Page 47 of Made

I didn’t try to soften my scoff. This idea of giving a baby a dragon was preposterous even for Maeve. She set the egg down and held out her hands to Diarmuid. It looked like a demand to hold the baby. Diarmuid must’ve had the same thought because he handed Rhiannon over.

“Oh, my!” she cooed. “Aren’t you the most beautiful princess ever born? Who wouldeverguess your mother is human?”

“Mum!” Diarmuid warned. “Evie is not human. She’s fae. Thanks to you. And she’s queen. Thanks to me. I will no’ tolerate disrespect.”

“Right. Right. Right,” Maeve said with her signature dismissiveness.

Apparently, Rhiannon objected to that as well and began fussing. As if her cry was a cue, the egg cracked and a tiny dragon, just twelve inches high, emerged, pushing its way out with small but deadly-looking wings. As much as I was against the dragon thing, I watched the hatching transfixed and had to admit the little bugger was captivating in its own exotic way. Its scales were electric blue, the color so penetrating they looked like silk. Though its body was stunning, the color of its scales couldn’t make up for the disturbing sight of yellow eyes with vertical pupils. Ireallydidn’t want that thing around my granddaughter.

As soon as Rhiannon had begun to cry, Maeve turned and handed the baby off to me without ever actually looking at me. I supposed that, after a lifetime of being royalty, she’d mastered the dubious skill of ignoring others while demanding something at the same time. It seemed she was more interested in the attention gained from being a grandmother than the hands-on experience. The newness had worn off in less than two minutes. That was fine with me.

I adjusted Rhiannon so that I could see her face. After giving me a thorough once-over and deciding I’d do for lack of something better, Rhiannon slowly closed her eyes and went back to sleep.Gosh, she was beautiful. And I was already in love.

Keir pulled a chair next to Evie so that I could sit down with Rhiannon. As I sat, I did husband-speak to Keir, which meant only he could hear. I forgot he wasn’t the only one presentwith super hearing. Sometimes it was too much trouble to try and guess all their extra-human talents.

“Maybe you should retrieve John David now?”

“Must I? I think he fits right in with the Eastern European vibe.” I was treated to one of Keir’s wry smiles, which just happened to be over-the-moon sexy.

Oh, no, sir. Not now!

I looked away, determined to distract myself. The question was rhetorical, but I answered anyway. “Yes. Youmust.”

Esme stood a few feet away, smiling. I couldn’t tell if her good humor was because she’d overheard the exchange between Keir and me, or if she thought she was about to be named godmother. If fae have something equivalent, that is.

“WE’LL HAVE THE BIGGEST PARTY EVER KNOWN TO FAE!” Maeve announced as she turned in a grand, attention-commanding circle that climaxed with her disappearance. P.T. Barnum would’ve been proud.

Just before he disappeared, Keir scoffed at Maeve’s shenanigans, loud enough for humans to hear. He was one of the few magic kind creatures who didn’t care what Maeve thought.

Evie roused enough to hear the proclamation. Though still weak, she turned her head toward me and said quietly, “Be sure to invite everyone.”

I laughed loud enough to make the baby squirm a little. I’d secretly taken credit that Evie’s passion for mythology developed because I’d planted seeds with bedtime fairytales. As a child, she was quite precocious and regularly entertained me with her unexpected questions and unique insights.

At the end ofSleeping Beauty, I’d said, “The moral of the story is…”

My eight-year-old daughter had interrupted me and finished the sentence. “Be sure to invite everybody.”

That was, perhaps, Evie’s initial discovery that it’s fun to make her mom laugh out loud. That interruption to my story ending became a lifelong running joke between us that was so appropriate it might have been foreshadowing. I’d give that some consideration on some other, less hectic night.

“I think ‘tis time for me to get my lasses home,” Diarmuid said, sounding even more Irish than usual on the first occasion of calling Evie and Rhiannon his “lasses”.

As if to punctuate that, the air suddenly took on a prickly electric feeling. A whirring sound filled my ears like a vacuum had been switched on inside my head. Looking around, I could see that others were disturbed by the atmospheric shift. The phenomenon also affected Rhiannon, who woke and began crying.

As if that was a cue, the little dragon began to squawk at an outsized volume, surprisingly loud for its body. Take it from me, baby dragon squawking is the ugliest sound imaginable. It resembles the screeching of metal chair legs being dragged over concrete. The diminutive reptile couldn’t fly yet, but itcouldhop. And hop it did. Right onto my lap, where it turned its back to me and fluttered its wings ferociously like it didn’t know it wasn’t yet as big as a house. The thing seemed to have been hatched knowing that its purpose was to protect the princess. Despite my misgivings, I couldn’t help but object to it a little less. How could I despise a creature who believed its raison d’être was to protect my granddaughter? I couldn’t. But Icoulddespise the horrendous noise it was making.

While all present waited, anxiously anticipating whatever event was portended by the whirring noise, pricking of nerve endings, and the static that was trying to make clothing float upward, two creatures suddenly appeared on either side of Esme and vanished with her.

Instantly, the disturbance ceased. The environment abruptly returned to normal. The dragon stopped its incessant cacophony and hopped down from my lap. The gangly little monster seemed to sense the danger had passed.

There was just one gigantic problem. The danger had taken my friend with it.

Kagan, who’d been waiting patiently in John David’s immense foyer, didn’t know what had happened. He knew something had occurred because everyone in the house felt the change in atmosphere. He also knew he could no longer sense Esmerelda’s presence nearby. Kagan had never before felt a surge of panic and was almost paralyzed, not knowing what it was. It was an alien sensation, pricking his senses in borderline painful ways.

Wild-eyed, he exploded through the priceless Chinese screens, scanned the room, and confirmed his fear. She was gone.

“WHERE’S ESME?” he demanded.

His only response was a handful of shocked faces who knew no more than he did and, in fact, shared the same question.

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