Adventures in Summoning

Chapter 39

It took eight days to get to the palace, with Holl and Vittan taking turns watching me while keeping a claw on my throat the entire time. I didn't fight them at all, I just rested and built my strength. Food wasn't as plentiful as it had been on the way to the base, as the males hadn't thought to bring supplies, and there wasn't much left in the packs in the boat to use. As a race, we had become lazy hunters, relying on the natives to supply us fish and losing much of our hunting instincts. With no natives to supply us fish, we subsisted on a lot of fruit.

The worst part of the trip was spending the night in the village that I had spent several glorious evenings with Justin, and the bed still smelled delightfully of our sex. Holl didn't seem to notice, though Vittan growled at what he considered a stench. But it was perfect for me, it was the last night before we reached the palace, and I had the best sleep I'd had since losing Justin. I made sure to roll my body in the bedding before we left, so I could coat myself in our scent. It made me happy, even when all else looked bleak.

If I were to die, I would at least go with his memory fresh in my mind.

"Come on human lover, time to go visit our mother." Sneered Holl as we got ready for the final leg of the trip.

"Brother, is that the best insult you can come up with?" I asked him with a chuckle. I wonder if he realized yet that I was killing him first?

He chuckled harshly. "Shut up. By tonight you'll have an entirely different opinion."

"Your mother will give you to me, I'll become your new mate." Vittan assured me with a sickening grin as he paddled the boat over to the Isle of the Horn.

"You know you can't have a second mate you fool," I scoffed.

"That human wasn't a true mate, and we will be mated whether you like it or not!"

"You know that you cannot force the mating ritual, it requires both partners to want it," I pointed out.

"You'll want it, or you'll die," he predicted.

I stopped arguing, it wasn't going to get me anywhere. He had always had an inflated sense of self-worth, and this was just feeding it. The paddling continued, bringing us ever closer to the isle, and the showdown with my mother.

A week. A whole fucking week had passed for me on a cold world with every waking moment, and most sleeping ones, occupied with thoughts of Quin. I went with Dee and Helen down to the Verizon store and we had all splurged on new phones with data backed up from the cloud. I was surprised that I only had eight texts in the two plus weeks that we'd been gone. Four of those were from the school, asking about assignment progress, and the others were from Greg and Trey about football. Evidently Trey was playing great as the starting quarterback according to the texts.

Dee by contrast, had over 100 messages, and had quickly worked through them on the drive home. She was quick to point out that only one was from her father, and that was from just a few days ago that he was headed to a business conference in Vegas and would be gone for a week. Dee couldn't care less, though it made it easier for her to pick up a lot of clothes and bring them over to my house to live with Helen and me. She just didn't want to face her father yet, and I couldn't blame her.

We spent the rest of the weekend knocking out our school assignments. We had Helen helping by cooking or getting takeout for us, and we were able to catch up quickly. I spent some time with my stone parents, just sitting on the bed next to them and telling them about Quin. They were surprisingly fine about me falling in love with a dragon, never said a peep. The next day I brought a hammer down and came close to breaking them into pieces. But I just couldn't. I had a feeling they'd be moved to the garden out back, for birds to crap on.