Page 25 of So I Dared a Dragon (The Mating Game #6)

twenty-five

. . .

Calista

Flames burst from my fingertips. Nothing like the faux pas a few moments ago. I crumpled the card in the palm of my hand before the flames burned out of control. “There aren’t enough curse words to adequately express how I feel about this…piece of shit.”

“Swear away.” Bibi hugged herself and shuddered. “I’m absolutely spooked right now. And I hate to tell you, I’ve got even more bad news.”

Of course she did. “Don’t hold back. This day is already off to a stellar start.”

“I called Declan,” she said.

“ You called him?” I had to make sure I heard her right. “Not the other way around?”

She shrugged and nodded.

“Why?” I had no idea how that wolf had become alpha, except for everyone with a higher rank in his lineage had been too stupid, too reckless to keep themselves alive and he was simply next in line.

“Because I wanted to find out what they really know about you.” She rose from the bed and paced the tiny space in the room. She was pure wolf in her human form. Not that I could blame her. “And before you say I told you so, I didn’t have a chance to ask him any questions, but he volunteered quite a bit of information. They know what you are. Well, maybe not exactly what you are, but they’re very concerned about you. Which makes me think they know…something. He’s threatened to send the pack to come collect you.”

“And you don’t think there’s any coincidence between that revelation and this?” I held up the ruined card, and a defiant plume of smoke rose from it. “You didn’t tell him where we are, did you?”

I would gladly use my fire to incinerate Declan. The wolf was a major dick who shouldn’t have been in control of his stuffie collection, let alone an actual pack.

The problem was, he would gladly be bought and sold. The only thing Declan loved more than himself was money.

“No.” She paused and drew in a deep breath. “He’s claiming that all evidence of you on the show has vanished from the forums. Which—”

“Is entirely likely considering what happened at the library and the museum.” I picked up my phone from the table between the beds.

Good morning, sunshine. Thinking of you. My dragon had learned how to take selfies, and he had a penchant for sending me naughty pictures of himself.

My tongue felt like it had been coated with ash. As much as I absolutely loved these pictures…I had to find a way to tell him not to send them to me until we eradicated at least one threat. And make him understand the finer points of technology and not have him set the southwestern corner of the country ablaze with his rage.

I definitely needed more coffee before I answered him. Naughty pictures were an excellent reward for picking up my phone, but I came here to check the forums.

“But it doesn’t make sense,” Bibi protested.

“None of it does.”

“But everything else that has disappeared has had some connection to Sunset Springs history,” she said. “The forums don’t.”

“Unless they do, and we haven’t made that connection yet.”

Bibi’s mouth formed an O.

“What was the last thing posted about my episode?” I asked as I clicked on The Mating Game app.

“You and Aarix on the red carpet, heading into the museum, and then I posted a text with a cute teaser, saying the two of you may or may not have spent the night together,” she said.

I squeezed my eyes closed and shook my head to make sure I could trust my vision. “Did Hannah make a post this morning?”

“I’m not sure.” Bibi came to look over my shoulder at the image. “Are you sure that’s the most recent image? Is the Wi-Fi working? We posted that before your episode started.”

She was acting nonchalant because we didn’t have time for the proper freak out that this development deserved.

I scrolled as hard as I could, like it would make a non-existent post appear. I looked up at Bibi. “I didn’t do this. Everything else disappeared because I touched it. Declan told you these were gone—which meant he saw them and then he didn’t.”

“But who?” she said. “Could it be the same entity responsible for the notes?”

“What did the person who came to the door look like? I heard her say she recognized you.”

“She was a cute little hotel employee, or so I thought. She had her hair in a ponytail and she was wearing a branded polo.” Bibi shrugged. “There wasn’t anything that stood out about her.”

“Okay, so we need a plan. A new plan. We’re leaving the keys on the console and never coming back here.” My mind was going a million miles an hour. “We need to talk to our security team ASAP. Nothing ever really disappears on the internet. Chances are the lost posts are still on the servers. I don’t think they wanted to erase anything about our date, but I’d be really interested to see what the viewers posted.”

