She just glared at me, as if she didn’t believe a word coming out of my mouth.
The snow was coming down thicker, gathering on the ground in a pristine blanket of white.
The park was lit by only a few overhead lamps and a couple other security floodlights, casting spooky shadows all around us. And it was quiet, so quiet, that I could hear my heart pounding in my ears.
But then I heard something else. A roar of pain. It was a human voice, but...it was layered with something else, too. Something not human.
I recognized the voice immediately and swore under my breath. Oh, no.
“What was that?” Melinda asked, her gaze darting around, but her sword didn’t waver from pointing at yours truly.
“Trouble,” I said, wringing my hands and looking all around me to pinpoint which direction the sound had come from. “I...uh, have to go.”
Her eyes widened. “Go? No you don’t. We’re having a—”
“Sorry, this’ll have to wait.” I turned and began to run toward the roar.
I hadn’t thought this night could get any worse.
I’d been dead wrong.
Chris Sanders wasn’t too far away, near a thick thatch of evergreens. If nothing else, they’d given him some shelter from the snow. He needed it. He currently knelt on the ground, his back hunched over. Just like me, he wasn’t wearing a coat. His T-shirt strained against his arms and chest. His bare hands dug into the ground as if he was trying to hang on to it as an anchor. My stomach lurched at the sight of him in so much pain.
Every instinct I had told me he was ready to shift into his dragon form.
Right here. Right now.
“Chris,” I gasped, “I need to get you home. Please, what’s your address? Tell me!” He gasped in pain again and shook his head. His bright amber eyes, jarring on his pale and sweaty face, flicked to me. “My mom—she told me some crazy stuff, but I didn’t believe it. I took off and made it here, but I can’t go any further. It hurts too much.” Oh, hell. His mother never told him what to expect—not until tonight when it was going to happen? When he didn’t have any time to prepare himself?
“I’m sorry, Chris.”
“What’s wrong with me? You know. I know you do.”
“You’re going through a—a change. But it’s going to be okay.”
“Change? Into what?”
I swallowed hard. “A dragon.”
He looked at me sharply and actually laughed. It was a sound devoid of any humor. “That’s what she said.”
“She wasn’t lying.”
He shuddered, then swore under his breath. “This is going to hurt real bad, isn’t it?”
“Probably.” When I sank down next to him he turned and grabbed hold of the sleeve of my sweater. His face was sweaty, even though it was so cold out, and he stared at me with those glowing amber eyes.
“Has it found you yet?” he asked. “It’s looking for you.” A chill went down my spine. “What are you talking about?” He stared at me, but his gaze was blank. “You have something it wants. Something it’s desperate to have for itself.”
His vision. The thing with the black wings. I swear, that drawing haunted me and I’d only looked at it a couple of times.
“Is it a Shadow?” I asked him, my voice low. Ever since my nightmare, I’d been desperately afraid that it was Michael. And what happened at the castle today, an echo of that nightmare, hadn’t helped ease my mind at all.
His deep frown turned into a grimace and he pressed his palms to his temples. A light layer of snow had landed on Chris’s hair and shoulders. I brushed it away.
“My head...it hurts so much,” he groaned.
To my left, Melinda thundered up to us. She pointed the sword at me, then at Chris, her gaze widening as she realized who he was.
“Chris! What are you doing here?” she demanded.
He didn’t even look at her. “Leave me alone.”
“You need to get away from Nikki. She’s dangerous!”
“Says the chick carrying the medieval weaponry,” I growled. “Melinda, I know you’re having trouble seeing past the tip of your own nose right now, but you need to back off. Bad things are going to happen very soon and I need to try to fix this.”
“Move away from him,” she snapped. “Right now!”
“No,” I said firmly.
“You don’t even like him anymore.”
“Do I look like I’m trying to date him?” I snapped back. “Seriously, Melinda. Just shut up a minute.”
She gaped at me.
“Chris.” I staggered to my feet and pulled at his arm. “Come on, get up. You’re too heavy for me to carry.”
That was, unless I turned Darkling. I wasn’t quite ready for that yet, but I was getting closer to having no other options left.
Instead, Chris hunched over and let out another pain-filled howl.
“Oh my God.” Melinda’s eyes grew even wider. “He’s not a—a werewolf, is he?” I shot a look in her direction, cringing at the sound of Chris’s pain. “He’s not a werewolf.”
“Then what is this?”
I grabbed Chris’s face and made him look at me. His eyes glowed amber and his pupils were now slits.
“It’s happening.” My stomach sank further than I even thought possible. “You’re going to shift.”
He gasped for breath. “Why the hell didn’t my mother warn me about this? Why did she only say it tonight?”
“I honestly think she was trying to protect you for as long as possible.” I shook my head. “I can’t imagine she knew you were this close to your first shift.” He looked at me with fear in his glowing eyes. “I don’t want this to happen.”
“You and me both.” I took hold of his face and looked right at him. “But you know what? It’s going to happen anyway. However, I have some good news for you, Chris.”
“Wh-what?”
“I have it on very good authority that you’re going to feel much, much better after this. No more crazy. This will fix you.” I blinked. “I mean, if you live through it.” He snorted, but the sound didn’t lessen any of the fear on his face. “Comforting, thanks.”
