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“Enough,” I cut in. The word flew from my lips like a fireball. “Now’s not the time to be bickering.”
Both Maddox and Xavier appeared to pick up on the frustration and anger rising inside me. They were never ones to push back at me.
“Dawn is right. We need to put our heads together on this, or we’ll run out of time,” Xavier said.
Maddox rose from the leather couch with a huff, padding barefoot across the polished wooden floors. The streak of icy-blue scales above his eyebrow glittered under the warm light from the chandelier.
“Where are you going?” I asked, blocking the hall. “We all need to be working on this.”
“Damien, move.”
I flashed back to being a child. To watching over my brothers and sister, playing with them in the yard, and protecting them at school. Being frustrated when they’d excluded me from things, being elated when they succeeded at things. I was there when Maddox turned into his dragon for the first time, a small but snappy thing with frost forming everywhere he stepped.
My mother had been so proud, beaming with joy. It was the moment she realized we would be a rainbow flight—a dragon family with one of every subtype. She took us to our favorite diner that night, where we scarfed down greasy burgers and crispy fries.
“We’ve lost our mother. We’re about to lose our brother. Don’t make me angry, Maddox.”
Dawn took a step toward us. Xavier watched from the other side of the cavernous room, back against the stone wall.
“I’m the one getting angry.” Maddox moved to push past me, but I knocked him back with a shoulder. His eyelids narrowed to slits. “This is just like you. Always thinking you have it all handled. Like you need to take the lead, even when you don’t know shit. How long were you gone flying around the world, huh? Wasted all that time. And you came back empty-taloned.”
Rage bubbled up inside me. My brother knew exactly which wounds to prod at to get a reaction. Always did. My fists balled, and my body filled with heat. If I had to turn into my dragon and tear this entire castle apart, then so be it, as long as Maddox learned his lesson.
Always respect me.
“Boys.” Dawn had her hands out. Electricity started to crackle in the air around her, appearing to create a crown around her short brown head of hair. “Do I need to separate you two?”
The electricity zapped at the back of my neck, causing the hairs to stand up on end. Maddox tipped his lips up into a cocky smile. His square jaw twitched, arms crossed against his chest.
“No,” I said and moved aside. Maddox pushed past, stopping in the arching entry to the hall. I felt the chill roll off him like an invisible cloak. If he wanted, he could cover himself in solid ice. He loved doing that as a kid, pretending to be an ice sculpture before cracking through it and scaring anyone who walked past him.
“Keep wasting time googling shit. I’m going to go figure out what’s actually going on.”
He left, disappearing down the hall, the heavy door to the entrance of our castle slamming shut. The sound reverberated through the space, echoing through the wide room.
“He’s just going through it,” Dawn said, a gentle hand falling on my shoulder. “Don’t get too upset at him.”
I wasn’t upset at Maddox. I was angry at myself. I’d dropped the ball. Everything Madds said was true: I had wasted time, chased dead ends, and failed at saving our mother. Now I was facing the very real possibility of failing my little brother.
“Snap out of it, Damien,” Xavier said. “I can already see you spiraling. Don’t. Let’s just focus on figuring this out, alright?”
I rubbed at the bridge of my nose, shut my eyes.
A smile flashed across my vision. Charming. Slightly naive. Toothy.
Pushing aside all my frustration and disappointment, I asked a simple question. “Why him?”
“Hmm?” Dawn asked, head cocked. “Who?”
“The guy at the shop. Robby. The vampires were clearly after him, which is interesting timing considering everything that’s going on. They could have killed him in the blink of an eye, but they didn’t. Why? What did they want with him?”
“Maybe he’s got a past,” Xavier suggested.
Dawn nodded, going back to the love seat, her laptop perched on the edge of the coffee table. “He could have crossed them at some point.”
“It didn’t seem like that.” The anger still simmered inside me but was quickly being pushed aside. Bottled up.
Xavier agreed with a nod. “They brought up the prophecy… and, I don’t know, did it seem like they wanted to kill him or capture him to you? Maybe turn him?”
My brother posed a good question. Vampires had a special venom in their blood and fangs that allowed them to turn others. One could either drink a vampire’s blood before death and turn by choice, or they could be bitten shortly after death and be reawakened as a vampire by force—but only non-magic using humans were vulnerable. Shifters, dragons, Marvels, we all had immunity to their bite and blood.
