Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

Gareth’s head repeatedly into the side of the car.
    “How dare you use my body! How dare you pretend you were my husband! How dare you do whatever it is you did to me just so I would make gold for you! It really was you who wiped my memory, wasn’t it? Just so I didn’t know what you and Ruth were doing to me! By the rood, I’ll hang your guts from the highest tower!”
    Gareth struggled feebly, but he was no match for me. Ruth would have attacked, but Baltic grabbed her by the arm and kept her back while I took out a little of what was evidently centuries of abuse on the man who had deceived me so cruelly.
    “How dare you treat Brom the way you did!”
    “Uh, Sullivan? I think he’s passed out,” Brom pointed out.
    I released my hold on Gareth, suddenly horrified at what I’d done. “Oh my god! I tried to kill my husband in front of my own child!”
    “Ex-husband, I think,” Jim said.
    “Non-husband,” Baltic corrected, releasing Ruth as I leaped to my feet and clutched Brom to my chest. “ ‘Usurper’ is a better term.”
    Ruth cradled Gareth’s head as I hugged Brom tightly. “Honey, I know you must be frightened and confused by what I just did to your father—”
    “Actually, I was wondering if I could kick him.”
    “—and I have no excuse for it, none at all, but you know I’m not a violent person, and you must understand that I just had a very bad shock, and I lost my temper. Please, tell me you understand!”
    “I understand,” Jim said, lifting its leg. “You wanted to beat the crap out of him. I think pretty much anyone would after he played nook-nook with you all that time when he was really married to Scrunchy Face, here.”
    “Grah!” Ruth snarled, lunging at Jim as it peed on Gareth’s foot.
    The demon bared its teeth, and Ruth collapsed back onto Gareth, patting his cheeks and sniffling to herself.
    “Brom?” I asked, releasing his head. He reeled backwards for a moment, his eyes huge. “Are you all right?”
    “I couldn’t breathe,” he said, giving my boobs a wary glance.
    “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m so very, very worried that you misinterpreted the little argument your father and I had.”
    “Little argument?” Jim snickered. “If you call beating someone to a pulp on the side of a car a little argument, then I don’t want to see you when you really get pissed.”
    “It’s OK, Sullivan,” Brom said, patting my arm in a supportive manner. “I don’t blame you for trying to kill Gareth. If you get mad at him again, and really do bash his brains in, can I mummify him?”
    “Just tell me this, Gareth,” I said, glaring down at where the man I had thought of as my husband was trying to pull himself up. “Did you ever really want Brom and me?”
    He touched his swollen bottom lip, grimacing at the sight of blood on his fingers. “I wasn’t going to let you get away from me, not the goose who laid the golden eggs every year.”
    My anger turned cold and settled in the pit of my gut. “So rather than let me have a life of my own, you bound me to you to ensure you could use me each year.” I glanced at Brom, wanting to yell at Gareth for bringing into the world a child he didn’t want and didn’t care about, but Brom had had enough shocks for the day. “As of this moment, you are no longer a part of our lives. I don’t want to see you again, and I will take legal action if you attempt to see Brom.”
    Gareth sneered as best he could with a battered face. “I don’t give a damn about—”
    Baltic moved faster than I could follow, grabbing both Ruth and Gareth and flinging them into the car. “He will not bother either of you again. You are both mine now.”
    “And thank the stars for that,” I said, giving Baltic a grateful look that had him doing a double take.
    “Whoa. I know what that’s going to mean,” Jim said, nudging Brom on the hip. “I think you’re going to want to look away. You’re too young to see what Baltic’s about to do.”
    “You haven’t heard the last of us!” Ruth swore as she started up the car. “We will not be treated this way! You may think you can hide behind the dragon, Tully, but you are beholden to us! You are ours, not his!”
    “Right, that’s it!” I yelled, suddenly furious again. I started toward the car, pushing up my sleeves. “You want a piece of me? You can have a piece of me!”
    “Didn’t your mom say she wasn’t violent?” Jim asked Brom.
    “Yeah.”
    “You can have a piece