“Can we talk about anything else? Really? Anything?” He groaned and leaned back on the couch until he was practically lying down.
In an effort to save him, I cleared my throat. “I’m having trouble finding my mate.”
Casey went into the kitchen and grabbed a bag of chips from the snack cupboard where I kept a stash of junk food for the boys when they came to hang out. On his way back, I caught an eye roll. “Why do you want one?”
Nick shook his head at his brother. “You just don’t get it, Casey. Men need things.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Men need things?”
Nick nodded, sitting back up. “Yeah. My dad told me about it. Men need to have chicks around for, you know, certain things. It’s the same thing with mates, right?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “No, Nick, females are not objects to be used to fulfill men’s needs. Yes, as a part of my biology as a dragon male, I do need a mate to stay sane and level, but mates are also a responsibility—an honor. It is our responsibility as males to fulfill their needs, to make them happy. Having a mate should be like having a best friend—the very best friend.”
I shook my head. “A male should never treat a female as though she exists solely to care for his needs. Mates should complete one another.”
Casey was silent for a moment. Then, he met Nick’s gaze and blew out a breath. “It’s not like Mom and Dad, then, huh?”
Nick’s expression turned somber. “Definitely not like Mom and Dad. That’s not how it’s supposed to be.”
I moved across the room to sit in between them. Grabbing a controller, I grinned at them both and attempted to change the subject. “I’ve been practicing. I bet I can kick both your asses.”
We played an intense game of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 for the next twenty minutes until Casey paused it. “I got an idea, Cezar, why don’t you look for a mate online?”
I flipped the controller back and forth in my hands. “Yes. That thought did occur to me but I haven’t exactly figured that out yet.”
“Dude. Go on the internet and get on one of those dating sites. You just sign up and start dating.” Nick pulled a phone out of his pocket and tapped at the screen for a few seconds before passing it to me. “See? This is Tender.”
“Why do you have this?”
He blushed sheepishly. “Uh, needs?”
“Does your aunt know about this?”
“Hellz naw! Are you crazy? She’d flip. She still treats me like I’m a thumb-sucking baby.”
I sighed. He was a mere babe. I wasn’t going to phrase it that way and hurt his feelings, though. “You do seem a little young to be searching out a mate.”
“I’m not searching for a mate. I’m just searching for a date.” He grinned. “Not that it’s come in useful. At all. No one anywhere close to here uses this, apparently, unless they’re over thirty and I’m not into old ladies.”
I hit a button and pictures of females started popping up. In one of them I saw a cute, curly-furred puppy. I had never had a pet before but I had seen countless humans with them. It was adorable.
“Her?” Nick frowned. “Really?”
I looked up at him, confused. He was staring at the phone. “What?”
“That’s the type of woman you’re looking for?”
I considered the photo again, this time noticing the female. I shrugged. She was okay except I didn’t feel any mate-pull towards her. “I was looking at her dog.”
“Oh, man, this is going to be harder than I thought.”
I shook my head and scanned through more photos. None of the females caught my eye and eventually I just handed the phone back to Nick. “I don’t know.”
“These are women suggested for me. You have to set up your own account and get your own matches.” He tucked the phone away and grinned. “I could set up an account for you.”
Even though he was the saner of the two young males, I was still leery of entrusting him with such a task. “I shall do that myself.”
“How? You don’t even have internet and your phone is about a hundred-years-old. You really need to step into the twenty first century, dude.” Casey picked up my flip phone from the coffee table. “Does it even have Instagram?”
I ran my hands through my hair. The modern world was so confusing. I tried, but every time I learned something, eight more things popped up to remind me of my own ignorance. What the hell was an Instagram and how was I to obtain one?
“Seriously, Cezar, you’re like someone’s old grandpa who just can’t keep up.”
I growled at Casey and snapped my teeth threatening to eat him.
He was lucky I’d made a rule against eating humans.
5
Cherry
Monday morning, the second week of carrying the title of librarian of the Brasseaux Public Library, Cameron looked at me with a questioning gaze. I couldn’t help but send her back a narrow-eyed glare double dog daring her to say a word. I’d arrived late to work, and we’d been swamped since. I knew what she wanted to ask. She wanted to know what the heck had happened to me. I wish I knew myself. I’d been feeling, well, off for the past week. If I was superstitious and believed in hocus-pocus, I’d swear I was experiencing a premonition. That was hogwash, though.
At any rate, I hadn’t been myself at all lately. I’d broken my glasses and had to secure them together with electrical tape. Then, being late to work? It was the first time I’d overslept in…ever. I’d barely had time to throw on my clothes before rushing out the door. I had a huge stain on one half of my white shirt because, in my haste, I’d spilled my coffee all down the front of it. To top it off, I’d fallen asleep the night before with wet hair and I now looked like I’d stuck my finger in a light socket. I was a hot mess and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.
Even if I did want to talk about it—which I didn’t—I wouldn’t know what to say. Especially not with Cameron, who looked especially well put-together today. And, not with my sister, who waltzed into the library looking like the dark bronze goddess she was.
