Henchgirl (Dakota Kekoa Book 1) (16 page)

It was so obvious; I had to have been obtuse to miss it.

I did not know that much about it, but what I did know was that in the dracon world if a ruler offered you their protection for a period of time, they needed to prove to your usual protector that they could defend you.

I had only ever seen it once before specifically, and the custom was carried out a lot more formally. When a potential wife for my grandfather planned to visit the island, my grandfather sent an escort of seven of his most powerful soldiers. Only when her half-dragon-grandfather approved of the bodyguards was she then allowed to travel to us; my grandfather did not even like that lady in the end, but he carried out every formality.

If I was right, this meant a couple things: that Wyvern considered himself Honua’s protector and that he tested Keanu and approved of him as protection for Honua.

Which meant… in Wyvern’s eyes, Keanu failed that protection. Failing to protect a family member of another leader when you promised them your protection was about as serious an offense as you could commit to a half-dragon.

Just to confirm my theory, I asked, “At the beach, you were testing Keanu’s ability to protect Honua?”

Wyvern screeched the little rental car ten feet from the Hale’s front gate. He turned his gaze on me inhumanly fast, his eyes looked back lit and I could almost see his careful restraint cracking.

He closed his eyes and breathed slowly, in and out, his features pacifying, as if they were melting down into calm. I felt his soul; it was pulsing like a giant balloon filled to the point where if you just brushed against its surface, it would burst. After a few seconds he said, “I need to get out of the car here, you drive in and—”

“I don’t know how to drive a stick shift,” I interrupted.

“You need to run then,” he said, his eyes still closed and his voice a forced calm. “Hurry. I can’t hold on for much longer, maybe—” he swallowed, “Maybe, ten minutes. If you can’t rush Honua to me in that time, find her and get underground.”

As I fished my charm bracelet from my purse, I asked, “What happens in ten minutes?”

His eyelids opened slowly and he met my gaze with a pulse of power that threw me back in my seat. “In ten minutes,” he said, “I lose control.”

Chapter Nine

Leaving the passenger door ajar, I sprinted to the closed gate at the Hale’s driveway entrance. The metal of the gate was a twisted design and it took two tries to jump to the top of the gate, then one heck of a pull up to throw my leg over it. Climbing over the top, I jumped down, turned around and then immediately broke into a sprint up the private road.

On average, I run a six-minute, thirty-second mile. I know this because Glacier timed me running for at least three consecutive miles after school daily. I could probably do a quicker sprint if I was not in this dress, so I mentally cut four minutes off my deadline, just to be safe.

I knew that I needed these wasted minutes to strategize, but I could not stop mentally beating myself up for how stupid I had been. If Honua and Wyvern stood next to each other, on looks alone, anyone would assume that they were siblings. It was not just their hair and complexions, it was their faces, their every feature was similar.

I had just made the assumption that every idiot makes; that because Honua was human, everyone she was related to was also. I, of all people, knew better. But when Honua mentioned she had a brother that saw me at the Midnight Club, it did not even occur to me that the brother could have been one of the supernatural creatures in the club, let alone, the most powerful one in there.

She must have shown him my school picture or something; at the club, I thought for some weird reason he had recognized me but I dismissed it as improbable.

Thinking of what that dragon I met today had done to Honua’s mother, made me want to curl up and cower. Occasionally, dragons seduced human women they thought were strong enough to birth a live half-dragon, all the while knowing that these humans would die in childbirth. It was astonishing that his mother survived birthing Wyvern, and unheard of, that her reproductive system endured to birth anything else, even a human.

Most full-dragons preferred mostly-human dracon, like me and my sisters, who could survive a birth and increase the baby half-dragon’s power. Dracons, though, were protected by families and there were rules that had to be followed for courtship.

As my feet slapped the pavement all the evidence kept slapping me in the face, Honua’s deformation, Wyvern’s anger that I was pretending to be human… it all added up, and I had just been too stupid to do the math.

