could feel how truly wonderful it was.

Yes, it was Sacred. It was the only indigenous land in the state of Texas that had always– and would always –belonged to the Cherokee people.

But what made it like no other place in the entire world, was all the people Abbie loved were there. The ones she held dear, the ones who she would do anything for, the people she would give her life to save, the Thorntree Res was where they lived .

It was home–and that word meant so much more than just a building. It truly was where her heart was, and for the first time, she could ever remember–something not quite right filled the air around the Res.

She couldn't put her finger on it, but with every step she took, the little voice in the back of her head screamed just a little bit louder. It refused to be ignored. Had it been corporeal, she had no doubt it would have also been jumping up and down, demanding her attention.

On one hand, she knew it wasn't the Timber She-Wolf with whom she shared her soul. It didn't matter that Abbie had never Shifted and probably never would. Faoiltiama–Faye, as she liked to be called, was always present and forever helping Abbie in any way she could. She was a gift from the Great Creator, the Universe, and most importantly, Abbie's dad.

On the other, she was starting to wonder if it might just be the Essence of the True N?nn?’h? Warrior she would someday become. She’d been told, and read many times that one day, one very specially ordained day, the true Spirit of the People Who Would Live Forever would be fully realized within her.

Abbie was also all too aware that if she hadn’t found her Mate, their union hadn’t been blessed by the Universe, and she didn’t wear the Mating Mark of her Dragon by midnight on her birthday of her one hundred and twenty-fifth year she would become a Natural N?nn?’h? Warrior and therefore, she would be invisible. Sadly, Christmas Eve, that very special anniversary of the day Abigail Annabella Addams first saw the light of day, was just around the corner.

Shuffling through the many levels of her mind, all the hundreds of thousands of ‘little boxes’ she’d created over the years to keep things somewhat organized in her crazy brain, there was always the one she couldn’t–or just didn’t–open. It was the one that had been there from the very beginning. It was where the little voice–the loose interpretation of Beannaichte Le Lomadh Spiorad lived.

Explained by her dad’s mom, Grandma Fione , Beannaichte Le Lomadh Spiorad meant Blessed With Many Spirits, and only the most fortunate, most special, highly extraordinary people received those gifts from the Great Creator, the Universe, and all The Powers That Be . For the longest time, Abbie thought her Grandma, who was as Scottish as the day was long, was just biased because she was her Nana.

Then, the little box started to talk. Well, it didn't really talk. What it did was more like send out psychic vibrations that, for the first couple of months, had Abbie thinking she was losing her mind. After consulting with Grandma Mary and Momma Maybelle, the Tribal Medicine Woman and Elder of the Wisdom, she was happy to find out that she was not going crazy. She was a little less happy to learn that the 'little voice' was something she was going to have to learn to more than live with; she was going to have to coexist and sooner or later, talk back to.

So far, the conversing part hadn’t happened. But what was occurring with more frequency were the times the box where the ‘little voice’ lived glowed, the times it shook, and the times–like the present–when that box vibrated like the washing machine during a spin cycle and little voice refused to be ignored.

Was it counting down to her birthday? Was it telling her she needed to have lunch? Was it..? Was it? Well, hell, was it telling her that her Dragon was nearby?

None of it made sense, especially the part about the man made for her by the Universe. And as of that very moment, she didn't know who or where her Mate was. That led her to wonder if she could live out eternity, not being seen by anyone or anything unless she chose to make herself known.

Some days, it sounded like a good thing. Most of the time, it scared the living shit right out of her. She figured with her luck, it would take her a millennium or two to figure out how to make herself seen, and by that time, well… She didn't want to think about it.

Snapping her out of her worries about the future, the little voice got so strong, so loud, so insistent that Abbie wondered if it might be time to take the lid off that specific box and see what all the hubbub was about. Would that speed up the deadline for her Mating? Would it change the way her Magic worked, who she was, or, most importantly, make her instantly invisible?