“Cherry! Hey!” Chyna hurried over to the circulation desk and leaned over it to give me a hug. “I’m sorry I missed hanging out this weekend. I was working, stuck in this tiny little swamp that had a patch of quicksand…you don’t even want to know. How was your weekend?”
I tucked my lips into my teeth and pointed at the tape holding the center of my glasses together. “I’m just trying to embody every nerd stereotype possible.”
She winced sympathetically. “Not such a great weekend?”
“Nothing eventful. I stayed in and binge-watched Netflix. The highlight was when I knocked my glasses off while trying to paint my toenails and somehow managed to simultaneously smear polish on my sofa and crack my glasses in two while trying to find them.”
“Sounds enthralling.”
“Very. So, tell me more about this quicksand.”
“Like I said, you don’t want to know. I had to stop by and see you, though. Maybe we can do lunch?” She ran her hands over my hair and wagged her eyebrows at me. “I guess this isn’t morning after hair, then?”
I slapped her hands away. “Quit teasing. Go back to whatever you were doing before you showed up to harass me.”
“Well, actually, I’m also here on business. I need to do some research on this species of moss I found.”
“And you call me enthralling.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll let you get back to what you were doing. I’ll be working until lunch. Then, you can take me out.” She looked down at my shirt and shook her head. “You’re a hot mess, girl.”
“I hate you.”
She blew me a kiss. “Love you, too, sis.” She wiggled her fingers at me as she walked off, leaving me to my work. Heads followed after her as she strolled towards the back of the library, to the back room that she loved to work in. Heads always turned when she walked by, but she rarely noticed. It was a private joke between the two of us that our mother gave us stripper names yet we were two
of the least promiscuous women of any we knew. Looks-wise, Chyna could have raked in the dollars as a stripper. With her beauty, she probably could have retired already. She was as prudish as I was, though.
Self-consciously, I ran my hands over my hair trying to pat it down and blew out a quiet sigh. How my twin could spend all her time scouting around in the swamp and still look beautiful, I would never know. I couldn’t make it from my house to the library without being a disheveled disaster.
Slipping into my small office, I closed the door and stepped into the attached bathroom. I had a quick second to asses my appearance and see if I couldn’t do some damage control.
My naturally 3c type curly hair was practically standing on end in places. Frizzy and unruly, my hair was a product of my possibly Creole heritage. Although, since Chyna and I didn’t really know our heritage, Creole was just a guess—albeit a good one given our thick, curly black hair and cocoa skin tone.
My shirt was a mess, too. Everything was a mess. With my taped-up glasses, I could’ve been in one of those eighties teen movies. Not as the underdressed, ditzy-but-hot girl, of course. Nope, no, I was one headgear away from being the posterchild for the classic nerd-girl breathing heavily in the background
Groaning, I dug through my purse looking for a headband or barrette. Something. But, nada. Well, I did find a mini hairbrush, but trying to tug it through my frizzy disaster was futile. I just scooped the whole thing up into a pony tail and secured it with a rubber band from my desk drawer. What I was left with was a poof ball at the back of my scalp that slightly resembled Peter’s cottontail but, I supposed it was a mild improvement from the frizz halo I’d been sporting.
I went back out into the library and made my rounds, checking to see if any of the patrons needed anything. After helping find a book on monster trucks for a kid who couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the tape on my glasses the entire time we interacted, I headed back towards the circulation desk. That was when the front doors opened and, almost as if in slow motion, a huge, hulking figure stepped through.
I stopped dead in my tracks. The air vent in front of the doorway caught his sun-streaked hair and gently blew it back. Wow. He was like one of those billboard ads of a handsome leading actor in a Hollywood blockbuster. A rom-com. The man in the doorway was too big, too handsome, too fit, too everything to not be some sort of model or Hollywood movie star.
In response to the breeze from the air vent, he casually reached up and ran his fingers through his hair. Wow. Even his mannerisms were sexy. A leather jacket stretched tightly over thick arms and my entire body went limp. To be that leather jacket hugging his body like that, I thought with a desperate heat blooming south of my belly. Even from across the room, he was amazing to look at. I wasn’t the only one who noticed, either. It was as though a hush had fallen over the library. Every head turned to look at him. Dead silence. It was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. Slayer would’ve been so pleased.
I watched as he paused, furrowed his brow and tipped his head back slightly, almost as though he was sniffing the air. Then, his head swung quickly in my direction, as though he sensed me staring. With lightning reflexes, I flipped around and pressed myself flat against a bookcase, firmly out of his line of sight. What the hell was wrong with me? If the man needed help, I’d have to help him. That was my job. What was I hiding from? I was in charge.
Thinking about going out there and offering him help was paralyzing, though. He was too attractive and whatever was going on with my body—and something was definitely going on with my body—was terrifying. I couldn’t do it, not even on a normal day, but the idea of trying to talk to him when my appearance was that of three day old roadkill? Nightmarish.
I looked down and found, standing at my feet, the same kid who had been staring at the tape on my glasses earlier. He was looking up at me in contemplation. Forcing a smile, one I was sure looked more like a grimace, I grabbed a book off the shelf and opened it. “Oh, here it is. Just the book I was looking for.”
