Dating A Dragon (The Mating Game Book 2)

by Georgette St. Clair

The dragon shook itself and the air went ripply as it melted into human form. It was Viola – the woman who hated her. She stood there, stark naked, and her eyes were blood-red.

  Viola’s lips curled in an ugly smile.

  “Look at you, all alone up here,” she said. “I hear you can’t fly.” She glanced at the cliff edge. “Shall we find out?”

  Cadence felt a sharp stab of anger.

  “Let’s be clear,” she said coolly. “Are you threatening to throw me off the cliff?”

  “What if I was?” A cruel smirk curved Viola’s lips. Smoke streamed from her nostrils, and a wave of red and black scales rippled over her skin.

  “I mean, what good are you, anyway? You’re not human, you’re not a dragon. You claim you’re fertile, but you certainly haven’t proved it yet. That would be a great way to get your claws into our Dominus. Trick him into a sterile mating.”

  Cadence clenched her fists and yearned for her wolf. “There’s so much stupid in what you just said, I don’t even know where to begin. So I won’t bother. Get the fuck out of here.”

  “Or what? You’ll go running to Orion and tell, like a crybaby?” Viola stalked closer to Cadence, until Cadence was forced to take a step back.

  Then Cadence stood stock still. Viola walked right into her, ramming her hard, and pushed her, forcing her to take two more steps back. Now she was getting alarmingly close to the mountain’s edge.

  “Scared, aren’t you?” Viola said eagerly.

  Cadence felt fury boiling deep inside her, and before she knew it, it came whirling out of her in a blast like nothing she’d ever experienced. She felt a delicious chill sweep through her body, and a surge of power that thrilled her all the way down to her toes.

  Viola was instantly covered with frost from head to toe. Icicles dripped from her hair. Her eyes were frozen open, her mouth in an O of shock and horror.

  Stiff as a statue, she fell flat on her back. Several icicles snapped off her hair and fell onto the stony ground.

  Cadence stared at her in alarm. Had Viola just…cracked? She hadn’t meant to actually kill her – just warn her off.

  Then the ice on Viola began melting, and she made spasmodic twitching movements. Soon she was lying in a puddle of water with steam rising from her body, and frantically blowing out puffs of smoke from her mouth and nose. She was warming herself from the inside out.

  She climbed to her feet and staggered back a few steps. Her eyes were wild. Her face and hands were blackened and blistered. Half her hair had broken off.

  Cadence heard the giant whoosh of wings, and a gale of air whipped her hair into snarls as Orion landed with a roast sheep clenched in his jaws. He dropped it on the ground with a thud.

  She was suddenly starving. Must be an effect of using her dragon powers.

  Cadence ran over, grabbed a piece of mutton with her hand, tore it off, and began shoving chunks of meat into her mouth. Screw table manners. She felt like if she didn’t get some food in her, she’d faint.

  “What the hell happened?” Orion demanded, looking at the two women. “What did you do to her?”

  “Oh, Orion! I’m so glad you’re here! You saved my life,” Viola whined. “You must hand her over to the ice dragons! I flew up here to make peace with her, and she was so jealous that she just—”

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Orion snapped. “It’s obvious you threatened her.”

  “What do you mean?” Viola let out a low wail of dismay, gesturing at herself. “You’ve known me and my family your entire life! You just met her! You’re going to take her side over mine?”

  Orion’s gaze was hot with anger.

  “She has just started to develop her powers. She can barely make an ice cube under normal circumstances. The only way she would be able to blast you like that is if you attacked her or made her fear for her life.”

  Viola sniffled. She reached up and gingerly patted her head. A big chunk of hair came off in her hand. She touched her cheeks, feeling the blisters that bubbled there, and groaned in fury.

  “Look at me! She’s scarred me for life! Nobody will have me.” Her desperate gaze focused on Orion. “Your guest did this, and by law, you are responsible for the damage. It’s the law, Orion – it’s in the scrolls! You have to take me as your mate now. And I can give you dragonlings! You know I can!”

