“And she’s nice to you,” the king said.
“Yeah, she’s nice to me. It’s great to talk with her, and she’s got a funny little sense of humor. And she’s cool. She gets me. And she doesn’t have a mean bone in her body.”
“And you like hanging around her,” the king said, leaning back and folding his hands on his stomach.
“Well, of course. She’s great.”
“To the point where you’re having problems making it to meetings with the accounting department.”
“I only skipped one meeting. Maybe two. And she’s a contractor. Someone has to oversee her. And it certainly wasn’t more than three meetings. Probably.”
Math could think of at least five meetings he hadn’t shown up for, and maybe one more.
“Been buying jewelry for her?” the king asked.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Dragons like sparkly rocks and shiny metals, and they like to heap them on their mates.”
“We—you know—made the dragon with two backs. Jewelry is customary.”
“How much jewelry?”
Just the bracelet. Maybe he’d opened a tab on his laptop when Llywelyn wasn’t looking and added a little something more to the virtual shopping cart. “Just what’s customary.”
“So, like you dipped her in a dragon’s hoard.”
“Just a little bauble or two.” It had only been fifteen hours. They’d been asleep or busy for most of that. He hadn’t had time to buy much.
“Any new markings?” the king asked.
“No. Why would I get a new marking?” Llywelyn meant the dragon tattoo that all mated dragons bore on either the front or back of their shoulder, which was different than the dragon marking on Math’s back and ribs that he had been born with, evidence that a dragon soul inhabited his body. “Isn’t that part of the wedding ceremony, getting the tattoos together?”
Llywelyn stared at him, the blue glitter of his eyes flowing slowly inward. “Do you know how mating works?”
“Of course. One of you proposes. You buy a ring. She buys a dress. There’s a party. Everybody eats and drinks too much.” He thought about it a second. “There’s cake.”
The king nodded, but Math got the feeling he was actually shaking his head no. “That’s how naturals get married, but that’s not how dragons mate.”
Math stared at his computer screen, but the numbers fuzzed and swam in his vision. “I am not talking to you about this.”
“You are Cedrych’s son, aren’t you?”
Cedrych was his father, dead for ten years now. “Obviously.”
“So, when you had sex with her—”
“Dude! Some privacy, you know?” Even though he’d already admitted it.
The king leaned forward. “How was it? Was it really great?”
“She’s a witch. I assume she cast some tantric magic or something.”
“Like firecrackers up your spine and that moment of unthinking bliss went on forever?”
Heat filled Math’s face. Fire wafted out of his nose. “I am not talking with you about this.”
“So, that’s a yes?”
“Yes!”
“You’re mating with her.”
“I am not!”
Math’s unease awoke his dragon, who growled somewhere near the back of his skull.
The king said, “Mathonwy, I would say you’re nearly at the stage of the mating frenzy.”
Math looked up at him aghast. “You’re the second person who’s said that.”
“Because it’s obvious. You need to prepare yourself and Bethany for it.”
“Prepare? What would I need to prepare us for?”
The king bit his lip, gathering himself, before he said, “The marking is burned into the mate’s skin with dragonfire.”
“What!” Math stood and paced, running his hands through his hair. “That’s barbaric! Who the hell thought that up?”
The king’s tone became rather dry. “No one thought it up, Mathonwy. It’s biology. That’s how mating works.”
“You—you burned a brand into Queen Bronwyn to mate with her?”
“She’s the dragon, but that’s how everyone does it.”
“Are you supposed to be in dragon form when you burn your mate alive?”
The king laughed. “No, I think the woman would probably explode or something. It might work if the woman was the dragon shifter, I suppose, but that’s still weird.”
“My father had to breathe fire onto my mother and burn her?”
King Llywelyn sat back in his chair. “You make it sound like it’s a bad thing.”
“Burning people is bad! Didn’t they teach Bronwyn that when she was a dragonling?”
“It’s not like that.”
“You’re a mage! How did you even survive?”
“It’s not that bad. As a matter of fact, it’s not bad at all.”
“When Cai and I were in kindergarten, we got into a fight, and I scorched him a little. I got in so much trouble, and he was hurt pretty badly. He handled it well after his mother got there. He’s tough.” His dragon shrank at the memory, ashamed of his childish rage. “I can’t do that to a woman I love, not that I’m in love with Bethany Aura.”
King Llywelyn regarded him, his head tilted to the side. “Aren’t you?”
“No!”
“I’d say you’re about three-quarters of the way to the mating frenzy, Mathonwy. It’s not up to you anymore.”
He flipped his hand in the air, dismissing the superstition. “Oh, so it’s that whole fated mate thing, again. I don’t believe in fated mates.”
The king stared at him. One of his gray eyebrows drifted up. “Dragons have fated mates, Math.”
“We aren’t animals controlled by our biology or magic or whatever. We have free will.”
