Page 7 of Dyson (Walsh’s Lair #3)
Darling couldn’t believe that her own father would leave her in the shape that he had. She didn’t have any money now that he took back over his accounts. Her mortgage was passed due by several months—had she been paying the bank instead of buying new things for it she supposed that she’d be all right about now. But there were other things as well. The credit cards were overdue. There was no money in the bank, no savings to speak of, and she needed to have her hair and nails done last week. Nothing was going her way.
Deciding that she was going to go and talk to him, she went out to the garage to drive to his home. Of course, the car that she loved to drive was in the shop. For a little fender bender, they charged her well over four thousand dollars. And instead of billing her like they normally would have, because she’d not paid them the last time, she wasn’t going to get anything fixed until she paid off the last fender bender that she’d had. Darling hated people. All of them.
Driving a stick shift was nothing that she’d ever learned how to do in her youth. So now that she was older, she couldn’t believe that she was in her fifties now; she didn’t want to learn a new thing this late in her life. Why they didn’t make all the cars the same was beyond her. If they did that, she thought that people would buy more. But no one had ever asked her so she wasn’t able to put her opinion in about it.
The drive over to his house, the Manor, shouldn’t have taken her nearly an hour and a half. But every time she stopped for a light or something, she’d forget to put it in the first gear. If that wasn’t enough, she’d forget to put her foot on the brake, and the car would leap forward, scaring ten years off her life every time. By the time she got to the Manor, she was exhausted and a mess. The top had been down on the car, and since she didn’t know how to put it back up, she had to drive all the way there with it down and it had made her hair look a fright. While blaming it on Emma wasn’t really fair, she did so with every stop, studder, and leap that she made. Cursing the younger woman all the drive to her father’s house.
For whatever reason, she couldn’t get the car to drive up the drive. It would leap forward and then stop like there was some kind of wall in front of her. And wouldn’t you know it, the man at the gate, she’d forgotten about there being someone out there, he said that he couldn’t help her if she couldn’t get by the magic.
Magic? Not believing in magic had served her well all her life. But now that she was faced with it, not being able to get into the drive to her family home, she had to think why this particular magic was keeping her from talking to her father. There had to be some way that she could get to him and get things straightened out. She pulled out her cell phone.
“Father, I can’t get up the driveway. The man you have at the gate said that it’s magic. Whatever. Tell him to let me through so that we can talk about this letter I got yesterday.” He said ‘no’. Nothing else but no. “What do you mean no? Father, this isn’t going to bode well for you. I need to talk to you. And if you think that you’re leaving all your wealth to Emma and Poppy, then you’d better be rethinking that, too.”
“You’re wrong about me leaving my things to Emma and Poppy. I believe I made it crystal clear that I’m not leaving Poppy anything. I’ve asked you this before and it bares repeating, what sort of name is Poppy anyway? Who did you name her after.” She told him that she’d name her after him. “My name isn’t Poppy either, you old fool. My name is Emitte Marshall. I don’t even have a middle name.”
“I know that. I called you Pop when I was a child. I thought that you’d like her better if I named her after you.” He pointed out to her again that his name wasn’t Poppy or Pop. “Father, this is not a conversation to have on the phone. Just tell the man that I’m allowed to come up to the house from now on, and we won’t have to have a conversation about how you’re treating me.”
“I’ve already answered that. No. And he’s not forbidding you from coming up. There is real magic there that keeps anyone with ill will in their heart from coming up to the house and doing terrible things. If you want to know the truth, Darling, I never expected you to get this close. I wish we would have had that sooner. Your mother might well still be alive. I know you killed her off, Darling. Just proving it has been a hardship.” She was too shocked to say anything to him about her mother. She had killed her but didn’t know that her father was looking into it. “Now, as I was telling you, no, you’re not going to be coming up here. We’re settling in just fine and dandy and don’t need any of your trouble up here while we do it. Why don’t you get yourself a job, Darling? Most people with debt as large as you do have to get one.”
