Page 31 of New Nebraska Home (New Nebraska)

Malik

SHOWING OFF IS FUN

T here was nothing like the calm determination of preparing for war. I had been in my share of moments like this, moments where you knew a fight was coming, and if you weren’t properly armed, you wouldn’t make it out alive—hell, even then, your chances were slim. I’d seen bar fights, brawls, and even a military coup or two in my time. This felt different.

For the first time in my life, there were real consequences beyond my life. I used to think my own survival was the most important thing, but I never really felt the need to protect it. I’d never wanted to die, but I also hadn’t really had anything to live for.

Things were different now. Liz was mine—mine to love, mine to protect, and mine to share with our new family, Cal and Brock.

Leif was mine, too, in a very different way. He was my clan, mine to protect and teach, mine to raise into the man he needed to become.

That snake had taken what was mine. He wasn’t going to live to see the sunrise. One look at Brock and Cal’s eyes and I could tell they felt the same.

Cal asked Liz to give him a minute and went to his room. He returned with a collection of what I was pretty sure were supposed to be ceremonial knives. They were pretty and sharp, but awkward to hold. I grabbed a bowie knife from my pack for myself and a hunting knife for Liz. The soft leather of the knife fit her hand perfectly, her long slender fingers wrapping around the hilt as I showed her how to swing and stab with all the power her body had.

She took to it instantly. Cal tried to offer her another blade, but I wouldn’t hear of it. She would use the practical blade. It was strong and tested. If Cal and Brock wanted jeweled hilts that made the thing harder to hold onto, then that was on them.

I offered to shift and fly to the town center with them on my back, using clouds as cover, but Cal’s already fair skin seemed to shift to a slightly green color as he refused. He used the excuse of needing to approach with as much stealth as possible, but I was pretty sure I had just scared him on our last little flight.

The car ride over was tense. No one said a word until we were almost there.

“How do we get him to shift?” Liz asked.

“Most shifters can heal when they shift from human to their animal form,” I answered. “It’s a perk of changing shape, something with our DNA. If we hurt him bad enough, he will shift.”

“I didn’t know that,” Brock said.

“You’re not supposed to,” I answered.

“The people with him, are they all drugged? None of them are like this by choice?” Liz asked, ignoring us.

“They’re probably all drugged, but for Zmei to get to them, they had to have gone to one his meetings willingly at some point,” Cal replied, giving her the answer I didn’t want to. She was a good woman at heart. She would do what had to be done to protect her own, but hurting innocent people was never going to sit right with her.

“So, they were attracted to the Zmei’s propaganda on human-hatred and species staying separate, but there is a good chance that none of them chose to attack my brother or the other halflings?”

“A chance,” I confirmed.

“Then we don’t hurt anyone but Zmei, not unless we have to. Nothing permanent.”

“Liz, we may not have a choice,” I said, brushing a lock of hair from her face and tucking it behind her ear.

“Look, getting Leif and the others out is our priority. Ending Zmei’s reign of terror is the second. I will fight for my home, my family, and for what is right, but I will not have the blood of innocent people on my hands. If you need to put them down, restrain them, or knock them out, I don’t care. Do not kill them. Do not make my participation in this mission turn me into a monster, even by association.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, giving her a wicked grin. She was ours. She was just as fierce as any dragon and had more goodness in her than anyone I had ever met.

If she was my reward for the suffering I had been put through in my life, then it was all worth it. I stole one passionate kiss from her. It was meant to be a chaste show of affection, but she grabbed the collar of my shirt and held me to her. Her lips parted for me, and I took the control she was handing me. I took her mouth hot and dirty in a kiss that promised so much more than just affection. I was promising her hot, dirty sex that would make her ache for days, domination, and adoration that would leave her broken and satisfied.

When this was over, I was going to show her how our few stolen moments alone were just a preview of what I was going to do to her. I didn’t need more motivation to get this night over with and get my family back home safely, but the cherry on top was still appreciated.

“If you two are done sucking face, we are almost there,” Brock said from the front seat. Just to spite him. I wrapped the fingers of one hand in Liz’s hair and kissed her harder while flipping off Brock with the other hand.

I could smell the flames before I could see them, the ash and smoke coloring the air. The bonfire in the center of town was massive. People were gathered around, some dancing, some talking, others simply staring into the flames. The scene was wrong. It looked like a painting of some long-forgotten hedonistic ritual, and it felt as if some slick oily magic was in the air feeding the hysteria. It burned my nose and made my eyes water.

Whatever, this was, wasn’t natural. It wasn’t right.

“How do we do this?” Liz asked.

“I’m going to shift and fly over. I’m going to be spitting fire above people’s heads and swooping down, distracting them. You guys go get our kid first. Then free the others,” I said.

“That’s our best plan?” Brock asked.

“You have a better one?”

I waited for a few moments, and when no one said anything, I took off my shirt, getting ready to shift.

“Just be safe,” Liz said, her hands running down my cheek. I pressed my face into her palm for a moment, and then I kissed Liz again with everything I had.

“For luck,” I whispered and shot her a wink before I shifted and took to the sky.

I stayed at cloud level for just a moment, taking in the scene.

There were so many people there that I wondered if there was more than one basilisk. I had no idea how much venom one snake had or how potent it was, but this seemed excessive for a single shifter. The dark magic seemed to come from a single source. As far as I could tell, it was just him. I prayed there was only one.

