ROMANCE: BAD BOY ROMANCE: Basketball Daddy (BWWM Alpha Male Billionaire Pregnancy Romance) (African American Unexpected Pregnant Contemporary Romance) (118 page)

Kiara didn’t know how long it would take to get everything set up to do the spell, so as soon as the sun started to fall she went to retrieve Spence. From his bedroom she snuck downstairs to where his parents were in the living room doing paperwork and watching TV. She cast a charm on them so they wouldn’t go upstairs to check on their ill son.

Then she bundled him up in sweats and layers of shirts, wrapped a blanket around him and helped him out of the window. Dropping out of the window was still easier than trying to cloak them both to get him out of the front door with his parents right there. He shivered, despite the warm night. She gave him a warming potion that she’d luckily thought to put in her tote bag, which seemed to help a little. They walked into the woods, Spence half shuffling.

It took a long time for them to reach the clearing where they did their magic. She drew out the circle of the spell with her toe in the dirt. In her bag she had all the ingredients needed, and she placed them in the correct places around the circle. She gazed up into the sky. The sun had gone, but the moon wasn’t high enough yet. She clenched and unclenched her fists. Was it too soon to get the wolf? What if she waited too long? She hadn’t found any sort of cage, but she had a rope.

Eventually, she couldn’t wait anymore. If the wolves had gone out to hunt or left their nest for another reason, she might have to follow their scent for a while. This wasn’t the time to take the chance that they wouldn’t be available when she needed them.

“I’m going to change and go get the wolf,” she said.

Spence sat on the ground, leaning against a tree, clutching his blanket tight. He nodded at her and turned his head to cough up more blood. The cough was getting worse; the blood was getting worse. He looked more and more green and had thrown up so many times that he had only been able to dry heave for hours.

She cast her usual protection spells and shifted into dragon form, then cloaked. “Can you see me?”

He shook his head, then whispered, “You’re so cool,” before closing his eyes and resting his head against the tree.

Kiara went to find the wolves. Their scent was clear and vivid to her as a dragon. That part always amazed her. Humans were so cut off from the animal world. They had no idea of most of what was around them. Even though she spent a lot of time as an animal, when she was human she couldn’t access the same sense of smell and hearing that she could while in dragon form.

She crept up to the wolf den, where it appeared that they were all sleeping in a big pile. They looked so cute, all together like that. But this was about Spence. It was either one of these little pups or a person, she reminded herself. And it was meant to be a sacrifice. As he’d said, there’s always a catch. If it was easy then everyone would do it. This was meant to be difficult. And it was.

It almost wasn’t fair. They could smell her, but they wouldn’t see her coming. There was so little they could do as she walked over and gently lifted one of the cubs into her mouth. The adults stirred and growled and bit at her, but without seeing her they only had her scent to guide them. And she was out of there before they knew what was happening.

She hurried back to the circle and set the pup down. Then she quickly changed back and grabbed the rope.

“It’s just like a puppy,” Spence said.

“I know. Don’t look at it. It’ll just make it worse.”

The wolf pup sniffed around and went to Spence. He reached out to pet it and the pup licked him.

Kiara dropped her head in frustration. “You’re going to make it worse. Plus, don’t forget that it’s a wild animal, not a cute little puppy. I will get you a puppy tomorrow, when you’re alive because this one died to save you.”

“Thank you, wolfy,” Spence said, scratching behind its ears.

Her throat grew thick at the sight. How in the world was she going to be able to go through with this? She tied a circle of rope and made a leash for the wolf. Then she secured the other end to a tree. The last thing she needed was for the wolf to run off when she needed it.

She looked up at the sky and the moon shone back, bright white against a deep blue sky. Was it dark enough? Sindri hadn’t said anything about it being dark, just that they needed the moonlight. And moonlight was what they had.

“Okay.” She nodded to herself. “I think we can start.”

Spence looked up at her, his hand resting on the sleeping pup, who had curled up by his side. At least the pup had been treated well before his death. Maybe he even liked Spence.

She began the ritual, standing in the center of the circle. The plants and herbs were burned, the opening words of the spell spoken. She went to the wolf and, with a deep breath and after casting a sedation spell, she opened his mouth and poured the potion in. He whimpered a bit, but licked his chops and swallowed it.

The sound of wolves howling echoed in the forest behind her. No, not now. She listened but couldn’t hear with her human ears. She changed into dragon form, but by the time her transformation was complete the wolves were there. They had found the scent and had come for their lost pup. Five adult wolves circled Spence, eying up the pup, who sat still by Spence’s side.

Kiara crouched down and growled at them. They snarled back, revealing their sharp teeth. She took a step forward, hoping they’d be scared and run off. Instead, one swiped at her with his paw. He missed her and caught the side of Spence’s leg.

