Under the Dragon Moon (The Belamour Archives, #1)

by Mawce Hanlin

A whole band full of magical creatures and yet still Leo didn’t know of the magical world? I found it hard to believe, but then again, we were pretty well known for playing towards the ignorance of humans. A vampire in New Orleans? Not farfetched, really. “He doesn’t know about you though.” It wasn’t a question, but Lugnut shook his head anyway. “Nope! We don’t hide it from him, actually we’re pretty fuckin’ obvious about it, but he’s just kind of an idiot sometimes. We’ve actually got a bet going on how long it takes him to figure it out, so do us a favor and don’t tell him.”

Mercy’s sharp voice cut through the room and drew our attention. “What the fuck is that? A hickey? You whore! What the fuck, did he try to eat you?”

She had his shirt—my shirt, actually—yanked down so far it pulled at the seams, revealing the purple splotches painting Leo’s throat and collarbones. They hadn’t looked that bad last night, but I kind of lost track after the second or third round. Leo was insatiable, and I found it so easy to collapse into him over and over again until I couldn’t remember anything other than the taste of his name on my tongue. “As a matter of fact, I did most of the eating, but he certainly wasn’t shy with his teeth.” My face burned as Leo grinned over at me, waggling his eyebrows. I wanted to punch him… or kiss him, I couldn’t really decide which. “You little slut.”

Leo’s face twisted up in that kind of pain only a parent could understand—the need to give them anything they want to make them happy while also absolutely abhorring the idea of whatever it was they were asking for.

We’re heading to Grandma’s today, and I for one cannot wait to see her face when she sees this.” He tugged on her blue hair and Remy lit up with excitement. “Grammy Rose?” “Nope, Grandma Seraphine.” Remy grumped, her little face screwing up in indignation. “Aw man, but I don’t wanna go to Grandma Seraphine’s! She’s a salope.”

“Momma said manners are only important on days when we aren’t going to see Grandma Seraphine! And Auntie Mercy says that bad words are just words that other people don’t like!”

She crossed her arms over her chest, and I realized this was my first true look at Mercalia James. This woman—who looked like a gutter rat had cut her hair, who had play-fought with Leo the moment we entered the house—now held the air of Poseidon on the ship of Odysseus. Powerful. Unmovable. The warning of a tsunami on the horizon, the threat of revenge for a loved one left hurt in the wake.

Would she be able to see how truthful it was to say that Leo felt… right, somehow? That he felt like destiny even if I didn’t believe in that sort of thing? Like I’d been searching my whole life and now there he was? I tapped my fingers anxiously on my mug, trying to think of a better way to phrase it that didn’t make me sound like a psychopath or a hopeless romantic.

The words wrapped a thread of magic around my throat, heavy and hanging in the air around us. Promises were a magic of their own, in a way. Deals made between two people, terms agreed upon and accepted. Mercy nodded and my father’s blood burned in my veins, the deal snapping closed between us. Not quite as strong as a sidhe deal, but nearly. “Good. That’s all I needed to hear.” “Are you two done with your posturing yet or do we need to keep hiding for a few more minutes?”

“You can come out, you bitch. Didn’t your momma ever tell you not to eavesdrop?” “My momma didn’t teach me shit,” Leo snarked as they rounded the corner.

“Ready to piss off some proper rich people?” And really, how was I supposed to say no to that?

Leo’s blue van—“A 1990 Mitsubishi Delica Starwagon and the light of my life since I was fifteen,” he’d said—puttered along down the road to a band he told me was called Nickelback.

“Shit, you okay? Do I need to pull over? Or I think there’s a water bottle back there somewhere. Remy can you—” “I’m fine.” I was not fine, but I would be. Once my body adjusted to the fact that it was just experiencing something new and not dying.

It was a bit like pouring pure vodka into a swimming pool and pushing me in. I felt drunk with it.

“It’s just overwhelming, like being stuck in a car in the middle of a bad storm. I’ll get used to it.” “I think it sounds pretty,” Remy chimed in behind us. “It’s like being in a car wash!” I shivered at the thought. I hated car washes.

“I still think it’s super freaky you can both do that. I mean, freaky in a cool way,” Leo rushed to clarify,

It sat in the center of a patch of land in the center of a bigger patch of bayou, and had a twisting driveway that circled around a fountain large enough to swim in. Maybe it was the hazy rain fog in my mind, but I wondered if anyone ever had. If any of the Slythe brats had shucked their pearls and suits to skinny dip in their grandma’s fancy fountain under the watching gaze of a fat, marbled wyrmling in the center.

