Damaged Daddy Dragon

by Leela Ash

  “Over here, Apollo,” Quinn said gently, gesturing to a place on the floor directly opposite herself. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, suddenly nervous for the first time in who knew how long. Most things couldn’t shake him. So why did bending over in pretzel shapes around this cute girl suddenly become an exception?

  “It’s okay. Just lay your mat down flat, like this.”

  Quinn was holding her own mat, though hers had been tucked neatly away in some sort of case specifically for it. Who decided yoga mats needed their own custom backpacks anyway? Stupid yoga.

  But he watched solemnly as Quinn unrolled her mat and showed Apollo how to position his own across from her. Finally, he found the inner strength he needed to step toward her and lay the green mat down. When it was completely unrolled, he cursed inwardly. Another frickin’ flower.

  Quinn seemed to have noticed his reaction because she stifled small laugh. “It’s too late to choose another one,” she cautioned. “No going back now. Besides, the lotus is kind of a manly flower, don’t you think?”

  Apollo shot her a death glare, but the laughter in her eyes disarmed him and he let out a good-natured grunt.

  “Okay, since you think you have all the moves already, let’s get started with Padmasana in honor of your mat.”

  “Start with what?” Apollo asked incredulously. He had been born and raised on Earth, but it sounded like gibberish, whatever it was that had come out of her mouth.

  “Lotus pose. Like this.”

  Apollo watched, his face growing somewhat warm as Quinn’s body expertly sank into the pose.

  “That looks easy,” he mumbled, hastily moving to match Quinn’s position. His confidence quickly turned to panic. “Uhh…”

  “Your leg!” Quinn couldn’t hide her laughter this time and quickly disentangled herself from the pose to assist Apollo. He avoided her gaze, trying to ignore how comfortable it felt to have her hands on his body. When he was finally straightened out, Apollo let out a strained laugh.

  “See? Easy.”

  He was lying, and Quinn could tell. But she held him to his command and refused to go easy on him.

  “Right. Now, we are going to hold this pose for thirty seconds. Are you ready?”

  Apollo’s stomach dropped. He was a brilliant warrior. Keenly intelligent. Exquisitely muscled. But whatever this devil woman had forced him into was already beginning to show him that flexibility was not exactly his strong suit.

  “Has it been thirty seconds yet?” he asked, his voice strained as his muscles began to burn in protest of the position.

  Quinn shook her head. “But if it hurts, you should stop. Always listen to your body.”

  Hurt? Apollo was insulted. Being stabbed in the chest hurt. Having a wolf shifter sink its teeth into your shoulder while you are fighting its kin hurt. But lotus pretzel pose? No way. Apollo wouldn’t be hurt by that.

  “Okay,” Quinn said quietly. “Have it your way.”

  Apollo held his breath through the discomfort, and Quinn shook her head. “No,” she reprimanded. “You have to breathe. That’s one of the most important parts about yoga. Imagine your body as a machine and your breath as the fuel. Don’t lock up.”

  Apollo had often thought of his body as a machine. How else would he have managed to become such a great warrior? So, that was the easy part. Focusing on his breathing while his legs wanted to splay out in perfectly straight twigs in front of his body, on the other hand, was not so easy.

  But he finally made it through the thirty seconds, and Quinn smiled brightly at him. “Good!” she exclaimed. “You’re an excellent beginner.”

  “I’m sure that means a whole hell of a lot,” Apollo mumbled, soured by his experience already. But Quinn wasn’t to be deterred in her task and quickly shifted into another pose entirely.

  “Already?” Apollo squealed.

  “This should be nothing for a guy of your talents,” Quinn teased, standing up and leaning forward. She pulled a foot off the ground and held it behind herself, anchoring it against her hand. “Natarajasana,” she said evenly, without even a little strain. “Lord of the dance!”

  Apollo’s eyes widened. She wanted him to do that too? Well, it couldn’t be too difficult. Just standing up and holding your foot, right?