  “You’re quoting the law at me?” Orion scoffed. “I majored in dragon law at Harvard. Since you attacked her without provocation, the law says that you are responsible for any damage that she inflicted on you. Now get off this cliff. I’ve got some more courting to do.”

  “I won’t.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You cannot give me an unlawful order. I will report you to the Dragon Elders. I will— Aieeeee!”

  Orion had picked her up, lifted her high over his head, and hurled her off the cliff.

  Cadence let out a startled shriek, and her heart leapt to her throat. She looked down and saw Viola in dragon form, flapping her blackened wings, awkwardly flailing at the air. Viola descended rapidly and finally landed on the ground with a graceless splat. Then she turned human again and began running naked through the fields towards the castle.

  “How were you so sure that she would still be able to fly?” Cadence asked.

  “I wasn’t.” Orion grinned fiercely.

  He was kidding, of course.

  Wasn’t he?

  She turned her attention back to the mutton, diving into it, pulling at it with her fingers and stuffing it into her mouth. Gradually her hunger abated.

  When she was done, she looked up at him, embarrassed.

  “Sorry, that was not at all ladylike,” she murmured.

  “I like seeing a woman with a healthy appetite,” he said. “I think it’s sexy.” He grabbed her hand and licked the juices off, and at the feeling of his tongue lapping at her, she stifled a small moan.

  “Is…is that you seducing me?” She swallowed hard.

  “Perhaps. Is it working?”

  He took her fingers in his mouth and sucked on them, and this time she moaned out loud.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Stuck up,” she murmured.

  “Extremely self-confident.” He kissed her palm, and she bit her lip in frustration and then reluctantly pulled her hand away.

  “We…we should finish up the mutton and go back now,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Fire and ice, remember?”

  He quirked one eyebrow at her.

  “What?”

  “Fire can melt ice,” he said with a smile. “It can melt it into a nice, wet puddle.” And then he knelt down by the mutton and began tearing into it with gusto.

  Chapter Seven

  Her appetite was normal at breakfast, and her attempts at reproducing yesterday’s gust of frozen air had failed. She’d managed to make her coffee iced and not hot, and she’d frozen a tray of water into ice cubes – that was about as good as it got.

  It was a Saturday, so the children weren’t in school. Apparently, during the week they went to school in town – on the south side of Lyndvale, at a public school where humans, shifters and fire dragons attended. It wasn’t that ice dragons couldn’t go, but they all lived in North Lyndvale, so that was where their children went to school. In the middle lived humans and shifters who did business with the dragons.

  While Orion was in his office taking care of some mining business, Cadence went out to the courtyard behind the castle and watched Phoebe and half a dozen other dragonlings doing their fire training. They stood in a semi-circle around bales of hay, with half a dozen adults, and blasted the bales with their flames. Great. Ten-year-olds were more powerful dragons than Cadence.

  Phoebe turned her bale into a mighty fireball, then waved at Cadence and skipped over to her.

  “How’s your snow going? Are you doing any training?” she asked.

  “No, but I probably should. Then I could be fierce like you,” Cadence said.

  Phoebe beamed. “Yo
u should practice,” she said. “My mother says practice makes perfect. Here, blow out some cold air.”

  Cadence blew a blast of barely frosty air, and Phoebe blew a puff of flame at it.

  “Look, we made steam!” she said. “I’ll tell my science teacher.”

  “Phoebe, get over here! Now!” a tall, lean woman called out to her sharply.

  “But Mama, she’s nice,” Phoebe called back. “She’s not an evil word that rhymes with witch like you said. What word rhymes with witch, anyway? Oh, hi, uncle Orion.”

  Orion strolled up to the group by the hale bales, hands shoved in his pockets. “Problem?” he said coolly to Phoebe’s mother, whose face was turning an interesting shade of red.

  “Oh, no,” she muttered, “I just don’t want Phoebe to bother our guest.” She managed a pained smile, then dropped her gaze.

  “The outhouses by the wheat field need cleaning,” he said to her. “Thanks for volunteering. For this entire week.”

  She gasped in shock and anger. “I am royalty. I am the Lady Morning-Light, of the Glorious Crimson Flame.”

