That was a risk Julius couldn’t take. He was already happier right now than he’d ever been in his life. He was free of his family, doing work he enjoyed with his best friend for people who thanked him. Even his mother’s seal didn’t bother him much anymore. If he could just figure out how to solve their revenue issue, life in the DFZ would be perfect. It was close enough already. But while a proper dragon wouldn’t stop until he had everything, Julius had never been one of those, and he wasn’t about to risk what he had in a greedy grab for more.
This was the same conclusion Julius had come to every day over the last few weeks, but wise and prudent as he knew his logic was, it didn’t do him much good at the moment. No matter how many times he told himself it was all a hopeless pipe dream, nothing could dampen the thudding of his heart that came from being in close proximity to Marci. It didn’t help that she looked ridiculously adorable today in her brightly colored jacket and zippered skirt. He couldn’t actually remember seeing her wear that skirt before, but she wore it well, and the purple tights she had on underneath it were some of his favorites. The way they hugged her legs so perfectly all the way up to—
He jerked his eyes back to the road, cheeks burning. The heat only got worse when Marci leaned closer, snapping her fingers in front of his face. “Earth to Julius. You okay?”
“Fine,” he said much too quickly. “I’m fine. Let’s go home.”
Marci frowned, but she didn’t press as Julius began madly fiddling with the autodrive’s GPS, drawing a path manually along the grid of streets back to their house.
Thankfully, they didn’t have far to go. In a move that’d surprised everyone, Ian hadn’t just made good on his deal to find Julius a building as payment for his part in finding Katya, he’d done so spectacularly. The house he’d given Julius was just across the old interstate from the river in a fading neighborhood that had once been called Mexican Town. These days, it was an industrial crossroads where the haphazardly expanded Fisher Freeway fed traffic up from the Underground to the skyways for access to the New Ambassador Bridge, which was still the only road connecting Detroit to Canada. The resulting traffic jam had nearly wiped out what the flood had left of the old neighborhood, but a few classic old houses still hung on amid the forest of highway on-ramps and support columns. Ian’s property was one of these: a classic brick three-story, pre-flood house with arched windows, a big porch, Gothic accents, and what must have once been a very nice, treed-in yard.
The trees had all withered and died years ago when the skyways cut them off from the sun, and the yard was now little more than a gravel lot, but it was still an epic amount of room by DFZ standards. Even better, being surrounded by a spiraling maze of traffic ramps meant their house was almost completely cut off from the rest of the city. The only way in was through a tiny, unmarked access road that ran underneath an on-ramp, and the house itself was hidden inside the eye of the hurricane of ramps, bridges, and support structures that funneled commuters up from the Underground to the elevated Upper City. True, it was dark even by Underground standards, and being directly inside one of the busiest traffic exchanges in the city meant the roar of cars was constant, but the house and surrounding lot were big, private, in good repair, and, best of all, safe.
That was the most important factor when you were a dragon living in a city where you were considered prey. Marci had been a harder sell. She’d wanted a little bit of daylight, but she’d jumped on board once Julius showed her the giant, open attic with its peaked windows and marvelously pointed ceiling that he’d set aside to be her lab. After that, Marci had pretty much moved in on the spot.
Not that they’d had much to move, of course. At that point in time, everything they’d owned had fit on their backs. But the DFZ was a great place for secondhand anything. Now, one month of bargain hunting later, their hidden house was almost homey, the lit windows winking at them brightly in the dark as they drove under the ramp and pulled to a stop next to the front porch.
“I’m going to run upstairs and take a quick shower,” Marci said, hopping out of the car. “I swear I smell more like a badger than you do.”
Julius was opening his mouth to tell her she smelled fine when Marci froze. The change set him on instant alert, and he jumped out of the car. “What’s wrong?”
Marci’s eyes were wide as she turned and pointed at the flat stretch of gravel that had once been a side yard. “There’s a freaking limo over there!”
