by Sariah Skye
"Evil?"
"No," he said with a sigh. "I know you want her to be the devil incarnate but, I think she’s just a dippy, dingy weirdo."
"You don’t think she conjured that evil magic at the shop? How did she even know about the shop? Like I said—you do not drive by the shop on the road back from the portal," I said.
"Did they fly here?" he questioned, going off-subject.
"No, they probably called the rogue dragon who lives on the edge of town, Ismani. He’s an orange dragon. He hooked me up with my first fake ID and all that. He probably arranged a cab for them," I rubbed my fingers together, "for a price, of course. But lots of dragons live here like him. The rogues live near portals a lot of times in order to be of service to any dragons who might need their expertise. They do lots of off-the-grid illegal things, but they are really good at it so they don’t get caught."
"Still doesn’t explain how she knew about the coffeehouse unless she’s been here before. Has she?"
I shrugged. "I don’t know. This is the first time I've seen her here. I suppose she could have come to human Earth before. Most dragons do at one time or another, but this particular portal is very slow, not many dragons use it. They prefer a colder climate."
"Colder than Minnesota?" Gabriel said with a guffaw.
"Yeah who would ever think Minnesota wouldn’t be cold enough?" I said with a laugh. "But yeah, there are many more portals in Montana, I think one in Maine, a handful in Alaska, upstate New York and lots in Canada."
"Really?"
I nodded. "Yeah. Way more in Europe. Dragons generally prefer it over there, I don’t know why. I just wanted to be away from any dragons. There is only a handful that I know of living in Minnesota so that’s why I picked here."
"Anyway, it still doesn’t explain what Kiarra’s problem is." I said, grumbling.
Gabriel shrugged. "I don’t know. You are right, something is off about her. I don’t think she’s evil but— "
"—could she be possessed maybe?" I asked, with a gasp at the idea.
He shook his head. "No, I sensed no possession. But she is hiding something."
"I knew it!" I exclaimed.
"Most people are hiding something so, don’t get your hopes up on that; it doesn’t necessarily mean anything," Gabriel chided me. "But pink dragons are supposed to have good instincts. If you think something’s up with her, there probably is."
"Maybe she’s just hosing my brother over," I said, frowning. "Better not be it."
Gabriel chuckled, reaching over and patting my knee. "I know, you’ll eat her."
I beamed proudly. "Yeah. I haven’t eaten anyone in a while, it might be fun!"
Gabriel blinked and slowly moved away. "I sure hope you’re joking."
I cackled evilly, grabbing the remote and switching the movie back on. "Fuck her, let’s finish the movie before I decide to eat the couch or the chair."
"You are scary," he said with a laugh.
I smacked him playfully in the chest and pointed at the movie. "Harry Potter is on. No talking." I put a finger to my lips and whispered "Shhhhh!"
He chuckled, but didn’t respect my "no talking" rule. He kept making snarky comments as it went on, first during the first scene after the "funeral" he had to ask "Who died again?" I didn't eat him, but I did give him a good smack for that one.
About halfway through, Gabriel became more relaxed and he had propped his legs up on the middle cushion, dangling his feet and ankles off the front. His calves were remarkably close to me—just centimeters away—and I found myself very uncomfortable with the notion. First I felt just socially awkward. Did he need to stretch out? Should I let him stretch out his legs over my lap? Do I just ask him? Or do I just grab his legs and put them there? But would he think I was coming on to him?
Now I found myself consumed with thoughts of touching Gabriel. First it started with his legs and if I should ignore them or not. Was I being a bad friend not letting him stretch out? But my eyes trailed up towards his wide chest and broad shoulders. No, he wasn’t extremely buff or anything but his body had muscular definition. In the short times I’d seen him with his shirt off, it was a nice chest. I thought about—gulp! —resting my head on his stomach, and then wrapping my arms around him, listening to his heart beat and relaxing at the sound, the feeling of being close to someone while tracing my fingertips over the outlines of all his ink…I trembled slightly at the notion.
For a dragon, these were odd thoughts to have. As dragons of course were not big on showing affection. Perhaps I’d seen too many rom-com movies but, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the notion.
