All those sad thoughts about missing Other Damianos take a hike when I see the rows of layered crown braids leading to a bun in the back. I ask the room to take a 360 picture and layer the dress and jewelry I picked out for the big day on top.
Daaammmmn, Triple D! I think as I turn my avatar this way and that. I love how the style makes me look like someone out of one of those choose your own adventure regency romances yet goes perfectly with my heavy metal Viking ensembo.
Talk about mixed messages, though.
My dragon king acts all cold one moment. Then he goes out of his way to create the best hairstyle ever just because I asked.
If I was watching me look for love on one of those reality holos, I’d definitely be like “Run, girl, that bachelor ain’t nothing but a fuck boi.”
But in real life…I sigh and call up one of the silk blouses I ordered. It’s intricately patterned and probably cost a good four figures in credits. And after carefully slipping its neck over my new do, I twist it around and tuck it under like the towel turbans I use at home.
Cute new shirt ruined but I’m not letting anything mess up my new braids. I climb into bed, somewhat proud of myself for jerry-rigging the world’s most expensive sleep cap…until I try to fall asleep.
Have I mentioned my body is still throbbing? Still wanting something it can’t have.
Well, it is. But instead of getting myself off, I lie in bed with my mind spinning. I know I’m right about the sensitive dragon I fell in love with being trapped inside of Damianos.
But how to get him to come out already?
I have no idea.
“Queen Drákon, Queen Drákon, it’s time to get up.”
I wake up to find Agda above me holding a tray of food, her face bright and excited.
“What’s this now?” I mumble, feeling less than ready for all the morning sunshine flooding into the room as I sit up on my elbows. She must have opened the drapes.
“Today’s the day,” she answers. “You must fill your fat tummy and we must make you ready!”
“Bazzi…” I start to say.
“Is with the king,” she finishes. “He has already eaten all his breakfast like a good boy. Now, you be a good girl and eat, Queen Drákon.”
“Okay, I’ll eat,” I agree, sitting all the way up. “But you really have to start calling me Ola. I’m not down with this Queen Drákon stuff. We don’t even bother with titles anymore where I come from.”
The bright smile falls off Agda’s face. “No, I will not do this,” she answers, her voice severe. Then she sets the golden tray down across my lap with another huge smile. “Eat, Queen Drákon, eat!”
Okay, it honestly feels like Damianos is punishing me some more by hitting me with this little old fireball so early in the morning. And I don’t appreciate being bossed around. By her or anyone else.
But the breakfast is yummy emoji face, and she’s right about us having a lot to do.
Thalia meets me downstairs with a whole team. They converge on me and for hours I’m steamed, massaged, waxed and plucked within an inch of my life. Then I’m fed a late afternoon lunch.
“Now you are to take a nap until approximately 90 minutes before the main event when I’ll come to your room with a makeup artist and attend to your evening attire,” Thalia tells me as Agda clears away my plate.
Makeup artist, I understand. Though it will feel weird to have a real-life someone applying cosmetics to my skin after years of just pressing my face into a Spectrum—an all-in-one makeup application machine specially designed for women of color. But… “You don’t have to come up to dress me. I can get the gown on by myself.”
Thalia rears back like I slugged her. “But I am your attendant.”
“Yeah, I know, but that doesn’t mean—”
“And you are the new queen of Lukos. I have to make sure everything goes without a hitch when you are presented to all our fellow wolves tonight.”
“Wait…my big day…there will be wolves there?”
“Yes!” Thalia answers, practically jumping up and down. “We all received the invitation on our biosystems yesterday. And the mayor announced it over the radio for everyone else.”
“The mayor?” I ask, trying and failing to keep up.
Thalia waves a hand dismissively, “Yes, we were forced to appoint a mayor many decades ago since none of the Drákon line kings have ever shown any interest in our affairs. We thought that was because we were too small and insignificant for a family such as the Drákons to care about. But all of that has changed now that King Drákon has chosen you as his mate?”
She takes me by the hands. “None of the other King Drákons have ever brought a mate home. Nor has one ever invited us wolves to this island. We are all so excited. Most of all me. So please Queen Drákon. Allow me to dress you. When the other villagers post their experiences about the first time they gazed upon the Greek wolf queen on WolfNet, I want to be tagged in all their stories.”
Wow…well, when she puts it that epic way. “Okay, sure, I guess I’ll see you after my nap.”
As it turns out, the nap was a really good idea. After my restless night and busy morning, I sleep like a log as soon as my blouse-covered head hits the pillow.
I’m only just waking up when Thalia bursts into the room with a makeup artist trailing behind her. And my eyes just about bug when I see who it is.
Remember that makeup application machine I mentioned using for years because it was especially designed for women of color? This is Staci Spectrum, the woman who created it. A human, definitely not a wolf. But I’m totally starstruck from the minute she walks in.
Though she gushes all over me as she expertly applies my makeup. As it turns out she’s a huge fan of my videogame designer mom. “OMG emoji face, it’s so bionic to be doing your makeup. I love your mom! I mean, all the heart emojis. I grew up playing Viking Shifters! She’s the reason I became an engineer. I couldn’t believe it when they asked me here to do your ultimate look. Do you think you could hook me up with VIP tickets to the next ShifterCon?”
