Aspen (The Dragon Kings #2)(2)

Aspen shrugged. “I don’t want to leave it to chance.” She shimmied out of his embrace. “She was the only teacher that actually liked me.” Aspen looked away from him. Her shoulders trembled, and her hands shook as she brushed her hair out of her eyes. She may not admit it, but this death affected her more than the others. Maybe she couldn’t handle this funeral. Sid had learned in the last few months that everyone dealt with grief differently.

Sid turned her face so she was looking at him. “It’s okay to be sad.”

“We were so close to ending the deaths. If she’d just waited a day to go out and take pictures, or if we’d caught him twenty-four hours earlier, she wouldn’t be dead.”

“You can’t play the what-if game. Marcellus killed her, and now he’s dead. He can’t kill anyone else. That’s something we should celebrate.”

Sid had been certain there wouldn’t be any more deaths. But park rangers discovered Mrs. Dufour’s camera the day after Sid killed Marcellus. Aspen’s dad had the camera. It had been set up on a timer to take automatic photos and captured the teacher’s death. It also put her time of death at two in the afternoon, and Sid killed Marcellus around midnight.

When Aspen’s parents found out she had been wandering around at night taking pictures of a murderous dragon, they were pretty pissed off. Ultimately, they accepted that the dragon responsible for the deaths was dead. The media was a little harder to convince.

Aspen fiddled with the edge of her coat. “She was always so supportive. She didn’t like dragons, but she always told me if she spotted them when she was out with the wolves. Now she’s dead. The pictures show she knew exactly what Marc was going to do. She must’ve been so scared.” Aspen’s voice cracked, and Sid pulled her close.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

She sobbed into his chest. He’d never seen her this upset before. He didn’t know how to handle it except to continue to hold her. After a few minutes, she pulled away and sniffed. He grabbed a tissue out of the box sitting on the pew and handed it to her. She took it, blew her nose, and straightened her shoulders.

“It’s time to go. The news will be on soon, and we need to make sure that they report Mrs. Dufour’s death as taking place before you killed Marcellus. We can’t let the government get involved.”

Sid nodded and took her hand. He pulled her out of the little church where they’d attended so many funerals in the last three months. He hoped he wouldn’t have to come back here. Ever.





Aspen and Sid went back to Sid’s house after the funeral to watch the news. Aspen didn’t spend all morning hassling news reporters just to have them change the story. She refused to give them her pictures unless they promised to spin the story the right way, and they were desperate for her pictures. No one had ever taken a picture of dragons fighting among themselves.

Aspen should’ve been on time to the funeral, but she’d been too close to Mrs. Dufour to sit through the whole thing. It felt as if she’d burst open and say something she’d regret. The ache of loss had settled deep in her chest. She wanted to rip it out and not feel anything, but didn’t know how.

Theo was waiting in the theater room watching a horror flick. He was addicted to those things.

“Hey, dude, how was the funeral?”

“Awful,” Sid replied, flinging himself down on the couch. “They all are.”

“How long until the news conference?”

Sid looked at the clock and waved Aspen over. “Fifteen minutes.” Aspen sank onto the couch next to him and curled into him. He held her tight.

Theo flicked the movie off and disappeared. He came back a couple of minutes later with a bowl of popcorn, picked up the remote, and switched over the screen to the television. It was already on channel four, but Theo muted the sound.

“So, Aspen, what does it take to frighten you?” Theo asked.

Aspen unfolded herself from Sid and grabbed a handful of popcorn. “Not much, why?”

“Did you tell Sid about your own scare with a golden dragon?”

Aspen snapped her eyes up. She hadn’t told Sid about what happened after he left on Halloween night. She didn’t want him to worry. But as she was taking pictures of Marc’s ashes, a massive dragon flew right at her. She figured he was a relative of Marc’s who was grieving. Though she couldn’t imagine anyone mourning that sleazy bastard.

“What scare?” Sid asked, sitting down next to her.

“It was nothing. How do you know about that?” Aspen asked Theo.

He gave her a wicked smile. “Because I wanted to see if I could scare you. I’ve never felt one ounce of fear from you. Why is that?”

“Wait, that was you?” Aspen had been around enough dragons to know they all had distinct appearances. Some had longer snouts or wider bodies. Some had big spikes on their tails, and others did not. But Marc and Theo looked almost identical in dragon form. That’s actually why she thought the dragon was a relative.

Theo didn’t answer. He just threw more popcorn into his mouth. Aspen didn’t want to admit it, but he’d scared the snot out of her. Her fear just hadn’t set in until he left. She’d never felt like she was in danger around any dragons until that moment.

Sid placed two fingers on Aspen’s chin and turned her so she was facing him. “What’s he talking about?”