  “Hmm…” Apollo stood, doing his best to balance as he slowly began lifting one of his legs behind him. The dragon within him protested. It did not like to be unsteady and demanded Apollo either stop what he was doing or shapeshift and use its wings to steady them both. But Apollo paid his inner dragon no heed and got into a shaky but passable position.

  “Not bad,” Quinn said. He could feel her teasing him, but it wasn’t the kind that made him feel emasculated or angry. There was something else there. Something kind and maybe a little impish. She was poking at his ego. And he liked it. It was nice to remember he still had things that he could learn, even though he had already been tasked with one of the most important missions of his life.

  “Okay, five more seconds of this, then we switch legs and do the same thing.”

  “Dammit.” Apollo cursed under his breath before he could stop himself, and Quinn caught his eye.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Uh… nothing.”

  Quinn pursed her lips in amused tolerance before finally switching to her other leg. Apollo let his own leg down.

  “Ah,” he hissed, relishing the feel of having both feet on the ground.

  “Next one.”

  He wasn’t ready for it yet but he did it anyway. Quinn’s guidance helped him stay on his feet and when she was finished, she grinned at him.

  “Not too bad,” she said. “I bet, with practice, you could really do remarkable things in this class.”

  “I do remarkable things without this class,” Apollo mumbled, unable to hide the pouty tone his voice had suddenly taken on. He found himself following Quinn with his eyes as she worked her body into another impossible pose. What the hell had he been thinking coming here? Wasn’t this supposed to be easy, wimpy work? He could kick himself.

  Actually, he wouldn’t be surprised if Quinn had a yoga move for that too. She could probably contort him some way, so he could give himself a swift kick to the−

  “Apollo, are you paying attention? I said we’re moving into Kapotasana now. King pigeon.”

  Apollo took in the finished position as Quinn demonstrated it, then took a step back on his mat. “I don’t like pigeons.”

  Quinn smiled. “Come on, it’s not so hard. I can show you.”

  She fluidly moved her body to a normal, upright position, then suddenly, her hands were on Apollo, his arms, his waist, his legs. He had to bite back a growl of approval, his body reacting to her touch in an animalistic way. Finally, the dragon approved.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asked, stepping back to admire her handywork. “Well… it could use some practice, but a good foundation anyway. I think, if you come back, we’re definitely going to work on the grounding steps. I’ll stop humiliating you now.”

  Apollo silently thanked his lucky stars, then tried to hold the position as long as he could before finally admitting, “I can’t fucking do this.”

  Quinn shook her head, helping him back to a standing position.

  “You can do this and more, but it takes simple, straightforward steps to reach greatness.”

  Apollo was humbled for a moment as he took in the words and thought them through. Maybe that had been his whole problem with the other Champions. Maybe he had been pushing himself too hard to do too much, instead of breaking things down into realistic goals. He couldn’t do everything at once, right? But he had foolishly been trying, and was burning himself out.

  “Okay, now, I’m going to need you to just take a deep breath and relax,” Quinn said. “We’re going to do some less advanced steps to help prepare you for the more complex moves that come later on.”

  Apollo prickled suddenly at the suggestion to relax. How was he su
pposed to relax when he had all these insurmountable tasks to take care of? He immediately forgot his calming epiphany as his mind went into overdrive. He had to work on team building with the other Champions, prepare for retaliation against the majorly bad shifters who were on their way to Earth, somehow find a way to make time to see his daughter, convince the other men that the home worlds existed so they would actually be worth a damn in battle, and still do normal human things like paying rent and grocery shopping and finding a stupid mate that he didn’t even want to find. But she wanted him to relax? Relaxing got people killed! He’d known it was a stupid idea to come here. What a waste of time.

  “Apollo, just breathe. Let the tension go. Why don’t we try a stretch? Balasana. Child’s pose.”

  Child’s pose?