“Well, let’s get this show on the road. Remy? Got your manners?” The child in question puffed out her chest, already unbuckled and standing tall in the back of the van. “Nope!” “Atta girl.”

It’s an innate ability in most people to recognize something of greater power than them, magic synesthesia or not. Something animalistic and generational—the reason you could look at someone and say they had “old eyes,” or you could pick up a crinkled book and feel the history between your fingers. Sometimes you just met a person that set you on edge, made your mind work in circles trying to figure out what made them different—they held themselves with centuries of knowledge but there wasn’t a wrinkle on their forehead, or they spoke in a way that didn’t quite line up with the modernity of their clothing. The old animal brain in all of us, reminding us to be vigilant, reminding us that not everything is as it seemed, and some things were more dangerous than they appeared.

Humans had that ancient fear more prominently than us. They got shifty around people who weren’t quite as human as everyone else, who just seemed other. Most of them didn’t know why they did it, but it was an instinct they couldn’t fight. Leo, I learned, didn’t have that instinct. Or if he did, he certainly ignored it.

Sur’ata reached out to take Leo’s hand, pulling him into a crouch in front of her. She traced her white-tipped fingers across his cheekbone and hummed. “You look just like her. Lovely thing, very sweet. Though she did not shine as you do.” Leo grinned. “You’re not the only one to tell me I shine lately.” “Like an eternal sun.”

To his credit, Leo didn’t flinch under Seraphine’s piercing glare, nor did he bow or cower. He stood with his chin raised, as if completely unbothered by the sheer power rolling off the other woman. He held the air of a visiting monarch paying honor to another throne. Equal, yet unyielding. As a human living in the magical world for only a handful of weeks so far, he had absolutely no right to look as stubborn and confident as he did in that moment—nor to be so attractive doing it.

Gods, I hated the south. All full of all this so-called “southern hospitality”. Vague threats and hidden insults disguised as polite conversation. Sympathetic apologies and placations, all disgustingly fake. For someone like me, who had such a difficult time with social cues in the first place, having a polite conversation with someone like the widow Seraphine Slythe would have been like playing tennis blindfolded with a ping-pong paddle. On roller skates. In the dark.

The leather of his jacket creaked softly as he shoved his hands in the pockets, an inconsequential action that would certainly come off incredibly disrespectful to the Slythe matriarch. “Someone must have said something at some point. I can’t quite remember. I’m just glad we made it on time. Remy would have been really upset if we missed her own parent’s memorial.” He put extra emphasis on the last few words and someone in one of the corners coughed out a quiet laugh.

“What I don’t know is why you think you are welcome in my home. Just because you’re investigating my son’s murder does not give you the right to attend family only events.” I had no response to that. She was right; I shouldn’t be here. Leo hadn’t even technically asked me to come. He just sort of implied it and then didn’t say anything when I tagged along. The number of unspoken rules I was breaking right now had me itching to apologize and take my leave. Leo’s hand found mine, his fingers slotting into the gaps as if they belonged there. “He’s my partner, so he can go where I go.”

The dead had a specific weight to them—like fingers grasping around your ankles, weighing down each step you took. I could find my way easily enough.

Leo radiated light, but every supernova began with the collapse of a dying star, and Leo was the brightest light in the sky.

My life dragged behind me like a suitcase weighed down by every choice I’ve made.

He laughed wetly, waving a hand through the air in narration. He talked with his hands a lot—like if he stood still for even a second, he wouldn’t know how to start again. It was endearing, like a hummingbird’s wings constantly in motion.

He always said it was love at first sight.” I could see that. I didn’t really believe in love at first sight, but if Lori was anything like her brother, I couldn’t imagine Owen being anything less than smitten for her.

I wondered how the Kid would have handled a situation like this. They were much better at social niceties and comforting people. Anytime older ladies came in to ask me about a missing kid or family heirloom—anytime tears came into play, rather—I pushed them off on the Kid to deal with. Maybe it was mean, but I’d rather come off rude than deal with people yelling at me for being “insensitive”. But Leo was different. Or at least I wanted him to be.

Being the center of attention was never my thing, but being the center of Leo’s attention? That was another matter entirely.

“Nguyen.” A name, spat like a curse. “Barns.” A reply, reluctant and unsure.

