Henchgirl (Dakota Kekoa Book 1) (29 page)

They stayed in a tense silence, and I realized the side of me that did not want to know what it all meant was much bigger than the side that did.

I said, “I think I’ve figured out who Wyvern is, I just need you to confirm a few things for me…”

“Of course,” Clara said after a silence, maybe knowing I needed to talk it out rather than be told.

“When his father was there and I was out of my mind from first encountering his soul… Bobby pushed me down into a deep bow, didn’t he?” I asked.

“Yes,” Clara said.

I had just been so out of it, I had not realized.

“Everyone bowed like that?”

“Yes?”

“And dracon only bow like that for the four highest kings and the High Queen of the dragons. So, Wyvern isn’t really his name is it, it’s his title?”

“It’s both,” Glacier said. “His father is Wyvern Rex, High King of all Wyverns.”

Wyvern was a common enough name for dracons, it was like the equivalent of Michael for a human, I did not think anything of it. Supposedly, there were as many wyvern-dragons in the Dragon Kingdoms as all the other races of dragons combined; this made the Wyvern Rex the most powerful dragon after the High Queen of all dragons.

And the High Queen was infertile…

“Wyvern is also titled Wyvern Rex, as his father’s newly crowned proxy in the outer world,” Glacier said.

“Wyvern is the ‘boy rex’?” I asked.

“I would not call him that to his face, but yes he is,” Glacier said.

“No wonder he’s such an ass! No wonder he just goes around stealing stuff. This all makes a horrible kind of sense. I...” I paused, “I suggested he offer me his protection because I could not really refuse his offer to be his tour guide, but if I was hanging around him all the time, I would definitely draw his father’s attention. For some reason you and Grandfather were working really hard to avoid that, so I thought…if I drew the dragon’s attention Wyvern would be bound to deal with it. All I wanted to do was to avoid making myself and the rest of you guys targets,” I said, sighing.

“We weren’t just trying to keep you from the dragon’s attention,” Glacier said. “This is my fault; I should have let Glenda teach you.”

“I don’t think there is any disaster extreme enough for that to be true,” I said.

“Aunt Glenda is a hard teacher,” Clara said. “But she did teach us about contracts very early in our training.”

“Okay, I can’t handle this anymore, what is a contract?”

“Well…” Clara hesitated, “When a dracon leader thinks that he has found a dracon that he might be interested in for a potential wife he—”

I made a loud sound like, “Pah!”

Clara touched my arm and continued, “—he offers her his protection. At this point, her family has the opportunity to test the dracon to see if he is a fit protector, if he is, she accepts and they enter into a contract. The woman is supposed to give the dracon leader a period of time, usually it is no longer than a year for him to prove to her and her family that he can protect her and provide for her. The man can break the contract at any time, but the woman and her family can only end the contract at the end of the chosen time period or if her family can prove that the dracon cannot protect the woman. At the end of the time period and on the specific date that she gives him that the contract ends, she and the family decide whether or not to accept the marriage.”

“But I did not give him an end date…” I said, my head falling into my palms.

“Which was the most irresponsible decision that you have ever made,” Glacier said. “That is why you’re going into hiding.”

I swallowed and said, “Going into hiding? I can’t…go into hiding…”

“There are only a specific number of ways a family can prove that a dracon leader is unfit protection, one of them is if the dracon cannot find the woman for a six hour period, he is proven an unfit protector and the contract can then be broken.”

“Why would he do this to me? I’ve known him for like three days! I’m sixteen! What a freaking psycho!”

Then the most horrible idea occurred to me. What if this was my fault? What if when I pushed my soul into him and his soul sank into mine, I bonded us in some irreversible way? What if now he was acting on some soul-instinct that told him that we should really be together? What if I could not fix it?

I should have just let him eat me.

If he was acting this way because of some soul connection, though, wouldn’t I be feeling it too? And, the tingle thing aside, I didn’t. Sure, he was amazingly hot and I could not help but react to that, but I felt that way with other guys too…one being Keanu.

