Fire Dragon's Bride

by Riley Storm

  She eyed her phone for several minutes, deciding whether to open the message and see what it said, or wait until later to respond.

  Curiosity won out fairly quickly however, and she pulled it up.

  “What the hell?”

  Angela stuck her head in the door. “Everything okay, boss?”

  Looking up, Olivia realized in surprise that she must have spoken louder than intended. “Um. Yeah. Everything is fine. Sorry, didn’t mean to say that so loudly.”

  She bent over her phone, analyzing the message again.

  I expected better of you.

  “What the hell does that mean?” she wondered to herself, typing out a reply that said the same.

  Within seconds, her phone went off again.

  Never thought you would stoop this low.

  Olivia scowled at her phone. “Really? You don’t talk to me for a day, and then when you do, you scold me for my actions yesterday like I’m a child? That’s not cool.”

  It took you an entire day to come up with that rebuke? Next time, try just not talking after you drop me off.

  She re-read the message, decided she didn’t care about the acidity of her words, even in text format, and hit the send button, throwing her phone down on the desk.

  What games was Aaric playing at now? He didn’t seem the type that would be affected by something like yesterday. Quite the opposite, in fact. So, what had changed his mind, she wondered? What had spurred him to send those texts in the middle of the day?

  Her phone went off, but she ignored it for the moment, not eager to read whatever evaluation of her actions he was going to come up with next. Why subject herself to punishment, right?

  A second buzz was much harder to ignore. The curiosity was burning within her to find out what he’d had to say in response, and so with an impatient sigh at her lack of willpower, she snatched up the phone and read his message.

  Just like you had an entire day to plan this.

  You need to accept that it’s my property, and I’m not selling. If you keep this up, I’m going to turn you in to the police.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Angela’s head appeared again, pushing the door open. “You sure everything is okay in here, boss? You seem kind of…agitated.”

  “I am,” she admitted. “But right now, I need to make a phone call. Thanks.” She smiled and waited until her assistant had closed the door, and then punched the call button next to his name in her phone.

  An entire day to plan what? What is he talking about?

  The phone rang twice. Then a third time. If the bastard let her go to voicemail, she was going to lose it over his pettiness.

  At that moment, her work phone lit up with the silent red flashing of an incoming call. Could that be him, she wondered, calling on the work phone?

  No, of course not. He didn’t have that number. Then again, it was publicly available. That would be inordinately childish, however, and she doubted that Aaric even had it in him.

  “Hello?”

  That was Aaric, on the other end of her cell phone, finally picking up the call.

  “Hi,” she said, distracted by the number showing up on her work phone.

  That isn’t a number from anywhere around here. It looks like…

  She looked up, staring out of her door where Angela had picked up the call, knowing who it was.

  “I have to go,” she said abruptly and hung up her phone.

  This was it. This was the call she’d expected to come earlier this morning.

  “Boss?” Angela stuck her head through the door again, not using the intercom this time. She looked a little unsettled. “It’s Mr. Martinez. He says he wants to speak to you about the deal.”

  “Yeah. I’ll take it,” Olivia replied, trying to put on a strong front. The concern in Angela’s eyes told her she’d failed.

  The phone was slowly blinking red, indicating the call was on hold. She had to pick up. Keeping Mr. Martinez waiting would not be a wise idea. Not with the news she had to give him.

  Trying to keep the tremble from her hand as it shook at the prospective end of her career on the other line, she picked it up.

  “Mr. Martinez,” she said, trying to sound like she was happy to hear from him.

  “Miss Lawton,” came the cold, measured reply, with barely a trace of accent to betray his South American heritage.

  At least, she assumed that was what it was, given his location and name. Maybe she was profiling him, however, given that she’d never actually seen what he looked like.

  “Have you secured our property yet?”

  There it was. No small talk, no preamble. Just straight to the heart of the matter.

  “I’m working on it,” she said, mustering as much confidence as she could possess. “The other party that has bought it is proving to be much more reluctant to sell than I could have ever anticipated.”

  There was silence on the other end for several seconds. When Mr. Martinez replied, his voice was as cold as an arctic night. “We had a deal, Miss Lawton.”

  “I know, Mr. Martinez, I know. I’ll get the property. I just need more time. That’s all. A little more time.”

  “Where I come from, when someone says that they will do something, and signs a contract, it is expected that they do it. I do not take the breaking of a contract lightly.”

  Olivia swallowed. It wasn’t her fault! She had tried, but Aaric wasn’t willing to sell it to her. What was she supposed to do?

  “I haven’t broken the contract, Mr. Martinez. I’ll get you the property. I’m still working on it. I can show you some other suitable sites, however, maybe ones that will work—”

  “I do not want another site. I must have this one.” There was an audible sigh. “I fear I must take matters into my own hands.”

  Click.

  Olivia stared at the phone. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Take matters into your own hands? She wondered if she should be worried about her own safety. Having her reputation tarnished was one thing, but now Olivia wasn’t so sure that was all Edgar Martinez had in mind.

  She slowly became aware that her cellphone was buzzing. Looking at it, she saw she had a missed call from Aaric—no surprise there—and also seven messages from him.