“I’ll alert Hugo. He’ll insist on meeting us here.”

I shook my head. “We’ve got to keep this small. Not draw any more attention than we already have. Once we talk to Darcy, should we ditch the rental car and fly back to Sunset Springs?”

Bibi shook her head. “You don’t have control over your dragon yet. And if we’re being tracked, they could follow us onto the plane. If you let loose with more fire? The plane would go down. We just got lucky that you didn’t incinerate this room.”

“You’re right. I’m just so frustrated. How did they find us here?”

“They’re watching us.” Bibi shuddered. “I hope we aren’t putting Darcy in danger.”

Wait. “Unless Darcy was already in danger, and we were just a bonus for them.” Not that that made anything better. “Either way, we need to talk to her. It would be irresponsible if we didn’t.”

With a loose plan in place, we got ready. I’d never felt less human as we left the hotel room. It was later in the day, past checkout time, because we’d planned on staying another night. I’d planned to wear an oversized hoodie to hide my scales. But I was too warm, and there was no telling if the sweatshirt would even do the job. They were starting to spread, but they hadn’t reached my neck. Yet. Soon I might have more scales than Aarix. It felt funny, as did my leggings. I came up to Bibi’s shoulder now, which was something I’d never accomplished without wearing heels. My nails were getting long and thick, but with some gel polish I could make those look human, at a casual glance.

I hated the idea of hiding. I’d been on the run for so long, thinking I was trying to find myself. Not having the foggiest notion of what that would mean. Now that I’d finally blossomed into my actual animal, it all seemed so trivial. I could breathe fucking fire. Soon, I might be able to fly.

But if we were going to save these dragons, I needed stay human just a little while longer.

“We’ll head to her house first,” I said as we got in the car. Bibi was driving; it went without saying that I couldn’t be trusted to operate heavy machinery at the moment. “If she doesn’t live there anymore, then we go to the community college. They probably won’t give us any info, but between the two of us, we can probably charm someone into talking.”

“I asked Hugo to do a search for her, and very little came up.” Bibi gave me a warning glance as she drove. “We need to prepare for this lead to run cold.”

I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Darcy and I followed each other on socials, even though neither of us posted often anymore. Last I knew, she’d started school and had met a nice, human guy. He seemed way more normal than anyone she’d been attracted to in the past, but I understood why she’d choose someone like him to settle down with. Stability was sexy, or so I heard.

I typed her name into the search bar and groaned when my worst fears were confirmed.

“Everything she posted is gone.” I scrolled again, but it didn’t make anything magically appear. “The most recent post is from before we went to Tennessee.”

“Then Montana definitely isn’t behind this,” Bibi said. “Because they have no reason to be concerned with her.”

“Except for she’s connected to me.” I groaned. This was the absolute worst time for the Montana wolves to throw a tantrum, looking for attention. Bibi thought she was doing the right thing by calling them, but all she’d done was awaken a sleeping, angry wolf.

The GPS announced that we’d arrived at Darcy’s house, and I had a strange feeling of déjà vu. The last time I’d arrived here, I’d been in the driver’s seat, and there had been such a sense of relief. We’d brought Darcy to safety, away from the Night God’s grasp, and she was free to start her new life.

Now I’d find out how that played out.

The house was a split-level ranch with a two-car garage and some simple but well cared for landscaping. By all appearances, a happy family lived here.

Taking a deep breath, I knocked on the door. The wait seemed endless, and I was questioning everything. I should’ve texted her, let her know we were coming. No one answered the door for unsolicited visitors anymore. We weren’t on pack land, and we needed to stop playing by rules that never applied to us.

Darcy actually answered the door. Her shocked expression had to mirror mine.

