Dirty lying dragons, p.1
Dirty Lying Dragons, page 1
Dirty Lying Dragons
The Enchanted Fates Series
Dirty Lying Faeries
Dirty Lying dragons
dirty lying wolves
coming soon
The Enchanted Fates Series — Book 2
Dirty
Lying
Dragons
Contents
The Enchanted Fates Series
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter One
To the internet friends a thousand miles away and more, you save lives, make words worth writing, and bully authors into writing a book two.
Chapter One
Dani
There’s nothing quite like a burning sensation on your ankle at seven in the morning to get the blood pumping. My eyes popped open and were met with the avocado-green tile of my ancient Chicago bathroom. The bathroom because I had passed out next to the toilet three hours ago, and the retro tile because that’s what poses as an inconspicuous and affordable apartment for a witch with no coven and no reliable powers to back her up. Not that anywhere outside of the city was much better; the closer you get to trees and shit the more likely you were to run into a fucking fae, and that wasn’t on my bucket list.
“Ow!” I slapped at the charm on my ankle, tucking my fingers into my boot to reach for the delicate chain as it sizzled against my skin and roused me from my night of rum and bad decisions. Staring at my leg for a moment, I registered why it might be burning in the first place. The charm. The charm on my ankle. The charm made by far more competent witches than myself that alerted me to impending supernatural dangers. I shot straight up and nearly brained myself on the toilet bowl. “Fuck.”
Adrenaline, still the best hangover cure I’ve ever encountered, fueled my mad dash to the living space as I slid to a stop at the front window, knocking my knees on the windowsill in the process. Thankfully, I hadn’t taken off any of my clothes from last night before passing out, including my black leather boots, which were about to get some use.
I couldn’t see anything from the window side of the building, but that didn’t mean that danger wasn’t nearby. There was rapid knocking on my front door, but it wasn’t until I heard my neighbor that my stiff shoulders relaxed a bit.
“Dani!” Mary’s shrill voice peppered her knocking. “Dani, open up! There’s trouble.”
Her pale-pink eyes were wide with shock and her matching hair was still only half-curled. The fact that perfect little Mary had left her apartment in her pajama shorts and cami told me everything I needed to know about the urgency of this situation.
“What?” I whipped the door open, resisting the urge to jerk my leg as my anklet started burning again.
“The Blightfang are here,” she said. “You need to go before they catch you!”
Fuck. The Blightfang were bad news. Fierce werewolves and merciless bounty hunters doing the bidding of a particularly nasty vampire. I hadn’t done shit to them, but if the rumors going around were to be believed, their boss, Apollo, was looking for covenless witches. Mary made a face that told me she knew they were after me. No one else in the building was a covenless witch. A mostly voluntary situation, but right now it made me a target.
I spun around, running for the bed. “What do they want with the covenless witches anyway?”
“How can I help?” Mary offered, coming into my open doorway.
“Lock my door and be safe.” I grabbed the keys from my side table and threw them to Mary. A locked door wouldn’t stop the Blightfang, but it might slow them down.
“Are you going to be okay?” she called. “Maybe Lance can hold them off . . .”
Offering up the services of the warlock she was shacking up with was a nice gesture, but she and I both knew his second-circle ass wasn’t going to stop a werewolf, let alone a group of them with a vicious reputation and a bounty in their sights.
“I’ll reach out if I can.” I offered her a weak smile. “Bye, Mary.”
A crash came from downstairs and we both jumped. A door, a wall, a person. Whatever it was, it spurred both of us into action. Racing to my bedroom, I dropped to the floor, stuck my arm under the bed, and yanked out a stuffed backpack. Slinging it over my shoulders, I ran for the window and pried it open. When I crawled onto the fire escape, there was a big car parked out front eight floors down (and definitely in a tow zone, but I had an inkling that the Blightfang didn’t care about getting a ticket).
“Shit,” I hissed and pulled myself up the ladder to the next floor. Up and up I went, straining to carry myself and the huge backpack to the twelfth floor where the ladders stopped, while cursing the building management that kept the interior stairwell to the roof locked. I glanced up to the ledge where I needed to climb onto the roof. It was kind of high up, but I should be able to make it. Probably.
Another crash below drew my attention. My window had been broken, and splintered on the sidewalk below were several familiar pieces of wood.
“My table!” My heartbeat thrummed to the pace of panic and anxiety. How did they find me? They would be on my ass in a few seconds, but with some luck, a few seconds was all I would need.
I jumped, barely grabbing the ledge with my fingertips. Wriggling and squirming until my hands had a better grip, I pulled myself up. After finally throwing a leg over the edge, I rolled onto the roof and came to a stop on my back. Standing back up, I rushed for the center.