“What the hell is happening?” Melinda demanded again, louder, pointing her sword at us as if that would prompt us to explain everything to her. “Tell me right now!” I felt something ripple along Chris’s back, and I have to admit, it freaked me out when I realized it was his spine and rib cage expanding. I leapt to my feet and moved to stand next to my best frenemy.
“Get away from me!” She thrust her sword at me again, and I had to jump out of its way so I didn’t get cut.
I glared at her. “Oh, go point that thing somewhere else, you idiot.” She opened her mouth to say something else to me, but another roar of pain from Chris grabbed her attention.
I hadn’t exactly known what to expect. I’d never seen a dragon in a form other than human.
That was about to change.
Fire rippled over Chris’s human form, covering him from head to toe as he struggled to get to his feet. My panic returned in full force. I didn’t know what to do—fear locked me in place. I didn’t know how to stop this, to help him. All I could do was watch with horror.
Melinda screamed and dropped her sword. She clutched my arm tightly as if she’d temporarily forgotten that she considered me her enemy now, rather than a friend she needed to cling to.
“Chris! No!” Her voice broke as her fingernails dug into the sleeve of my thick sweater.
“Nikki, we have to do something! He’s burning!”
I willed myself not to panic more than I already was. It was a struggle. Tears blurred my vision, but I didn’t let myself start to cry. I had to stay strong—for Melinda. For Chris. For myself. “No, I—I think this is how it’s supposed to be.” Chris wasn’t yelling in pain anymore, which was a very good sign. I hoped so, anyway.
Underneath that blanket of fire, Chris began to grow and change. It only took about thirty seconds before his form had
shifted completely. A long thick tail stretched out behind him. Large wings spread out to either side. He was twenty feet in length when it finished, and the fire died away.
I stared at him, awestruck and terrified.
There was nothing about Chris that looked human anymore. His leathery, scaled skin was pitch black. His eyes were large, amber, slitted...and they glowed. When he snorted, wisps of smoke exited his flaring nostrils. A long, forked tongue poked out of his mouth as if to taste the cold air. Past it I could see the tips of his razor-sharp teeth. When he let out another roar, flames came out of his mouth like he’d swallowed a blow torch.
Definitely not a werewolf.
He swept his gaze over the area we were in before his amber eyes fell on the two of us, currently clutching each other like two girls in a horror movie.
He took a step closer to us, his eyes narrowing.
For a moment, I honestly thought I was going to pass out.
Instead, I stood in front of Melinda, shoving her behind me.
“Chris!” I forced bravery into my voice. “Are you still in there? I really hope you are. I don’t know much about dragons, but from what little I’ve heard, you are not an out-of-control monster.
You’re not going to torch this park and the whole town. You’re not going to hurt anyone. Do you hear me?”
I could feel his breath. Even without the flames, it immediately melted the snow around us within a twenty foot radius.
Melinda gripped the back of my thick sweater with both hands. “He’s going to kill us.
Barbecue us. Eat us for dinner.”
“No,” I said firmly. “He is not. Because if he does, my father is going to be really mad and Chris’s mother is going to get in serious trouble. Dr. Sanders doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’d want to answer to a demon king.”
Melinda gasped. “Your father’s a demon king?”
“He is.”
“So what does that make you? A demon princess?”
I didn’t take my attention off the dragon in front of us for a moment. “Good guess.”
“Wh-why are you s-standing in front of me?” she stuttered.
“Because I’m trying to protect you. So shut up and let me concentrate.” I focused on the large, fire-breathing dragon. “Chris...hello? Are you in there? Don’t even think about hurting us.
Just...don’t. Or you are going to be in major trouble. You hear me?” The dragon glared at me, his glowing eyes intensifying for a few horrible seconds. Then he sat on his haunches. The ground shook.
“You were right about one thing,” the dragon said. “I do feel way better now.” I stared at him. “Dragons can talk?”
Chris tilted his head. “Looks like.”
He sounded like Chris, but his voice had changed slightly since his mouth was different. More teeth. Forked tongue. But it was definitely Chris.
Relief nearly buckled my knees.
Tonight’s barbecue was officially cancelled.
He cast a glance at his huge dragon body, flicking his tail, checking out the long talons on his hands—or front paws, I wasn’t sure what you called them when it came to dragon anatomy.
His talons made my Darkling ones look like a dainty French manicure.
“This is what my mother is,” he said, sounding stunned.
“Yes.”
He glared at me. “She should have told me.”
“Don’t give me that look. It’s not my fault.” My heart still pounded in my chest three times as fast as normal, but since we hadn’t been grilled and sautéed yet by a hungry dragon, I was beginning to calm down. A little.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Hey, I have wings. Just like you do.”
“Your wings are bigger.”
He gave me a sharp-toothed grin that sent a chill down my spine. “This is kind of cool.” I had a few other choice words for it: terrifying, deeply disturbing, horrific. “If you say so.”
“You—you’re a dragon,” Melinda managed, finally coming out from behind me. She swept her gaze over the length of me. “And you’re a—a demon.”
