Closing her eyes, Toni shook her head. “I don’t believe you. I’ve listened to you talk about genies and bottles and demons and—and—a dragon’s just too far!”
The vampire clucked her tongue. “Really? A dragon’s what sets you over the edge? I’d have thought the genie shit woulda been your end game—maybe even the cougar. So a dragon’s your emotional limit? Noted,” Nina said on a cackle.
Marty and Wanda shook their sodden heads and looked at Toni as if she were the one who’d lost all her marbles.
Marty straightened Toni’s bodice and smoothed out her rumpled skirt. “You just sat on the back of one, didn’t you? I’m telling you, it’s true. She’s precious and really just getting her wings under her. We love her to itsy-bitsy bits. See her every chance we get. Skype with her all the time. Her name’s Noa.”
Jon brought over a flask and knelt beside her, holding it to her mouth as she gratefully drank, her throat dry and sore.
His chiseled face was a mask of concern as he cupped her chin. “You must never speak with strangers, Toni. The woods are dangerous and fraught with enemies. Not everything is as it appears.”
Toni nodded her head in agreement. No shit. Pressing her back into the hard bark of the tree after another long gulp of water, she burped, fully intending to excuse herself.
But that would be difficult, considering courteous words weren’t the thing coming out of her mouth. No. Instead, a hot stream of acrid fire flew from her lips.
Jon yelled to Dannan to grab another flask as he grabbed the edge of the blanket from the ground and wrapped it around Marty’s head, knocking her to the ground and patting her big hair.
Which was, of course, on fire thanks to Toni.
Maybe dragon was her emotional limit…
Chapter 5
“So, you gonna get the fire going for the troll roast, or am I?” Nina quipped, cackling as she slapped Toni on the back.
“Only if you fan it, Sunshine Wings,” she quipped back.
This time, Nina didn’t appear to take offense. Instead she snickered and said, “Touché.”
She’d breathed fire. Real fire. From her mouth. Still unable to address that, she asked Nina with a sheepish glance, “I’m really sorry. It was the last thing I expected. Is Marty okay? Does she want to eat me for dinner?”
Nina flapped a hand and hiked up the front of her torn and tattered yellow dress. The bluebirds scattered momentarily then returned to their rightful place above her head, chirping their happy tune. “Nah. Her hair grows back because she self-heals. She’ll be right back to her gelled-up, sprayed-to-within-an-inch-of-the-ozone-layers life in no time flat. I think. I dunno. Our powers seem to be doing weird shit here. It’s like we’re all off or something. But don’t you worry your pretty little fire-breathing head about it.”
They’d stopped for the night in a place Jon thought was safe enough, as long as there was always someone on guard. While he set up their camp, she and Nina were doing their part by making a fire as Marty and Wanda looked for the sugared winterberries Jon had told them about.
Carl and Dannan huddled close together as the ogre told Carl stories and they pitched tents made of a fabric Toni couldn’t identify.
The wind howled a desolate cry and though the snow had stopped, when the sun dipped, the temperatures had, too.
“What did Brenda mean when she said you couldn’t use your special powers to get to the castle?”
“I’m bettin’ that nutty Hee-Haw honey meant I couldn’t throw your ass on my back and fly you there. Which is some kinda stupid bullshit, if you ask me.”
Toni gulped and tried to act unfazed. “You f…fly?”
“I do. And as you saw, Marty shifts into a hairy ass-sniffer and looks like she popped right off a damn movie set, and Wanda has fangs and she’s pretty strong, but she shifts, too.”
“Because Wanda’s a halfsie, right?” She couldn’t even believe she was having this conversation when just a day or so ago she was asking Bree what she wanted her to do with the new shipment of ponchos.
“Yep. Half vampire, half were. But she can’t fly. Sucks hairy donkey balls at it.”
“So you guys are all friends? You really did meet because you used to sell makeup before Marty was turned into a werewolf?”
Nina threw some stray branches into the pit they’d made in the ground and nodded. “Yep. It’s been almost eight years since that shit went down.”
“That’s nice,” she whispered.
If only Nina knew how nice. As they’d walked, Marty had told her stories about how they’d all met via her cosmetics company, about their children and baby dragon’s incredible birth, and hearing her talk about their families and barbecues and birthday parties and Christmases past brought back the empty ache of loneliness Toni had fought so hard to keep from eating her alive.
“What about you, Dragon Slayer. You have family back home?”
Turning her back to Nina, she pretended to search for more branches. “Nope. Just me.”
“Friends?”