The smell of Kyton's magic was already clouding my thoughts. Why did he have to smell so delicious? He was like a walking buffet, but a million times better.
"Are you okay?" His breath wafted more magic smell toward me.
Shaking, I couldn't tear my gaze from the cut on his neck. He moved closer. I should have moved away, but I couldn't. A dull thudthudthudthud resounded in my ears. It was too fast to be my heart, like the buzzing of a hummingbird's wings. My mouth watered.
"Lilly, can you hear me?" He waved a hand in front of my face.
I lashed out instinctively, grabbing his forearm in both hands. His fingers hovered inches from my face. All I had to do was lean forward, just a little, and strike. He would never know what hit him.
I couldn't. He hadn't done anything to me. Grandma would kill me.
Kyton pried his wrist from my grasp. "You don't look so good. Let's head back." He took my hand and tugged me toward the barrier.
It was all I could do to follow him without getting closer. I was so focused on not getting closer that I forgot to watch my feet, and I tripped. Kyton tried to catch me, but he wasn't fast enough. We both went down in a tangle of limbs. He scrambled to get up. I grabbed his shoulders without meaning to.
He froze in a half push-up, his face inches from mine. "Let go, Lilly."
I couldn't help it. I lunged at his neck. He stiffened as my lips touched his jugular. It took every fiber of self-control I had not to bite. I didn't have enough strength to pull away, but I didn't bite. My arms shook. My heart raced. My hunger roared. But I didn't bite.
"What are you doing?" Kyton asked in a low, almost sheepish voice.
What was I doing? What was wrong with me?
Eva--obviously unhappy being squished between us--shrieked and bit Kyton. He jerked back and scrambled to his feet. I didn't try to move. If I got up, I might try to bite him again.
My whole body was on fire with embarrassment. There was something seriously wrong with me. What did Kyton have to think was going on? Probably that I was a freakazoid. I thought I was a freakazoid.
Why did I even care what he thought? He was a fairy I hardly knew. Maybe it was because I hadn't seen anyone else my age in months. Or maybe it was some part of his glamour that made it hard not to like him. Whatever it was, I didn't think I'd be able to talk to him again. Not after what I'd tried to do. Or what I'd done.
"Are you okay?" he asked, holding out a hand to me.
"Stay back." I moved from him, backing against a tree. I dug my fingernails into bark to keep from jumping on him. This was worse than just being in a kitchen with him. The fresh blood made his scent like a living thing, callling to me.
"What's wrong?" He crossed the distance between us in two easy steps. Easy for him, torture for me.
"Take her home." I said the words through gritted teeth, digging into my last reserves of self-control. "I'll follow."
He knelt and hooked his arm around my waist. "Don't be ridiculous. The dragon can't be far behind, and it'll settle for eating you if it can't get me."
Eva peeped. Go home now, bite magic later.
Before I could agree to being rescued, Kyton carried me into the air. I pressed my face into Eva's feathers, desperately trying to ignore Kyton's blood. It was nearly impossible, especially when it soaked through the shoulder of my shirt.
Every second felt like an eternity, until we were finally on solid ground and I was running away from him up the hill.
***
My bedroom door creaked open. I yanked the blood-stained shirt out of my mouth and shoved it under my pillow. Eva waddled through the door before it closed. Since she was obviously too small to be opening doors, I figured Kyton was on the other side of it. At least he hadn't come in and caught me licking the blood off my shirt.
I slid out of bed, towel hat wobbling from my recent shower. I picked Eva up, locked the door, and got back in bed. Eva stared at the corner of the bloody shirt sticking out from under my pillow.
Why hide? she asked.
Just in case Kyton was listening at the door, I thoughtspoke.
It's wrong. If someone saw, I would get in a lot of trouble. You won't tell anyone, right?
She bobbed her head up and down. No tell, no tell. Climbing out of my lap, she pecked at my blankets. Nest?
Yeah, it's my nest. You can't sleep here, though. I might roll over and squish you. Or, she might have the same bathroom habits as most birds and end up pooping in bed.
Don't poop in nest, Eva said sharply, staring down her beak at me. Don't get squished. Sleep here. Yawning, she climbed into my pile of stuffed animals and fluffed up her feathers. As long as she didn't move much, she looked like anything else in the pile.
You're sleeping already? It's only nine.
Did lots. Sleep now.
I shook my head. Whatever. Pulling out the shirt I'd hidden, I inspected the blue stain on the shoulder. It was a lot less concentrated than it had been. After all, I'd been sucking on it for a while.
There was a knock at the door. Kyton's muffled voice followed. "We need to talk."
"I don't want to," I called back.