A teleportation circle had been painted in the middle of the roof, barely a lighter shade of gray than the existing tar but mixed with a whole host of potent ingredients. Mary had made it—my magic was unreliable—because we thought it would be wise for any witches to have an escape in a pinch, and boy did today count. Mary gave me the code words, something that wouldn’t be accidentally uttered by any unsuspecting maintenance workers, and even my volatile abilities shouldn’t be able to mess this up. I hoped.
Slamming to a stop in the middle of the circle, I screamed, “Take me where my heart wants to go!”
Closing my eyes tight, I pictured my dad’s place behind the bar. The familiar couch, the flat-screen he had installed crooked and likely still hasn’t fixed, the tiny kitchen where we’d spent late nights in deep conversation while he cooked bad snacks and made sinful cocktails. I panted, my breath catching up with me as I stood in the circle picturing my destination and . . . nothing happened.
That’s not good.
“Take me where my heart wants to go!” I demanded, stomping my boot.
Nothing.
“What the hell?” I whipped my head around the circle at my feet. At this point my anklet was absolutely scorching. Something was wrong. I turned, looking at the intricate patterns around me when I saw it: four huge gashes slid through the roof, tearing up and breaking the circle. Claw marks.
Panic rising in my throat, I swept my eyes across the roof. The only hiding spot was the large air units in the far corner. A low growl rippled through the air and sent a chill down my spine as a giant wolf prowled from its hiding spot.
The gray beast shook its head, giving what must have been the wolfish equivalent of a cruel laugh as it stalked toward me. Sickening cracks popped through the air. Disgusting, crackling cartilage and splitting tendons as bones reshaped the beastly form. Claws shrank into fingers, the snout shortened to a human nose and mouth, and the fur retracted to bronze skin and a cloud of soft black hair. The only thing remaining to hint that this naked woman had been a wolf was her glowing yellow eyes—which I could only see thanks to my mother’s witch’s blood—and sharp white fangs.
“What a pain in the ass.” The wolf shook her head, rolling her shoulder. “Why do the weak ones always try to run?”
Four big guys were climbing up to the roof. Stumbling away from the edge, I retreated to another side of the roof, but I was being backed into a corner. Bile rose in my throat and I swallowed it down as I gripped the straps of my backpack to keep my fingers from trembling.
“Not too bad, little witchling. You nearly got away.” The she-wolf licked her fangs, her unblinking yellow eyes roaming over me. “Clever thing, you would have made a good wolf.”
“Sorry, I’m allergic to dogs,” I said. “Would never have worked out.
Think, Dani, think. Stall. Run.
The she-wolf growled, a sound that shouldn’t come from a human throat. The back of my boot thumped against the opposite edge of the roof and my heart jumped.
“I wouldn’t be mouthing off if I were you,” she snapped. “Wouldn’t want any accidents between here and when I deliver you to Apollo, would we?”
Fuck.
“It’s true, then? There’s a bounty on covenless witches?” I asked.
Something dangerous glinted in her eyes, followed by amusement. “Blightfang has the exclusive contract. We’ve got a little deal with Apollo.”
“That sick leech can eat a stake,” I said, my voice cracking at the end as my bravado failed me.
In a flash, the she-wolf was in front of me, grabbing me by the neck and lifting me off the ground. “Think what you want about Apollo, but he’s the one paying for your ass, so get used to his company. He has what we want, and what he wants in return is your kind.”
More footsteps crunched over the sunny rooftop. I clawed at the hand on my throat and gasped for air.
“I’m not even . . . a full witch,” I wheezed and coughed, pulling at the hand on my windpipe. “I can barely light . . . a candle properly. I’m just part on my mother’s side!”
The she-wolf leaned in and sniffed me like the dog she was. Wrinkling her nose, she held me at arm’s length again. “You like the rum, don’t you?”
Pulling back one boot, I kicked with everything I had only for her to dodge it with ease, though her sneer brought me a little satisfaction. My anger was already boiling in my veins; the lives of weaker beings than them were nothing more than a job for these assholes.
“What do we do with her, Amelia?” one of the brutes asked.
Amelia. I’m going to remember you, Amelia.
“It only takes a drop to have witch blood, and she has it. We’re taking her.”
“Like hell I’m going with Apollo’s lapdogs,” I grunted. “You’re all trash who prey on the weak.”
That might get me killed, but being done in by these wolves would be better than whatever a vampire lord had in mind. Apollo’s reputation was terrifying. Amelia tightened her grip, snarling. She flung me across the roof as if I weighed nothing, my skin scraping against the rough surface and cutting up my exposed arms and knees as I rolled to a stop.
“Watch your tongue, witchling,” Amelia demanded.
My whole body ached, and with trembling fingers I inspected a big gash on my shoulder. My hand came back bright red, smeared with my own blood.
“Any others in the building?” Amelia asked.
