“Barbara?” Liam’s slightly impatient voice called her back to reality. “Or should I call you Baba?”
She sighed. “Sorry, it’s been a rough night. I was . . . daydreaming . . . there for a moment. Sorry.” She took another bite of pie, chewed, and swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Yes, you might as well call me Baba. My real name is Baba Yaga, although in this world, most know me as Barbara Yager.”
He raised a dubious eyebrow. “This world?”
“Yes,” Baba said. “There is this, what some call the mundane or Human plane, and the Otherworld. The Otherworld is a place where magic exists, and it is home to creatures out of legend, many of which you might recognize and some which are beyond your comprehension.” Tired, she rubbed a hand across her face, wishing she could have had this conversation some other time. Sometime when her head was clearer, or her heart less muddled. Or never. Never would have worked for her.
Liam’s hazel eyes stared at her as though wondering if she was making fun of him, or merely out of her mind.
“And you’re dressed like something out of a Renaissance Faire because that’s how everyone dresses in this Otherworld of yours?” he asked, pointing at the jewels in the net restraining her usually unruly hair. “It must be a pretty fancy place.”
“You have no idea,” Mikhail said, pushing Baba out of the way so he could get another piece of pie. “She’s actually somewhat underdressed. But she doesn’t like to stand out, our Baba.”
“I don’t know how she could avoid it,” Liam muttered, the sideways compliment making her heart skip a beat. But then he shook the stray thought out of his head and added, “So you’re trying to tell me that you just went through your closet to visit a magical land, like Alice through the looking glass?”
“More like the kids going through the wardrobe into Narnia,” Baba replied, hoping that they’d at least read some of the same books, even if she hadn’t seen his movies. “But yes, something like that.”
Liam was abruptly on his feet, moving past Mikhail and yanking the closet door open. He stared at black leather and red silk, his face an almost comic mix of satisfaction and disappointment, like a kid who finally proves to himself that Santa doesn’t exist.
“Uh-huh,” he snarled. “Pull the other one.” He walked back over to stand in front of Baba, arms crossed over his chest, muscles tight. “How about now you tell me what is really going on?”
Baba ran out of reasonable, which was bound to happen eventually. It was never her best thing anyway. “Fine,” she snarled back at him. She rose from her seat and said to the others, “Better make room.” Three sets of faces looked alarmed and tucked themselves into the corners of the trailer the best they could.
Liam just looked confused. “Make room for what?”
“Chudo-Yudo,” she said, and gestured at the dog.
As Liam turned to see what she was talking about, Chudo-Yudo moved into the middle of the lounge area, which was as close to a clear space as the Airstream allowed, and shook himself, as if shedding water. Instead, he was enveloped in a greenish-purple mist that sparked and glowed, letting off an odor like charred meat, cold starlight, and eternity. When the mist cleared, the dog was gone, and instead there was a large dragon with scalloped iridescent black scales and blazing red eyes curling in on himself to take up as little room as possible. Still, his tail rolled out onto the tiled kitchen floor, and one leathery wing poked Alexei in the stomach until the burly biker moved a little to the left with an oof.
“Hey, man,” the dragon said. “Thanks for the bone.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Baba had to choke back a laugh at the expression on Liam’s rugged face. His jaw had dropped open and his hazel eyes were wide. She was pretty sure he’d forgotten to breathe. He bent down slowly to touch the knobby end of tail that rested on his booted feet.
“Yes, it’s real,” she said. “Sorry for the shock, but I thought it would save us a lot of useless argument. It’s late, and I’m tired. I just didn’t have it in me.”
“Uh, right.” Liam dropped back onto the banquette bench with a thud. “So, your dog is a dragon and you just came back from a visit to a place called the Otherworld. The entrance to which is in your closet.” He shook his head ruefully. “Anything else I need to know?”
“Lots, unfortunately,” Baba said. A nod at Chudo-Yudo had him changing back into his pit bull form, at which everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
“You know, I always forget how big he is, until he does that,” Alexei said, rubbing his stomach.
Liam glanced around the room at the Riders. “You guys aren’t all dragons too, are you?” he asked, almost despairingly.
Mikhail chuckled. “Not most of the time, no.” Alexei grinned and Gregori’s lips edged up into a small, compassionate smile that lightened his stern face.
Baba stiffened as Liam’s gaze swung around to her.