He wasn't a scientist like Zephyr. He wasn't a captain, like Hanish. And he didn't have a pregnant mate to fuss over, like Yuki, Ragnar, and Akash. That kept them occupied. Plus, they lived up in the city, and Raiden lived all the way out in the middle of nowhere.
There really was nothing else to do besides pump iron and play first-person shooters. The crew should have been commending him instead of insulting him as if he were some kind of loser. Flora understood why he spent so much time playing. She was actually pretty good for a science nerd, and they played together whenever she was around.
Raiden grabbed a piece of leftover pizza out of the refrigerator and began munching on it. JoJo set her adopted son, Tor, in the high chair. It was nice having JoJo around. She balanced out Hanish and made him less bossy and demanding. But that was only because she was even more bossy and demanding than he was. Raiden was going to have to get out of there sooner or later, or they were all going to drive him crazy.
"Flora moved into the House of Flames today," JoJo informed him, wiping Tor’s mouth with a napkin.
"I know," he said. "I was with her to celebrate her graduation. Kind of a big deal, getting a PhD."
"Flora is quite gifted."
"I know. She's real smart."
"It amazes me that the two of you get along so well. Especially since you're not mates."
"She likes the same games I do,” Raiden said. "It's pretty logical that we would be friends."
"Sure, sure. I understand all that. But I don't understand why you haven't done a mating analysis to see if she is your mate."
"My inner dragon hasn't made a peep about it," Raiden said. “And Flora has never shown any interest. She's busy with school, and I'm busy running my guild. It's best to just leave well enough alone. We’re friends, and that's all there is to it. Why does everyone have to keep insisting that we be in a relationship? This is the twenty-first century. People don’t need to pair up just because they like hanging out with each other."
"I agree," JoJo said. “But that isn't exactly the reason. It's just that you're a dragon, and dragons have fated mates."
"Well, if Flora was my fated mate, I would know it, and she would know it. Didn't you feel it when you met Hanish? You couldn't keep your eyes off him. I was here. I remember."
"Yes, it was rather awkward falling for my employer. But everything worked out in the end, and I couldn't be happier being with Hanish and Tor. And now, with a baby on the way, my life is truly complete."
"Well, that's nice for you and Hanish," Raiden said. "We’re all really glad for you—I'm glad, Flora's glad, and everybody at the House of Flames is glad. All of this dating and mating and baby making—it's fantastic!"
"You don't seem convinced."
"I'm just tired of being pressured to find a mate when everybody else's mates just showed up for them. And I'm tired of being criticized for my pastimes. Just because I like video games doesn't mean that I'm a useless member of society. That is a terrible stereotype that needs to end."
"Just look at what Aiden and Aria are doing with their music and Cato and Zephyr and Flora with their vaccination."
"I'm preparing myself for war," Raiden said. "It's coming. Mark my words. The vampires know we’re here. We've destroyed their compound twice. They're not going to just sit idly by and let us take over the planet. You know, there are hundreds if not thousands of super-powerful elder vampires who are sleeping and regaining their strength. They're going to reemerge at any time. I am keeping myself in top physical condition and using these video games like military drills to keep my mind and my reflexes in shape. Just because everybody else is off doing other things doesn't mean that I have forgotten what the vampires did in our home sector or what they are doing here on Earth."
"I understand, Raiden. I'm sorry that I questioned you."
"Well, could you tell Hanish to lay off me too?"
"I absolutely will." JoJo picked up Tor and held him on her hip. She patted Raiden on the cheek as she passed. "You're doing well, Raiden. You really do have your head on your shoulders. And I will talk to Hanish about what you said. You deserve to be commended. I can see that your mind is in the right place."
"Thanks," he muttered as she walked out of the kitchen.
He threw a bag of popcorn in the microwave and ate another slice of pizza while waiting for it to pop. With the popcorn in a bowl and two liters of Mountain Dew, Raiden made his way back to the living room and picked up his headset.