In the center of the square was a makeshift stage, and in front of that, a pyre with my little buddy tied to it. My dragon raged and I barely controlled him in our shifted state, forcing him to keep flying.

Then I saw the slithery bastard himself walking toward Leif.

Leif was shaking with fear, and a roar ripped from my dragon lips. I saw red. And in the instant my emotions got away from me, my dragon took total control. It swooped down and let out a stream of white-hot fire over the crowd.

The fire was close enough that people had to duck. I’d definitely singed more than a few eyebrows.

But at the moment, I didn’t give a single fuck.So long as Leif and any innocents were safe.

I landed in the middle of the field near the bonfire. Hard enough that several people were thrown to the ground.

They’d be fine.

I let out a low warning growl as I stalked toward the goddamned snake. He would not touch a single hair on that sweet boy.

Zmei’s eyes were on me, wide and panicked, full of fear. Good, his kind deserved to be afraid. This wasn’t his plan. He was probably expecting to kill Leif before we showed up and only have Liz to deal with. I bet he thought he would kill her in ‘self-defense,’ and then without my family, I would be weak and could be forced under his control.

Stupid snake.

I wanted to open my mouth and let my flames consume him, but he was too close to Leif. So, I stalked closer, trying to make him back away from the kid.

He looked at me and back at the child as I moved forward, his clammy skin paling and a bead of sweat starting on his brow and trailing down the side of his face.

Someone ran in between us, and it took me a moment to recognize him as the wolf leader who had threatened Liz at the grocery store. He held a bat in his hands and swung it at my face with everything he had. I reared back, dodging the hit, and as his body sailed through the swing with the follow-through, I lifted my arm and knocked him to the ground.

The urge to step on the arrogant wolf, or maybe even bite him in half and toss his remains into the flames, was almost overwhelming. He would have been the perfect example of what I was willing to do to save my family. With one quick chomp and toss of my head, I would show Zmei exactly what he had to look forward to while discouraging anyone else from getting in between me and my prey. The only thing that held me back was the fact that I had made a promise.

The wolf stumbled to his feet, and I let out a warning growl, letting steam escape from my nostrils as I stared him down. Like the good little puppy he was, he turned and whimpered away.

That pack needed a stronger alpha.

Zmei had taken advantage of my momentary distraction and had managed to get closer to Leif. He now held a knife to the boy’s throat, and it broke my heart to see Leif shaking with tears rolling down his cheeks.

“How are you going to save the abomination now?” he sneered. “If you want to face me, you will have to do it in your human form. You can’t hurt me without hurting him.”

He wasn’t wrong. But I wasn’t alone.

I could sense something moving behind Zmei, even though I couldn’t see anything. It had to be Cal.

Looking into Leif’s eyes, I tried to tell him that he would be all right now as I waited for Cal to make his move.

He didn’t. A slow fog creeped in over the ground. Zmei was so focused on yelling at me that talking about his master plan and the need for pure races fighting the humans, it had him wild with indignation. He never felt the fog come in and cover his ankles. He never noticed it climbing until it was well over his waist.

“What the hell?” he yelled, at the fog still rising and covering everything.

I said nothing and just showed my fangs as I marched a little closer.

Zmei started to panic. His grip tightened on Leif, and he pulled away the ropes holding Leif to the stake, picking him up. The son of a bitch used the kid as a human shield. It would not save him.

Leif struggled against Zmei with everything he had, while Zmei called to his followers to attack me, to overwhelm and kill me.

Almost as if he had hit a button, several of the people who were just standing with a dead look in their eyes came to life and started rushing towards me.

All it took was a mighty swipe from my tail to knock them all down. Several got back up, and I had to use my tail again to not break my promise to Liz.

Killing them would have been so much easier.

As I worked, the fog got thicker, and then suddenly, Liz was there stabbing her blade into Zmei’s shoulder.

A high-pitched scream of agony escaped his lips as he dropped Leif and turned on Liz.

Leif was picked up by some invisible force, most likely Cal, and in a blink, he was gone. Cal must have zoomed him off to safety. That left Brock, Liz and I to take care of Zmei.

He screamed again, this time long slender fangs protruding from his lips as his body changed from man to giant snake. He towered over Liz in his shifted form, his fanged dripped venom as he hissed at her.

I lunged into action, spitting fire at his face, while Liz ran from Zmei. And when Zmei lunged to go after her, I lunged, grabbing him around the throat just under his head and bit down with everything I had, severing his head entirely.

The change in the air was instant. With his death, his magic dissipated, and the thick, cloying, oily magic was replaced with fresh, clean air that rolled in, clearing away the smoke and fog.

I spit the head on the ground, tipped my head up, and sent a column of flames into the air, hoping to burn the acidic taste from my lips before I shifted back to my human form.

Brock was standing there waiting with my pants in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.

I reached for the water, first swishing it around my mouth and spitting it back into the ground three times before taking the clothes.

“Are they okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, Cal grabbed the kid and ran him to the car. He’s staying there for now. Olive is freeing all the others—she managed to escape Zmei’s influence—and I think everyone else is waking up.”

Sure enough, all the townspeople looked confused. They didn’t know where they were or what they were doing.

“I think the entire town is going to be hungover tomorrow,” I said with a laugh, and Brock agreed.

“Let’s get our girl, go home, and sleep until noon,” Brock said.

“Agreed.”