Spence howled in pain, four bright lines appearing through slits in his sweatpants. He gripped his leg, pressing his fingers into the fresh blood.

Anger flared in Kiara. She swatted her huge paw through the air, knocking into the wolf who’d hurt Spence and sending him flying into the air. The wolf slammed into a tree and hit the ground, whimpering.

The other wolves descended on her. The biggest one snapped his jaws at her and took several swipes, but she was too big for them and too strong. The wolf’s claws glanced off her hard scales. He came back to attack again but couldn’t get to her soft belly—the only place she was vulnerable.

The fight felt unfair to her. She swiped her paw and sent another wolf flying. It was too easy. She didn’t want to hurt them, but they needed to leave them alone to do the spell.

Three wolves remained. They fought their hardest, trying to circle around her and catch her off guard. But she spun, whacking one with her thick tail. The wolf ran off with a limp after hitting the ground. The last two took off running when she bared her teeth and growled at them. She ran in the direction they’d all headed to chase them and make sure they stayed away.

When she got back to the clearing, the moon was higher and the night darker. She changed back to human form, then dashed to Spence’s side.

“Are you okay?”

“It really hurts and there’s a lot of blood.” Spence held his leg and his face was twisted in pain.

She took out a cloth she kept in her bag for wrapping plants inside, and tied it tight around his leg. “We’re almost done.”

She went back to her bag, which sitting in the center of the spell circle, and got the knife, fresh determination washing over her. The wolves had a right to attack, sure, but they’d hurt him, and somehow she felt a little less bad about killing their pup now.

With the knife in one hand, she picked up the pup by the scruff of his neck. She carried him to the center of the circle and laid him down. Whatever anger she’d felt at his protectors was gone when she looked into his sad, scared eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to him. She blinked away tears and held a shaking hand to his throat, the blade of the knife ready. She closed her eyes.

The blood ran down her hand as she held the cup, making sure all of his blood fell into the smaller circle of herbs in front of her. When he stopped bleeding, she laid the body on the ground on top of the blood, then brought Spence closer. She changed back into dragon form. She’d need the stronger magic to pull the spell off.

She cast the final part of the spell, watching the red and green and blue flashes surround Spence as the spell worked. The magic entered his body and he started to change.

First, his skin became a shade of silvery gray and popped out into scales. Then he grew larger, slightly bigger than her, as his bones moved into the shape of the dragon. When his transformation was complete he stood before her, a grand dragon.

But there was clearly something wrong.

“Spence? Are you okay?” Kiara tried not to panic. “Do you feel okay?”

He looked down at his dragon body. He held out an arm, watching the moonlight glint on his silvery scales. Then he ran his paw over the patch of white and gray fur at his chest. He stretched out the paw that ended in more thick fur and yellow claws and looked behind him at his tail that ended in a hairy puff instead of spikes. His yellow-green eyes blinked from a face of fur. A wolf face.

Kiara shook her head in shock. “I—I—”

Spence turned in a circle, flapping his wings, and raising his body into the air a few feet, then landed.

“Can you change back?” she asked.

It took him a few minutes of standing still with his eyes closed, but eventually his body shrunk and his scales and fur became skin again. She changed back when his transformation back to human was complete. They stared at each other, then he ran to her and gripped her into a tight hug.

“It worked!” he said. “I shifted and I’m alive! I feel great.”

She pushed back to look him in the eyes. “Something is not right, though. You’ve got wolfy parts! You’re like a… a… wolf dragon!”

“I know.” He shrugged. “I guess that’s because we used a wolf instead of a human. You know what’s weird? I can feel the wolf.”

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“It’s like… like if I had gone into his mind when he was alive. Now I can still see in his mind. Like he’s in my head or something. I don’t know. It’s kind of weird, but whoa.”

He tilted his head up into the sky and took in a long breath, then he squinted, looking hard into the night. He started laughing.

“This is awesome! I didn’t know I’d be able to smell and see better. Wow.”

“Wait, what?”

“My whole sense of smell and sight is better.”

“It is?” She made an incredulous face.

“Isn’t yours?”

She shook her head. “Only when I’m a dragon.”

“Huh.”

“How’s your wound?” She untied the cloth from around his leg. The wound looked better, which she’d expected. That was a common thing that happened with shifters. Their bodies were so used to changing that they tended to heal very quickly.

“It’s so much better.” He looked at his leg in amazement. “Can you heal like that, too?”

She nodded. The enthusiasm in his voice relieved her some. He was alive and he would live. The relief still needed to sink in, and she had a deep feeling of dread in her gut. What if using the wolf had been wrong? What if something went wrong or there was some unforeseen problem?