  The number flicked to eight as she waited.

  “This had better be good.”

  Already rattled by the call from Mr. Martinez, Olivia was ready for a fight, for something she could sink her teeth into.

  Face it, you want an argument you can win, because your new client is scaring the piss out of you.

  It wasn’t untrue. However, the fact that Aaric was blaming her for something he seemed to think she had done was enough to get her irate all on its own. How dare that ass simply assume she’d done something to him.

  Opening her phone, Olivia stared in shock at what she was seeing from Aaric. It was pictures, all pictures, in fact, no text, that simply showed the property she had been so desperately trying to buy. It was blackened, however, and smoking still. Like it had just been on fire.

  Is that sonofabitch trying to accuse me of burning his precious abandoned building down?

  Olivia was on her feet, shoving her phone into her purse before her brain caught up with her body. When it did, she only moved faster, the corners of her vision tinged slightly with red. If that asshole truly thought he could get away with something like this, then he was out of his mind. It didn’t matter how sexy he was; she was going to go give him a piece of her mind.

  She needed to see him. To tell him where he could cram it. And also why he thought she would ever do something like that.

  “Boss?”

  “I’ll be back later,” she growled, and stormed out of her office, leaving a bewildered Angela behind her.

  You’re going to be sorry you did this, Aaric. Very sorry.

  13

  Aaric surveyed the property with a tired sigh.

  It wasn’t the fact that the building was
irreparable. He’d been planning to tear it down anyway. If anything, this would save him some money as crews could simply come in and begin cutting it up and hauling it away without having to worry about demolishing it. Time and money, he thought. The two most valuable currencies.

  No, it was the persistent fire chief, who hadn’t left his side since showing up and ensuring the fire was actually out.

  It was completely extinguished. Aaric didn’t miss. Firemen knew fire, but the flames were his partner. It was a completely different relationship. If a single flame had been left standing in the building anywhere at all, Aaric would have felt it. There was simply nothing left for the firemen to worry about, except the rest of the building coming down.

  And that will conveniently fall later tonight, I think. Once it’s dark and nobody can see me in my other form. No sense in screwing around and waiting now.

  “The fire just sort of…went out?”

  Aaric sighed again. “Yes, sir. As I’ve been saying since you got here. The flames were starting to come out the windows as I arrived. They went higher and higher, and then just sort of died out. As if they’d run out of fuel to burn. Not all at once. It wasn’t magic,” he added with a wry chuckle, trying to diffuse the situation and reassure the Chief that he wasn’t making his story up.

  “Of course not,” the fire chief scoffed. “But it’s still highly unusual.”

  “You’re telling me,” he said with a laugh. “I watched it happen. But I promise you, it did happen. I’m not seeing things. I’m not that old yet.” He chuckled, reaching out to poke the Chief in the shoulder. “See, you’re real.” He leaned closer. “Aren’t you?”

  They shared a laugh, which ended with the Chief shaking his head. “Well, I have to admit, I just don’t understand how that’s possible, given how big the fire was. But like you said, strange things happen sometimes.”

  “That they do, Chief Harwood,” Aaric echoed, his gaze returning to the partially collapsed factory. “That they do.”

  And I intend to find out how this all began.

  “Just call me Ric. Do you have any further need for us?”

  He shook his head. “No Ric. I’m having this whole place demolished anyway. Just going to bring in a wrecking ball and such. No need for your men to waste time checking structural integrity of anything. I’m razing it to the ground, going to rebuild from scratch.”

  “I understand Mr…”

  “Just Aaric,” he said politely.

  Chief Harwood nodded, but then tapped a clipboard he held in one hand. “I understand, but the government,” he said. “Well, they want more information than that, you see.”

  “Of course.” Aaric shrugged. What were the odds? “Aaric D-r-a-k-o-n.”

  Ric wrote out the last name. Aaric watched the man as he read it, then started visibly, reread the name, then looked up at him.

  “Drakon? Like, of the Plymouth Falls Drakons?” he asked quietly.

  “One and the same,” he admitted, trying not to roll his eyes. There were times Aaric wished he could punch whichever part of him had assumed the chief wouldn’t recognize the name.

  “Like, The Drakons, Ursa, Canis. Founding families of Plymouth Falls?” Chief Harwood was no longer looking at him with that confused, puzzled face about the fire, but something more like awed shock.

  “Correct,” Aaric said, lowering his voice. “But I’d appreciate if you kept that between us as best you can. I don’t want rumors going around, you understand.”

  “Of course. Of course. But, we thought you all died out,” Ric went on, scratching at his face. “Like, a hundred years ago.”

  “Not so, Chief. Not so at all. We’re still here.”

  “We? Are there more of you?” Harwood asked, looking around as if expecting the entire Drakon family to step out of the shadows.

  “I hope there will be, Chief Harwood. I hope there will be.”

  They both were distracted by sudden shouts from the far side of the pair of fire trucks. He exchanged a look of worry and surprise with Chief Harwood and then the pair of them ran over to see what was going on. Aaric almost forgot to hold back, but he remembered at the last second not to speed by the Chief.