"Five minutes until our next round," Raiden said.
"Nice of you to join us," said Bionerd111.
"Whoo, it's Bionerd," said Ispy47. "Dragonheart and Bionerd sitting in a tree…"
"Shut the hell up. Are you in the next round, Bionerd?" Raiden asked, preparing to add her to the team.
"I have time for one round, and then I need to get back to the lab.”
"What is this important work that you have to do?" asked Ispy47.
"I am on a mission to save the planet. It's something only I can do. I'm working with a squad of super-elite extraterrestrial scientists on a mission to create a biological weapon against our greatest enemy. But it's top secret, so you can't breathe a word to anyone."
Ispy47 started cracking up, and so did several other members of Raiden's guild. "You're hilarious, Bionerd. You should come on more often. Raiden is less of a dick when you're around."
"Raiden has years of military experience. You would be wise to listen to him," Bionerd111 said.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all do," said Ispy47. "I just took down the squadron of Nazi zombies this morning in World War II."
"Hilarious," said Bionerd111.
"Quit yapping," Raiden said. "Our battle is starting in thirty seconds. Choose your weapons carefully. We're up against the top-ranking team in our battle sector."
The timer ticked away, 5… 4… 3… 2… 1, and the team was dropped into the battleground. Raiden and Flora battled side by side. This time, when he needed someone, Flora was there to cover his back. They were able to capture the flag and take out the other team. They won by twenty kills to five and put themselves back on top of the leaderboard.
"Woo-hoo," came the sound of his guild as the battle concluded.
"Why don't you hang out with us a little longer, Bionerd? Saving the world can wait," said Ispy47.
"I'm afraid I can't," Bionerd111 typed. "It'll have to wait till another time. Dragonheart127, I'll see you soon IRL, wink wink." She logged out of the game.
"She wants you," said Ispy47.
"Just leave it alone," Raiden said. "We're friends. Can't men and women be friends without everybody going all matchmaker on them?"
"Sure, as long as you're friends with benefits,” Tangofoxtrot99 said.
"You guys are disgusting," Raiden said. "We're here to win this game, not to get me hooked up with my friends."
"You're the Guild Master. If you don't want to get laid, then that's your business.”
"Great. Now, shut up and play. Our next round is in fifteen minutes. Where is Starboy1010?"
"He had to log out. His mom wanted him to take out the trash."
"Well, he'd better get back soon, or I'll be docking him twenty-five guild points."
"You're such a hard-ass, Dragonheart. The kid has chores to do," said Ispy47. The rest of the guild snickered.
At least they were making fun of someone else now and had another focus for their heckling other than his relationship with Flora. Between his guild and the dragons, he didn't know which was worse. It wasn't that he didn't find Flora attractive. On the contrary—she was beautiful, with long wavy brown hair and big almond-shaped hazel eyes. And curves that went on for days.
She was the epitome of what any man would consider attractive, something between Aphrodite and Scarlett Johansson. It would be a lucky man who ended up with her. But Raiden's dragon never told him she was the one, so what was he supposed to do? Every other dragon who had awakened on Earth had been nearly driven mad by his inner dragon at the very first meetin
g with his mate.
Raiden had known Flora for almost a year, and his dragon had never said a peep. He'd been around her in dragon form. Nothing. He even asked himself, while he was in his dragon mind, "Is Flora my fated mate?" and the dragon had replied with a shrug. When his fated mate appeared, he should be relentlessly and unendingly passionate about her.
He wouldn't be able to resist her. He wouldn't be able to stop thinking about her. His inner dragon would do nothing but insist that he mate with her at every moment of every day. That was how it had been for everyone else, and that was how it would be for him. Why would it be any other way?
The crew kept asking him to take a mating analysis. But what was the point? His dragon wasn’t feeling it. He couldn't force something just because the girl was beautiful and they liked the same games or because he found himself nearly kissing her every time she was around. That was just typical male attraction. He felt attracted to lots of women. Human women were attractive. Flora was a particularly attractive one.