“I don’t want a job. I want you to keep taking care of me the way you’ve always done. This is all Emma’s fault, isn’t it? She’s convinced you to take me out of your will so that she can have it all.” He told her that she didn’t need it. “Of course she does. Everyone needs money. The more, the better.”
“It just so happens that she’s gone and married herself up with one of them Walsh men. Got more money than they can count, I’ve heard.” She sputtered about that, not believing for a moment that someone had more money than they needed. Or could count. “I gotta go, Darling. You’ve wasted enough of my time and I have things I need to get done. I’m having the whole house done up so that it’s a might friendlier than it was when you lived here. You have yourself a good life now. Or don’t. I don’t care one lick if you do or not.”
When he hung up on her, she held the phone to her ear, yelling at him to come back to her. The nerve of him. What the hell was he thinking about hanging up on her? Darling put her phone in her purse. She was fearful of what the phone company had said when she broke it the last time. She wasn’t going to be getting any more free phones because she kept tossing them across the room.
The man at the gate, she’d never bothered with getting his name, told her that she was going to have to move on and that others were coming in. She didn’t want to move but was afraid that he’d have her arrested or something. That would just be the candle on her cake today.
It took her four tries to get the car turned around and another twenty minutes of her trying to get the stupid thing to go forward so that she could get out of the drive. She couldn’t see who was in the car behind her, but she just knew that it was either Emma or that rich husband of hers. Not that she believed that it was the Walshs that she married into, but she just didn’t know what to believe anymore. Everyone was lying to her.
Sorting through her credit cards she found one that she’d taken out in Emma’s name that she’d applied for. Going to have her hair and nails done was such a treat for her that she was nearly giddy with excitement. Once she was seated, they asked her how she was paying.
“With a credit card.” The woman, someone that she didn’t know, put out her hand for it. “You can’t charge me before we even get started. That’s not fair.” Still, her hand was out. “You can bet that I’m not going to tip you after this either. This isn’t right. If you must know, my sister gave me her credit card so that I could have a pamper day.”
Finally handing over the card, she asked whose name it was in. Of course, the woman took it away, and before she could come back to her with the card, her cell phone rang. It was Emma the bitch.
“That’s not going to work for you. I don’t have any idea how you did that with my name on the card, but I’ve asked the young woman who took it from you to tear it up. Why on earth would you think that I would allow you a pamper day when I don’t even like you.” She told her that was harsh and unnecessary. “Be that as it may, I can’t stand you, and I’m not going to be paying for you to have shit done to you. As Grandda had said to you, get a job. Oh, speaking of which, David is going to lose his job today. Did you know that he’s been taking from the petty cash for the last several months to supply you with money to go on your little tantrums? Or whatever he calls having to give you money so that you aren’t pissy with him when he comes home. That’s a big no-no in any job. Whatever will you do now?”
“You’re a liar.” She asked her why that was the first thing someone said when they didn’t want to hear what you were saying to them? “I don’t know. But you are a liar about David. He’s a good attorney, and he knows how much him having a job means to me. To us.”
“Yes, well, that bird has flown.” Half the time, she didn’t understand Emma. She had hung out with her father too much and sounded just like him all the time. Damn it to hell and back. What was this world coming to when everyone was against her?
Not even waiting for the woman to come back with the card, she gathered her purse and headed out to the car. She was there just in time to see it being loaded onto a large truck and being strapped down. Asking the driver, a burly-looking man, what he thought he was doing, he said that she was going to take it up with Shuttle and Shuttle, the law firm on Main. She knew where that was, but she didn’t understand why they’d be taking her car from her. Pulling out her phone when it rang, she nearly screamed at the picture showing there.
“What has happened, David? You told me that your job was in the bag.” He told her what Emma had said, that he’d been taking from petty cash. “Isn’t that what it’s there for? For someone to use when they’re running low?”
“Running short, not low. I used all twenty grand of it. And when they had an audit done on my cases, they took a look at that as well.” He spoke to someone else before coming back to her. “How the hell did you find out already? I didn’t even have time to call you.”
“I don’t know how she found out, but Emma told me the same thing. What are we going—why are they taking my car? How the hell am I supposed to be able to get around without something to drive from now on.”