“Hey.” He took her chin in his hand and tilted her face to his, then kissed her. “Don’t be all jealous because you don’t have my extra wolfy powers.”

She chuckled. “I’m not jealous. I’m just worried. I don’t know what this means, and what if something goes wrong?”

“Well, I feel great. I wouldn’t worry about.”

Then he changed suddenly back into his wolf-dragon form. He swung his tail around and put his paws on his face. He looked agitated.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, the worry heightening in her chest.

“I can’t change back.”

“Spence, are you serious? If you’re joking this is the worst joke ever.”

He shook his head, and his eyes were full of fear.

“Okay, well, let’s just fly for a while. Maybe it’s because you’re new. I’ll take you…” She did want to take him to the haven, but when they saw that he was part wolf would they be mad?

A dark shadow fell across them, large and heavy. Kiara spun around and saw Sindri landing softly on the ground. His presence was so huge that he blocked the moon.

Spence fell to the ground, human again, panting. “What just happened?”

“Si—” she almost used his name but remembered he hadn’t given it to Spence. “I don’t know what’s happening. I did the spell like you said.”

Sindri growled at her. “You stupid girl. You think you can trick the magic? You think you can cheat?”

“What? No, I—” She shook her head and backed away from him.

He narrowed his eyes. “Dragon magic is not to be toyed with.”

“But I did what you said!” Kiara fell to her knees, too scared and overwhelmed to stand to face him.

“You did not.”

Sindri pointed to the dead wolf pup’s body with a long claw. “You choose an animal. You were told to use a human.”

“But you didn’t say that. You just said ‘virgin’. You never said it had to be a human virgin!” She started crying and Spence crawled to her side to put an arm around her.

“You have caused a great anomaly in the magic. There may be consequences.” He moved his face close to hers. “There should be. I should kill you for what you’ve done.”

“I didn’t mean to do anything bad or trick the magic.” She tried to wipe the tears from her eyes, but they kept coming as she pleaded with him. “I just didn’t want to kill a human, but I wanted Spence to live. I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do something wrong.”

Sindri sat on his back legs and set a paw on each of their heads.

“Please don’t hurt us,” Spence said. “We didn’t know.”

“Quiet!”

They sat still, tears flowing freely down Kiara’s face. Finally, Sindri dropped his paws and stood. “I can feel that you had no malicious intent. You’re lucky. I will spare your lives. But be warned. This is not how the magic is intended to be used. I cannot tell you what might come as a result. I would not take him to the haven. It may not be safe for the others to see him. They may want him dead simply because his existence goes against nature.”

“I won’t.” She was calming down a little now that Sindri had said he’d spare their lives. She was unfamiliar with the magic he’d used to sense their intentions, but grateful for it. Maybe it was something similar to a lie detection spell.

“I can feel the wolf in him,” Sindri said. “It makes him strong. Stronger than you. Too strong.” He turned to Spence. “I suggest you use that strength wisely.”

“I’m so sorry,” Kiara whispered. “I didn’t know.”

Sindri nodded at her. “I know you tell the truth. Do not play with magic, child. You’re lucky it didn’t overtake you and kill you both.”

She nodded again and hung her head.

He gave a final snort, then took off into the night. Spence had been sitting beside her. As soon as Sindri took off, he let out a surprised cry and changed back into wolf-dragon form.

“What are you doing?” she asked, wiping the tears away.

“Oh no. I can’t change back! Why does this keep happening?”

She looked at the light from the moon glittering in his eyes. When Sindri landed he’d blocked the moon with his huge size. Spence had then changed back to human. When Sindri revealed the moon again, wolf-dragon it was. What if there was some truth to the moon thing in all those stories of werewolves?

“Come deeper into the woods,” she said. “I have an idea.”

He followed her into the trees. Once they left the clearing, and the cover of trees was thick enough to block the moon, he changed back.

“What the heck?” he said.

“It’s the moonlight.”

He looked to the moon, then at her. “You think? No.” He got up and walked back to the clearing. As soon as the moon’s light hit him he changed. He came back into the dark of the trees and changed again. “Okay. Well, I guess that’s one side effect.”

She nodded. “That will cause some problems. I guess that’s the price you pay for extra strength and a girlfriend who makes the worst decisions possible. I’m sorry it went like this. I really had no idea. I didn’t think I was tricking the magic. I thought I was just smart to realize he never specified it had to be a human sacrifice. I thought I had done the better thing by not killing someone.”

“You did.” He brought her into his arms and kissed her. “I’m so happy, I can’t even tell you. So what if I need to be careful in the moonlight? Vampires find a way to survive without the sun, werewolves change on a full moon and dragons can’t be seen or people die. We all have our thing.”

