What in the blazes is she doing?
“Thia!” I call out to her as I crawl underneath the bed as more fire comes my way. “Baby, it’s Mama.” It's like she doesn't even recognize me.
I gulp when it hits me like a ton of bricks. She senses, not the Dragon, because it isn't there, but the Faerie in me and she is threatened. Her Dragon side is trying to kill my Fae side. Shit! What the fuck do I do now?
“CK!” I yell at the top of my lungs, peeking out from underneath the bed, only to shy away when more fire gets thrown. How she is controlling it to come right at me is a mystery. I could never have attempted that.
“What?” he bellows, storming into the room, probably wondering what all the noise is about. “Jesus!” he cries as he, too, ducks the fire and rolls up into a crouch on the far side of the room. “What did you do?” he spits out.
“Nothing,” I cry back. “Why automatically blame me?”
“Aefre, where are you?” he asks, looking around.
“Under here,” I call, waving my fingers at him from underneath the bed.
He crawls over to me, dodging the fire as he does, and slides under the bed with me. “Explain?” he asks after a quick kiss to my lips.
“She hates me!” I wail, shoving my face into the carpet. I sneeze as it is dusty under here. Clearly the cleaners (not allowed to call them servants anymore) don’t go under here often.
“Aefre,” CK says with that world-weary sigh. “She doesn’t hate you; you are her mother.”
“She is trying to kill me!” I say dramatically. “Well, the Faerie anyway.”
“Oh, really?” he asks. “Interesting.”
I give him a filthy look. “No, not interesting,” I bark at him. “A massive problem.”
“Well, ‘massive’ might be an overstatement,” he replies blandly. “How come she is trying to kill me though?” He is far more worried about that. Jerk.
“She has lost control, obviously,” I snap at him. “We need to get her gloves back on.”
“Now do you see why I didn’t want you taking them off her?” he asks patronizingly, happy to use this travesty as a teaching moment.
“Fuck off,” I throw at him and he rolls his eyes at me. “Just do something.”
“How? Dragon fire is lethal to me,” he says worriedly.
“Yes, me too! In case you hadn’t noticed…not a fucking Dragon anymore!” I shriek at him.
His turn to give me a filthy look. “I remember. I held your dead body in my arms,” he says witheringly.
I swallow loudly and grip his fingers. “I’m sorry. I know it must have been awful…”
He squeezes mine back. “I thought I might die as well...only Arathia…” He stifles back his choke under the pretense of a dusty-cough, and I smile.
“I am here, alive and well. We just need to keep it that way,” I say reassuringly. “Use your über-Vampire speed to get the gloves back on her. They are next to her on the bed.”
He hesitates and it surprises me. I have never seen him pause before going into battle. Usually, he is the first one in. Perhaps he finds this different seeing as it is his daughter.
“Count of three,” I prompt him, and he takes in a deep breath, steeling himself.
With a nod, he primes himself to roll out from under the bed and I count.
“One, two, three…”
He is off like a shot. I feel the mattress sag under his weight as he wrestles the gloves back onto Arathia.
“Done,” he calls out after a beat and I shimmy out.