“The company owns all three of our cars, including the one that I drove to work today. They’ve already been to the house to change the locks.” She asked him why they were doing that. “They lent me the money to purchase the house and since I’ve never made a payment on it, apparently, they’re taking it and the contents too. They’re not even going to let us get anything personal from the house as they said that I owe them that, too. Why did they say that I’ve never made a payment on the house, Darling?” She changed the subject.
“What am I supposed to do to get back to the house. And they will, too, allow me to get things from that house, or I’ll call the police on them. There is no way they have the right to do anything of the kind, David. You tell them that.” He asked about the mortgage. “So I missed a few payments. It’s not like it’s the end of the world. Christ, they can well afford it.”
“They’re saying that I’ve missed every payment and balloon payment. Christ, what the fuck did you do with all that money? You couldn’t have been getting your hair and nails done that much, could you?” She told him to get back on the subject of her. “You know, it’s always been about you, hasn’t it? No matter what I do, it is all centralized on you and what you want. You know what? I’m kind of glad this has happened. Now I can start fresh without you and that damned daughter of yours. Christ, when I think of all the money…You didn’t make a single payment when you assured me that you had been.”
When he hung up on her without even saying goodbye, she wanted to call him back and tell him there was no need for him to be rude. But she saw Emma, and she made her way across the street, not even watching the street for cars. She nearly got herself killed by simply plowing across to her. Darling completely ignored the man who was with her.
“You’ve done this.” Emma didn’t even try to deny it. She just smiled at her like a simpleton. “My husband is out of work. I don’t have a car to get home and speaking of which, they think that they’re going to take that as well.”
“You should be better with your money, I guess.” When she turned her back on her to leave, Darling saw red. Her body stiffened up so tightly that she could feel her head pounding with the anger that she had. Reaching for her, going to jerk her around, all she ended up with was her arm jerked up behind her and in more pain than she’d ever been in her life. “Don’t. Touch. Me.”
“You’re hurting me. Let me go, and when you do so, you know I’m going to slap the piss right out of you. Let me the fuck go.” Her arm was pulled tighter until she was on the ground. When she heard the pop, then the pain, it was all she could do to remain conscious. She did scream when she was let go.
“You mother fucker, you hurt me.” Instead of yelling more, Darling leaned over to her side and puked up her breakfast. It wasn’t any better coming out than it had been doing down. She hated oatmeal but needed it as badly as her dad did. “I’m going to have you arrested. See that I don’t.”
“I’m not worried about you anymore, Darling. To be honest, I’m not worried about Poppy or David either. For the first time in a long time, I’m happy and doing what I want. Grandda is going to outlive you and your family, and I think that’s wonderful.” She told her to fuck off. “Brave words for someone who has just gotten their arm dislocated and can’t get a ride to the hospital or home—not that you have one. I think I’ll buy it just to see what sort of shit you have in that house you had. I hope you rot in hell.”
Someone called the police, for which she was grateful, but they took entirely too long to get her an ambulance. She was hurting so badly by the time she got there that all she wanted to do was be knocked out. There were several people there who were willing to do it for her—people that she’d dealt with before, but finally, she was given something and let it roll over her. She could plot Emma’s demise later. Right now, she was in too much pain to even think about where she was going to rest her head tonight.
~*~
That night, when the two of them went to bed, she wasn’t as exhausted as she had been before. She was more aware of him being in the bed with her. More aware of his chill, too. She turned to ask him about how he could be so cold and a dragon too.
“We’re cold-blooded. All of us are.” He pulled her back to him, but she escaped so that she could at least warm herself up a little before falling asleep. “If you would just let me get a little warmer, then I’ll be all right. I can get another blanket if you wish.”
“Yes, please.” He left the bed, and she shivered. It was like it was ten below in the room, and she didn’t think that she’d be able to sleep at all. When the second thick blanket was over her, she tried to keep as far from Dyson as she could. Christ, he was so cold that she thought it might be warmer outside. And it was in the sixties out there.