The Hales’ mansion was lit with outside lights shining from palm trees, giving the effect that the palm trees were lit themselves. The building showed little sign of the party that was going on inside, I only knew there were still people having a good time inside by a low hum of chatter and a couple shouted words. A small crowd waited outside, they were cast in dramatic shadows, but even before I neared the group, I knew who waited. In the crowd were Keanu, Auli, and Mele. Mele ran out to meet me, but doubled back when I did not slow to meet her.

“Who is that guy?” Auli demanded before I had even stopped. She yelled it like she knew exactly who he was, and confirmed it as she said, “You know him? He broke Hunter’s arm in three places.” Actually, it was the dracon woman that did that, but I did not have time to argue with her.

Mele was more out of breath than I was when she stopped beside me.

Everyone started talking at once. Keanu was saying how happy he was I was here, Mele started going on about who she questioned about Honua’s disappearance, right as Auli shouted, “What is he doing here?”

“Everyone shut up!” I said in a tone that made everyone do just that. They even kept quiet as I peered behind my shoulder to where Wyvern was, as he stood at the edge of the bridge just before the water ward. His white hair reflected the light as he stared directly at us.

I turned back to the group, “That guy back there is Honua’s brother. He’s a half-dragon—”

“You led him straight to us?” Auli said.

“He kidnapped me,” I lied, “He took me here and said I had ten minutes to get Honua out. We need to get everyone out, then search the mansion in groups.”

I started for the open doors of the mansion, but Auli jumped into my path.

“We’ve searched everywhere,” she said. “She’s not anywhere. We’ve even combed the grounds, it’s been two hours. She probably just left when no one was looking. You should go—”

“We need to do another search.”

“She’s not here!” Auli screamed over my shoulder and toward the gate. “We have looked everywhere!” Then to me she yelled, “You need to get that dracon and get out of here!”

“Shut up, Auli,” Mele said, grabbing Auli by the arm. It was good Mele grabbed her, because I really wanted to smack Auli.

“If we tell him she’s not here, maybe he’ll go away,” Auli yelled.

“Keanu, I need your help organizing the people inside,” I said.

“Of course, anything,” Keanu said, his fingers brushed my lower back.

I tried to walk around Auli but she held out her hand and pushed me. I let her push me, deciding this was the wrong time to break her arm.

She yelled into my face, “You don’t get it-”

“No you don’t get it!” I yelled at her. “That thing—” I pointed at Wyvern, “Thinks Keanu promised Honua his protection, and failed. Do you know what that means?” I leaned back into Keanu’s hand. “It means he’s going to kill Keanu.”

Keanu’s hand stiffened on my back. He stepped up to look down at me, hitting me with a full blast of his beauty. His looks might be unearthly in his own way, but there was nothing cold or unreachable about him. Just looking at him, I felt calmer, which maybe was not a good thing.

Auli grabbed my arm, yelling into my face while Mele yelled back at Auli.

“We are wasting time,” I said.

Keanu grabbed me and shouldered past his sister, pulling me into the house. Walking into a party through people talking, laughing and standing around, felt like the most surreal thing of the night.

“Where have you been, bra?” Hunter said laughing, as he did something between a run and a stumble up to us as we descended from the foyer. He waved his casted arm around. “Oh, hey, Da-ko-ta. Welcome to the party, you look really dressed up,” Hunter said, then added, “But nice.”

“Listen up!” Keanu yelled, calling the attention of the crowd.

“Come do a keg stand, bra!” some jock called back at Keanu.

“Not right now. The party is moving outside-”

“To the basement,” I said in his ear. We did not have time for outside; we did not even have time to search.

“Never mind. Everyone, head down to the keg in my basement!” Keanu said, getting one drunk guy to cheer. The crowd moved out.

Keanu leaned down to my ear, “Would this be a bad time to tell you that you look so sexy in your dress?”

Even with everything, my insides squirmed. “Yeah,” I responded, “But thanks.” I looked him over. Honestly, though I spent five years studying him, I barely knew him, even with the near constant flirting we had been doing while tutoring other people in the library. But it did not take time for me to know that Keanu was someone… I don’t know how to put it, someone I wanted to exist.

“Come on,” Keanu said, his hand pushing against my lower back. “I’ll show you the bathroom where she disappeared.”

“We’re out of time,” I said, because I knew we were. “Go with the others down to the basement.”