He whirled around. Sure enough, though, she was right. A huge, black, heavily armored limousine was parked in the shadows right beside their house.
“Maybe it’s a rich client?” Marci whispered, looking at him accusingly. “Did you give our address to someone big and not tell me?”
Julius shook his head, breathing deep through his nose. Now that he was outside the car, something in the air smelled off. Between the badger in the trunk and the reek of the highways overhead, he couldn’t pick out what it was exactly, but it set his whole body on high alert, which meant it wasn’t a good smell. He was still trying to sort it out when Marci turned and ran up the steps to the front door.
“What are you doing?” he hissed, running after her.
“What do you think I’m doing?” she hissed back, frantically fitting her key into the deadbolt. “There’s an unknown car in our secret base! I’m going to get my big guns.”
Julius hadn’t realized Marci had things in her attic lab that would qualify as “big guns.” When she opened the door, though, he forgot all about it. The moment the insulating seal cracked, the tiny wisp of teasing scent he’d been worrying over became overwhelming. It was the smell of his childhood, an unmistakable mix of blood and gold and fire. It was so out of place here, though, Julius couldn’t do anything but stand and stare stupidly as Marci shoved the front door open to reveal the dragon sitting in their living room.
For a shocked moment, nobody said a word, not even Marci, and then the dragon smiled. “Now Julius,” she said, her voice a thousand times sweeter and more terrifying than it ever could be over the phone. “Is that any way to greet your mother?”
And just like that, all of Julius’s happiness vanished in a puff of smoke.
***
“What are you waiting for?” Bethesda said, her human fingers curling like claws as she pointed at the folding chair in front of the couch. “Sit.”
Julius almost sat right there on the floor. He hadn’t actually seen his mother since the night she’d kicked him out, and as always after an extended absence, the first sight of Bethesda the Heartstriker hit him like a punch.
It was a disconcerting thing to notice about your own mother, but Bethesda the Heartstriker was mesmerizingly beautiful. All dragons were pleasing to look at in their human guise. That was the entire point: to be so beautiful, actual humans fell at their feet. But Bethesda’s beauty had always been in a class by itself, and she knew exactly how to use it.
Today, for example. She was wearing a super short, electric-blue cocktail dress that set off her black hair and dark complexion so perfectly, there had to be some sort of advanced color calculation going on behind it. Her eyes, the original Heartstriker green, were thickly lined in the fashionable new Egyptian style, a heavy counterpoint to the overt sexuality of her razor precise red lips. Her hair followed the Egyptian trend as well, falling in a perfectly straight, ink-black curtain over her shoulders and down her bare back. Gold flashed at her ears, throat, wrists, and anywhere else that would hold it, including her shoes, which looked to be little more than diamonds and gold chains knotted around her perfectly pedicured toes. The combined effect was classic Bethesda: dazzling, unspeakably expensive, and just past the edge of good taste. Her most striking accessory of all, however, was the dragon leaning on the wall behind her.
He was massive, six-foot-six easy with shoulders that took a lot of creative tailoring to fit into human-sized clothes. Between his giant build and the massive Fang of the Heartstriker positioned prominently at his side, the dragon
strongly reminded Julius of Justin, though the truth was the other way around. Julius might have spent his life avoiding the upper alphabet members of his family, but even he knew that the dragon standing guard behind his mother was none other than Conrad, First Blade of Bethesda, Champion of the Heartstrikers, and the last surviving member of C-clutch aside from Chelsie herself. He was also Justin’s idol, and if they looked alike, it was because Justin copied everything Conrad did, from his military-short haircut to his preference for motorcycle boots to the way they both wore their swords low on their right hip, despite the fact that Justin was not left-handed.
But terrifying as it was to have his mother and her champion appear unexpectedly in his living room, Bethesda’s fancy get-up and Conrad’s presence actually gave Julius hope. His mother would never waste this kind of display on a disciplinary visit to an underperforming child. He was probably just a stop on their way to somewhere more important, and he was scrambling to think of what he could say to make sure it stayed that way when a high-pitched squeak went off right next to his ear.