I’ve seen plenty of human men though; even dragons in their human forms and I never had that urge before. Well I kind of did when I watched The Notebook once before but I wasn’t picturing anyone in particular. Until I met Gabriel.
Perhaps something was changing in young dragons, or perhaps we were just told (like so many other things, apparently) that touching was just something dragons didn’t do but the thought of being close to someone was nice. Comforting.
But the thoughts were kind of blown out of my head by another sarcastic comment from Gabriel, when the movie was winding down:
"So, who was fighting again?" He had a mischievous glint in his brown eyes.
I slowly turned to him, with a glare that would scald his eyebrows. "Oh, now you’re asking for it! Ever get punched by a dragon?" I balled up my fist and attempted to lean over and punch him playfully in the chest, but he caught my arms and pinned them against my chest. I tried to break free, I ended up falling over backwards on the sofa, pulling Gabriel with me who landed on top of me and was now looking me square in the eye.
I felt the heat instantly scald my cheeks. "Oops, I’m sorry," I said, struggling under him to get up.
"No, I’m sorry," he said, blushing himself, scrambling to move.
We managed to pull ourselves into a sitting position, but somehow he was still kind of perched over me.
"Um," I said, uncomfortably. "I’m kind of stuck. I think you’re sitting on my leg."
"Oh, I’m sorry," he said, trying to shift his weight off of me, when my cat took that opportune time to jump from the floor onto his lap. Startled, he fell into my chest.
"Oh shit!" he exclaimed, his words muffled by—well my boobs in his face.
I felt my face turn ablaze. "It’s okay," I managed to squeak, afraid to move and give him an even larger face full of chest.
Sona was digging her paws into his lap, like she was scratching. Since she was declawed by whoever her previous owner was (she was a rescued kitty) it didn’t hurt him, but apparently, it tickled because he began laughing hysterically.
"What?" I asked, confused and bashful.
He peeked up at me, over my boobs in between laughs. "I don’t know; I can’t stop laughing!"
I feigned offense. "Uh! So you’re telling me there is something funny about my…" I trailed off, looking down at my chest.
His eyes widened, as he scrambled to get up. "No! No I swear, I’m sure they’re very nice, it’s just that—"
I cut him off with a raucous laugh. "Ha! The look on your face!"
He frowned, and narrowed his eyes at me. "You are an evil, evil person."
"Dragon," I corrected, giving him an angelic smile.
"Whatever," he said, rolling his eyes with a sigh. "God, I suck at this."
"Suck? At what?" I asked.
"Uggh," he said, scrubbing his face with his palms, leaning his elbows on his lap.
"What!?!"
"Women! I’m just awful with them," he said in frustration.
I raised my brow at him. "What do you mean? You’re fine with me."
Gabriel gave me a pointed look. "Fine? I just fell over on your chest and laughed at it."
I giggled. "Oh come on, I was just joking around."
"I know, I know," he exhaled. "I just… I don’t know…"
"Don’t know what?"
"I don’t kn
ow how to bring up that kiss!" he blurted out. "I mean, I’m sorry it’s all I’ve been thinking about since I saw you the other day. When you ran off I figured that you were weirded out by it, especially when you wouldn’t answer my texts or anything."
I winced. I forced myself to awkwardly put my hand on his forearm. "Aw, Gabriel. You know why I left now."
He nodded. "I know now, but over the past few days I was just freaking out, thinking that I came on too strong—I never act that way, ever! I figured I freaked you out, or—"
"Gabriel," I cut him off. "If you must know, the entire time Harry was fighting Voldemort and you had your legs next to me, all I could think about was how confused I was about how I was supposed to touch you now. As you know, PDA is not really something we do as dragons so it’s all weird to me but all I could think of was how nice it’d be to relax—really relax—and lean next to you and cuddle," I admitted, looking at everything but him; the empty pop cans on the coffee table, my cell phone, the credits on the TV screen announcing the movie was over. Anything but him.
"Really?" he asked with uncertainty.