  “And I expect you’ll have those outhouses so clean they’ll sparkle and smell like flowers.”

  “But I— Yes, Dominus.” She nodded unhappily and turned and stalked off, leaving the courtyard. The rest of the group followed her, casting resentful looks at Cadence, except for Phoebe and a couple of the younger dragonlings, who waved shyly at her as they trailed after the adults.

  Cadence stood up and shook her head.

  “Can I talk to you, Orion?” she said.

  They walked into the castle. “Orion, you can’t punish people into liking me,” she said. “I get it, we’re different types of dragons and there is a long, terrible history with my family.”

  “They’re coming around,” Orion protested. “The serving staff have been talking about how courteous you are, and several of my family members said that – well – er – you weren’t what they had expected at all. They said that you were quite warm, in fact. For them, that’s a compliment.”

  “But keeping me here may turn your clan against you,” she said.

  “No, actually, the fact that your father’s clan is demanding I turn you over and I’m refusing is winning me a lot of points. Don’t worry so much. Let’s go into town and I’ll buy you lunch.”

  His limousine driver, Frederick, was already waiting for them in front of the castle. They climbed into the cavernous back seat and he drove them towards Lyndvale.

  She reached over to turn up the air conditioning on her side of the car. He snorted as he reached over and turned up the heat.

  “Hmmph,” she grumbled as they drove. “Wimp. Can I knit you a sweater?”

  “That was cold,” Orion said.

  “That was terrible,” Cadence said. “Pungent, one might even say.”

  In response, he turned the temperature up a notch.

  She rolled down the window. “Good thing we don’t actually plan on mating. You’re far too hot-blooded.”

  Once Frederick dropped them off on the main street, though, she had to admit that Lyndvale was enchanting. Cobblestone streets, brick buildings, and old-fashioned streetlamps gave it a turn-of-the-century air. Stores had big wooden signs hanging out front, with hand-painted lettering.

  Hanging from many of the streetlamps were banners for an upcoming Festival of Fire and Ice. There were pictures of an ice dragon and fire dragon facing each other, drawn in a medieval style. They were blasting fire and ice at each other respectively.

  “So what will they have at the festival?” she asked as they strolled down the street together.

  “Well, it’s the first time we’re holding this festival. There will be food and drink prepared by dragons, an ice-sculpture village and ice-sculpting competition, fire dancers, dragon rides, lots of booths with dragon tooth and dragon scale jewelry.”

  “That actually sounds amazing,” Cadence said.

  Orion looked unconvinced. “In theory, yes,” he said. “Supposed to bring in more visitors and also to improve dragon-human relations. It’s going to draw tons of tourists, which is a major industry for this town. The Dragon Elders were hoping it would draw the clans together, having to work on a project like this. It’s really hard to get fire and ice dragons to work together, though. The planning committee is fighting constantly.”

  “Ooh, look, a tourist booth,” she said. The booth was, of course, shaped like a dragon’s head. It was divided into two sections, with a partition between them.

  The left side of the booth was occupied by a female ice dragon with a dragon-shaped name tag identifying her as Darlene, and the right side was occupied by a female fire dragon whose name tag identified her as Laetitia. Both women looked to be in their sixties, although they were undoubtedly much older. Laetitia had her hair piled in a big beehive, and Darlene’s hair was done in a sixties-style flip, with a broad lime-green headband.

  They each had baskets of brochures sitting next to jars of dragon-shaped lollipops. Laetitia’s advertised South Lyndvale, and Darlene’s advertised North Lyndvale.

  “Hello, Dominus Orion,” Laetitia said, nodding respectfully. “I see you’ve brought a guest. Welcome! First time in town?” she added to Cadence. “You’ll want to head south. There’s a wonderful fire show that starts in about half an hour, and the Fatted Calf restaurant is second to none.”

  “Oh, but what you’ll really want to see is the live ice-sculpting show,” Darlene the ice dragon interjected. “And the best home-made ice cream and slushees you’ll ever taste.”

  Laetitia glared at her, and then coughed and “accidentally” set fire to several of the ice dragon’s brochures. “Sorry, I must be catching a cold. Probably proximity to ice dragons. So unhealthy.”

