Page 29 of Against the Veil (Endangered Fae #3)

Chapter Fifteen

The Defense of Magical Beings Act

Any law restricting the rights of a minority group should have been met with vehement resistance. In any other political climate, it would have been. —Dr. Nathan R. Cooper, The Disastrous Year

M inky sat on the edge of the fountain in the garden, swinging her feet.

This place was, as Nate said, epically cool, but everyone was so damn touchy-feely.

She twitched every time another pretty fae put an arm around her.

Not that she wanted to hurt any of their feelings.

She liked all the ones she’d met. But she needed a couple of minutes alone so she wouldn’t run screaming.

Nate didn’t have any problems with it. He hugged back.

He cuddled. Kara managed all right, though she blushed when the pretty females stroked her hair.

Even Will accepted the attention gracefully, though he’d been whisked down to the caverns with Brandon to have the big dork’s head looked at, so she hadn’t seen either of them for hours.

She was pretty sure there weren’t fairy dust CAT scans or MRIs down there, but apparently medical procedures took ridiculously long no matter what species.

“Astounding.”

She squeaked at the bone-rattling deep voice and automatically faded into the stone of the fountain.

When she looked up…and up…at the owner of the voice, she wanted to hide under the stones.

The man, no not a man, fae, looming over her gleamed in the sunlight, massive in every respect and naked .

She made sure not to let her eyes wander below his waist. The last thing she wanted to see was giant fae junk.

He smiled down at her, showing sharp teeth, and she gasped. He was one thing and another, the human-like shape more prominent but behind it, around it, through it, she clearly saw…

“Dragon,” she whispered, then clapped her hands over her mouth when she realized the word had slipped out.

“Well done, little one. You do know I can still see you?”

“Yeah. Figured. I mean, you’re a…a dragon.” She didn’t really know why that would make a difference, but some gut instinct told her it did.

“Hmm. Yes.” The dragon settled on the fountain’s edge beside her. He shouldn’t have fit there, but somehow he did. “You are frightened of me.”

Minky clamped her hands on the stones and forced herself not to flee, concentrating hard on being visible. “It’s not just you. I’m pretty much scared of everything.”

“Ah. You are part of the coven of children Lugh mac Ethnenn has brought to the island.”

It was a statement, rather than a question, but still seemed to require an answer.

Minky kept her eyes on her feet, letting them swing again.

The dragon couldn’t swing his feet. He was so huge that his feet were firmly planted on the ground.

“Yeah. I mean, I guess. We’re not really children, though. ”

“You are young humans coming into your power. To most inhabitants of the Otherworld, you are still children.”

She nodded, not really offended. The dragon was probably umpteen thousand years old, anyway. “The others, they might be powerful and stuff. But not me.”

The dragon laughed. It was an incredible sound, like one of those rain sticks playing alongside a bass drum, but the wonder of it didn’t override Minky’s embarrassment. I sure don’t think it’s funny.

“Oh, little one.” The dragon’s head tilted. “You have no idea what you are, have you?”

Before she could ask what he meant, his head shot up, his nostrils flared. He stared at a willow tree across the garden. Minky bit her bottom lip to keep from squeaking when a forked tongue shot out to test the air.

“The sidhe prince comes.”

She knew enough about fae by now to keep her mouth shut.

Prince Lugh had answered his cell about an hour before while they were all in the den inside the embassy.

He’d been talking to the sergeant—she could tell by the worried warmth in his tone—then he’d just…

vanished. She knew about the translocation stuff, sure.

Knowing wasn’t the same as seeing somebody pop out of existence, papers flying around as the air whooshed in to fill the vacuum.

Now the same whoosh and air-swirly thing happened again, except in reverse with the magic wind blowing out from the place the prince popped into—a prince who didn’t appear pleased. In fact, he looked pissed.

The dragon cocked his head with a frown. His bass vibrated through the fountain when he shouted across the garden, “Shining One! What news?”

The prince’s head jerked toward the fountain and Minky instinctively shrank behind the dragon’s bulk.

“My lord?” Prince Lugh covered the distance between them in a ridiculously small number of steps and dropped to one knee in front of the dragon. “I had no word you were expected.”

