city of dragons 03 - fire magic by crowe val st

Author:crowe, val st [crowe, val st]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Punk Rawk Books
Published: 2016-06-16T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I walked out of the house, and I walked past Lachlan’s car, and I walked all the way to the end of the driveway. There was a stream across the road from the house. It wound underneath the road, through a pipe, and next to Alastair’s house. But I didn’t want to be near his stupid house. So I walked across the road and over to the stream. I waded into it.

It wasn’t very deep, but I could see that it widened up ahead.

I splashed through the water, yanking off my clothes until I could dive under the water. And then I shifted into a dragon.

I rose from the water, spreading my wings, flapping hard and taking to the air.

I soared into the clouds.

Below me, the city looked small and crowded, a cluster of gleaming metal and wood jutting up against the ocean, which gleamed even brighter, grey-blue and reflecting the sunlight.

I flew around for a long time. In dragon form, I felt strong and free. None of the other stuff mattered. I could simply stay in my dragon form and escape everything.

Up here, I hadn’t been abused or violated by Alastair, and my baby wasn’t some strange hybrid, and Lachlan wasn’t acting like an asshole, and Elizabeth wasn’t throwing it all in my face. Up here, everything was better.

But eventually, as the sun began to sink in the horizon, I grew tired.

I knew I couldn’t stay in the sky forever.

I flew back over my hotel and plunged into the surf behind it, shifting back into human form. I trudged naked back up the back stairs of my apartment. Some people saw me, but the beach was mostly empty at that point. It was nearly dark, after all.

When I opened my back door, I heard something from the front of the apartment.

I tensed, filling myself up with magic that I was ready to throw at whoever might want to hurt me. I remembered that this had all started when I’d come back from a shift, that I’d found Alastair in my kitchen, waiting for me.

Alastair is dead, I reminded myself.

And then Lachlan was hurrying down the hallway, pulling me into his arms. “Penny,” he muttered into my hair. “Penny, Jesus, I didn’t know what happened to you.”

I almost pushed him away, but there was something about being close to him that felt right. I was exhausted, I realized. The flight had taken a lot out of me. Instead, I wrapped my arms around his waist, and I leaned into him.

He supported me, kissing the top of my head, my forehead, my eyebrows. “I’m an idiot,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, clutching him. “You are.” But maybe I was too. Maybe he was right when he said I ran from things. Maybe that flight had been literal proof of that.

“I thought…” He cupped my face with both hands, looking into my eyes. “I thought that I needed to stop trying to protect you, because I was bad at protecting things. But I realized I can’t stop.

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