“I should probably show you… and my sister,” he said, head turning back to the front.

“Go get them,” I said. “Get them into the basement, I’ll meet you there. Just point the way to the bathroom.”

After giving me directions, Keanu ran back up into the foyer, I could not help noticing that he did not look stupid when he ran, not at all.

A blaring alarm rang throughout the house. The house filled with screams, so many screams. And a rush of people, people who I thought we had sent to safety, came running out of the basement.

A girl called, “What’s going on?”

Most of the screamers were running, fleeing in all directions, especially toward the front entrance.

I allowed myself one second to hope that the alarm had sounded because Wyvern hit the wards and knocked himself out. I ran against the crowd, throwing open closet and bedroom doors trying to find the bathroom.

“Dakota!” some girl called for me, but I ignored her.

“Dakota!” Missy yelled now only feet from me. “Dakota! I just saw…that thing…it’s changing into…I don’t know!” Makeup streamed down her face as she sobbed.

What was I doing? I wasn’t going to find Honua in the time I had; and I had completely failed at getting the humans to safety in the basement. This situation was about as out of control as a situation could get.

“Okay,” I said, “Go in the basement, hide, I’ll get the others.”

When I exited the Hale house, I found that Auli, Mele, Juliette and Keanu had not fled, they stood staring transfixed at the front gate.

The palm-trees that glowed in a straight line up to the front created a strange tropical frame for the horrific transformation that was happening just beyond that gate. Where Wyvern had stood just minutes before, was a contorting, changing shape. He was gleaming white, and growing, bigger and bigger, reptilian skin stretching, claws emerging. It was foul in the way only dragon magic could be.

No one moved or spoke, we all just watched as the creature grew and grew, towering over the palm trees, towering over everything. When its growth stopped it expanded, up and down, taking in labored breaths. Its head rose from the mess of limbs, it was impossibly big, bigger than my aunt Milda’s rental car. Its features were reptilian and such a luminescent white they could have been carved from opal.

It was not possible… he had transformed into a full-dragon. But I knew for a fact Wyvern was only a half-dragon…

Seeming to sort out its tangled body, the dragon stretched out one giant white bat-like wing. Fumbling to its feet, or talons, the dragon revealed another wing that had been crumpled beneath it. The dragon had no arms really, just wings with claws at their ends.

“Oh my gods, he’s a full dragon,” Mele said under her breath, inches from me. I had no idea I was standing so close to her.

“Mele,” I said, turning, “Get everyone you can and go to the basement.”

“I’ll go if you do,” she said, not taking her eyes off the dragon.

“It can’t come in here, it can’t hurt us,” Auli shouted.

All the people who had not run, just stood there, watching and silent.

I had a glimmer of hope that maybe my uncles had tracked me, but the hope died a quick death when I remembered that I was in a magical dead zone. If they had a witch tracking me, I would have gone off the radar a while ago. If they knew where I was, they would be at that gate already.

I examined the group I stood with. Among the people who did not run was Ophelia, who was crying nearby as Juliette held her. Keanu stood a little way off with Auli and Hunter flanking him. Mele stood by my side, close enough for me to grab her hand. And I realized, all my friends were minutes from dying.

Another thought flashed across my mind, a selfish, cold fear, but it was mine all the same: if everyone that knew and cared about me as a human died, I would only be a dracon.

I never thought about how important my pretense of humanity was to me before and I did not want to lose it.

The dragon seemed to regain its strength, its breaths less visible in its heaving body, it raised up its wings and with one powerful thrust downward it took to the air. Its legs were shaped like something between an eagle’s talons and the hind legs of a crocodile. The talons from his three toes were longer than its scaly flesh covered legs. My guess would be that it wasn’t a good mover on the ground, not that it needed to be, but it was a possible exploitable weakness.

The real danger was its tail, about the same length as its body and tipped with a harpoon like spike.

The dragon screeched long and loud. My hands pressed over my ears, but the sound still slipped through my fingers; it was an ancient sound, a sound older and more primal than humanity remembered. A sound that made you want to curl up with a spear, hidden in a cave, hoping that the terrors of the night would not come in after you and would evaporate with the dawn.