“Half-demon.” I crossed my arms over my chest, reminding myself not to let down my guard.
And not to let her get behind me again, especially if she picked up her sword.
“Oh,” Chris said with interest. “Is that what you are? A half-demon?” It felt so strange to be able to say it freely, but there was no going back now. “Demon princess, actually.”
“From the Shadowlands.” His dragon brow lowered as he said it.
I stared at him with shock. “How did you know that?”
“My vision...” His frown deepened. “Do all dragons have visions, or is it just me?”
“Not all dragons. You’re a special one, just like your mother. A dragon oracle. Demons and faeries use them to get prophesies and glimpses of the future.”
“Wait a minute,” Melinda said, her gaze shooting back and forth between the two of us like she was watching a tennis match. “Faeries? There are faeries, too?” I grimaced. “Chris, what vision did you have about the Shadowlands?” He started to pace back and forth, his tail swishing as he turned. I actually had to jump out of the way so he wouldn’t knock me over. “It’s kind of fuzzy. I get these images in my head like photographs. That’s why I draw them, since it’s the only way to clear them out. Then they stop hurting so much.”
I looked up at him. If he had information, it could be important. Visions weren't always prophesies, but they could help get insight on my problems. “Can you remember anything?
Please, it’s important.”
“Yeah, I remember. You’re the...half-demon princess. A...a Darkling, right? I saw that. And I saw a prophecy that you were the destroyer of worlds.” I forgot how to breathe for a moment.
Melinda gasped. “Seriously? Destroyer of worlds?”
I looked over my shoulder at her. “It was false. Somebody was messing with me. He’s the kind of demon you should point your sword at. Evil to the core.”
“That might have been false,” Chris said, “but there’s still something else related to it. You’re not the destroyer of many worlds, Nikki. Only one world.” Chris blinked thick black lids over those large amber eyes. “The Shadowlands.”
I stared at him blankly. “No, that’s got to be wrong.” He shrugged. “That’s what I saw. Maybe I am wrong, I don’t know. I’m kind of new at this.” He was wrong. Completely wrong. I wasn’t going to destroy anything, let alone my own father’s kingdom. That was ridiculous. Like he just said, Chris was new at this and he didn’t know what he saw and how to separate the truth from the not truth.
But a part of me couldn’t help but wonder with a sinking feeling if this was my original
“destroyer of worlds” prophecy. The one that Kieran had exaggerated to make the demon council fear me. Maybe I was only supposed to destroy one world, not all of them.
No way. It didn’t make any sense at all. Maybe Chris was still crazy.
Suddenly, I noticed he’d started flapping his wings.
“What are you doing?” Melinda asked warily. I was surprised she hadn’t run away by now.
She was even braver than I expected.
He gave us another sharp-toothed dragon smile. “I feel so free, I’ve never felt this good in my entire life.”
“Can’t you, uh, shift back to normal?” I asked.
He tilted his head to the right. “I think so. But I’m not ready to yet. I want to explore.”
“Chris,” I said sharply. “This is Erin Heights. If anyone sees you—”
“You, demon princess, worry too much.”
“I’ve been told that before,” I admitted.
“But you don’t have to worry about me. I can shield this form from humans—they won’t see a thing, I swear.”
“Um, I can see you,” Melinda said. “And I’m human, the last time I checked.” He looked at her. “Well, I haven’t exactly started the shielding yet.” My eyes widened. “How do y
ou know you can do that?”
He shrugged. “I just do. It’s all in my brain. My human one wasn’t big enough to hold all this information. Now I’m different. This is so amazing!”
I was about to say something else, to try to talk him into shifting back to human form, when he lifted off the ground. My hair blew around my shoulders from the gust of wind his wings created.
“Woo hoo! Look at me, I’m flying!”
I could barely believe it, but he was flying. Higher and higher into the dark, snowy sky.
“See you later!” he called out, waving to us as he moved farther away. “And Nikki, thank you for helping me. I owe you one. You too, Melinda!”
He flew into the sky until his form became very tiny, and he disappeared from view completely.
All was silent in the park for several long seconds.
“Wow,” Melinda said.
“I know.”
“I’ve never seen anything like that in my entire life.”
“Me neither, quite honestly.”
She watched me warily. “You tried to protect me. You didn’t know if he was going to be friendly or dangerous, but you tried to protect me.”
I cleared my throat, looking for any sign that this was going to get worse before it got better.
“And?”
“And...I don’t know.” She frowned. “You might have been trying to lull me into thinking you’re not dangerous.”
I sighed with exasperation and yanked my hair back over my shoulder to keep it out of my face. I didn’t need any distractions right now. “Honestly, Melinda, I know this is a lot for you to take in all at once, but I need you to listen to me. I’m not your enemy.” Melinda scanned the ground. “Where did my sword go?”
I glared at her. “Why, so you can kill me?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.” She kept looking. “It was here a minute ago. Where did it go?”
“I have it,” someone else said.
I turned sharply to my left. Someone stood in front of the floodlight, but I couldn’t see who it was. Its form just looked like a dark silhouette in front of that bright light.
And then wings stretched out to either side of it.