She just didn't know. But she was seriously thinking about throwing caution to the wind and going for it. Maybe meeting the little voice–or whatever was making all the noise–face to face would make things easier. It might even lead her to her Mate or, at the very least, call him to her.

But that felt all wrong. Somehow, and she didn't know how she just knew that it was not the right time to shake hands with the Essence of the N?nn?'h?. Her intuition was telling her that she had bigger fish to fry. That the little voice was so insistent because there was something much more pressing that needed her attention.

Then she remembered the weird feeling, the sense of something being not quite right, and she stopped mid-step. Laying her hand on Sydney’s arm, she waited until her friend had also stopped, then asked, “Do you feel that? Can you…?”

"Oh, thank the Great Goddess," the blond blurted out, an expression of relief instantly falling over her face. "I thought it was just me–like maybe I was losing my mind or overreacting to something nearby." Raising her eyebrows and bouncing her head, an action Abbie knew signaled that her friend was about to reveal something in confidence, something she wouldn't tell almost anyone else, Sydney spilled, "I don't always have a good handle on what all the crazy Magic whipping around inside of me is trying to tell me. “Everyone keeps sayin’ it’s gonna take time to get used to, and they could not be more right. There were days that I thought something totally over the top, cuckoo-banana-pants-crazy, was about to happen. I was positive I needed to sound the alarm and make sure everyone took cover because the sky was falling. Cross my heart, you would've laughed your ass off as I ran around doing my best Chicken Little impression. I raced to Shavon, bolted through the huge Council doors without even knocking, and screamed, "All hell was about to break loose."

Huffing with such gusto that the blond curls framing her face flew up and then floated back into place, she continued. "Boy, did I feel foolish? First of all, every damn Oracle, Visionary, Prophesier, Other Elder, and all the rest were there. When it ended up being nothing more than somebody important–highly Magical or Mystical or something Otherworldly way over my pay grade–arriving at the Citadel–like the people in that very room, I was mortified."

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

"Thanks, but that's not the worst. One time, I lost my ever–lovin' mind, and it was just the seasons being changed by the Enchantment of the Elemental Visionary on one of the other Realms." Shaking her head as a lovely pink blush colored her cheeks, she added, "Without Shavon or one of the other Oracles around to ask questions, I have pretty much learned to take a 'wait and see' approach. That way, I'm not embarrassed twenty-three-and-a-half hours out of twenty-four every day."

“Girl, I so hear ya’. I haven’t run into a room with people like that, but I have yelled my fool head off more times than I like to admit. And I still have trouble sometimes, but it’s nothing compared to what you got goin’ on up in that cute curvy behind of yours." Pointing with both her index fingers, she wiggled them up and down, shimmied her shoulders, and winked. "I can't even imagine how all of your Abracadabra-hoo-ha-woohoo feels when something unfamiliar rubs up against it.”

Twirling a stray red curl around the index finger of her right hand because it helped her think and gave her something to do with her hands, Abbie went on, “If I’m not puttin’ my foot in my mouth, I’m missin’ somethin’ as obvious as the nose on my face, and I only have about point-zero-zero-zero-zero one percent of the Enchantment you have. So, the fact that you’re still in one piece and so is the Refuge and the Citadel, says you are a freakin’ rock star.”

“Okay, yeah, whatever. You are one little powerhouse, Girlie. Don’t you ever forget that. You are the first True and Natural N?nn?’h? Warrior to walk the Earth in a really , really long time. Take some credit, my friend. Stop downplayin’ your gifts.”

"Well, I am not all the way a True and Natural N?nn?'h? Warrior just yet and still don't completely comprehend all that that really means. Then there's the fact that there's still stuff that needs handlin'." Tilting her head to the side, she huffed a short breath. "Ya' know what I mean?"

“Oh, pfft, do not sweat the small stuff, and findin’ your Dragon is small stuff. As a matter of fact, we’ll start lookin’ for your hunka-hunka-burnin’ Winged Warrior right after we have coffee and sweets.”