  You’re human. Act like it. Cameras everywhere, don’t forget that.

  They cleared the ladder rig, and Aaric came to a dead stop.

  “Chief,” he said in a strangled voice.

  “You know her?” Harwood asked, looking at the woman in a long black coat struggling in the arms of a pair of firefighters, trying to get closer to the scene.

  “I do.” Unfortunately. “I’ll handle this. Call it a payment for not spreading my name around to your crew or anyone,” he said with a wink.

  “Absolutely. Fire is one thing,” Ric chuckled. “A fiery woman, well, we’re not trained for that.”

  “Are any of us?” Aaric agreed, bracing himself as the Chief called out for his men to let her through.

  At this point, the woman had oriented herself on the pair of men and, the instant the restraining arms disappeared, she began marching right over to them.

  “You!”

  “Run, Chief,” Aaric said under his breath. “Now.”

  “Yup. On it.” Chief Harwood vanished faster than Aaric would have thought possible.

  Smart man.

  “How dare you!” the woman shouted.

  “Hello, Olivia,” he said, his voice dry, unenthused. “What brings you back to the scene of your crime?”

  In hindsight, it wasn’t the best way to start the conversation.

  Olivia went apoplectic, her face burning red while a supernova of bright blue fury burned in her eyes. Her lips, once so luscious and plump disappeared into a thin line, like the blade of a dagger she was about to wield.

  “I cannot believe the nerve of you,” she hissed in white-hot undertones. “The nerve. The sheer unapologetic nerve.”

  “Prove me wrong,” he challenged. “Show me it wasn’t you.”

  Her mouth opened and shut several times. “And how would you like me to do that? Hmm. Show you the tapes of me laying on my couch last night watching some stupid reality TV in my pajamas until I went upstairs to bed? Would that make you happy, spying on me like some creep?”

  Aaric frowned. After several centuries of life, he liked to think he’d become half-decent at detecting when someone was lying. The trick, he’d learned, was to become just as good at knowing when someone was telling the truth. Master both arts, and then it became easier to know one from the other.

  Everything he’d ever learned screamed at him that she’d actually done just that the night before. There was the mild embarrassment at admitting to what she’d watched. A lack of hesitation in spitting it out, and also the certainty in her challenge that if he had been spying on her, he would have seen just that.

  “I dropped you off at two in the afternoon or whatever it was,” he said calmly. “There was plenty more time than just last night for you to see these up.”

  Olivia looked around, confused. “These? What are you talking about? You only sent pictures of the factory. What else do you think I did now?”

  There was something in her voice there, though. He frowned. Was she lying? What wasn’t she telling him about her efforts to acquire this property?

  “I didn’t expect such tactics from you,” he said, deciding to ignore her question. She was hiding something, and he needed to find it out. Soon, before she tried something else.

  Olivia hissed. “You are an unbelievable asshole, you know that?”

  Watching the way her face scrunched up the angrier she got, Aaric felt something stir inside him. He wanted to stay angry at her. To show her that he was pissed she’d stooped to such levels, playing dirty. It didn’t become her.

  But he couldn’t. Not when she kept getting hotter the more pissed with him she became. It was like a moth drawn to a flame. He should be stepping away, but he didn’t want to. He wanted more.

  Pissing her off even more will eventually ba
ckfire on you though. Don’t push it. Not if you want to see her again.

  Aaric frowned at himself. Since when had he wanted to see her again? Where did that idea come from?

  “Listen,” he said, thoroughly not understanding the way his brain was working at the moment. He needed space. Some time to clear his thoughts and figure out what sort of voodoo magic this annoying real-estate agent was working on him.

  “I’m listening,” Olivia said. “Still waiting to hear an apology from you.”

  “Could you wait right there then?” he asked. “I need to go.”

  “You’re joking. You don’t actually expect me to wait here for you, do you?”

  Aaric stepped around her, confused, and more than a little unnerved by his desire to pick her up, throw her over his shoulder and carry her back to his House. It wasn’t just mere arousal either. It was…

  “I gotta go,” he said abruptly. “Please don’t burn any more of my stuff down, okay?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Space,” he mumbled, walking away hurriedly.

  “Space?” he heard from behind him, though the words didn’t really register. “So, you’re an astronaut now too? Or is that some sort of joke about trying to get as far away from me as possible?”

  Aaric didn’t respond. His mind was elsewhere. Focused on Olivia, not the present. He needed to think about her. To think about whatever was up with his brain.

  Talking to her wouldn’t help.

  His car came to life and he sped off.

  14

  “He just left you there?”

  Olivia nodded. “Yup. Just got into his ultra-fancy sports car and zipped away. Like I was nothing.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “Yeah.” Olivia reclined in her chair, staring at the ceiling.

  The night had come and gone, and now she was back at work, sitting there venting about Aaric to Angela. It probably wasn’t the healthiest thing to do, bringing her personal issues into a work setting, but the truth of it was, Olivia didn’t know who else to go to.

  Besides, Angela was a good person, and they had gone out for drinks several times before.

  “He said he was going to space,” she repeated. “I don’t understand.”