“The only other witch was with a coven,” said the tallest one, with a buzzed head and a lazy gaze. “I verified it myself. What’s the next move?”
The only other witch. Mary. At least they left her alone.
“Do one more sweep to see if any came out of hiding, then meet me in the car. Jack, grab the witchling and let’s go.”
I swiped my fingers across the ground, panicked laughter taking over. I dug my fingers into my shoulder with a sharp pain, bringing up more blood and smearing it on the roof.
“What the hell is so funny?” Amelia snarled at me.
“The first rule of magic,” I whispered, “mind your ingredients. Nothing can spice up a spell like blood. Like you said, it only takes a drop of magic, and I have it.”
I dragged my fingers across the last opening in the circle, closing it. Before the wolves registered what I had done, I screamed out the incantation once more.
“Take me where my heart wants to go!”
The circle flickered to life, and dark smoke puffed up from the roof.
“Stop her!” Amelia screeched as all the snarling, salivating wolves pounced, ripping through clothing and shifting as they lunged.
The magic breathed to life around me. My skin was on fire with it as everything began to fizzle. My body felt a pull like I was going to be sucked up in a vacuum, but I couldn’t tell what direction it was coming from. A sharp pair of claws raked in front of my face barely a hair from the bridge of my nose, furious yellow eyes filled with a promise of pain behind them. I sucked in a breath, wrapped my arms around myself, and in a pop, everything obscured to black.
Chapter Two
Ryker
The piece of antler splintered, and I cursed at the half-carved knife in my hands. Nearly every piece I’d tried to carve from this particular piece of elk was giving me trouble, and I was about to give up and move onto another antler entirely. Sitting behind my cabin, surrounded by snow with the warm sun on my skin, I reached into the bucket, where more dried pieces sat waiting to be made into something useful.
It was peaceful here, spending my days how I wanted. The snow that stayed for most of the year helped to preserve food so I could hunt for long stretches and then stay put for even longer. Still, something under my skin itched to move. Maybe now was the time to break my routines and stretch my wings. Change was in the air, as it tended to nudge me every so often, and I played with the thought of what part of the world I could visit next, just to see how much it had changed. But as I sat on a stump that served as my favorite carving chair and let my thoughts drift, something was off.
When the scent of whisky and leather hit me, my hand shot from the bucket and threw my nearest knife, embedding it in a thick pine tree just to the side of my cabin. “Show yourself.”
A man with a trim red beard and gray at his temples came into view, walking past the assaulted pine. He raised one thick eyebrow in question, his face showing no surprise.
“It’s good to see ya too,” Gavin mused, his accent a mix of Scottish and a dash of several other European languages that he’d picked up from decades of wandering.
“Still won’t learn Russian?” I grunted.
“Still won’t wear a fuckin’ shirt?” he shot back. I shrugged; jeans and boots were enough. Shirts got in the way.
“I’ll get around to it eventually. I’ve got time.” Gavin laughed. “Do you have a lead for a bounty, or did you come here for my riveting conversation?”
“Christ, Ryker, you could offer a bastard a beer before you get straight to fuckin’ with him.”
Tossing my carving tools into the bucket, I kicked over a nearby log to offer a dry seat and nodded to the pile of snow under the window that had a few rows of glass bottles poking out of it. Gavin leaned over to pull free a beer and sat on the proffered log, popping open the top on the edge of my firewood ax that was half-embedded on my splitting stump next to him. Next would come his pitch. Some story or tip he’d picked up in a seedy bar or off another knife for hire that wasn’t after the job. He came all the way out here only if he wanted me to tag along for added measure. Sometimes it was for a second pair of capable hands and sometimes I think he did it simply for the company. If I was being honest, I’d add that Gavin had his own reputation and got plenty of work, but I’d never tell the bastard to his face. He had a big enough head as it was.
“What brings you out here?” I asked, reaching for my own drink.
“A thing or two.”
“A thing or two,” I said flatly. “On the Central Siberian Plateau.”
“Passing through to see Vissic. Thought I’d say hello and make sure yer still a grouchy hermit. Glad to see some things haven’t changed.”
Vissic was a bastard of a vampire, but he did have a lot of intel that a mercenary like Gavin could make good use of for the right price. “If you find Vissic, give him a knife to the kidney for me.”
“I might.” Gavin took a long drink from his bottle. “We’ll see how he wants to play it. I’m supposed to be trackin’ down some demon who pissed off the wrong bastard, but ya know how tight-lipped Vissic can be.”
“No other jobs have you all the way out here?” I asked.
Gavin eyed me. “I might. That depends on how interested y’are. I don’t have much worth your time.”
I take a swig of my beer. “Hit me.”
“There’s a rogue warlock in Italy runnin’ rampant and the family wants it dealt with quietly.” Gavin pulled a finished knife from the bucket at my feet and inspected it.