“Calista, you look…. amazing.” She hesitated, and then came forward for a hug. I wondered what she really wanted to say. “What are you doing here?”

I squeezed her, needing a hug from someone who was just happy to see me, with no expectations…unless this wasn’t a surprise.

What if she was working with whoever had been threatening me?

She pulled away, giving me a dazed smile, and then her mouth dropped when she realized who I brought with me.

“Holy shit, you’re Bibi le Bonnet.”

Bibi beamed at her. “And you’re Calista’s friend Darcy, who I’ve heard so much about.”

“I want to fangirl all over you, but you already know how freaking fabulous you are.” Darcy brought her hand to her heart, and my partner in fangirl crime was back. For a moment, I felt guilty thinking she’d gone to the dark side. Like I even knew what the dark side could be. “But you should be in Colorado, filming The Mating Game , not in California, so I have to ask the obvious question…”

The good news was, she knew we were filming. Our posts had been seen, even if they had disappeared.

“What are we doing here?” I laughed. “We’re here to see you, and we have to ask you a potentially weird question. Can we come in?”

She hesitated for a moment before she stepped aside. “Sure.”

It looked like the house she’d grown up in. The furniture was slightly dated, but cozy, and there were family pictures everywhere. Even though the house was quiet, I could feel that it was full of love.

Emotion panged in my chest—it reminded me of my home. Sweet moon, I missed my mom and dad. My brother and sisters. My nieces and nephews. Even if they didn’t understand the choices I’d made. Someday, I hoped they would.

Once we settled on the couch, I gave her an abbreviated version of what had happened. As far as I knew, Darcy was human. However, she had plenty of experience with dragons and evil gods. The whole reason we were here was because she could have information we couldn’t find anywhere else. I carefully gauged her reaction before going further.

There were a couple eyebrow raises, but for the most part, she took the developments in stride. Maybe too much? I had to believe she was on our team.

“So we’re wondering if you’ve experienced anything similar,” Bibi added at the end. “If you have any information that could fill in some blanks for us.”

“Wow,” Darcy finally said, blowing out a breath. “I’m really glad you took the time to come see me, because I’ve had some things happen, and I haven’t been sure where to turn. Calista was chosen by Aarix, but the Night God chose me. He wasn’t a dragon, and neither am I. So I wasn’t sure how to explain this.”

She stood, turned around, and lifted her sweater. The skin on her back was red and swollen, and it looked like the very beginning of wings were budding on either side of her spine. I moved closer and saw the tiny webbing that had emerged from the broken skin.

“I thought I was losing my mind.” She lowered her sweater, and when she turned to us, there were tears in her eyes. “I didn’t know who I could tell. My body is growing…something. It’s not normal. I didn’t want to wind up in a laboratory somewhere. I broke off my engagement to my fiancé, because I couldn’t let him touch me. I couldn’t tell him why. He thinks I’m chasing rock stars again, and I can barely even care, because my body’s doing things that shouldn’t be possible. I’m hot like I’ve been burned, my bones feel like they’ve been stretched, and I’m sprouting wings. ”

She wiped the tears away from her cheeks as she settled in the recliner.

“Hey,” I said softly, and pushed up my sleeve, revealing my scales. “I think we’ve both been lied to for a long time, and someone’s trying really hard to keep us from finding out the truth.”

“Have you received any threats?” Bibi asked softly as she handed her a tissue. “Specifically, in the form of anonymous notes?”

Darcy’s eyes widened. “Yes. I found some in my textbooks. I thought I had a stalker, so I switched to online classes, but then they appeared in my car. I brought them to the police, but they said they didn’t have enough to investigate. I still have them if you’d like to see them.”

Bibi and I looked at each other. We’d only hoped to get a few helpful nuggets of information about the Night God, but Darcy was in trouble. She needed us even more than we needed her.

“Yes, we’d love to,” I said.

“And pack a bag while you’re at it,” Bibi added. “Because we’re bringing you back to Sunset Springs with us.”