“All that is debatable, but what’s not up for debate is that a dragon soul resides inside us. Our supernatural nature makes us very different than the naturals and even the non-shifter supernaturals. They can choose their mates, and they can divorce. They can fall out of love. When our dragon finds a person who resonates with them—whether that person is a natural human or another dragon or a witch—the dragon creates a magical, unbreakable bond. It changes both the dragon shifter and the dragonmate in profound and fundamental ways so that our dragons can produce a new dragon soul for children.”
“So, love has nothing to do with it.”
“That’s not true. Most dragon shifters are so in love with their mates before the fever hits that sometimes, they don’t even notice. Like you, someone has to tell them what it means. Dragons feel things deeply, Mathonwy. Dragons love deeply. It’s not surprising that there’s a magical component to it, too.”
Math stared at King Llywelyn, horrified. “So, I have no choice in this?”
“Well, you do, but it’s not a good choice. If you stop seeing her, or if you try to mate and she refuses you or won’t surrender to the mating—”
There it was again, to surrender to the mating. Math didn’t like that wording, and he suspected Bethany would loathe it.
“—then you will become senescent,” the king finished.
This just kept getting worse. His dragon uncoiled, agitated. “What the hell is senescent?”
King Llywelyn said, “You grieve the loss of your mate, essentially, even though the mating never occurred. You’ll lose the distinctive eye characteristic of the mated dragon. Your dragon’s color will dim. Your energy will plummet, and you’ll become quite feeble for a time. Your mind wanders, and it will be hard to concentrate on anything earthly. Eventually, you’ll regain your strength and be able to look for a mate again.”
That sounded horrible. “Does that last, like, a couple of weeks?”
“Usually thirty years or so.”
“Are you kidding me?” Fire shot from Math’s mouth and singed the carpet in the king’s office. The rug was highly flame resistant, of course, like everything in the den deve
lopment.
The king lowered an eyebrow and stared at the charred spot on his carpet. “Not in the slightest. Mating isn’t a joke.”
“Do dragons go through decades of senescence if their mate dies?”
“Oh, no.”
“Well, that’s good,” Math muttered.
“Dragons don’t usually survive the loss of a mate. They usually die of a broken heart within days.”
Math stared at the king. “I have to admit, death sounds better than thirty years of abject misery.”
“It’s why you don’t see many dragon widows or widowers.”
Now that the king mentioned it, that was true. Math didn’t know anyone who had survived the death of a spouse. His parents had died within five days of each other.
He sat and held his head in his hands. His dragon paced inside him. “This is all a lot to take in.”
“Didn’t your father take you aside and tell you this when you were a teenager?”
At that, Math laughed. “Did you meet my father?”
It was a rhetorical question, of course. The king had worked with the previous Duke of Draco on many occasions.
The king bobbled his head from side to side. “Okay, I can see where Cedrych may not have been forthcoming with details. I can’t believe you got to forty-two years old without knowing about the birds and the dragonflies.”
“They should have taught us about mating frenzies and senescence in school,” Math said. “This is definitely an appropriate subject for Supernatural Sciences.”
The king bobbled his head again. “They’ve had a new curriculum for the last decade or so. Back when you were in school, King Ianto was very conservative and believed that such things should only be discussed in private. You guys got abstinence-only magical sex ed.”
Math scowled. “I really wish someone had told me that I would have to choose between burning a woman I love alive or walking around like a zombie for thirty years. That’s something I would have liked to have been prepared for.”
The Return Flight
MATH’S dragon soared through the sky above the craggy mountains, the icy air blowing over the snow-capped peaks and against his leathery wings. He looked through the dragon’s eyes and coasted on the wind, flying back toward Las Vegas.
Toward Bethany.
He shook his head, and the rushing air caught his horns and scales as he flew.
Not Bethany.
Just back toward Las Vegas and a thief at the Dragon’s Den Casino that needed to be dealt with.
And some sea monsters in the fountain.
And angel investors arriving in under two weeks.
Investors that were actual angels.
Angels hated chaos, disorganization, and theft.
So did Math.
So did Bethany.
She didn’t like disorder any more than he did, considering the way her little nose wrinkled up and her jewel-toned apparitions scurried around with such vigor and earnestness, intent on making everything perfect.
He could hardly wait to get back to her. He should arrive in time for supper. Maybe they could have another date. Maybe he’d order room service into the penthouse suite so they wouldn’t waste much time eating before he could touch her soft skin.
And breathe in her delectable scent of lemons and springtime.
And taste the feminine musk of her body on his tongue.
And bury himself in her warmth and fragrance, losing himself in her.
Math shook his head again, trying to concentrate on the casino’s embezzlement problem. It had to be someone in the accounting division, probably in Accounts Receivable. There were a few dragons in there but mostly other shifters. It could be anyone, of course. Math couldn’t allow his bias toward other dragons to influence his thinking. Any person, natural or supernatural, could be the culprit, and his dragonish impulse to protect his hoard made him angry at the embezzler.
Dragons have deep instincts to protect their hoards and their mates.
Because a dragonmate is a precious thing, more precious than gold and glittering gems and black lines on spreadsheets, a treasure beyond measure and the center of the dragon’s life.