Or more likely…

“He’s just screwing with us,” I said, bitterly. “Wyvern thinks he’s the king of the world and grandfather told him to stay away from me. He wasn’t looking at me when he was saying all those things at dinner, he was looking at grandfather. He’s just making his point: that no one can say ‘no’ to him. The moment he makes his point, he’s going to drop me like the piece of trash that he and his friends think I am and the rest of our family is.”

Clara’s hand fell away, and I quickly amended, “Except for Braiden, thank the Gods he’s the one with a summer home. He not only doesn’t seem like a snob, he also seems to have good taste in women.”

A little ‘sucking-up’ sounding, but I was glad I said it when I looked back to see Clara smiling into her lap.

“Honestly Glacier, challenging Wyvern more by hiding me from him, is only going to make him fight harder to win this little game he’s playing. If you just leave it alone, he will get tired of me and drop me in a day. He’s just a bored mega-rich snob. He probably pulls this stuff all the time. He would never consider marrying me in a thousand years.”

“You’re a more suitable match for him than you know and he’s discovered it—he’s coming,” Glacier said.

I spun around, but did not see anything. We were on a long deserted road with cane fields on each side and it was pitch-black aside from what the headlights hit.

“How do you know?” I said.

Then there was a flash of something white and huge and it landed in front of us.

Glacier slammed on the breaks. And my hands hit the dashboard, stinging my palms. Thankfully, we all had our seatbelts on; because the van broke so suddenly we each went surging forward in our seat.

We all let out our breath as the van finally stopped sliding forward.

The white dragon crouched in front of us. From what I’ve read, wyverns weren’t the stockiest or the physically strongest dragons, they weren’t even the most capable as they did not have arms or real hands like many of the other dragon races. Besides that, they were by far the most numerous of dragons, the reason they were the most powerful dragon race in all of the dragon kingdoms was because they were the fastest and had the sharpest claws and teeth.

The headlight’s glare reflected off of all of the dragon’s scales, teeth and claws. The dragon was probably twenty-five feet tall, and twice that in width. It moved and suddenly the windshield was filled with the side of its giant white reptilian face. The gaze of its bulbous eye was fixed on me.

The dragon stayed for a long minute and then it pulled its head back.

Glacier backed up and turned the van around. He started driving back the way we came.

Turning in my seat, I saw the dragon push off, then fly into the air.

“Where are we going?” I asked as I craned my neck to see the sky above the windshield. There was Wyvern, about twenty feet above us, flying parallel with the car.

“Back to your grandfather’s,” Glacier said, “We lost this round.”

“I seriously think I’m right and that if you keep playing this like a game, Wyvern will stay interested. Just let him have the time he supposedly wants to spend with me and you know he’ll be catching the next plane out of here,” I said, still watching him fly above me.

“Oh, Dakota, don’t talk about yourself so negatively,” Clara said.

Glacier’s soul was a tightly held coil of nerves that could snap at any moment.

“I’ll be extra annoying to him, I promise,” I said.

“You do that,” he said.

“Nothing I do better,” I said.

Chapter Seventeen

Glacier pulled the van to a stop outside my grandfather’s house and immediately the dragon landed beside us.

“Is he going to attack us?” I asked, though what I meant was ‘is he going to attack you’?

“No, the family and he are in a temporary alliance until the cancellation of the contract,” Glacier said.

That might be good, I did not really know. Looking out the window I saw that Wyvern’s beautiful suit was strewn over the parking lot near the dragon’s feet, probably ruined.

“Clara,” Glacier said, “You and I will reenter the house, Dakota you will stay.”

Clara grabbed my arm.

“I’m fine Clara. I don’t think it will be a big deal,” I lied.

“Come, Clara, now,” Glacier said.

Clara opened the minivan sliding door and gave me one fretful look, before they both walked quickly back up to my grandfather’s house.

Stepping out of the van, I looked at the dragon Wyvern had turned into. So he was terrifying, I dealt with terrifying monsters all the time. This one was just a little bigger and might have some sort of psycho obsession with me. No big deal.

