accidental 11 - accidentally ever after by dakota cassidy Page A

gelled-up, sprayed-to-within-an-inch-of-the-ozone-layers life in no time flat. I think. I dunno. Our powers seem to be doing weird shit here. It’s like we’re all off or something. But don’t you worry your pretty little fire-breathing head about it.”
    They’d stopped for the night in a place Jon thought was safe enough, as long as there was always someone on guard. While he set up their camp, she and Nina were doing their part by making a fire as Marty and Wanda looked for the sugared winterberries Jon had told them about.
    Carl and Dannan huddled close together as the ogre told Carl stories and they pitched tents made of a fabric Toni couldn’t identify.
    The wind howled a desolate cry and though the snow had stopped, when the sun dipped, the temperatures had, too.
    “What did Brenda mean when she said you couldn’t use your special powers to get to the castle?”
    “I’m bettin’ that nutty Hee-Haw honey meant I couldn’t throw your ass on my back and fly you there. Which is some kinda stupid bullshit, if you ask me.”
    Toni gulped and tried to act unfazed. “You f…fly?”
    “I do. And as you saw, Marty shifts into a hairy ass-sniffer and looks like she popped right off a damn movie set, and Wanda has fangs and she’s pretty strong, but she shifts, too.”
    “Because Wanda’s a halfsie, right?” She couldn’t even believe she was having this conversation when just a day or so ago she was asking Bree what she wanted her to do with the new shipment of ponchos.
    “Yep. Half vampire, half were. But she can’t fly. Sucks hairy donkey balls at it.”
    “So you guys are all friends? You really did meet because you used to sell makeup before Marty was turned into a werewolf?”
    Nina threw some stray branches into the pit they’d made in the ground and nodded. “Yep. It’s been almost eight years since that shit went down.”
    “That’s nice,” she whispered.
    If only Nina knew how nice. As they’d walked, Marty had told her stories about how they’d all met via her cosmetics company, about their children and baby dragon’s incredible birth, and hearing her talk about their families and barbecues and birthday parties and Christmases past brought back the empty ache of loneliness Toni had fought so hard to keep from eating her alive.
    “What about you, Dragon Slayer. You have family back home?”
    Turning her back to Nina, she pretended to search for more branches. “Nope. Just me.”
    “Friends?”
    “Nope.”
    “So you wanna tell me what the fuck made you latch on to that dragon the way you did? It was damn impressive, but risky as all hell, considering you’re a human . Do you have a death wish or some shit? Because if that’s the case, that makes you dangerous, and I won’t have you risking everyone else’s lives just because you don’t feel like you have anything worth dropping your feet on the floor for every morning.”
    Toni swatted at a stray tear with her thumb and inhaled, stooping to grab a thin limb. Did she have a death wish? Had she been that reckless because she was alone in the world and there was nothing left anywhere for her? Was she unconsciously looking to end it all?
    Toni fought that notion even as she denied it, trying to keep her voice light. “No death wish, promise. I can’t explain what happened. It just happened. I just instinctively knew what to do to disarm the dragon. And I guess I’m not so human anymore if I’m breathing fire, huh? Does that make me one of you?”
    Nina grunted and yanked up one of her ripped sleeves. “I don’t know what the hell it makes you, but I’d sure like some answers. Usually when we have a client, we have a source that’s bigger than just making a random wish in your lady brain.”
    “A source?”
    “Yeah, like the person who ends up accidentally turned had tangled with someone or something to get in the fix they’re in. Case in point, Wanda’s yappy, rambling bookworm sister, Casey. She had demon blood spilled on