“Yeah, okay, if we get to it. Spendin’ quality time with you is way more important than any man.” Abbie tried to downplay the excitement she felt that Sydney was willing to help her find her Mate. She hadn’t even thought about asking, but somehow, her friend always knew exactly what to say to make her feel better.

Then she remembered something Syd had just said, and she needed to add, “And I want you to know that I don’t downplay my Gifts. I am more than thankful and grateful for each and every one of them. I just know what I’ve got goin’ on, and I’m more than okay with that. I also know, ‘cause I can feel it from a mile away, that you are wired for sound, and I am so damn proud to call you my friend.”

“Right back atcha,” Syd winked. “And for the record, I think we’re both pretty damn awesome.”

"You know it. We are all that and a big ass bag of chips. We even got the matching T-shirts." Snickering at her own joke and thinking about the ugly green and red Christmas shirts they'd gotten in place of ugly sweaters only last year, she added, "And while we're lookin' for my Dragon, we're gonna find yours too."

"Aww, thanks. I know Garrett's okay." She tapped her temple. "The Oracles keep tellin' me that I'll know when and if he needs me." Nodding, Syd's smile faltered as she got them back on track and asked, "So, what do you think this feeling is?" Holding up her arm, she pointed to the goosebumps. "These guys are dancing the Macarena, and the butterflies in my tummy are thinkin' about gettin' in on the act. It's close to the weirdest thing I've ever felt–and that's sayin' something, 'cause, in the last ten years, I have felt weirdness on a level I didn't know existed. "

“Yeah, I know you have. And I feel the same heebie-jeebies you do,” Abbie nodded. “I am so jumpy. It feels like I need to keep lookin’ over my shoulder because something’s comin’ for me or someone close to me that should not be there. I absolutely hate this feeling, especially when I have no clue what it is or where it’s coming from.”

“Ditto.”

"All I can be sure of is that something is way over-the-top cattywampus, and it's not gonna get fixed all by itself." Stopping to think for a second, she snapped her fingers when an idea hit her. "Let me holler at Auggie. She is pretty much always at the Res, and the eeriness seems to be floating from that direction.” She pointed to the west.

“Yep, sure does.”

Nodding in agreement, Abbie continued, "You know as well as I do that Auggie only leaves home if she's forced. Even then, she makes a big fuss and threatens to curse anyone in her path even though I'm pretty sure the worst she could do is Shift into her Timber Wolf and bite 'em in the butt." Shrugging, she winked. "She says everything she needs is right there, and home is where she wants to be. So, it only stands to reason that if anything is goin' on, Cuz will for sure have a handle on it. I'll find out what she knows. That way, if everything's good and we've just gotten our wires crossed, we won't have alerted anyone else, and I won't get accused of havin' a crazy imagination again .”

"If your imagination is crazy, then mine is nuckin' futs. So, go on ahead and holler for Miss Augustine. She's always had the answers before."

Without further comment, Abbie opened the unique mental connection she shared with her cousin, and as cheerfully as she could so as not to alert Auggie to anything nefarious, she sing-songed and called her cousin the one name she truly hated. “Hey, Miss Thang, whatcha doin?”

Waiting for an answer, an exasperated sigh, or anything that said Auggie had heard her was like the anxiety she experienced while sitting in the dentist's chair anticipating having a tooth pulled. It was almost as painful as the act itself–and it required a patience she did not have.

When no response came, she tried again, “Hey, Auggie, guess who’s here? Sydney! We’re headed to my house for leftover chicken and dumplings, followed by coffee, cookies, and silly holiday rom coms. I even paid for the Hallmark Channel after you got mad about me using yours. Can you believe it? I actually have a subscription in my own name. You wanna join the party? Aww, come on, you just gotta. You’ll finally get to watch something I paid for.”

Again, she waited. Again, there was no answer, but this time, Abbie was quickly running out of what little patience she had–which wasn't much. It was so bad, and the little voice in the back of her mind was pushing so hard that her feet had already started creeping toward the Res.