A pause. "Can I come in anyway?"
"No."
"Then I'll talk out here."
Frowning, I stroked Eva with one hand. "If you have to."
He sighed. "Look, it's normal that you're attracted to me. That's what glamour is supposed to do--make people like us."
"How did you know I-" Oh, he meant romantic attraction, not whatever freaky thing I was doing. At least he wasn't terrified of me. "If you say so."
"Just, no more love bites, okay? My sister'll be all over me tonight when we go to see our dad." He chuckled. "And stay out of the forest. A dragon was bad enough, but a changeling? What do you think of that?"
I got up and threw my bloody shirt in the closet hamper to give myself time to think up an answer. When I returned to my bed, I still wasn't sure what to say. If that lizard man had been a changeling, I couldn't think of anything to say but that it had terrified me. Not that I wanted to admit that to Kyton. He made me afraid of myself. I couldn't tell what I was going to do around him. Sometimes I barely stopped myself from doing something I would regret.
The lizard man only made things worse. I couldn't get what he'd said out of my head. He'd bitten me, obviously expecting a bloody treat, but my blood made him gag. He'd started to ask why I would defend a fairy. Then he almost called me something. Something I hated to guess at.
How many words began with something that sounded like "sis-"? Scissors, I guessed. And Cistine Chapel. Cyst. System. Cystic fibrosis. Sissy. Except for the last one, none of them really worked. And I couldn't really imagine a lizard man calling me "sissy" in the middle of a fight.
That left the word I'd been dreading since I got home. Sister.
It couldn't be true. I mean, it didn't even make sense. I knew Dad was my dad, and he would never have a kid with a monster. Unless he was under some sort of spell and didn't know she was a monster at the time.
No, I was a witch. Human. Maybe a freaky human, but still human. If the lizard man had been about to say "sister," he would've been mistaken.
"Lilly, you still there?"
I started at the sound of Kyton's voice. "Yeah, just thinking." He could tell me about what that lizard man had been. If I knew more about it, I could know that it was impossible we could have anything in common.
I got up and unlocked the door. When I opened it, Kyton fell toward me. Scrambling backward, I barely avoided being pounced on.
"Warn me next time," he said from the floor. "I was leaning on the door."
As he got up, I closed and locked the door. The last thing I needed was Mom walking in and seeing Eva blink in the midst of my stuffed animals.
"What exactly is a changeling?" I tried to keep my expression neutral.
Kyton leaned against the bedpost. "A fairy dragon baby. It was almost fully fledged. A few more weeks, and it'll be a dragon."
"Do dragons always walk on their hind legs?" It was hard to imagine something as large as the dragon we'd evaded yesterday walking around like a person.
"No, just changelings. See, most dragons take care of their own eggs, but fairy dragons are parasites. They put their eggs in fairy nests and cast a spell so the parents think the eggs belong to them. When it hatches, the changeling will look like one parent of its host family."
"That can't be right." It couldn't. I couldn't-
Eva chirped. Little Lizzy, big Lizzy.
I told you, it's 'Lilly,' not- I stiffened. -Lizzy, do you mean lizard?
Yeah. Lizzy lizard.
This couldn't be happening. Eva was just a phoenix chick. She didn't know what she was talking about. And it wasn't like Kyton could be an expert on dragons or changelings--he didn't know enough to know that going after one with a spear would never work.
"You hatched out of an egg?" I asked Kyton, trying to distract myself from a swarm of treacherous thoughts.
"Yeah, I did." He gave me a look that I took to mean 'stop interrupting.' "Changelings act like their surrogate parents until they're old enough to fledge, then they kill their family, suck them dry, and turn into dragons." He spat the word "dragon" like the mention of it would bring one charging into the bedroom.
I swallowed, trying to wrap my head around what he'd just said. Changelings looked like their surrogate parents. Their parents didn't even know they were changelings because of a spell. Was it too much to hope that "suck them dry" was a figure of speech?
Kyton must've noticed my expression, because he reached out to squeeze my shoulder. It was the one that'd been bitten, and it twinged.
"Don't worry, Lilly. The barrier protects the estate, and it covers the road, so we can still go into town. Just stay out of the woods until the monster hunter comes, and we'll all be safe."
"Uh huh." Unless the hunter figured out what I might be and came after me next.
He let his hand drop to his side. "Changelings are powerful, but they're not powerful enough to get through the barrier." A smile pulled at his lips. "On a lighter note, if you haven't eaten lunch yet, I can make grilled cheese sandwiches."
As hungry as I should've been after not eating breakfast, I couldn't summon up an appetite. Not when I knew that my family would hate me if they suspected what I might be.
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