I nodded, forcing myself to look at him when all I wanted to do was hide my blushing face. I stared intently into his brown eyes although they were hard to see fully, covered up by his black-rimmed glasses. I dared to reach over—slowly—and pull them off his face. Smile-lines crinkled around his twinkling brown eyes as I did so. "Really," I insisted. "All I thought about was how confused you made me the entire time I was speaking with Grandfather."
"Confused?"
"Yeah. Dragons don't often bond for love. Generally, it's for position, or lust. Or convenience. Rarely love. Feelings like this aren’t something I’ve ever had to deal with before."
"Feelings? Like what?" he asked expectantly.
"Like the fact that I really enjoyed that kiss but I didn’t know what to think about it when you darted off afterwards," I said, with a hint of disapproval in my voice.
He sighed heavily. "Shit, Leorah, I’m really sorry about that," he said. "But I wanted to make sure I wasn’t violating any Order rules that would end up with me being smote with lightning or something equally as painful."
I snorted. "Smote?"
He didn't speak, but smiled. "Also, after I met you, it sent my entire world into a tail spin. Regardless of what happens—" he motioned at the air between us with his hand pointedly, "—I have a duty to you, and the dragon realm essentially. I have to change my entire life around."
I frowned. "Shit, I’m sorry about— "
He cut me off. "—you’re not understanding. I want to. I always figured that if on the rare chance I ever did meet you or another you or whatever that we’d come together for some missions or events or whatever, spit out some magic and go home. Even though it is not supposed to be that way I was determined to keep this separate from my own life and everything I worked hard for."
I opened my mouth to protest but he waved me off again. "But I also worked hard for this, and not giving it my all would be a disgrace to my uncle and all the people who came before me that trained for years just to be disappointed. And to boot you’re a pretty awesome person to be around, dragon or human. It could be so much worse!"
I grinned. "Yeah. I could be a Trekkie instead of a Potterhead."
He pretended to be disappointed. "You don’t like Star Trek?"
I looked away and whistled nonchalantly, casually motioning to a DVD tower full of DVDs.
He looked over and laughed. "Ah, I see," he said, with a laugh, reading off the titles of my DVDs. "Star Trek: The Next Generation seasons one through seven and—"
"—all the other ones that ever existed including the original pilot episode that was recast, it was never shown on TV," I said.
"Wow, I guess it is bad," he said with a laugh. "I love Star Trek but I'm probably more fanatical about...other things."
I snorted. "Well what is your thing?"
"Games," he said. "Lots and lots of video games. In fact, that’s my job. I’m a game manager for an up and coming MMO that’s releasing, so far I just manage the beta testers because that’s all we have but…" he shrugged, "there you go."
"Wow, really? That’s pretty cool," I said earnestly. "So now what are you going to do?"
"Well, not sure yet. I know that especially after that tornado incident, I can’t leave you again," he began, as I opened my mouth to protest but he finished for me, "I know you can take care of yourself but this magic—whatever it is—was actually able to hurt you. Even just a little. That means it’s big. You are at the very least going to need help. Or advice."
I considered this, pushing aside my stubbornness. Although I’ve witnessed many dragons and their magic, for myself it was new. Even I had to admit I needed some guidance.
And a friend would be nice too.
"I may be able to do some game stuff online from wherever I am, it doesn’t actually require me to be in any one place, most of the time but, I can always find something else," he said. "I am not going to leave you alone again. Even if you hate me and I have to follow behind you twenty feet so you can have your space."
I smiled. "Well, you don't have to do that. It’ll be nice not to be alone all the time."
"Since the game hasn’t exactly taken off yet, I still have a lot of time to decide so, it’s all up in the air anyways. It could flop and I’d be unemployed anyways."
"So what do you do then?"
"Build websites, design graphic artwork for people. Freelance."
"Wow, nice! Better than working in a coffee house," I said dryly.
"Hey, that’s okay too, Kit relies on you. It’s a big deal," he said, as I looked away to pout.
"Thing is I don’t really need the money. Dragons live so long; my grandfather will give me anything I need. I just wanted to try to make it on my own, you know?"
"I do know," he said. "Just how I wanted to live out of my brother’s shadow."
