Page 52 of Accidentally Engaged
“There’s legal work here, too!”
“There aren’t as many of our kind,” I snap. When Ian and I came to Pine Ridge, it was because we’d heard tales of so many “monsters” finding their mates in Pine Ridge. After a year of running a business together, Ian was smitten with a human and hearing wedding bells. I was furious and I felt betrayed.
“You mean dragons? There must be nice dragonesses there, I’m sure, but I heard,” Ian drops his voice, “that a lot of them work for crime families or have been corrupted by the dark energy coming from the CrossRealms.”
“So? Dragons are fierce. We’re meant to protect and fight, not to work in garden centers.” The second I say it, I regret it. Our mother is a fierce dragon, but she was a ranger with the National Trust. It’s from her that Ian got his love for nature. It’s from our father that I got my stubborn streak. I always wanted to be out finding trouble or creating it, the way he would constantly agitate members of other clans, the way he was always on about the Kanes’ position in the High King’s council, or always on about our land and how our we should have more, how it was our birthright.
“Aye, well, we’re not supposed to be so fierce we get ourselves a bad name with every other clan in all of the British Isles, Graham. Wee Murdo will be a fresh start for the Kanes and you’re bloody well going to help. If you don’t... Well. This is Pine Ridge. The people here don’t fight between clans. I’ll ask everyone in town to take a shift if I have to, but Iwillget Murdo his amulet and Iwillhave Vanessa and our baby blessed by the High King.”
Ian’s fire sparks my own. I can feel the human skin I normally wear shifting to scales, and feel talons emerging as my skin turns dark violet. In seconds, I’m in my halfling form (a humanoid dragon for those not in the know) and there’s only a shred of calm keeping me from turning into a dragon proper—the kind with a wingspan and lashing tail that would destroy my little apartment.
“I’ll see if I can get away, but don’t count on me. You’re the older brother, not my clan elder, not the High King.” I throw the phone onto the bed as I stalk past and grab my long leather trenchcoat from the heap of clothes where it lives.
Scaring the shite out of someone when I go to claim their car might put me in a better mood.
And maybe I’ll even figure out why I’m so angry in the first place.
Chapter Two: Angela
“Princess, help me decide. The gold or the silver?”
I stand in my mother’s closet, which has a raised circular platform surrounded by three full-length mirrors. It looks like the inside of a couture fashion house. Then again, that's my mother's new life, spending money on clothes. Trying on clothes. Clothes. Buying things with her new husband's money is her passion, her hobby, and her career.
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for my mother to be spoiled. My dad was the definition of a lousy, no-good, rotten deadbeat. The hell he put my mother through made me more than happy for her to find someone who would treat her right, especially since I want to live my own life without worrying about her rattling around in New Jersey all on her own while I'm going to... well, I don't know what I'm going to do exactly.
“I’d go with silver. What's the occasion?” I asked my mother.
Ronnie has some big business meeting tonight and I have to go with him. He really wanted you to come along, sweetie. He said, ‘Angela should come. She’d love Joey’s family. Lots of good-looking boys.’”
The way my stepfather talks about his business associates reminds me of some cheesy 80’s mobster movie. Not the mainstream ones. The ones that were on television as reruns on Saturday afternoons. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was in the mob.
“You never come to Ronnie’s work dinners. You never stick around when we have dinners here.” Her voice goes into a nasal whine that I swear is a “rich trophy wife” affectation. She never had it while we lived in New Jersey, and that’s saying something.
“Well, Mom, I’ve been busy.”
She looks at me with pursed lips and a glare that would freeze flame. “Oh, really?”
“Really.” It’s a lie. I get busy lining up several pairs of stilettos that would match her dress.
I’m not busy. I want to be busy, but even if I was bored and dying for something to do, I would still avoid Ronnie’s overly friendly business pals. Even though I'm sure all of his friends are just a little bit quirky, we have nothing in common. They seem to be from a pocket dimension where time stopped somewhere between the 1950s and all of their wives fell out of hairspray ads from the 1980s. Whenever I'm in the room, the women cluck over me and try to fix me up with their sons, cousins, or other handy male relatives. The men ogle me, while the older, wrinkly ones pat my cheeks and tell me what a pretty wife I'm going to make someone someday. The younger ones look at me for too long—and not at my face. I have to bite my tongue every time and remind myself that my stepfather is a lot older than my mother and maybe his friends just haven't moved with the times. My mother is content and getting every luxury she had to do without while she was working. two jobs to support my father and his three six-packs a day and his career of betting on losing horses.
“Busy doing what? You finished school. You don’t have any papers to write. Why is your head always buried in your laptop these days?”
“I’ve got to get my grad school applications done as soon as possible.”
“Oh baby,” my mother frowns at me and drops the discarded gold dress carelessly to the velvet side chair that sits in the corner of her lavish closet-slash-dressing room. “Angela, sweetie, you don't need to bother with that anymore. Ronnie has been very generous to both of us. You don't need to look for a job or go back to school slaving away over those books that give you so much stress and make your skin break out.” Mom pouts at me and puts her hands on my cheeks.
I roll my eyes at my mother. “You've been hanging out around Ronnie's friends’ wives way too much. You always told me that education was my ticket out of a bad situation.”
“You’re not in a bad situation! And... And maybe I was wrong. All those years I tried to take online classes... All the money I could have been saving for a good lawyer... No, allIneeded was some good shapewear and the right eyeliner to snag Ronnie,” Mom says with a sudden flash of anger in her eyes.
That is quite unexpected. I’ve only seen her deliriously happy ever since Ronnie Argento walked into the diner where she waited tables and swept her off her feet three years ago.
“I didn’t have some fancy degree! Ronnie loves me—and you. He even adopted you, legally, even though you were already an adult. He wanted to make sure you were his legal daughter so your father could never bother you and you’d have all of his money if something happened to us.”
“Mom! I love Ronnie. I was happy to sign the papers, okay?” I rub her back gently, silently realizing this is a parenting gesture, the child soothing the mother, something I’ve been doing for far, far too long. “This has nothing to do with how much I love him. I can't just sit around filing my nails and spending someone else's money. Even if I didn't want to go back to grad school, I'd want to work. Even part-time.”
“Well, that's no problem! Ronnie's friend Zooley? You met him at the Christmas party? He says you can model for him any day. His work is always very tasteful. I saw his work inMature Swimsuitsjust this month.”
