Page 23 of Devoted in the Midlife

The sizzle of meat hitting a hot pan merged with the sound of TV machetes and magic. I let the familiar, teasing exchange settle around me like a warm blanket. The comfort of a prickly,dangerous, wonderful family that would literally face down hell together. Or in this case, a mystery held in a couple of shiny knives.

I glanced at the clock. Less than an hour until the group descended in full force. Forty-five minutes to soak up the calm before the storm.

They trickled in like a stream of supernatural suspects in a mystical murder mystery. My very own collection of Clue characters, ready to point fingers and unveil secrets. We headed out to the backyard, the only place big enough to hold us all. Paige and Claudia arrived hand in hand. Grim and Nash flanked Cleo like dark sentinel bookends, their usual snark subdued by the gravity of the situation. Even Izora swept in with minimal dramatics.

Xander and Kendra claimed spots at the picnic table, making room for Luke to perch on the table beside them. Zara hovered near the deck, her normally animated face drawn into lines of tense readiness. Ransom took up his usual sentinel post near Jax. Janice walked through the gate in the fence a few minutes later and waved hello as she sat across from me in one of the yard chairs.

I eyed the blades like one might eye a coiled snake. With wary respect with a healthy dose of "please don't bite me." Each leather sheath looked harmless enough on its own, but together, they seemed to buzz with a low-level energy that set my teeth on edge. Maybe it was just nerves, but I swore the damn things knew we were about to dig into their secrets.

Adalinda's long fingers flipped open the latches on the lead-lined case with deliberate, hypnotic precision.

The hinges creaked softly as she lifted the lid, the sound obscenely loud in the sudden hush that fell over my backyard. For a long, suspended second, nothing happened. The daggers lay revealed in their case, the polished hilts and scabbards gleaming with a malevolent sort of invitation. Then reality stuttered.

It was like the world hiccupped, a visual glitch that rippled out from the exposed blades. For a disorienting instant, everything seemed to blur and refocus, edges going soft and colors bleeding together. I blinked hard, trying to clear the distortion from my vision.

That's when I heard the sharp, collective intake of breath from the others. My eyes snapped to Janice, following their stunned gazes. At first, I couldn't process what I was seeing. It was like watching a time-lapse video of a caterpillar liquifying in its cocoon before rebuilding itself cell by cell into a butterfly. Only instead of a butterfly, Janice's form was morphing into something decidedly less colorful and way scalier.

Her magical aura shivered and collapsed, the metaphysical equivalent of a house of cards caught in a stiff breeze. As it fell away, the woman I'd come to know as a bossy, busybody neighbor melted with it, leaving behind a towering figure that seemed to absorb the afternoon light into his emerald scales. Janice, or the creature that had been wearing her face, rose to a height that put even Jax's six-foot-plus frame to shame.

"Damn you," Luke yelled. "You whammied me!"

I didn't know what the heck he was talking about. I could barely hear him over my heart beating a staccato drum line in my ears. Draconic features mixed with humanoid ones in a combination I'd never seen before. It was like he was a humanhalf-shifted into a dragon. Vivid green eyes blazed above angular cheekbones, the pupils sharp vertical slits. A ruff of iridescent spikes crested the top of his head and trailed down the back of his neck, disappearing beneath the blouse he'd been wearing as Janice.

"What the actual flying fu—?" The half-strangled words forced themselves out of my throat, jagged with shock and the first rising sparks of fury.

Luke kept yelling, cutting me off. "I oughta kick you’re a?—"

Around me, the others snapped into battle-ready stances without conscious thought. But nobody could use magic. I quickly slammed the lid of the blade box shut and my vampire strength returned in full force. Blades sang as they cleared sheaths, and I heard the distinctive click of at least one gun being cocked. We might not have planned for this particular twist, but we damn well knew how to respond to a threat.

The strange man-dragon-thing raised his hands in a universal gesture of peace, but the razor-tipped claws glinted at the ends of his fingers. He opened his mouth, and I tensed, ready for anything from a blast of dragon fire to some kind of siren song designed to enspell us all into slack-jawed compliance.

13

HAILEY

The autumn airhung heavy with an unseasonal heat as I stared down the being who had just appeared in our backyard. He stood there, entirely too calm for someone confronted by a crowd of angry supernaturals, with an otherworldly shimmer to his skin that made my stomach turn. His emerald eyes gleamed with a twisted intensity I immediately distrusted. I could practically feel the waves of wrongness emanating from him, even before he opened his mouth to explain his despicable plans.

"I suppose introductions are in order," the man-dragon began. "I am Vaelog, the true savior of dragon-kind. And you, my dear Hailey, are an interloper in matters far beyond your comprehension."

Jax tensed beside me, his energy thrumming with barely contained fury. I placed a steadying hand on his arm, never taking my eyes off Vaelog. Around us, the others shifted uneasily. Kendra, her hands sparking with offensive magic; Luke, fangs bared; Ransom and Izora, ancient power rolling off them in waves; Zara, a coiled spring ready to launch herself at the threat.

But it was Adalinda who spoke next. "Vaelog? I thought you were lost centuries ago. What madness is this? What have you done?"

A grotesque smile stretched across Vaelog's too-perfect features. "What have I done? Oh, my dear misguided queen, I've only ever acted in the best interests of our kind. While you were content to hide in shadows, to mingle with lesser beings, I saw the truth. That dragons were meant to rule."

He began to pace, his movements fluid and hypnotic. "I was there at the beginning. Awakened by the same divine power that created you. But unlike you, I had to take our power. But I had to do it because I alone understood our true purpose. We are not meant to serve, to integrate, to submit. We are apex beings, destined to reign over this world."

My mind raced to put the pieces together. This creature, this twisted mockery of a dragon, had been there since the start? But Adalinda's shock painted a different picture.

"You were never chosen," she breathed, realization dawning in her eyes. "You stole the ritual, corrupted it for your own gain. Quetzalcoatl had no hand in your creation."

Vaelog snarled, his facade of calm shattering. "Quetzalcoatl was a fool, content to let our potential rot! I took what was rightfully mine, and I emerged stronger for it. Strong enough to correct the mistakes of the past."

A cold dread settled in my gut as the implications became clear. "You killed them," I growled, my own dragon wanting to rise to the surface. "The other dragons. You slaughtered them in some twisted bid for purity."

"I cleansed our bloodline of weakness," Vaelog spat. "And I would have rebuilt it, stronger than ever, if not for Adalinda'sstubbornness. Together, we could have birthed a new age of dragons, an unstoppable force to claim dominion over this world."

Bile rose in my throat at the implications. This monster had planned to forcibly breed Adalinda, to twist her into some broodmare for his deranged vision. Beside me, Jax let out a rumble that promised violence.