AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her eyes darted between the two of them so fast it made her dizzy. “You can’t be serious,” she huffed in total disbelief. “I don’t have anything anyone would want.” Which was one thousand percent the truth. Gwen was nothing special. Had nothing special. She was literally one of the most boring people she knew. No one would be hunting her.
“You are of magick,” her shadow man said with such chill she winced. “That is why they want you.”
Gwen’s mouth fell open, her brain unable to form coherent words. She wanted the firm hold of reality. Craved for them to tell her this was all just a vivid dream. Or a joke. Something. Anything.
Barith cleared his throat again. “I’m sure it’s a lot to take in,” he added. “But you heard Bridgette. She said you could trust us. We wouldn’t have a reason to lie to you.”
Gwen forced air in and out of her lungs, knowing if she didn’t she’d pass out. She needed somewhere to sit. Why wasn’t there anywhere to sit? “I don’t even know you,” she huffed.
“That’s true,” Barith conceded, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck, “but we did just save you. That should count for something?”
She started pacing back and forth, dredging a path in the overgrown grass, holding the sides of her face in her hands. “Save me?” she eventually shrieked. “Thirty minutes ago, I was sitting in my apartment, and everything was fine…”
Barith took a breath in to say something, but she continued, “Then you showed up, and my apartment was blown to pieces, by some guy—with wings!—and now…” Her voice was getting more and more shrill with each word. “Now, I’m apparently standing in the middle of a garden, in London, all because you’re under the delusion that I have magickal powers?”
Gwen stopped her rant to pant wildly, the cool air stinging her straining throat and lungs. Neither said a thing. They both just stared at her. “This is insane!”
“It’s the truth, and your reality,” her shadow man replied flatly. “The sooner you come to terms with it, the easier it will be for you.”
She cocked her head back as if he’d smacked her in the face. Partially because of what he’d said, and partially because of the frosty way in which he’d said it. His voice was laced with some slight accent she’d only just now noticed. Of everything, he was what she was struggling with the most. Her dream turned reality. He was beyond anything she could have imagined. The question slid out on a shallow breath: “Who are you?”
His body tensed, those muscles in his jaw and neck tightening. A chill slithered up her back. Gwen didn’t think he was going to answer her, but then he said it, stark and unnerving: “Sirus.”
A vibration of electricity rippled over every inch of her. Sirus. He had a name.
Gwen felt like she was being swallowed by a black hole. A black hole that had led her to some backward Wonderland. Only there were no white rabbits with pocket watches. Instead, she had two sword-wielding warriors.
There was a sudden rush of air as a pair of scaled, gold-red wings spread out wide at Barith’s back, glimmering in the faint light of dawn. Gwen froze, the tension in her body evaporating along with every thought in her brain. “Why don’t we start over,” he offered with a glistening smile warm enough to melt an iceberg. “I’m Barith, and I’m a dragon. Well, not exactly a dragon like you’re used to—I like to think we’re more catlike than lizard, but I guess it depends on who ye ask.”
Her eyes were transfixed on his wings. They were huge and coated in scales a mixture of red and gold that shimmered like fire. It was beyond anything she could have ever thought possible. Then his tail appeared. Little bumped red spikes ran along the top to a pointed end. She might have said something if she could have formed words. Instead, she only managed a sad little squeak.
“And this one,” Barith went on, pointing his thumb at Sirus, “is a vampire. But I try not to hold that against him. Though you can, if you like,” he added with a glint of humor.
A consuming chill ran from Gwen’s scalp to the tips of her fingers and the pads of her feet. Her eyes drifted from the shimmering wings to meet Sirus’s frost-filled gaze. Miss Jones’s voice also crept into her thoughts. Vampire. That’s what she’d called him too.
It wasn’t possible. Was it?
Gwen took him in. He felt like a predator. Sirus’s very essence screamed dangerous. Gwen had felt it in the pit of her stomach when he’d stepped out of the darkness in her apartment, like he was a wolf cornering her in the forest. It had made every hair on her body stand up. Yet she believed him when he said he would keep her safe. Without question, she trusted this dangerous man. This—vampire. Her stomach flopped, and she fought the urge to double over again.
“A vampire?” she managed to croak.
“Yes,” Sirus confirmed. There was no hesitation. No emotion. It was simply a fact.
Her heart lurched into her throat, and a small, manic huff followed. It hadn’t seemed so overwhelming when she’d thought she was dreaming. Now…now all those chills and uneasy sensations and urges to run away like a frightened animal settled over her with a newfound understanding. A cannonball lodged in her gut, nearly dragging her to the ground.
“So you’re a vampire?” she confirmed in a hollow voice she didn’t recognize. Her eyes shifted to Barith. “And you’re a dragon?”
Barith’s smile widened, showing off dazzling, perfect teeth. His wings flapped lightly at his back. “That’s right, luv.”
Gwen drifted to stare at a spot along the ivy-covered brick wall behind them. “I’ve lost my mind,” she muttered to herself but definitely loud enough for both of them to hear. Neither said a damned thing. She plopped down on the grass, unable to hold herself up under the weight of it all, not caring that her butt was getting soaked. She dropped her head into her hands.
Her insides felt like they were coiled into a giant, tangled knot that could never be undone. She was struggling to make sense of all of this, but she knew it wasn’t a dream. No matter how much she wished it were. She’d touched him. Seen him. Knew his name. After all those weeks he’d haunted her dreams, here he was, standing in front of her. A supposed vampire.
It was too much. Not enough. She wanted to scream.
“I’m sure it feels that way, but you’ve not,” Barith said delicately. “It’s all real. We’re real.” She glanced up, and he flapped his wings. “These are real too,” he added with warm grin.
Her eye twitched as the wings glistened in the dawn light. “How?” she stammered, her pragmatic brain hungrily searching for something to cling to. “How is it possible? Any of this?”