  Apollo’s mind wandered to Vera as Quinn hugged her arms by the elbows and bent over for a deep stretch in the back and legs. This was one he could do, and as he followed her lead, his daughter’s face was heavily on his mind. He wanted to see her so badly. He couldn’t believe how much he missed her. She was everything to him, and he had never imagined he could love someone so much.

  She wouldn’t want to see him being a nervous fucking wreck like this. He had always done his best to be as calm and balanced around her as possible. Maybe that was something they both needed right now, calm and balance. Quinn was right. He needed to just relax.

  “Good, Apollo. We’re going to do this for another ten seconds and then release. Slowly, come up to a standing position, rolling your spine easily along.”

  When he was upright again, Apollo let out a deep breath. That had actually felt surprisingly good. And the strange little ache he had felt in his arm before was gone now; that was definitely a good sign. Yeah, he would try to do more of this. His daughter needed him to be strong. Not just in the alpha way, but in other ways that mattered just as much. He couldn’t keep freaking out over every little thing, no matter how damaged he was and how easy it was for him to do things like that.

  No, he would embrace this small, still place that Quinn was trying to show him through her movements. He could sense it was there and admired her deeply for being able to access it and for caring enough about it to try to share it with others. It almost felt a little bit Loni of her, to be wanting to heal others and spread compassion. But there was no way she was one of the Loni. She was just another human. Special in her own right but not one of the beautiful, sacred souls that held the shifter species together.

  They went through several more, small poses, things easy enough that even Apollo and his hulking, tense muscles could manage to do them with relative ease. By the time Quinn announced that he needed to go into Savasana, or corpse pose, he was feeling almost optimistic about the things that the future might hold.

  “Good. Now for the last step today, I am going to do what I always do for my new students. Remain calm in your pose as I anoint you with a touch of lavender oil, presuming you have no allergies?”

  “No allergies,” Apollo murmured lazily. Surprisingly enough, dragon shifters had incredible immune systems, and even though Earth was foreign to them, there was nothing so strange or unfamiliar that their autoimmune systems perceived them as a threat.

  “All right. Just lay there a few moments and I will prepare the last step today.”

  Apollo allowed himself to drift into a surprisingly relaxed state. His mind and body were very much in tune, and even the dragon seemed to be curled up contentedly, pleased with the course the class had taken. He still had his eyes closed when a sudden warmth penetrated his forehead, and Quinn’s fingers began to work against him in a delicious rubbing motion against his temples.

  “Peace be with you, this day and always,” she murmured, her head bowed down over his, mere inches away. Suddenly, the dragon within Apollo was alive and alert again, the farthest away from relaxed that it could possibly be.

  Apollo cleared his throat, trying his best to get a handle on himself. He loved the feeling. The nearness of this woman. Her fearless spirit and unique way of communicating with him. All of this was good. Way too good. And now she was cradling his head gently in her arms, feeling for his muscles to give them a gentle massage. Suddenly, clearing his mind didn’t seem like such an arduous task anymore. All thoughts had left his mind except for Quinn and the sensation of her touch.

  No, he couldn’t let himself be distracted this way. He was a man on a mission. There was no way he could allow this to happen. He had to stay focused.

  Apollo sat up rather abruptly, shaken by how nice the woman’s touch had felt. Quinn backed away quickly and stood, frowning at how he had reacted to the touch.

  “Are you all right, Apollo?”

  Apollo looked at her stupidly, unable to articulate exactly how the woman had affected him. Even if he had been able to figure out how to say it, he was certain he wouldn’t want to. Whether there was hope with her or not, he had every reason in the world not to pursue anything even remotely romantic. Just because the elders had told him it was an innovative idea to mate didn’t mean that for him it was for him, specifically, Apollo. He was damaged goods, a broken man. And he didn’t want love again. Never. Not after…

  “I’m fine,” he said edgily. He knelt to the floor to roll his stupid flowery yoga mat back up. “This was actually a nice experience,” he said, hoping to distract himself from the complications that the woman’s touch had caused him to feel. Yes, she was attractive, at least to him, and there was a spirit about her that he couldn’t get enough of. But at the same time, he couldn’t let himself get distracted. He would work with the Champions, create peace and harmony amongst them all, then maybe he could consider it. But not a moment sooner.

