Vampire Secrets: Book 2 (Blood and Snow Season Two) (5 page)

Zoe’s face turned white as a newly bleached sheet. “I have to get back.” She shimmered and vanished.

I gasped. “Where’d she go?”

“Back to Sharra,” Peter said, slumping onto the couch.

“Sharra?” I sat next to him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “What do you mean?” Even as I asked I knew. The reason Zoe’s touch had felt so familiar, the reason I had such a connection with Peter and Zoe was that somehow Peter and Zoe were actually my mom and dad. Snow and Dorian. “I can’t believe it.” I went to the door and pulled it open. They’d deceived me. My parents thought it was a good idea to turn themselves into teenaged kids again and meddle in my life. It was the most awful thing parents could ever do. It was weird enough to think they’d ever been teenagers, but the fact that they were doing it again . . .

“I need to go for a walk.”

Peter stood and looked ready to say something.

Laeddin had taken a step toward me too.

I put a hand up. “By myself. Alone.”

Laeddin nodded. “Be safe, Princess.”

Chapter 3

When I reached the end of the drive I debated whether to go left or right. Right meant I would walk onto Professor Pops’ huge circular driveway. There wasn’t anyplace else to go after that.

Left meant I could walk around the neighborhood. That was what I needed. But I couldn’t make my legs move that way. My heart kept urging me to go right. I wanted to see Professor Pops. Maybe even Troy. They were good friends.

“Hey “.”

My heart jumped. The voice came from above. I looked up and saw Troy sitting on one of the larger tree branches quite high up, his legs dangling over the edge.

“Hey,” I returned, wondering what he was doing up there. Before I got the chance to ask, he jumped. I was momentarily frightened for him, until he landed with a thud. There was a huge smirk on his face.

“I’ll bet you ten bucks and a ride on my back that you need some time alone with me.” He straightened. I had to tilt my head to see his face.

I snorted. “A ride on your back, huh? Sounds lame.” I took a couple of steps down the sidewalk to the left. It took a lot of effort. I didn’t want to walk away. Honestly, I hoped he stopped me. Yeah, I was playing games. Total teenager thing to do.

“Jack, you have no idea.”

I stopped. “Like a piggy-back ride?” I asked, curious about why he would suggest a ride on his back.

He shrugged. “I guess that could be fun, but I was thinking more along the lines of a dragon-back ride.” He winked, his eyes sparkling in the moonlight. It was then that I realized no one had ever told me what Troy was. Too much had been going on. All of it revolving around me. Gah!

“You’re a dragon?” I asked, not bothering to hide my shock. Of all the creatures I’d imagined that wasn’t one of them.

“Correct.” He took several steps into the darkness near the tree trunk. “Wait here a moment,” he whispered.

I did
, excited about the prospect of flying.

Flying.

Oh. My. Goodness. I was going to get to fly again. My heart rate sped up. I heard the jangling of a belt buckle. “Are you getting undressed?” I asked, without thinking.

“Yeah
, did you want to watch, Jack?”

My whole body got hot. “No. No thank you.” I waited a few minutes, my arms crossed
over my body in nervous anticipation.

“Come here,” Troy said.

“You decent?”

“Enough.”

I went into the shadow of the large tree and caught my first glance of Troy. I was surprised. Pleasantly surprised. “You’re awesome,” I said, carefully stepping closer. His wings beat the air, causing leaves that should’ve fallen long ago to swirl about us. Some landed in my hair and I brushed them out.

Troy shook his head
too, sending a few stray leaves to their doom. A puff of smoke curled from his nose. “Thanks.”

“Can I touch you?” I reached out a hand
curiously, wanting to know what his scales felt like, whether they were cold or warm, smooth or rough.

He
responded with s quick snap of his sharp teeth. I screamed, pulling my hand back like he’d actually bitten me.

Troy laughed. “Sorry. Dragon humor.
It won’t happen again.”

I smiled. “Funny.” In the dark it was impossible to tell what color his scales were. They looked
black, as did his eyes and his wings. Troy lay down, curling his tail around his body. “Climb on.”

I stepped toward him
and then stopped. “Um, how? I don’t want to hurt you.”

He chuckled. “Unless you’re a lot heavier than you look
I’ll be fine.” He flicked his tail slightly. “You can use my tail as a stepstool.”

“Okay.” I carefully stepped
up and then lifted my body on his back. His scales were smooth and warm, but not hot. Only a few degrees hotter than human body temperature. When I was all the way on, I situated my knees so that they were around his neck, out of the way of his wings. I looked for a place to hold on and placed my hands under two of his scales. “Aren’t you afraid that you’ll be spotted? Like on satellites and stuff?”

Troy stepped out from the trees’ shadow and then leapt into the air. I yelped at the sudden rush. Held on tight. I didn’t want to
fall off.

“To answer your question, no, I don’t
worry about satellites. Magic surrounds my dragon form and magic trumps human science any day.” He beat his wings in one giant motion, heading higher and higher. The air became thinner and colder. It was a sensation I wasn’t accustomed to. As a vampire I hadn’t experience extreme temperatures. I was feeling it now though. I clamped my mouth shut, not wanting Troy to hear my teeth chattering.

It looked like we were going to fly to the moon. Troy opened his wings wide
and the light allowed me to see that Troy’s dragon scales were bronze, like the color of a new penny. His wings were light copper and the tips were silver. He’d been awesome in the dark, but in the moonlight? His tail meandered behind him like a giant snake and his wings, like those of a giant bat, beat against the night air. He was amazing.

A giggle snuck out of me. It w
as the happiest I’d felt in more than a month.

“Ready to have some fun?”
Troy’s head whipped around so I could see one dark eye. He winked.