Sure
.

I approached him slowly, staring at his enormous body as I did. He stayed statue still. Now that he wasn’t trying to eat me, I could believe that women had told Wyvern that his dragon form was very beautiful. With the large bone crown on his head, he looked very much the king that I guess he was.

His entire body was covered in gleaming white scales that looked perfect in their shape and pattern.

Encouraged by his stillness, I mustered the courage to walk the entire way up to his head, which had lowered to my level. His face was long and narrow, with sharp ridges leading up both sides of his long snout. The scales on his face were small and fleshy and I remembered how soft they had been when I had touched them.

I reached up to touch his cheek and he ever so slightly moved his face into my hand.

The tingles shot up my arm and I had to fight the urge to just fall into him. His emotions pushed into me as well, as if when his soul was not restrained, his emotions wanted to find me. He had quite a bit of pride going on… to be expected. But again, there was an undercurrent of possessiveness that I really hoped had nothing to do with me.

Pulling my hand back, I turned away from him. “I’m turning away so you can turn back into a human and put your clothes on. It would be really nice to be finished with this night.” I stood there for a minute, just listening to the rustling behind me. He was quiet enough that I did not know if he was changing back or if he was just moving around.

I said, “I may have information at home waiting for us.”

“What sort of information?” Wyvern asked from very close behind me.

I spoke while I turned around, “There might be some video tapes of her possible escape—whoa! Where’s your shirt?”

“It ripped,” he said, throwing a shred of white fabric onto the pavement.

“You look like a stripper.” He looked amazing. Marble statues would crumble in envy if they saw his chest. His long silver white hair fell around his face, making him look like the cover of one of the romance novels my mom bought, but only Clara read. “You could be king of the strippers,” I suggested. “Thanks, by the way, for telling me that you’re the Wyvern Rex.”

Only four dracons held the Rex title worldwide. The Wyvern Rex was the Rex of all of New Anglo. He was literally my king.

“I was having too much fun watching you make an ass out of yourself,” he said.

“I’ll bet you were,” I said. “But I’m never bowing to you; I hope you know that right.”

“I don’t want you to,” he said, closing the distance between us, “But you will do it if my father is around.” He tried to take my hand, but knowing that I would get all zingy and stupid-happy from his touch I stepped back.

“Fine. Are you going to drive me home or what? Tomorrow is a school day.”

“You’re not going to go to school,” he said as if it was up to him. “And I’m taking you to my house.”

“Yes, I am going to school and no, you’re taking me to
my
house,” I said, firmly.

“Having protection over you gives me a certain amount of control—”

“Stop that right there,” I said. “I am going home, I’m going to watch the video surveillance files and then I am going to sleep. In the morning, I will get up, ride with Glacier to school. I will spend the school day trying to get information on Honua. That is my plan and I will not change it. If you feel like you need to insinuate yourself into my life needlessly, tell me how you want to and I’ll consider it. That’s as good as you’re going to get here.”

He reached forward and took my hand before I could stop him.

Zing.

“I’ll drive you home. We will talk about this in the car.”

Because all I wanted was to go home, I did not fight him, I did not even fight off his hand. I walked over to where his sports car sat and waited for him to open my door.

Only when we were in his Vervari, out of the complex and speeding down the road did Wyvern speak. “The contract—”

“Yeah, thanks for shooting us both in the foot with that one,” I interrupted, snapping. “I thought you wanted me to find your sister.”

“I want many things,” he said, smiling. The jerk.

“Yeah well I want many things too and they don’t include a dracon Rex tricking me into a
contract
.”

“Then you should not have given me the opportunity to,” he said as if it was that simple. To him, it probably was.

My annoyance was overtaken by nervousness while I stared at him for a long moment. I almost gathered the courage to ask him why he did this whole ‘contract’ thing. Almost. I wanted to know why, but then, at the same time I really, really did not. I finally asked, “So what were you really saying when you told me that we need to pretend that we were dating?”

“You assumed I meant that we would pretend, I never said it,” he said.