None of those questions mattered right now. Really, the question of my ancestry wasn’t foremost on my mind at that moment. What really mattered?

“Mom, what are you doing here?” I asked. The answer was bound to be complicated and I probably shouldn’t have asked. A smarter person would have run screaming out the door and never returned, seeing their long-dead mother strangling a Pepsi on the couch. I wasn’t smart, and I was dead bored with my job.

She sucked a breath in and gave me a remarkably apologetic look for someone who’d seen my housekeeping. “I need help. Inconspicuous help. I couldn’t think of anyone else.”

I nodded slowly, painfully aware of my own stupidity. Fuck it, it’s my MOTHER . “What kind of help?” I inquired.

She smiled, the first time I’d seen that smile since I was ten. “I need you to find the five half-bred children of a dragon.”

I nodded, feigning comprehension. She provided the only leads she had, and left her number.

It turns out demi-humans are a lot more common than you’d guess.