Dragon Witch ✔️

3 - Fairy Dragon

The Otherworlder hauling me through the forest stumbled and nearly sent us crashing into a low tree branch. Cursing in another language, he ducked. Not soon enough. My back scraped the underside of the branch.

That snapped me out of my fugue. Forget about his magic. Forget about being polite. If some crazy Otherworlder was trying to kidnap me, I wouldn't go down without a fight. I thrashed, hitting him in the side of the head and kicking something sensitive. We tumbled down a short, muddy hill and plunged into the stream.

Water coursed over my head. I lunged upward, slamming my shoulder into a rock. The current yanked me under again. This couldn't be happening. I wasn't about to drown in a three-foot-deep stream.

Gritting my teeth against the pain in my shoulder, I grabbed a rock and hauled myself to my feet. The Otherworlder surfaced a couple yards away. Besides his violet-tinted glasses, he looked like a normal--albeit soaking wet--college guy in a t-shirt and jeans. If that wasn't strange enough, I recognized his boyish features and mane of curly, black hair.

Grandma had hired him to be our housekeeper at the beginning of the summer. We'd never really talked before, and I'd assumed he was either super shy or didn't like me. No wonder he'd been quiet. When most people hated you for being an alien, keeping to yourself was probably a good idea.

Unfortunately for him, he couldn't afford to be shy now.

I trudged through the water to him. "Kyton, what's going on? Why'd you grab me? And don't give me that prip about the friend and the mud-slinging," I said, using Grandma's favorite Otherworlder curse word. "I'm not an idiot."

Cocking his head as if he was listening to something, he muttered in another language. "No time to explain." He grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the opposite bank.

"Why?" I tried to jerk my arm out of his grasp. With those noodle arms of his, he looked weak, but I couldn't even make him budge.

"Let's just say my friend's awake, and he's not really my friend." When I dug my heels into the bottom of the stream, he groaned. "Look, I made an oath with your grandfather not to talk about or do certain things while you're around unless you figure them out on your own. Now, we have to get out of here, or my friend will-"

He shook his head like he was shooing a cloud of midges. "Prip, I can't say what, but he'll do very bad things. Understand?"

Whatever was going on, he looked too terrified to be lying. I nodded, and we raced onto the bank. A little way down the stream, my witch's trunk was beached on a rock. Kyton must've dropped it when we fell in the stream.

I gestured at it with my free hand. "I need that trunk."

"You'll live without your makeup trunk." He leaned down like he was going to give me a piggyback ride. "Hop on."

Who kept makeup in a trunk? He was definitely from another planet. "It's my witch's kit, not a makeup trunk. I can't lose it, or the witch's council will kill me." Figuratively speaking. They were very particular about where magical artifacts ended up. Losing mine in the stomach of a monster would probably get me banned from every witching college in the country.

"Fine." He plunged into the stream, grabbed my trunk, and spun around. Before he could get to the bank, he stiffened.

A roar like a jet engine rattled the trees. Screeching birds fled the canopy as a sickly-sweet breeze drifted our way.

Give up, fairy, a poisonous voice dripped through my mind. Your wings are torn, your magic out of reach. No puny human can save you from my claws.