So while everyone was insisting that he and Flora had to be fated, he was just trying to get on with his life. He wasn't going to get in her way. She had important work to do. There was no point in running a mating analysis when he never felt the spark from his dragon and she never felt the spark either.
They could have an affair. He’d thought about that more than once. Even dragons had needs, and with the available human females in the population, there was nothing stopping him from having physical relationships. He couldn't have children with someone who wasn't his fated mate, but he could certainly have physical intimacy with anyone he chose.
But he didn't want to do that to Flora. She deserved better, and if she wanted to have a fling with him, he was pretty sure she would let him know. She was an intelligent, independent woman who knew her own mind. If she wanted a piece of his action, she would just come out and say it, and she hadn't. So he had left it alone. There was no point in taking it any further.
He wished everyone would just stop talking about it. After his last battle of the day, he sat on the couch, staring at the blank TV, drinking a beer, and thinking about Flora. He'd almost kissed her the last time they'd been together, and he probably would have made that mistake if Hanish hadn’t interrupted them. But even when he thought about kissing her or fantasized about her when he was alone in his bed at night, his dragon never said anything. Not a grunt, not a growl, not a whimper.
Chapter 3
Flora spent every waking moment in the lab with Cato in the basement of the mansion. When she wasn't working, she was eating or sleeping, and the very brief moments she had away from her work and not tending to her physical needs, she spent playing video games with Raiden and his guild. She cherished those moments of reprieve from the intensity of her life.
She and Cato had made very little progress since she had joined him in his work. As a genetic biologist, Flora was bringing a lot to the table, but Cato and his spaceship were the real miracle. She only had her human perspective and her years of training in the human genome. But even with her experience, Cato's ship, and Zephyr's scientific genius, they still hadn't cracked the code. They needed a way to use mated Dragon Soul blood in a vaccine that would work for all humans.
So far, in their trial simulations, they had found that Dragon Soul antibodies acted like a cancer in humans, eventually killing them. In their computer simulations, they’d found that injecting mated Dragon Soul blood into an unmated Dragon Soul had less of a disastrous effect, but it still didn't make the Dragon Souls' blood poisonous to vampires.
They'd run hundreds of these simulations with Cato's ship computer, Bethi, and each time, the simulations had come back negative. They'd been working on this problem for more than a year, and now that she was on board, she didn't have any illusions that they would suddenly find the answer that the Dragonian scientists had been working on for so long.
Two weeks after arriving at the House of Flames, Flora was sitting at the dinner table with the whole gang. Cato had made a special meal for the group from in-season seafood and harvest vegetables. It was turning toward the fall, and she was beginning to feel the familiar chill in the air. She took a bite of her crab and dipped it in garlic butter before popping it into her mouth and savoring the flavor.
Aiden, Aria, and their mates, Dax and Winnifred, had come home from their music tour a few months earlier, and they were working on a new album. Aria was the Dragon Soul singer of the House of Flames who had a magical ability to heal people with her music, and Aiden was a brilliant guitarist. Dax was a big, buff warrior more at home on a football field than in the recording studio, but he was a brilliant protector of and advocate for the sweet-natured Aria. Winnifred, an effervescent and independent artist who had found her niche in designing album covers for the group and for other musicians, was Aiden's mate. She was a classically trained painter whose work adorned the entire mansion of the House of Flames and was beginning to fill the mansion of the House of Storms.
Flora enjoyed listening to their discussion of music lyrics and chord progressions at the dinner table. Winnifred had a keen interest in music and always gave them a lot of insights and pointers. Dax's main concern was that Aria did not tire herself out too much and that the whole thing did not become boring.
Cato and Penelope were both interested in computer science, Flora's sister being a computer scientist and Cato leaning that direction more than biology and genetics. Zephyr was more of a physicist than a biologist. Sometimes, the three of them were joined by Yuki, an engineer who had his own insights into the projects the scientists were working on. But of the five of them, Flora best understood genetics and biology, especially human biology.