An image swept through him: Bethany with the glowing eyes of a dragonmate, dark glitter running through her irises as she smiled at him, dark fire in her eyes as she beckoned him to their bed, and him crawling in after her and allowing himself to take her like a dragon, able to use his strength and power instead of holding back because humans are fragile.
Power surged through him, and he jetted ahead in his flight toward Las Vegas.
Their days would be fleeting touches and whispers, and their nights would be lovemaking and laughter. His loneliness would ease, just knowing he could return to her at the end of the day. Even now, when he oversaw her work at the casino, that ache of his solitary life was lighter and easier to bear.
Dragons had lived in clans for only a few centuries. Before that, dragons were hermits, living alone until they found their dragonmate and she became their whole world.
Bethany was already his whole world.
If they made the mating bond—he’d heard whispers in high school about the intensity of the soul-deep tether—he’d never have to live without her. If she died, his heart would die with her, and he would follow her to the next world.
He flew harder, his great wings beating the freezing air above the snow-dusted, craggy mountains, straining to get to Bethany.
Girlfriends and Cake
WHEN Bethany cleaned her apartment the next morning before work, one of the mint-green bunny apparitions scooting its fluffy face and tummy over her kitchen countertops turned black.
That was weird. Her apparitions got dusty and retained crumbs in their fur, but they didn’t turn black.
She picked it up, shaking it out over her sink, and tossed it onto her shoulder, where it clung and snuffled her ear.
The black substance on her fingertips that dusted her sink was as soft and smooth as baby powder.
Soot.
She squinted at her fingers, looking at the edges of the black smears.
And gray ash.
That was weird. There shouldn’t be a dusting of ash and soot on her kitchen counters. She hadn’t burned any candles or sage in her kitchen in weeks. Not since Ember’s little demon-summoning mishap just before Christmas, when she’d overshot summoning a fire elemental to dance around Bethany’s fake fireplace as a faux-Yule log.
She sniffed her fingertips, and the smoky scents of burning wood and fabric filled her nose.
Yep, this fine, dark powder was definitely soot and ash.
And one of her oven mitts had been missing all morning.
Later, when Bethany breezed through her front door at noon, Willow already was munching on a salad and drinking a potion that smelled like strawberries and vomit from a thermal mug. It didn’t look like the Parisian Potions course had gone so well. “So, who’s the mystery guy?”
“I didn’t say anything about a mystery guy,” Bethany said, unwrapping her submarine sandwich.
Ember and Willow both performed a dramatic turn to stare at the two gigantic bouquets of scarlet roses on her kitchen table.
Willow asked, “Bought those expensive bouquets for yourself, did you?”
A tiny air elemental whirlwind traipsed across Bethany’s floor, scattering lint, clearly Ember’s editorial comment about the solidity of Bethany’s denials.
Oh, Bethany wished Ember wouldn’t do that. Spellcasting for the three of them was too risky to roll the dice on a joke. She might have produced a tornado that whisked them all off to Oz.
Ember asked, “New bracelet?”
Dangit. Bethany tucked her arm behind herself.
Willow said, “Come on. Let’s see it.”
Bethany relented and held up her arm for their inspection. A shaft of sunlight caught the bracelet, and the silvery metal glowed.
“Oh, wow,” Ember said, scooting forward. “That’s not silver. That’s plat
inum.”
Trust the dang elemental witch to be able to detect precious metals. Bethany muttered, “Yeah, that’s what the Tiffany’s box said.”
When she looked up, both of them were staring at her.
Ember said, “So, it’s serious.”
“We’ve only known each other a few weeks,” Bethany said. “Last night was our first real date.”
Willow pointed at the flowers. “Only one date?”
“One bouquet last night,” Bethany admitted, “and another one this morning.”
“You dirty, dirty witch,” Ember said, scooting forward and setting her orange chicken aside. “I’m going to need all the details. Where did you meet him?”
“At work,” Bethany said.
Willow raised her eyebrows. “More.”
Bethany sighed. “He’s my boss.”
“And there it is,” Ember said.
Willow asked, “Just your boss?”
“Well, he’s the Chief Financial Officer—”
“So, your boss’s boss’s boss’s boss,” Ember said. “Bethany, sweetheart, I think we need to have an intervention.”
“—of Dragons Den, Inc,” Bethany finished.
“Wait,” Willow said.
“Hold on,” Ember said.
They were both looking at her sideways.
Bethany asked, “What?”
“So,” Ember asked, “He’s—a dragon?”
“Well, he’s a dragon shifter,” Bethany clarified. “Most of the time, he’s human. Or he resides in human form. Or something. I don’t know the proper way to say it.”
Ember and Willow looked at each other.
Willow said, “Now it’s time for the intervention.”
“He’s great,” Bethany said. “He’s really nice.”
“So,” Willow said, staring out of the window. “Is it true?”
“What?” Bethany asked, frowning at her.
Willow’s grin was decidedly uncomfortable, but she didn’t stop leering out the window. “What they say about dragons.”
There were a lot of rumors about dragons. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Dragons and Magic Page 10