“Oh my God, you’re Bethesda the Heartstriker!”
In the shock of seeing his mother, Julius had completely forgotten about Marci. She was still beside him, staring at the head of the Heartstriker clan with eyes wider than he’d known a human’s could go.
“I’ve wanted to meet you forever!” she cried. “You look just like you do on TV!”
Her excitement was met with stony silence as Bethesda’s eyes narrowed to dangerous green slits before flicking back to her youngest son. “Is this your human?”
“Yes!” Marci proclaimed happily, producing a business card from her sleeve with a flick of her hand as she charged forward. “I’m Marci Novalli, Julius’s mage and business partner. We’re—”
“Why is it talking to me?”
The chill in her voice would have stopped most mortals cold, but this was Marci. She rolled right over the warning with barely a pause for breath.
“I’ll only be a moment. I just have a few—”
“Still talking,” Bethesda said sweetly. “Conrad?”
Conrad pushed off the wall with a sigh, dropping his hand to his sword. But while he didn’t actually seem ready to draw, the threat alone was enough to finally knock Julius out of his shock.
He lurched into motion, grabbing Marci and dragging her behind him before Conrad’s hand finished tightening. “I’m very sorry,” he said, holding Marci in place as he bowed low before his mother. “It’s my fault. She’s new, she doesn’t know—”
“So teach her,” Bethesda snapped, running her fingers through her perfect hair. “Really, Julius. If you’re going to keep a pet, the least you can do is teach it some manners.”
“Yes, Mother,” he whispered, tightening his grip on Marci’s arm in an attempt to make her understand just how much danger she was in.
A wasted attempt, it turned out.
“I meant no disrespect,” Marci said, squirming against Julius’s hold. “I just have so many questions! You were old and powerful before the magic vanished, right? If I could just get a few seconds of your time—”
“Marci!”
She jumped at his tone, but Julius didn’t even look at her. “Get out.”
“But—”
“Now.”
Marci froze in shock, her whole body going still. Julius was a bit shocked himself. He’d never heard his voice sound so menacing and, well, draconic. But it was the only way he could think of to make Marci stop talking and go. And she had to go. Right now. Before his mother’s infamous temper turned her into a pile of ash.
“I’m sorry,” she said, softly now. “I was just—”
“Hush, child,” Bethesda said, her voice switching from terrifying to honey sweet again as she gloried in Julius’s discomfort. “Can’t you see you’re embarrassing him? Surely you know my son doesn’t need any help on that score. Now run along. Clan business is no place for chattering humans.”
For one long moment, Julius thought the hurt on Marci’s face would actually kill him. Then, without a word, she turned and fled, running up the stairs toward her workshop. He was still staring at the place where she’d been when his mother heaved an exasperated sigh.
“Mortals. They’re so dramatic. But I must say I was impressed with how you handled her. For a moment there, I could almost imagine you were one of my other, less embarrassing children.”
She paused expectantly, a cruel smile on her red lips, but Julius was in no mood for his mother’s games. He wasn’t even that scared anymore. He just wanted her to leave so he could go upstairs and apologize to Marci. “Why are you here?”
“Watch your tone,” Bethesda said sharply, rising from the couch to loom over him. “Do you even know how lucky you are that I’ve deigned to visit your little…” Her voice faded as she looked around the sparsely furnished room. “What is it you’re doing here again?”
“Running a business,” Julius replied, standing a little taller. “We’re called New Horizons Magical Solutions, and—”
“That’s what you’re calling it?”
When he nodded, she laughed. “What? Were you trying to stand out in the listings by having the longest name, or were you trying to make a clever acronym and got confused?”