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Quinn said. But now Apollo could tell that he had wounded her. or concerned her. one or the other. Either way, she was invested in him enough to feel personally affronted.

  “Uh…”

  “Look at us,” Quinn said, laughing off the negativity. “We’re all sweaty. Would you like me to show you to the shower room?”

  “Shower?”

  Was it even remotely safe for him to undress near this woman?

  Of course, it was. He wasn’t an animal. He could control himself.

  Apollo weighed the pros and cons. If he didn’t shower, then his scent would be incredibly strong. Any one of his enemies might catch it at a moment’s notice. But if he did, he could head back to the bed and breakfast without any worries. He might as well do the logical thing, even if it didn’t seem like the smart thing.

  “They’re this way. Most people don’t use them. They all live close enough to home that showering at the gym probably doesn’t seem necessary.” Quinn chatted as she maneuvered through her little studio toward a small entrance where the showers were stationed. “I only have the one room though,” she said apologetically. “It’s for whoever wants to use it. Not gender specific. But if you want to go out into the gym area there are bigger rooms there.”

  “This should be fine, thank you,” Apollo said, clearing his throat gruffly.

  He headed into the shower room and looked around as Quinn hung back and gave him some privacy. She had been sweating a bit herself; she’d made it a point to humble him physically and was clearly feeling the toll of it. He would have laughed if he wasn’t so high strung about it all.

  But there wasn’t much he could do about the situation. All that was left to do was strip.

  8.

  Quinn watched Apollo disappear into the shower room, her chest tight. No, she hadn’t been imagining the chemistry between them. It had been almost painful to experience it. Almost as painful as it was to ignore. God, how long had it been since she had felt the embrace of a man? Especially one who truly seemed to care about her?

  Had it ever really happened? From her experience, every man she’d ever been with had been in it for one thing and one thing only. They hadn’t given a shit about her or her needs, and generally made fun of her interests or acted like
they knew what was best for her. When clearly, that had never been the case.

  It had taken her a long time to see through their bullshit. Even when she was walking away, she wasn’t fully convinced that she wasn’t the crazy one. Even now she had doubts. After all, wasn’t she the one who stood out? who didn’t belong? Who had never been able to find her place in the world?

  Maybe everyone was right, and she needed to get a clue. Wake up and join the real world and care about things like football and beer and big trucks. What was the point in hoping for anything better, or putting energy into things that nobody else cared about? In a way, by being true to herself she was hurting herself. And didn’t that make her a little bit crazy?

  She shook the thoughts away. They weren’t going to help. The only thing that ever had helped was yoga. Exploring the unknown facets of life. It was important. She knew there was more to the world than what she was experiencing. There had to be. After all, how else would she have managed to have such a different opinion than just about everybody in Greenrock? Where had those ideas and beliefs come from?

  She wasn’t alone in her beliefs, at least not in the world. Still, insanity did seem a good possibility. That was why she wanted, so badly, to go beyond Greenrock and find other people who thought in a comparable way to how she did. Maybe then, she would find some answers. Anything that might prove to her that there was something beyond what she could see and feel, and experience might help her to finally find a peace that even a hundred years of yoga might never grant her.

  “Uh…”

  Quinn’s thoughts were broken by the sultry baritone of Apollo’s voice. She glanced to the doorway of the shower room in concern.

  “Towels?”

  “Oh!”

  Quinn could have smacked herself for the oversight. She headed to the closet, where she always kept a supply of freshly laundered towels, in case they were needed. Things could get a little sweaty in the studio, as Apollo had recently learned.