My lord? Oh, damn. Who am I really sitting with?

The dragon lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Announcing my visits would cause too much commotion. I wished to see where things stood for myself.”

The prince nodded, still on one knee. He looked so depressed, Minky had the weird urge to hug him. Not that she ever would.

“Events on the wind and skilled scrying most likely precede me.” Lugh reached out a hand. The dragon took it and even the fae prince’s fingers disappeared into that huge mitt. “You know of the dark mage, my lord?”

“We have had rumors of him long before this, yes. That he would be a human known and dear to us…distresses dragonkind.”

Lugh bowed his head when he nodded again. “I went to retrieve him. To bring him back in hopes of a cure. I have failed.”

The dragon snorted, steam curling from his nostrils. “You have failed in your first attempt. Surely Lugh the Shining does not cede the field?”

Anger sparked in dark fae eyes. Lugh’s nostrils flared and Minky edged away, hoping a fight wasn’t about to start. “No. I have never and will not now. Though perhaps if I were to approach alone, without warning—”

The dragon lord cut him off with a dismissive wave. “Perhaps. But remember, my hssktet , that this is human magic. And we do have human mages at hand.”

Lugh reared back in shock. “They’re children, my lord! I won’t endanger them.”

The forked tongue flicked the air again, heat radiating from the dragon’s skin. “Power, sidhe prince. There is power here the likes of which humankind has not seen in centuries. Do not stand in my way.”

After a shocked silence, Lugh pulled his hand free, shaking out his fingers. “No, my lord. Never that.”

“Good.” The dragon’s enigmatic smile, neither cruel nor kind, certainly was less than comforting. “Perhaps you should seek out your grandmother. She will be anxious for news.”

Minky tried to make herself as small as possible, though she already knew she couldn’t hide from this being. What does he mean? Don’t stand in his way…what does he want from us?

Lugh left them with a little bow, broad shoulders tense under his black T-shirt. The urge to run knotted in Minky’s stomach. She was sitting next to someone who ordered royalty around like it was his god-given right.

“So. We should begin.”

She was shocked into glancing up at him. “Begin what, sir?” she squeaked out, squirming under that steady alien gaze.

“Your education. I have not come out of mere curiosity.”

“You want to teach us?” Gah! The things she was blurting out! The dragon was liable to eat her out of annoyance. “But human magic…isn’t it different?”

The dragon lord stood and stretched, making her drop her gaze back to her feet.

He could at least put something on his big, buff dragon self.

Seriously. “Yes. Human magic is volatile and often difficult to untangle. But it is still magic, governed by the same universal laws as all magic. I will attempt a beginning. Help you reach for your birthright.” He pointed to a wisteria-twined pergola.

“Gather your coven mates. Meet me there. Time is in short supply.”

Minky leaped to her feet and ran for the embassy before she realized she’d slid off the fountain stones.

Maybe it was that voice, underworld deep and commanding.

Maybe there was some magic compulsion in it that no one could resist. Though somehow she couldn’t see Sergeant Morrison bowing to dragon demands.

He probably would stand up to God if he needed to.

“Lord Hssetassk is here doing what ?” Finn’s shriek echoed down the embassy hallways.

Zack had seen him upset before, even enraged, but this was approaching ballistic. It was freaking scary.

“He’s teaching the kids about magic,” Carol repeated, somehow remaining calm and sympathetic even faced with a pooka about to go postal, flames dancing in his eyes, hair whipped into a frenzy by a rising magical wind.

“Finn, sweetie, if they’d had a teacher before, maybe none of this would’ve happened.

It only makes sense, right? And I don’t think you really want to start an argument with his lordship.

How am I going to explain things to Nathair and Eithne when you wind up as pooka barbecue? ”

She patted his chest and pulled Finn into a hug when he let out a strangled whimper. “There now. Come have some tea with me. You’ve had a terrible couple of days.”

The wind collapsed, defeated by warm concern, and Finn let himself be led away, the beast tamed by their fearless admin. Not that Finn could ever truly be a beast, poor guy. His stress levels were just off the charts right now.

His and everyone else’s.