“Except that all those creatures don’t exist except dragons.”

“How do you know? If I’m part werewolf and part dragon shifter, then maybe they do.”

“Maybe.” Then a thought came to her. “Oh, no. What if I did kill a person, then? What if the wolf was really just a werewolf who was in wolf form instead of human?”

“No, you didn’t.” He smoothed her hair back. “I told you I can feel the wolf. He’s all wolf. No worries.”

That did bring her some relief. But now what? How did they get him out of the woods without him walking into the moonlight?

“We have to get you to learn the cloaking spell even faster than I did,” she said. “If you can change so easily, you
have
to be able to hide yourself just as easily.”

“Okay. Teach me.”

She turned to walk towards her bag of supplies and the clearing, but he reached out and turned her back to face him.

“Teach me,” he repeated. “Later.”

He kissed her and pulled her down to the ground to land on top of him. “I’m alive and feel better than ever, so right now, while we have the chance, before anything else goes wrong, let’s take care of that one pesky little problem.”

She pulled her lips into a crooked smile. “You mean that pesky virgin problem?”

“That’s the one.” He grinned back. “Eighteen is old enough, don’t you think? No reason to drag it out any longer.”

“Definitely old enough.”

She grinned and kissed him, pressing her hips into him until she felt him harden. They wiggled out of their clothes and right there in the dark of the trees, on piles of leaves, fully surrounded by nature, they made love for the first time.

She grinned and kissed him, enjoying the feel of her body on top of his. She pressed her hips down and felt that he was already hard. She rocked her hips back and forth as he pressed his up to meet her, and she grew hot with desire as his cock rubbed against her. There were too many clothes in the way, though.

The night was warm and she was already getting sweaty as her heart raced. Kiara reached up and pulled her shirt over her head. It was the first time she’d shown anyone her body, even if she was still wearing her bra. Her cheeks grew warmer as he looked up at her.

But then his lips pulled into a flirtatious smile and he reached up to caress her. He squeezed gently and slipped one breast out of the cup of the bra, then the other. He held them gently in his hands, almost unsure what exactly to do with them. She unhooked her bra and slid it off, setting it beside them on a pile of leaves.

He pinched gently at her nipples, watching her face for her reaction. The sensation sent ripples of pleasure through her and she bit her lip, then leaned back down over him so they could resume kissing.

He ran his hands along her back, dragging his nails softly against her skin. She reached under his shirt and felt his strong stomach muscles. His shirt and sweatshirt were gone a minute later and she let her fingers roam over the hard ridges of his stomach.

She was glad he wore sweatpants. It made things much easier than dealing with buttons and zippers. She hesitated for a moment. She’d never actually touched a dick. Or even see one close up for that matter. She slid her hand under his pants and tightened her fingers around his shaft. His back arched and he moaned as she moved her hand up and down, stroking him.

“That feels so good,” he said.

She felt relieved at that, but wished she’d had maybe a little bit of experience before him. Just so she didn’t feel so awkward. What should happen next? Maybe a blowjob? That seemed daunting, but they’d come this far, right?

She pushed down his pants until his dick was free. She slid down and put him into her mouth. She tried to think of what they’d done in the few porn movies she’d watched. She moved her mouth up and down, pressing her tongue against him.

“Ahhh,” he said, moaning, and gripped her shoulder. “Wait a second, stop.”

She looked up at him and let his hard cock fall from her mouth. Had she done something wrong?

“Come here,” he whispered.

She came back to him, kissing him, wondering what had gone wrong.

He kissed along her neck to her ear and whispered, “Sorry, that felt so good. I almost came.”

She wanted to laugh. At least she hadn’t done something wrong, then.

He yanked at her jeans, eager to get them undone. The snap popped open and he pulled down the zipper. But jeans could only push down so far. She had to slip her sneakers off and wiggle out of her pants. Everything about this felt awkward, and she was sure she wasn’t undressing in a way that was anything close to sexy.

She climbed back on top of him, her heart racing now as much from nervousness as from desire. Was it going to hurt?

“Wait a minute.” Spence slid out from under her and pulled up his pants as he went back towards the clearing.

Kiara sat naked in the woods, watching him, tempted to cover herself back up. He grabbed the blanket that he’d been wrapped in and laid it out beside her.

“That’s better,” he said. He slid his pants down and pulled them off with his sneakers.

She scooted over onto the blanket and laid down. He knelt between her knees, gently pushing her legs farther apart. He looked up at her and gulped, then lowered his face to her pussy. He licked her tentatively and when she moved towards him, involuntarily moving towards the pleasurable feeling, he seemed to gain confidence and pressed his tongue harder, flicking at her clit and in between her lips.