The Golden Dragon by Tianna Xander Page A

around the room at her sisters’ dejected faces, then shook her head. “If that’s what you want to do.” She shrugged. “Who am I to stop you?”
    “You’re the oldest,” Marigold spoke up as she popped a baby carrot in her mouth.
    “Where did you get that?” April narrowed her eyes.
    They had totally cleaned out her pantry and refrigerator after the egg-toadstool incident. If there were carrots left in her fridge, she would have called dibs on them before any of her sisters got their grubby paws on them, that’s for sure.
    Marigold gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I tried for some pears and got carrots instead. I figured I wouldn’t complain since they weren’t poisonous.” She popped 4
     
     

     
    another one into her mouth and offered a handful to Daisy who wisely shook her head and waved them away.
    That was it. If any one of her sisters made another wise crack about those damned toadstools, she would scream. April glared at her sisters and raised a brow.
    “Does anyone else have any smart-aleck remarks?”
    April wouldn’t put it past Ivy to say something smart, but Marigold elbowed her and told her to keep her mouth shut. Smart girl .
    “If that’s all, I say we all go home, get some rest, then practice as usual tomorrow.
    And that will give me some time to drive out into the country and become one with nature. With luck, that will end my problems. She waved her hand and everyone ducked when they realized it brandished her wand.
    “For crying out loud! Will you guys stop it?”
    * * * *
     
    Drake Delfavaro surveyed the deserted alley, his hands on his hips. He didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.
    It was an alley with a few dumpsters and empty crates lying about. Water dripped from one of the eaves as 5

     

     
    what was left of the rain from earlier ran from the roof.
    Other than that, it was as silent as it was vacant.
    “Did you see it?” The man who passed for his familiar, Martin Baccus, poked his head around the corner.
    “No.” He rested his hands on his hips. “I didn’t see a thing. What was I looking for?”
    “Toadstools.” Martin waved toward the end of the alley. “A huge pile of them.”
    Drake shook his head with disgust. “I can’t believe a grown man would fear fungi.” Was he serious?
    “I can’t help it. I’m deathly allergic.” Martin crossed his arms with a shudder. “Besides, they just sprung up from nowhere. What was I supposed to think?”
    “I never would have expected you to think we were under attack.” Drake reached down, grabbed an empty crate and turned it over. “I could understand if it was an army of imps, or a clutch of brownies.” He sat on the overturned crate and rested his head in his hands, unable to stop the laugh that escaped. “Toadstools?”
    “Well, they’d kill me ,” Martin mumbled.
    Man, he was getting tired of hiring humans and wimpy humans at that. It wasn’t that Martin wasn’t a nice guy. He was. He was also a wimp, plain and simple.
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    It would be lovely if he could find himself a true familiar. It was just too damned bad that the people meant to work with his kind chose to go into hiding hundreds of years ago. He couldn’t say he blamed them.
    After all, most of their kind were killed during the dark ages. Nothing good could be said of the Spanish Inquisition or the witch burnings. Those two events killed nearly everyone with whom his people made alliances. Finding a witch these days was like finding a needle in a million haystacks. He would never get that lucky.
    “Come on.” He stood and motioned for Martin to follow him. The man may be an idiot, but he was his idiot and after paying for the man’s education, he could at least get a few years of work out of him before Martin went totally off the deep end.
    Martin started toward him only to stop and point with horror. “There they are again!”
    Suddenly, a bunch of toadstools sprung up around Drake. He looked around with surprise. “What the