Only four months ago, my answer would have been an unequivocal yes. I might have even bioed my ridiculously shy mom up and made her give my favorite MUA a mumbled hi.
But now…
Funny, I’d always found Mom’s side of my parents’ love story so lackluster. All she’d done was run and run some more when my dads landed in this time. All because she’d known her father would never approve of them and didn’t want to take a chance on love. I hadn’t understood why she cared so much about what her father thought. Love was love and I adored my fathers. How could she have even thought about passing up that chance at love?
But now I totally get how she felt. They make running away for love look so cool in entertainments and in books. But there’s nothing inside of me that feels good about the way I left things with my parents. And even more guilt presses down on me when I think of my uncles back in North Dakota, still running the kingdom I was supposed to take over.
No, I won’t be calling my mother, even if it is supposed to be my big day. Instead, I go unusually quiet and let Staci do her work.
My ultimate look turns out to be a perfect match for the dress and something that never could have been spontaneously created by a machine. Neon makeup applied in such a daring way, I could easily stand-in for one of the Misfits in the latest Jem and the Holograms reboot.
“Wow!” I say after I step onto the round platform in the walk-in closet to look at myself in the three-way mirror.
I know this isn’t what any of my family ever wanted for me.
But when I look in that tri-fold mirror, it feels like I’m finally meeting the queen I’ve always wanted to be.
Hopefully, my much more conservative mate will like her too.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Yeah, I know I’m the queen, and this night is supposed to be some kind of historic presentation. But I force Thalia to take off after I’m fully dressed to enjoy the festivities with
her own family and friends.
“I want you to have fun tonight, too, and show off that fleek emoji dress,” I tell her, waving a hand at the silver nanite cocktail dress I insisted she have fabricated while I took my nap. “Plus, it will help me to see one friendly face in the audience when Damianos presents me or whatever.”
It’s a bit of an argument, but in the end, Thalia relents and leaves me at the top of the grand staircase leading into the even grander two-story front hall.
These were the same steps Damianos came down the first time I laid eyes on him. And it feels like a huge role reversal when I spot him standing with Bazzi in his arms at the bottom of the stairs.
Their backs are to me, but I can tell the moment Damianos registers my presence by the way his end of our mate bond suddenly goes numb. Only then does he turns around to face me.
But even with our mate bond on mute, I can tell he’s feeling me by the way his golden eyes gleam hot and hungry as he watches me descend the stairs. Fat tummy or no, I’m still rocking a Detroit brickhouse bod, as my Great Aunt Wilma likes to call it. Take that, Agda.
He’s wearing a coat with long tails and a white tie underneath, I note. And he’s somehow managed to shove Bazzi into a formal baby tux.
“You and Bazzi look like history and I look like a heavy metal space opera,” I say when I get to the bottom step.
“Yet here we all are,” he answers, his mate bond giving me nothing but cold dead silence.
“Yeah, here we be,” I agree, keeping my mate bond as aggressively open as his is closed.
Bazzi screeches something I can only assume means “Mommy!” in the dragon language he apparently already knows after just a few conversations and reaches out his arms.
“You like my dress, Bazzi?” I ask. Thank goodness Staci used stay proof makeup because after a whole day apart, there’s no way I’m not hugging my little boy tight.
Bazzi answers with another happy screech that I choose to interpret as yes. And I tell him, “Thank you, that’s a huge compliment.”
Damianos surprises me by saying, “I like the dress as well. It is incredibly…” he pauses, seeming to search for the right word, then finishes with, “You.”
“Aw, thanks, Triple D. That’s like, a whole damn ode of praise coming from this version of you,” I answer.
His mouth quirks in a way that could either be irritation or amusement.
“Come,” he says, holding out his arm.
I take both it and a deep breath as he leads me and Bazzi toward a set of wide double doors in another wing of the house that I’ve never seen open before.
But a deep breath wasn’t enough.
I nearly drop Bazzi when we walk into the ballroom. It’s just as crazy baroque as the rest of the house. Hand painted ceilings, marble walls, and even more crown molding slathered in even more gold leaves. (Maybe they were having a sale that century?) I don’t even bother to count the crystal chandeliers, there are so many of them. And these feature real candles, not bulbs like the other ones I’ve seen around the place. Apparently unlike Akwasi, Damianos has no problem whatsoever with over-the-top.
The ballroom must have been built around one of the island’s slopes. The floor rests at the bottom of another grand staircase in what should technically be the bowels of the house. But a row of four humongous recessed arched windows on the far wall showcase a calm blue sea with the sun setting over it.
What has to be every wolf from Lukos island is currently gathered below, and the invite must have been some kind of specific. They’re all dressed to impress in floor-length dresses and summer suits. There are even a few people in evening dresses and tuxes.
But one group of men gathered at the far edge of the enormous space catches my eye. They’re all extremely tall, standing heads and in some cases a full two feet above every other man in the ballroom. And they’re dressed in…I guess you could call what they’re wearing suits. But it’s more like formal wear from every part of the planet. Some of them wear tailcoats like Damianos, but I also see African robes, layered kimono jackets, and quite a few heavily embroidered tunics.