“Did I tell you that Layla is the fire starter for our kind?” He was rubbing his hand up and down her back. It felt better, but she was still chilled. “She is the one that will give new hatchlings their fire or whatever they need when they’re big enough to handle their flame. It might not be fire. It could be ice or wind, too. I don’t know any dragons that can breathe wind, but my mom said that it’s hurricane-like and has been known to topple buildings and sink ships it’s so strong.”
“What about the ice dragons? I mean, how does that work?” He explained to her how dragons, with their icy cold breath, could kill a man in an instant. “Do they look like regular dragons? I mean, how will I know which kind they are if I were to see them?”
“They look like regular dragons but for their breath and beard. You’ll notice first that they have a beard on their chin that is made of ice. Their eyes are silver, too. They are not really silver in color but like ice when you look at them. And since they’re ice cold all the time, I mean, like when they rest as their dragons, they form a protective shell around them that is solid ice. When they move suddenly, the ice around them flies off and kills those around them. They’re very dangerous dragons even when they’re not in fighting mode.”
“I’m assuming that breathing air is dangerous too. Can they blow wind or whatever it’s called over water and make it devour the lands surrounding it?” He said that was just what they did. “Getting the three kinds of dragons together much be a terrible day for weather.”
“Those aren’t the only three kinds of dragons. Just the most dangerous. There are colored dragons as well. I’m a green dragon, as you noticed. My brother Fowler is a red dragon. He has the hottest heat of us all. The rest of us are blue dragons. We all should have been, but Mom thinks that because there is some vampire in our line, that’s what changed me to green. I have green eyes as well like the others have blue.” She said that she’d never noticed that before. “Mom has blue eyes. Very dark and almost look black. When she’s her dragon, she’s bigger than the rest of us, too, with the exception of Fowler. Since he’s the leader of our group, he’s bigger than our mom by a little.”
When he started massaging her shoulders, she felt herself relaxing. The bed was warmer now, and she wanted to lean back into him. But she knew better. Just because the bed was warm, it didn’t mean that he was warm yet. She was going to have to ask the other wives how they were tolerant of the cold bed. They had to be doing something different than she was.
He told her of the different colored dragons. Most of them were blue and green, a normal color for them. But there were ones that had diamond scales on them that made them blend into the things around them, thus keeping them from being seen. Then he told her about the other realm.
“My great-grandmother was the queen when I was born. I didn’t know until recently why she was asked to step down. I always thought that she’d gotten tired of the job. Grandma Morning got bored, too, and turned it over to my mom. But anyway, she was asked to step down because she was taking money from people in order for them to pay their way out of trouble. She used that money to fund this dragon by the name of Grail. Now, there was a terrible dragon. He was black.” She turned in the bed and looked up at Dyson while he told the story of his family. “Great-Grandma didn’t care for being asked to step down, so she devised a plot that would kill Fowler by having Grail removed his head. Her plan was that since he was so well-loved and the oldest of the children, everyone would be in a state of mourning. While we were having our hearts broken, she and Grail had planned to move into the other realm and take over. Their plan was to kill off all the dragons but for the two of them and form their own magic.”
“Would that work? I was to understand that if there are no dragons, then there isn’t any magic. Isn’t that right?” Dyson told her that was exactly right. “Then I don’t understand how that was going to work if there was no more magic.”
“You’re right and thinking better than they did. You see, they nearly did kill off Fowler. And if not for the help of Amy, his mate, then he would have died right then. But there was just a flap, they called it, of his neck still attached to his head and she put it back on his neck where it sealed up. Then, she killed Grail. She did that by putting both her hands, which were covered in flames, to his head and burnt it right off his shoulders. For her to have been able to do that was unheard of. But she did it, and in a huge ceremony to write her name in the Book of Dragons, we were all together. When Grannie, what we’ve all been calling her since she was dead, found out about it, she took the sword of fire starter and nearly killed Amy with it. Instead, Fowler changed into his great beast and removed her head with one bite. That destroyed the trouble that we’d been having all along, and we’ve been happier since.” He laughed a little. “It was a great deal more dramatic than that, but you get the picture, I think.”
