“What’s so wrong with that?” Nat asked.
Simone explained. “Everett and Talli aren’t exactly the biggest fans of hunters, given that they killed Byrd’s parents. It’s understandable, but if they found out Quinn is a huntress and Byrd was taken under your watch… Well…”
“They would scorch the earth for Byrd, and it’s starting with you five,” Maisie added, pointing to me and the cousins. “So, if we can avoid the fuck out of that, we will. I want to exhaust every other option we can.”
“Ah, you do care about me, huh, babycakes?” Cody teased.
“You know, I might just throw you under the bus and see what Everett does to you, actually?—”
“I think Cody is right.”
Everyone turned to me for the umpteenth time tonight in surprise. Seeming the most startled, Cody said, “As grateful as I am for being called right, just to be clear, which part am I right about?”
“I want to find Byrd as quickly as possible. I don’t mean any disrespect to you, Maisie. I’m sure you have a book that might help, but we need answersnow. I’m willing to risk whatever it takes to find her. If that means I have to face the wrath of her uncle, I will do it.”
“I think Quinn is right, Maze,” Simone agreed. “Remember Byrd’s grimoire? We spent hours researching that, and it didn’t get us anywhere. Once we got help from the Archive Librarians?—”
“Baddass Libbies,” Cody corrected. I glared at him, leveling him with a look that made him shut up.
“Yeah, you are not going to make fetch happen, buddy,” Simone continued with her original thought. “As I was saying, they gave us a lead and direction, and we were off to the races from there. If we are going to rescue Byrd as fast as possible, we need all the help we can get, even if that means telling Everett and Talli.”
“Y’all are right. Finding Byrd is the priority.” Maisie nodded in agreement. Then, to me, she smirked. “By the way, I don’t take any offense. I’m still pretty new to fitch magic, so we should defer to the experts. Besides, we can research while you makesure that Byrd has you and her Guardians to come back to in one piece.”
“Wait, so are we about to go to this libraryrightnow? It’s like eleven o’clock at night there. Do they not have business hours they have to adhere to or something?” Nat pointed out.
“It’s alivinglibrary. You kind of are alive for twenty-four hours a day all day, doll,” Maisie smiled as she teased Nat.
“So.” I bent down, holstered Tina, picked up my phone, and pocketed it. Then, I stepped forward. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go.”
Nat’s eyebrows disappeared under her dark purple bangs with how high they flew up. “Uh, did a tree branch hit you on the head earlier, bitch? We can’t do shit without telling your mom first.”
“Why?”
“Youwant to leave your mother, the embodiment of a Hallmark Holiday Movie, without notice during Christmas vacation? What in the absolute fuck is wrong with you?”
“Natty is right?—”
“Oh, anyone else feel that? I think hell just froze over.”
Cole ignored her and continued to explain. “If you don’t tell your mother, she’s going to freak the fuck out. That is going to bring our mom, Aunt Tess, and Cooper into it. You have to talk to her before we leave.”
Fuck me.I knew Nat and Cole were right. I sighed, utterly exhausted. Despite the cousins and me growing up like siblings, I was my mother’s only child. We were close, both because we had to be and because we wanted to be. I told her every thought I had, every action I took, everything. Even if they were bad or wrong, I still talked to her because I knew she would tell me how to make it right. She had always known I was gay to the point where I merely said, “You know how I’m gay, right?” and then rushed on to talk about a girl I liked.
When I confessed to her that I never wanted to be a dragon-hunter, she didn’t blink and just nodded that it would be okay. When she divorced my father, that was more for my sake than her own. Mama loved me unconditionally. She would, and has, given up everything to see me happy.
Mama had supported my relationship with Zaria. Even when Zaria was the biggest bitch to the entire family that could ever exist, she still loved me through the choice to be with her. It helped that it was a good match between us, with Zaria coming from a long line of hunters like me. But, when it went left, I was so scared that Mom was going to be disappointed in me or beg me to go back to her. Yet, she did nothing of the sort. Instead, she took me up in her arms and let me grieve the relationship. She was the first one I told, even before the cousins.
Still, I was terrified of talking to her about Byrd. Mama didn’t have anywhere near the same feelings about dragon-shifters as Dad did. She had killed a dragon-shifter before, but that was because they had murdered tens of other innocent humans for fun. She was a fantastic huntress, earning her the nickname of the “Killer Queen” before I was born. It had been years since she had taken a hunting mission to kill, instead going on them to heal in case things went haywire. But, that didn’t make talking to her about my dragon-shifting girlfriend easy. What if this was her line? What if this was the condition she couldn’t accept? What if she turned her back on me for this? Fuck, what was she going to say about Dad? What was I going to say about all of that?
“What the fuck am I supposed to say to her?” I repeated my thoughts out loud. “What do you say? ‘Hey, Mama, so sorry for lying to you about my girlfriend! She’s the kind of monster that Daddy loves to kill and hang over the mantel to stare at like a weird fucking poacher. Oh, did I forget to mention that, too?’”
“May I suggest just omitting the truth for now? I do that to my parents all the time,” Simone suggested.
Cole shrugged. “You don’t have to tell her everything right now. That’s heavy shit to do before you run away to save your girl. But, just give her enough to make her know you’re okay and not to worry about you.”
“But… I’ve never lied to her before.” I said, almost like a whisper.
Maisie’s jaw dropped, and I would have chuckled under other circumstances. “Never? What’s it like to have a healthy relationship with your mother?”