“You shut the fuck up, Nguyen. What happened was your fault, don’t put that shit on me. I didn’t know shit about any of that stuff. You were the expert. You said you knew how to do it, said you were confident in the spell. You killed her.” “You told me to bring her back—”

Leo’s voice had me jolting in surprise as he came rushing into the room, shoving Barns back a few steps. His guardian magic flared in the corners of my fuzzy vision, like vines wrapping around my arms and legs to check that I was okay. The light warmed something old and rotten in my chest that Barns had dug up, and I tried not to cling too desperately to it.

chance, I stepped in front of Leo, letting my nier flood into my eyes in warning. “Don’t.” The air grew heavy in the empty kitchen, the only sound being our heavy breathing and the distant chatter in the living room. Leo had a hand tangled in the back of my shirt like he was ready to yank me out of the way if necessary, but I wasn’t worried. Barns may have nearly killed me once, and I may have nearly let him, but I’d be damned if I let him anywhere near Leo.

“You’re a black hole, Mael. You suck people in, and the closer they get the more the pressure builds until they’re crushed in the weight of you. That human isn’t going to be any different. He’ll crumble in your orbit, just like everyone else does. You’re a fucking curse.”

“You knew he was from the Order?” “Yeah, he’s the one I told you about. The one who basically told me it wasn’t his job to figure out what I should do with Remy.” The blonde shrugged and ran a hand through his hair. “Honestly, the guy was kind of a dick, but he seemed pretty hell bent on solving the case. Asked me a shit ton of questions and everything, he just hated when I started asking them back.” That didn’t make sense, though. As far as I’d been aware, the Slythe case had nothing to do with smuggling or illegal imports.

If I could handle Barns bringing up all our baggage from the past, then I could handle an hour eating dinner with the Slythes. Well, I thought I could. Dinner was, in a single word: awful.

A grin spread across Leo’s face as he elbowed me in the ribs. “What was it you told me? You’re just ‘particularly good at finding things’?” He turned that smile to Elizabeth and leaned forward just as eagerly. “From what I can tell, Mael is the go-to for tracking down missing magical stuff. It’s why I hired him to find Remy’s egg in the first place.”

Elivs,

Leo pouted and leaned his chin on his hand, his eyes big and round and playful. “But I thought you didn’t do jobs for humans. Here I was thinking I’m special.” You are.

pees

“Then I imagine your patron must be very disappointed in you for wasting their power. If they have that much to give in the first place.” Something angry and dangerous thrashed in my chest at the accusation, the shadows in the room writhing and stretching in the corners of my vision.

There were certain societal rules people in our world followed. Not laws necessarily, but the kind of unspoken truths that everyone simply knew. Good people, moral people, knew when to follow them. You didn’t ask a vampire if they were born or turned. You didn’t cast spells or rituals in another witch’s home without permission. If a raven brought you a gift, you always took it and thanked them. And you never spoke badly of another warlock’s patron to their face.

I dug my nails into Leo’s pants until I worried he’d have bruises come morning, and spoke through gritted teeth. “You seem to have a bad habit of ignoring traditions and societal customs, Seraphine. One would suspect you have little care about your heritage in the first place.”

I might have told her it wasn’t actually me, that while my magic still beat a discordant war march in my chest and my nier still lashed about beneath my fragile control, the burst of power that broke the glass wasn’t mine. It tasted too much of snowstorms and lightning on the beach. “Forgive me, but you insulted me and mine first. By right, I am excused from any errant attacks my magic might make without my consent.” Remy’s head snapped around as soon as I spoke, and I begged her silently not to say anything. If Seraphine knew Remy was the one to break the glasses, any and all connection with her father’s family might be lost then and there.

“It’s clear us being here is harder on everyone,” Leo said, plucking a shaking Remington from her chair and setting her on her feet behind him. He didn’t let go of her hand as he faced Seraphine. “We’ve paid our respects. I think it’s time for us to go.”

Sur’ata’s gaze pierced through me like the shards of glass on the table. “Magic demands balance, Ard-rí, and the betrayal against it demands consequence.” Her fingers tightened almost painfully around my already bruised wrist and I struggled not to wince. “Even as it weakens and dies, it will find a way. You must find your heart and your anchor, or the darkened light will swallow you whole.”

Remington’s core is… well, larger than usual, so she’s okay, but she used up a big chunk of magic with that display in the dining room and she’s going to be pretty exhausted for a few days.” Leo frowned. “That was her? I thought it was you. That’s what you told Seraphine.” I fiddled with one of Remington’s curls to keep my hands busy, wondering why my chest burned with embarrassment. “Because she’d be even more upset if she knew the truth. I’d rather her hate me, a random stranger she’s never going to see again, than a kid who may need to rely on her in the future.”