She was so relaxed by the time he’d finished with his story that she was nearly asleep. Dyson’s body had finally warmed up enough that she could be close to him, so she felt her body, already close to sleep, relax even more, she turned in the bed so that he had his chest to her back. He knew that if he moved his legs, even enough to wrap around hers, she would wake again as he was that cold, so he just thought about what it was going to be like in the winter months and his body even colder.
Since he’d never heard his brothers’ mates complaining about the cold, he was going to have to ask them about it. Knowing Fowler, who seemed to be as cold as he was all the time, he more than likely had a plan that didn’t have his wife seeking other places to sleep because of the chill he gave all. Making a mental note about it, he knew that he’d do it in the morning.
Two days ago, he’d found the ring that Sidney had made when he was in his jewelry making phase of his life. That was another thing that Dyson hadn’t ever gotten into was: gem making. But Sidney had excelled at it. Not only did he make rings and other jewelry, but he also made stained glass windows that were still to this day in churches and very large houses.
His favorite piece that he’d ever seen of his brothers was the one that was in their home front door. It was several dragons, some of them standing, the rest sitting on the emerald green grass of the lawn. It was so beautiful that when Mom decided to change the porch and front room one year, she had him add to the mural by extending the scene to the front windows of the house too. Dyson was going to talk to his brother about making a piece for his new home so that he’d have a little bit of his family there with him at all times.
Just as he was thinking that he was tried enough to go to sleep, he remembered wanting to take Emma to the gem cave. All the gems that they’d all made were there. Some of them had been separated out by gem, but for the most part, they were just scattered about the large cave like someone had just stood at the door and tossed them in. Dyson knew that his mother had a large basket that she kept her tears in or any that she might well find and took them to the cave when the basket was full. She, he knew, had given up about keeping them in any kind of order and he loved to hear her complain about how they were just everywhere.
As a child, he remembered his dad saying that if a human were to find the cave, they’d die from the riches there. No human could nor would be able to comprehend the amount of wealth that had been hidden away there, and that had been hundreds of years ago. He wouldn’t know how to calculate a number of what was there now. He was sure that it was enough to make every human in the world wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.
Snuggling down into his pillow, he thought about how Emma had accepted his dragon. He might not have been able to shift and save her like his older brother had, but he thought that she understood that he and his beast were there for her if she needed them. To be able to have her touching him and then wanting a piece of his dragon, Dyson thought himself to be the luckiest dragon that had ever been hatched. She loved him no matter what he looked like, and that was more than enough for him.
Just as he was falling to sleep he thought once more about the trouble that they were going to have with Darling and her family. He was glad on so many levels that he was able to keep his new family safe, but still worried about them getting too close to her. He’d have to keep better care to be around Emma all the time. It was time he thought to employee some extra faeries. They would literally die for her and while he didn’t want that, he did want his mate safe. Tomorrow, he was going to talk to his grandma and see what she could do to help him out. There were just too many things that could go wrong with having humans around. They were too sneaky at best, and he never understood their need to kill people. Yes, he thought, he needed to go to the other realm and see about getting help. He’d also take Emma with him so that she could look at all the animals that he’d bet she thought were not real.
Wide awake now, he thought of having a nice picnic in the other realm. He knew that he’d not done that in a long time. Hanging out with the unicorns would be a blast for Emma. There were other animals that she’d enjoy, too, like the small pixies and brownies. They didn’t spend all that much time in this realm as they were considered to be troublemakers.
They were, for some reason, really good at keeping the trolls in line. He was so excited that he nearly wrapped his legs around Emma’s but caught himself just in time. All he needed to do now was wake her up from her sleep and have to hear about how cold he was making her. He’d love it having her fuss at him, but she would be upset and he didn’t want that. Not when he was making such plans with her in mind.
Maybe an electric blanket would be good for them. Or perhaps a fireplace in the room. Whatever was making the other mates warm, he needed to find out. Dyson didn’t want his mate suffering at all if there was something that he could do about it.