Peeking surreptitiously around the bookcase, I saw that the amazingly handsome man had settled in and was now seated in front of a computer at one of the media tables. He was still facing me. My feet were still heavy as lead. I couldn’t move from my spot. I was just going to have to stay right where I was until he left. Hopefully, that would be soon.
6
Cezar
Something was strange about the place. I’d sensed it as soon as I walked in, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I glared down at the computer in front of me and rolled my neck. As hard as I tried to fit in, technology was still a struggle. I was too big for the tiny little devices, too. My fingers were too large for the keyboard and I didn’t understand all the options. Right then, I was trying to figure out why the machine didn’t accept any of the passwords I gave it.
My already irritated dragon roared flames in my head. Something in the library had roused him. He’d normally have been peacefully sleeping the day away while I did whatever I had to do, but he was wide awake and practically pacing. There was a scent in the building that was agitating—arousing, might have been a better word. It was fresh and sweet. I couldn’t place it, but my dragon seemed to recognize the scent. Maybe it was something from our old world. That was nearly impossible, though.
Even as I thought up different passwords and typed them in, my mind wandered, trying to place the incredible smell. I looked around the table and smiled at the humans sitting there. They were staring at me like I’d grown out my tail, especially a youngling with face full of freckles.
“Computers, huh?” I shrugged and looked back down at my own work space. The computer dinged, telling me it didn’t like the password I’d chosen. Again. My annoyance multiplied. I rubbed my hands over my face and blew out a slow breath. It didn’t like any of my choices. What did the flaming thing want from me? How was I supposed to know what to type in?
The hair rose at the back of my neck and I adjusted myself in the chair that was too small. I felt as though I was being watched. I looked up again and found that I was. I was still being stared at intensely by the people around me. But, that’s not what felt so off. It was something else. My gaze searched farther out into the room and caught a little glimpse of movement behind a book case. A fluffy, black poof of hair. I could still see it, sticking out slightly. A female?
“Do you need some help, sir?”
The female standing next to me was smiling. As she looked from my computer screen to my face, she raised her brows quizzically. My dragon withdrew and tried to back away from her. She was all wrong. She smelled wrong. There was something in here that was delectable, but this female was not it. Fortunately, I’d always had good control over my dragon. “I, uh, can’t figure out a password.”
“It’s right here, silly.” She pointed to a little piece of paper taped to the desk. “Every computer has a different password. It’s just the way the system is set up for some reason. It’s just Library, pound, number 6. Capital L.”
I read the paper and slumped in my chair feeling like a firemouthed idiot. I tried typing in the password. Another negative. I groaned. “It is not working.”
She leaned in closer. “Let me.”
Her small fingers typed faster than I had ever seen anyone type and then the computer made a happy sound and another screen came up. A picture of a long, narrow road with colorful trees on both sides. It was a rendition of the current season in the new world. Autumn. I leaned closer to study it. It was quite lovely. There had been no seasons in the old world. It had always been hot, unless it was freezing. Nothing in between like the new world’s autumn.
“Do you need anything else?”
I shook my head, eager to be rid of her. It was humbling displaying one’s inadequacies for all to see. I just wanted to figure out the dating site and then maybe sniff around the place to find out where that delectable scent was coming from.
“Just let me know if you change your mind.”
I gr
abbed the controller thing and watched as the arrow on the screen moved around. I had to figure out how to get to the internet. Maybe if I just typed in the name of the site? I punched the keyboard, one button at a time, but nothing happened. Groaning, I looked around again. I didn’t want to ask the female for additional help, but I also didn’t know how to make the computer work.
Once again, I caught movement behind the shelf, a black poof that bobbed and swayed. It reminded me of the tail of the small creature called a bunny rabbit. I continued to stare until it disappeared fully behind a wall of books. I had an incredible urge to follow it, to go see what was going on. The strong urge itself was curious, but I’d come to the library for a reason. I had an important mission—one might say a life or death mission.
I hit buttons on the computer until something popped up, covering the picturesque autumn scene. There was a bar that said search and I tapped away at the computer, typing in the website Nick had told me about, hoping that I was doing it correctly. A few seconds passed and then a page full of text came up, some of it in different colors, all of it incoherent. I leaned back in my seat and sighed. It all looked like gibberish. Maybe I’d just go back to the park and take my chances. I shuddered remembering the shrill cries of the small female who tried to pummel me with her handbag.
I picked up the controller and tried to move it around the page. When the little arrow didn’t move, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I could do this. I’d had trouble with my television at first, too. But, I’d read the user’s manual twice and finally managed to get everything to work the right way. I could conquer the small controller, too. There was no user’s manual for the controller, though. I moved it around, trying again to make it work. When nothing happened, I slapped the thing against my thigh hoping to wake it up.
The cracking sound drew surprised gasps, open-mouths and wide-eyes from around the table. Instead of just heads turning my way, entire bodies shifted to face me. I winced and looked down at the controller in my hand. I’d crushed it. Accidentally, of course.
Fire Breathing Cezar (Dragons of the Bayou Book 2) Page 3