Ready to add some oomph to her voice and try not to yell even though it was all she could think about doing, she got as far as, “Okay, Aug, what’s…?”

“D-don’t don’t c-come home. N-not not s-safe.” Auggie’s voice was barely a whisper–actually a breathy wheeze–that had every protective instinct and need to help and heal Abbie possessed jumping to the forefront of her psyche. Then her cousin added, “C-can-can’t co-come h-here. B-be s-s-safe,” and her feet went from barely shuffling to beatin’ a trail to the Res before her brain caught up.

“Come on, Syd. The shit’s hittin’ the fan!” She hollered into the wind without so much as a backward glance, trusting her friend to follow along .

“I’m right behind you!”

With her bestie hot on her trail, their footfalls pounding the ground like a herd of raging heifers, Abbie shoved her hands out in front of her chest. Hitting the gate at the back of her garden with a blast of Magic that almost knocked it off its hinges, she raced under the white, wrought iron arch covered with flowering white ivy and yellow Carolina jessamine in full bloom. No sooner was she through than she really poured on the speed.

Around the side of her house, just barely missing the purple Texas sage and yellow and red hibiscus bushes trying to take over her yard, she took a sharp right then jumped over the rocks from the creek she used as stepping stones like she was playing hopscotch. Through her Auntie’s backyard, she kicked open the wooden gate to Auggie’s yard and ran full speed for the sliding glass door.

Ready to push it open with her Magic, the glass was already moving, and Syd was calling out, “I got this one. Don’t want you shattering glass like you tore up that hinge, Wreckin’ Ralph,” before she hopped up on the redwood deck.

"Ha," was all Abbie could force through her gritted teeth as the bittersweet sour scent of sickness and the cloyingly overpowering stench of pain invaded her senses and then shot through her system so quickly there was no time for her to do anything but brace for what was to come.

Coughing with such force that her eyes watered and she couldn’t catch her breath, she stopped just inside the kitchen. Forced to hold onto the dark, Mahogony crown molding around the threshold to stay upright, she panted as if she’d just run a marathon–something that would never happen.

The Magic of the N?nn?'h? combined with that of her Timber She-Wolf and instantly went to work. Sweeping through her system, it wiped away almost all of the offensive odor and allowed her to take one quick, cleansing breath. Finally, and way quicker than she'd ever imagined, she was able to block out what little of the offensive stench remained and take a second, deeper inhale. Wiping away the tears wetting her cheeks, she stood up to her full height just as Sydney rushed past.

Running when her friend gasped, "Holy Goddess," Abbie dashed into Auggie's room, stopping so quickly that her body swayed forward and then back. She simply couldn't believe what she saw. It made no sense. It was like something out of a horror movie.

The tall, brunette Augustine Addams, usually so full of life, always sassy, and absolutely drop-dead gorgeous, was laid out flat, tangled in a mess of sheets wet with sweat and stained with throw-up, looking worse than death warmed over. Her eyes were rolled so far back in her head that only the tiniest speck of her dark brown eyes was visible, and her long, beautiful brunette tresses were drenched with perspiration, stringy and matted on her pillow that was also sopping.

Abbie tried not to gasp as she took in Auggie’s usually soft, flawless, olive complexion that was at that moment horribly mottled and washed out to a dreary gray pallor, but she failed. Then, the worst happened. The moment she watched the way her cousin’s chest barely rose and fell as she struggled to breathe, the life was sacred out of Abbie, and her heart ached as if it had been stabbed.

The closer she got, the more glaringly obvious it became that whatever was attacking her cousin most definitely defied all the Laws of Nature. It had happened too fast. Nothing, no matter how infectious or life-threatening–worked that quickly. She had just seen Auggie that morning, and the older-by-three-years-old woman was fine, happy, healthy, and giving her hell for something she'd forgotten to do.