Julius scowled. It was a bit of a silly name, but he liked it. It was fitting, because even after he’d messed up on the killing-animals-for-the-bounty end of things, New Horizons had remained exactly that: a new horizon for his life. A promise for a better future. But his mother would respect that kind of sentimentality even less than a harebrained scheme to game the business listings, so he decided to just move on.
“We’re a magical animal control company,” he explained patiently. “It’s a booming business here in the DFZ. We’ve haven’t even been operating for a month, and already—”
“So you’re a rat catcher.”
Julius couldn’t exactly argue with that since he’d just gotten back from a job catching what were essentially giant magical rodents, but he didn’t appreciate her tone. “It’s a major industry!”
“Still waiting to hear why I should care,” Bethesda said, looking down to examine her knife-sharp, gold painted nails with a dangerously bored expression.
Julius clamped his jaw shut, forcing the growl back down his throat before it got him into trouble. “With all due respect, Mother, it’s only been a month. If you’d given me more time before checking in, I would have had something more impressive to show you.”
“Show me?” she scoffed. “Really, Julius? Did you really think I’d risk setting foot in Algonquin’s little playground to hear your humdrum tales of small business success?”
Well, not when she put it like that. “But,” he said, confused. “If you’re not here to check on me, why are you here?”
As always, Bethesda let him dangle for a moment before saying, “I’m taking you to a party.”
He couldn’t have heard that right. “A what?”
“A party,” she repeated. “A social event in a private home. A get-together.”
“I know what a party is,” Julius said. “But why would you want to take me?”
“Because it suits me,” she replied, her voice growing dangerously sharp. “And if you want to be unsealed this decade, you’ll stop asking stupid questions and do as you’re told.”
The word “unsealed” had barely left her lips before the block she’d placed at the root of Julius’s power started to clench up. It was only moderately painful, nothing like when she’d actually put the seal on him, but it made him extremely aware of how cramped and uncomfortable he was in this shape. His wings, which he normally didn’t even think about, suddenly ached to uncurl, and his tail prickled like a limb that’d fallen asleep. Even his feathers were itching, making him want to roll around on the ground. Bethesda must have known it, too, because her smile only grew crueler. “Any more comments you’d like to add?”
“No, Mother,” he said softly, lowering his head.
“Good boy,” she cooed. “Now let’s go. This detour has taken far too long already.”
She and Conrad were already halfway out of the room before Julius realized she meant right now. “Wait!” he cried, looking down in a panic at his padded work clothes, which still reeked of tank badger. “At least give me a moment to change.”
“Why?” Bethesda said, sweeping down the short hall toward the kitchen. “No one expects anything of you, so why should we pretend? It’s not like you have something nicer to wear.”
Julius did not, in fact, have anything in his closet at the moment that wasn’t second-hand jeans and t-shirts, but that didn’t make her assessment sting any less. “I can still—”
His mother growled deep in her throat, an inhuman noise that vibrated through the floor and set his hair on end. After that, Julius didn’t say another word. He simply lowered his head and scurried after her, ducking through the kitchen and out the back door Conrad held open into the gravel alley behind the house where Bethesda’s limo was waiting.
Chapter 2
And this was how, an hour later, Julius found himself flying over the Great Plains in his mother’s private sub-orbital jet.
Under different circumstances, this wouldn’t have been so bad. Like everything else she owned, Bethesda’s private jet was luxurious to the point of absurdity. It didn’t even have seats, just couches and lounges strewn across a cabin that looked more like a flying living room. But it was hard to enjoy the luxury when he didn’t know where they were going, or why Bethesda had decided to take him. His mother wasn’t helping, either. She hadn’t actually said a word to him since they’d left the house.
This wasn’t to say she’d been silent. His mother had talked the whole time, just not to him. Instead, she’d been lounging on her throne-like couch, using her phone and smart mic to have multiple, simultaneous conversations with at least a dozen of his brothers and sisters, switching seamlessly between each call so each dragon thought she was talking only to them.