I forced a smile. "Yeah I know how that feels."
The credits stopped rolling on the DVD and the menu came on, the loud theme of Harry Potter startling me a bit. I reached over Gabriel on the sofa to reach for the remote to turn it off, but he pulled my arm away instead and pulled me down on his chest.
I sat there rigidly and said, "What the—"
He shushed me. "You said you wanted to. I’m telling you it’s okay, you don’t ever have to wonder if I want to. I want to. It’s just a cuddle."
"What does it mean?" I said, trying to relax the side of my face into his chest as he smoothed my hair down my back.
I could almost hear him smile, as I sunk into the warmth of his chest and listening to the relaxing sound of his heartbeat.
"Well, Leo, it means we like to cuddle," he said, with a contented sigh.
Chapter 10
I don’t know how I managed it, but I actually relaxed and fell asleep while laying on Gabriel’s chest, his arms wrapped around me. After the first like, fifteen minutes it stopped feeling totally weird being that close to someone—anyone but most of all, him!
It was a combination of his steady heartbeat and his scent. He wasn’t wearing any cologne or anything scented; I can always pick out artificial scents from natural ones. I can actually smell the chemical additives and fillers they put in—blecch! Somehow though he smelled of a mix of sandalwood, cinnamon and a hint of vanilla. I actually was trying to pinpoint the scents as I inhaled deeply, and relaxed…and drifted off.
I woke up at about ten after eleven at night, it was dark in the apartment except for the overhead light over the sink I kept on all the time since I wasn’t the most graceful of dragons and I tripped over things in the dark often. One of Gabriel’s arms had fallen off me and was dangling over the side of the sofa; his head nodded off onto the sofa arm and he was still breathing steadily.
"Shit, I gotta pee," I muttered to myself. I sighed, not wanting to leave the comfort of the cuddle but even a dragon’s got to relieve herself now and then. Carefully, I untangled Gabr
iel’s arm from my waist and sat up, slowly, setting his arm gently on his stomach. I looked back down at him, sleeping peacefully and smiled to myself.
But the urge to run to the bathroom took over (damn those two cans of pop!) and I made a mad dash. Afterward, even though I had slept most of the day and for another forty-five minutes or so just now, I realized I was still extremely drained. I couldn’t stifle the large yawn or the urge to stretch out my sore bones. I groaned. Thankfully in the human world we had Advil and it was time for some now.
I grabbed my backpack that was tossed haphazardly on the floor next to the recliner and rummaged for the medicine. I popped two pills and swallowed some flat pop from the coffee table and grimaced as it went down. "Yuck!" I said out loud, as Gabriel rustled on the couch.
I struggled to choke down a yawn and felt my bed calling my name. I didn’t want to wake him so I took the blanket from the recliner and carefully draped it over him as he slept. I sighed regrettably, wanting to join him again but a night on the couch wasn’t exactly my idea of a restful sleep. Great for a cuddle or a nap but more than that? I’d tried it before; I woke up haggard. A cranky dragon is not a good dragon. Besides I’d probably trip and knee him in the crotch; wasn’t exactly a good way to wake someone up.
"Mrow," Sona said, leaping up on the couch and circling on Gabriel’s lap. She rested her head on her paws and let out a huffy noise that said "Ha ha, I get to sleep here, you don’t!"
I scoffed. "Damn cat," I said. She ignored me and drifted off to sleep herself.
I glanced once more at Gabriel’s cute, peaceful self and sighed. Well it was nice while it lasted.
I checked to make sure the door was locked, pulled off my sweatshirt on the way to my bedroom and tossed it in the hallway somewhere. I climbed into bed under the covers (a maroon and gold crocheted afghan and maroon flannel sheets—Harry Potter house colors, you know) and it felt like heaven finally resting my head on the pillow. Not more than a few seconds went by and I was out like a light.
It was…dark. Not just the normal dark you see when you walk outside your house on a moonlight night. It was like standing in the middle of a tall forest; trees so dense not even the strongest beam of sunlight could peek through. So dark, you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. So dark in fact that you could feel it seep into your soul and chill you to the bone.