Not to mention, Auggie was a Timber She-Wolf–one who had already accepted her Magic from the Universe and Shifted under the cool Yuletide Full Moon the day she turned sixteen. There was no way anything of the Earth could have caused the sudden downturn Abbie witnessed. Nothing could’ve gotten past the Timber Wolf Enchantment or the Indigenous Magic of the Cherokee. Auggie was to be a Luna when she found her Mate. She would have her own Pack, maybe her own Tribe someday.

What Abbie witnessed was impossible. She wouldn't have believed it if she wasn't seeing with her own eyes, and still, it just didn't make any sense.

The disease, the sickness, the attack had to be wicked or malevolent or both. That was the only explanation for the lack of healing taking place within her cousin’s body. The Timber She-Wolf with whom she shared her soul would’ve taken over and done her damnedest to rush Auggie to her glowing health immediately.

Trying to reach out to the Timber She-Wolf, Fatima, who shared her very essence with Auggie, Abbie found all mental pathways blocked. She went one way and then another, trying to get in there to see what had happened, but it was no use. Fati had been silenced. She was under house arrest, and not even the Magic of the N?nn?'h? could break the lock.

Taking in the icky green pustules on Auggie's eyelids, lips, and the inside of her nose, Abbie's stomach rolled. Then she saw the red, fiery tendrils snaking their way up and down her body and knew her cousin's symptoms were unlike anything she'd ever studied in college.

Sure, she'd gotten her degree in photography, but that didn't mean she hadn't taken a ton of biology, physiology, anatomy, and other sciences. After all, she was about to be one-hundred-and-twenty-five, and that meant she'd had a lot of time on her hands. It also helped her understand bodies, how they moved, and the best way to get the right pictures when working with humans–which wasn't often but did sometimes happen.

Looking around, trying to find any physical evidence of what was happening to her cousin, she was just about to give up when the feeling of pure evil damn near smacked her in the face. There was no denying it. Someone, no, something had infected Auggie with the nastiest, blackest Magic she’d ever felt. The sheer magnitude of the warped alchemy permeating the airwaves was staggering. So, why hadn’t she…?

“You did not feel it when we first entered the house because it was being hidden,” Faye answered . “Not even I can get through all the blockages and blind alleys this Maliciousness is causing. It is absolutely infuriating, unbelievably strong, and Ancient. There is no doubt that it's Otherworldly, but I can't tell from where.”

“Wow, did you just wake up?”

“No need to be snippy, Isi. I have been in meditation, seeking answers for what is to come. I thought we should be prepared to meet your Mate as the time is drawing near.”

“Okay, I’m sure that’s important, but do you have to call me Little One every time I say something you don’t particularly like?”

“I do, and sometimes I do it just because I can. ”

“Well, what can we…?”

Not waiting for Abbie to finish her question or even so much as give her consent, Faye opened their minds to everyone in the Tribe. Pushing through the wall, the one wielding the Black Magic had haphazardly built around Auggie’s house, her innate N?nn?’h? Magic lent its Second Sight, and as one, they all checked on Abbie’s Family, her Tribe.

Slapping her in the face, what she found was even worse than she'd imagined. It was more of the same and, in some cases, much worse. Everyone, the old, the young, the strong, and those who needed a helping hand, were being attacked by the horrific, malevolent sickness. Whether they had just started to feel poorly or if they were as bad off as Auggie, every single person on the Thorntree Res was under siege from the gruesome, wicked illness.

Turning, she asked, “Syd, do you mind stayin’ with Auggie?”

“Not at all. I caught most of what y’all said and what you saw. I wasn’t eavesdropping. Y’all just weren’t shielding.”

“No worries,” Abbie nodded. “You know you are always free to eavesdrop in my crazy brain. Just enter at your own risk.”

“Cool, I just gotta ask, are you goin’ where I think you’re goin’?”

“Probably,” Abbie confirmed. “I’m going out to Sequoyah Hill.”

“Yep, I got it in one.”