With so many wolves in my nose, there’s no way for me to scent them from this far away. But even without my nose as backup, I know in an instant what they are.
Dragons. Just like Damianos.
But worse somehow.
Varying in shell appearance from the darkest black African to the fairest white, they only have two things in common. Their larger than usual height and their glowing eyes. Glowing eyes that are all staring up at me, cold and sinister.
“That international basketball team standing in the far corner. They’re dragons, right? Just like you,” I push into Damianos head.
“Yes.” The answer comes back immediately.
I remember what Other Him said about my chances of being welcomed by the rest of the dragons. “So I assume they’re staring at me because they hate me.”
He crooks his head to inform me. “I do not care one way or the other whether they like you or not.”
“So you don’t care what they think?” I ask because that’s, like, the opposite of everything Uncle Kyle taught me during my apprenticeship.
“No,” Damianos answers. The one word hard and flat. “Their feelings do not matter. Only our power.”
I open my mouth to point out all the problems with that policy, but I’m interrupted by the fanfare of horns.
Yes, seriously, two dudes appear out of nowhere to blow cornets with velvet banners hanging off of them before yelling out, “Presenting the King and Queen of Lukos along with their son Prince Basileios!”
The wolves in the crowd below jump, then turn to look up at us. I give them a wince that hopefully says, “Yeah, sorry, fam, the horns caught me by surprise too. Our bad.”
There’s a moment of answering silence, then every wolf in the room drops down in what I can only describe as an ancient curtsy or bow.
The dragons don’t bow, I notice. And they appear even larger looming over the kneeling wolves.
But when the wolves rise, they along with the dragons in back look up at me expectantly.
Whoa… “So I guess this is the part where I’m supposed to say a few words?” I say to Damianos.
“Yes,” he answers. Still appearing bored. Like seriously, how does he do that? I wish I could look that unbothered all the time.
I clear my throat. Not going to lie, this shit is a lot more formal than my little coronation back in North Dakota. And a whole lot more intimidating.
I swallow audibly before taking a step forward with Bazzi still in my arms.
“Thank you for welcoming us to Lukos. I um…”
I search my brain for the right words. C’mon, what would Uncle Kyle say? He’s great at being stuffy and formal. Even if he did call my public speaking training “a work in progress” after I failed to craft a formal speech for my North Dakota coronation—remember how that one went?
“I’m honored to be here!” I call out, seizing upon the words.
Then I swallow again. Because that’s pretty much all the formal I have in me.
But everyone’s still waiting for me to say something else.
“I’ve never felt like such a proper queen in my life,” I tell them, attempting a little curtsy of my own.
Aw, who am I kidding? “But the thing is there ain’t nothing proper about me,” I confess straightening back up. “So, you know what? Let’s forget all the formalities and light this shit up!”
They all stare up at me, the silence heavy and thunderous. They either don’t understand my super colloquial English or they’re just plain offended.
I glance at Damianos, wishing not for the first time that he would stop suppressing his side of our mate bond already.
But then someone cries out, “Long live Queen Drákon!”
And the crowd erupts in cheers.
Then right on cue, “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons starts blasting from the speakers of a DJ stand I hadn’t cl
ocked when I first walked in—what with all the overwhelming glitz and glamour in the way.
“How did you know this is my favorite song?” I ask Damianos, as we walk down the stairs to the roaring crowd.
A smile floats to his lips. “It’s my favorite song too,” he answers as the lead singer welcomes us and all the wolves waiting to meet us to the new age.
I lift both eyebrows at that. “So there is a song you can stand after Mozart came along.”
One ripple of amusement makes it out before it gets ruthlessly crushed. “Only one.”
I spend the next hour receiving hugs and congratulations from wolves I’ve never met along with invitations to their homes. It was a good idea to put Bazzi in another wing-canceling jacket. I’m sure he would have flown up and away after the first little old lady decided it would be a good idea to pinch his cheek. It seems every old she-wolf from Lukos is an Agda.
And a lot of those little old Agdas get introduced to his little dragon screech that night. And it doesn’t take long before he’s squirming so much I have to hand him off to his much more intimidating father. No more kisses and cheek pinches, but eventually just being up so late becomes too much for him.
“Basileios is tired,” Damianos informs me when Bazzi gives into his human side and starts crying. “I will take him up to the nursery. Please stay here and party hard.”
I laugh at his foreign word pronunciation of party hard. But that’s exactly what I end up doing with my fellow wolves. As it turns out, the Greeks know something or two about how to turn it up. A DJ spins hits from all decades of recorded music and I’m never without company or a willing dance partner as I make my way through the crowd.
I would have loved to stay on the floor all night. But in the middle of a Greek trap metal song, the dragon king’s voice pushes into my head.
“It is time to give our drakkon subjects proper meeting.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
And if that’s not a good vibe murderer, I don’t know what is.
So I guess he’s back from putting Bazzi down.
Her Dragon King (Her Dragon King Duet Book 2): 50 Loving States, North Dakota Pt. 2 Page 14