Kian—the leader and prince of the House of Flames—and his mate, Everly, were busy with their two children. Ember, their adorable three-year-old, had curly black hair and blue eyes like her father, and Ray, their one year old, was now toddling along with her sister. Kian and Everly were the parents of the household, making sure the refrigerators were always stocked and everyone went to bed. Flora was more than pleased to have a housemother and housefather taking care of everything for her while she and Cato focused on their work.
"Dinner was delicious," Penelope said, rubbing her belly. "I wish the little flame liked it as much as I did." She groaned.
"Are you all right?" Cato said, looking at her with concern and touching her shoulder.
Penelope's wrist device started to beep.
"Penelope, you are in labor," came Bethi's voice through Penelope's wrist device.
"It's time," Penelope said, her eyes growing wide.
Cato shot up from his chair, and it went skating backward across the kitchen floor.
"Everyone, stay calm," Kian said, having just gone through the experience a year before. "I'll drive you to the hospital."
"Everything is ready." Penelope grimaced as a contraction shot through her.
"I'll help you get the bags to the car," Flora said.
"Don't leave me." Penelope took her twin sister's hand and squeezed.
"I won't leave you," Flora said.
"I'll get the bags," Cato said, hurrying out of the kitchen.
The rest of the crew looked around, shocked and unsure of what to do.
"How can we help?" Winnifred asked.
Aria began to sing, her voice rising over the chaos that had started in the kitchen. Her soothing tones ran over Flora's skin. Flora could tell the singing was having a calming effect on Penelope too.
"That feels better than an epidural," Penelope said with a sigh. "Can you come to the hospital with me?"
"Of course I can."
After the guys got the bags into the car, everyone helped Penelope out to the Escalade and into the back seat. Flora and Cato sat on either side of Penelope as Kian drove and Aria sat in the front seat. They made it to the hospital in fifteen minutes, and an emergency nurse pushed a wheelchair out to greet them at the curb.
A few minutes later, Penelope was in
the delivery room, surrounded by nurses and doctors. Aria sang a slow tune, giving Penelope relief from the pain. Penelope held Cato's hand and looked up into his eyes as she went through her breathing exercises.
Flora stood on the opposite side of the bed, ready and waiting to help her sister with whatever she needed. She ran to get ice chips and reapplied cool compresses to Penelope's head. She got her juice and water and played the focus music Penelope had chosen for the birth.
When it was time for Penelope to push, Flora was right beside her, holding her hand, as her sister grimaced and heroically brought her new baby daughter into the world.
Flora was so proud of her sister. A tear slid down her cheek at the sight of the baby. They laid the baby on her mother's chest, covered in goo, as the child gave her first wails of greeting. After the two had bonded for a moment, the nurses took the baby to wash and check her before bringing her back to her mother again. After the final delivery process, when Penelope was all cleaned up, mother and baby rested comfortably in the bed surrounded by friends and family as Aria sang them a beautiful, sweet song. It filled the room with the healing power of her voice as mother and baby gazed into each other's eyes.
"She's so beautiful," Penelope cooed, the tears rolling down her cheeks unabated.
"She looks like Mom," Flora said.
"She does, doesn't she?" Penelope said. "We'll name her Effie Gabriella Flame."
"That's beautiful," Flora said.
"That’s the perfect way to honor your mother."
"She would have been so proud of you today, Penelope," Flora said.
Everyone stood around in all of the glow of mother and child until the sweet reverie was broken by Dax fumbling into the room, carrying half a dozen balloons in multiple colors that said everything from "Get well soon" to "Congratulations, it's a boy." He was also carrying massive bouquets of flowers and a pocket full of cigars.
"I think this is everything," he said, setting the bouquets down on the table opposite the bed. Aiden and Winnifred came in behind him, and everyone laughed at his antics. Even Penelope, who was exhausted, giggled.
Raiden: House of Storms: Dragon Guardians Book 7 Page 2