  Darlene sneezed and froze the fire dragon’s brochures in a block of ice. “Whoopsie. My allergies.” She sniffed. “Can’t imagine what I’m allergic to,” she said, with a twitch of her nostril. “Maybe all that sulfur.”

  Laetitia gasped in outrage and sucked in a mighty breath. “Sulfur! Why, I never! I’ll have you know—”

  “Ladies!” Orion snapped. “Are we going to have to build another tourist booth? Because it’s getting expensive.”

  They glared daggers at each other, arms folded across ample chests, and ignored him.

  “I can’t wait to see both sides of town,” Cadence said quickly. “First some dinner in the south, then some dessert in the north.”

  “Or you could just eat dessert on the fire side of town – they have fantastic crème brulée!” Laetitia called after her as she and Orion hurried north.

  “The baked Alaska in North Lyndvale is to die for!” Darlene yelled.

  “Good lord, is it always like that?” Cadence stifled a laugh behind her hands.

  “Worse, usually.” Orion shook his head. “That fire dragon back at the booth is my great aunt Laetitia, by the way. Yep. They go at it like cats and dogs.”

  “Hmm,” Cadence mused. “You know, I think I might like to volunteer to be on the planning committee for the Fire and Ice Festival.”

  “Really?” He stared at her in astonishment. “After what you just saw?”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be dull,” Cadence said with a laugh. “And remember, events planning is my thing, and this would be something to put on my resume when I leave.” The thought of leaving, oddly, made her a little sad.

  Orion shook his head. “I guess so,” he said doubtfully. “Which committee would you volunteer for? The fire side or the ice side?”

  “Isn’t there a neutral zone?”

  He scoffed. “Neutral zone? Hello, have you met my family?”

  “Right. Well, I will try very hard to work with both sides. Maybe I can get them to cooperate with each other.”

  He patted her shoulder. “That’s adorable. Do you also believe in pegacorns?”

  “Shut up. The pegacorn is my spirit animal. I had a stuffed pegacorn when I was a little girl. There have been successful matin
gs of pegasi and unicorns, you know.”

  “In the laboratory only. Doesn’t count.”

  “You just had to get the last word in, didn’t you?”

  He smirked at her. “It’s the Dominus in me.”

  They managed to enjoy their dinner and dessert without any further incident – but that was when their luck ran out.

  The streets were filled with dragons and shifters and humans strolling through town, shopping, chatting. As Cadence and Orion headed back to the center of town to meet Frederick, a cluster of unfriendly looking men stepped out of an alleyway and blocked their path. Their eyes flashed blue – ice dragons.

  One of them, Cadence recognized – unfortunately. Humphrey Leominster. Five hundred years old, looked about seventy. He had white hair and sharp lines creasing his forehead, and he looked down his long, aristocratic nose at her. He was obscenely wealthy, and a distant relative of hers through her father’s clan. He had his own clan on the other side of the north mountain range.

  He stalked up and tried to grab her arm. Orion let out a warning blast of flame and leaped in front of her.

  Several fire dragons hurried over to back Orion up, and stood glaring at the ice dragons, with smoke drifting from their nostrils.

  Humphrey haughtily pulled a rolled-up parchment from a cardboard tube, and unrolled it. It was written in blue ink that glittered.

  “This is a proclamation from the Elders,” he said. “It states that I may claim her as my mate, since she is long past the minimum age of first mating…”

  “Hey! I’m freaking twenty-five!” Cadence glared at him. Was a five-hundred-year-old actually calling her long in the tooth? Or long in the fang, as the case may be?

  Humphrey continued. “And she has not yet elected to declare an interest in any other available mates from the appropriate clan. Any eligible ice dragons may meet me in the sky if they wish to battle for her. That is, of course, assuming that she is not fertilized with my eggs first. And since that will happen tonight in my bedchamber, she shall be my eternal mate.”

  “Fertilize? Your bedchamber? Your eternal mate?” Cadence said in horror. “I would literally rather hurl myself off a cliff right now, and I do not know how to fly.”