“Sure. If you think you can have fun,” I said in mock sarcasm.

“Psssssh. Hang on tight.” He tucked his wings close to his sides and then spun us in a tight spiral, like a
rocket shooting from Earth.

The feeling was amazing and I laughed. “More.”

He pulled us out of the spiral and then popped his wings. Like a kite caught in a sudden wind burst, we shot upward and then just floated. Where a moment ago we’d been going fast as lighting now we coasted, a bronze cloud in the night sky. It was nice. Relaxing. I knew I’d missed flying but until that moment I didn’t realize how much.

Without thinking I rested my head against the top of his, closing my eyes, savoring the sensation.
There was something like a humming deep within his body, almost like purring.

“This is nice,” Troy said, after we’d been floating a while.

“It is,” I agreed, taking a deep, cleansing breath. “Exactly what I needed.”

“Tough day?” he asked.

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“I wouldn’t know where to begin.” I let my hands droop on either side of his neck.

“Just spit it out.”

“Let’s see.
Maleficent ripped the very essence of who I am away when she took my wings. Drake and his gross buddy tried to hurt me after school. Then an elf woman showed up and killed Drake, like right in front of me. The guy I thought I really cared about is sweet, but we kissed…” I paused, remembering. It’d been wonderful, better than I’d ever imagined my first kiss could be. 

“You and Laeddin kissed? Isn’t he like a thousand
years old or something?”

I smacked Troy on his scaly face. “Yeah, but it isn’t like that. It’s… Never mind,” I huffed.

“Anything else?”

“Yeah. The elf
lady told me that the Mistress is out to get me and the people I thought were my friends are actually my parents.” At that, I shuddered. I still couldn’t wrap my mind about it. The whole idea that they had disguised themselves to stay close to me so they could keep tabs on me was creepy and way too over protective.

Troy growled. “I’m glad you finally know. It was weird that I couldn’t tell you.”

“You knew?” I asked, surprised.

“Yeah, I kind of found out when I overheard Grand Pops talking with them
right after Laeddin brought you back. When I confronted them about it, they told me the truth. I wanted to tell you right away. It’s wrong when adults think they need to keep secrets. In fact it pisses me off.” He snarled and fire came out of his mouth.

“It sounds like you’ve had some personal experience. Want to tell me about it?”

He groaned.

“You don’t have to. It’s just I’ve noticed lately that you haven’t been yourself. Not since you and Professor Pops got back from wherever the two of you went.”

“We went to Utah to help a friend. While we were there, my brother Cole was…” Troy paused. I waited, feeling that he needed some time with his thoughts.

We coasted
, heading toward the ocean. The air changed the closer we got. Troy took us along the shore and I listened to the waves, enjoying the salty water spray and the smell of the brine and sand.

After several long minutes Troy finally spoke. “Cole was sucked into another realm. I wanted to go after him
, find a way to bring him home. But Grand Pops isn’t letting me, mainly because my father won’t let him let me.”

“Which of the seven brothers is your father?” I was curious why Snow hadn’t told me one of them was a dragon. Or maybe the dragon in Troy came from his mom’s side of the family
?

Troy let out another trail of fire. “My father is a dragon by the name of Abernathy, not that he’s ever given a crap about me.”

Whoa. I’d heard of Abernathy. Of course. My mom had only good things to say about him. “Oh,” was all I said.

“Exactly. Without Grand Pops I would’ve been killed or worse.
He has given me a home, a place to live, a family, and a purpose. But I was kind of lonely. Until Cole showed up. We clicked right away. And now that he’s gone I can’t sleep, I can barely eat, and I sure as hell have zero tolerance for stupid high school bullshit, if you catch my meaning.”

I swallowed. Cole sounded like a brother as well as a friend to Troy. “I’m sorry, Troy.”

“Me too. It’s killing me not to do something to find him. The only thing that’s helped is going out Akuma hunting with Peter and Zoe. Without that I might have gone insane and eaten the local villagers.”

I chuckled bitterly.

“But enough about me. What about you? How can we solve your problems?”

I crossed my hands on Troy’s head and rested my chin on them. “No idea. And I think t
hat’s what has me so irritated. I’m the one who made the wish to be like a normal teenager. I’m the one who wanted to come into the human world. Now that I am like a normal teenaged girl, I feel sick. I feel…”

“What?” Troy urged.

“Wrong.” Tears pricked my lashes, but I didn’t let them fall. Instead I cleared my throat and went on. “And as much as I disliked Drake, I didn’t want him to die. But he did, and there’s no way to bring him back. With the Mistress woman, I don’t know who she is or what she wants. Other than to kill me or some nonsense. The thing with Laeddin isn’t even worth discussing. I don’t know what that man wants. And my parents?” I snorted in frustration. “What can I say about that situation?”

Troy began flying us inland, back to Salem. I watched the houses and
cars and people flit by almost as though we were in a dream. “Here’s what I’m thinking, if you want my two cents?”

“Yes, please.”

“Do you know where Maleficent is?”

“No. Laeddin has gone back to his realm several times. When he returns it’s always the same. No one has seen her. No one knows where she is. It’s like she disappeared. And trust me, if a woman with a
creepy staff and
my
wings were flying around, his people would notice.”

“Agreed. So let’s put a talon in that. Finding her is a priority, but since we don’t know where to start, we’ll focus on something else.”

“I guess.”

Troy went on, “
We know the Mistress is connected to the Akuma, so why don’t you come hang with us every night? Sooner or later one of them is going to know something.”

That reminded me of the one hundred and eleven days until total darkness. I told Troy my thoughts on the subject. “I think it’s possible the darkness is connected to the Akuma and the Mistress. We’ll
have to hypothesize that it does because I don’t know what else we can do.”