by Starla Night
“The Empress proposed to you, too?”
“No. The Empress has private designs on the Onyx family. She is Pyrochlore’s burden to bear.”
But apparently, unwanted dragon marriage proposals were universal.
“I thought dragons don’t marry for love,” she said, quoting her magazine article.
“Until meeting my girlfriend, that was true.” He returned his phone to his pocket. “The dragon who proposed had injured my brothers and our estate. Marrying her would have restored us to a higher status, but I would not have enjoyed my contractual duties. In contrast, every moment with Evalina is a bright, shining treasure of undeserved happiness.”
Huh. “Well, congratulations.”
“I have never been so happy,” he said flatly.
She promised to set up an appointment sometime and Syenite finally let her go. Then, without her keys or ID or anything, she got Melody to buzz her into the building and rode the rickety elevator up to her floor.
Their door hung open.
The evil scent of chocolate butterscotch brownies wafted out.
Her stomach growled. She felt exhausted and wired. And she’d missed her one opportunity to try dragon candy. Brimstone. It must taste better than it sounded.
Amy closed the door firmly, crossed the living room in three strides to end up in the kitchen, and collapsed in her peeling, old chair.
Her roommate, Melody, sat in the other chair and fanned the steaming brownie plate. “You’re back.”
“I’m starving.”
“Brownie?”
“I shouldn’t.”
“But you will.” Her roommate cut a reasonably sized piece of gooey, steaming, fudgy brownie and put it on her plate. She passed the knife to Amy. “It’s late. Where’ve you been?”
She didn’t want to tell.
Melody waited patiently. Her dark chestnut hair folded into two cute shoulder-length braids tied with ribbons emblazoned with the logo of her favorite video game. Tonight, she wore a velvet Goth Lolita dress with poufy purple sleeves and a cream apron. Her knee-high socks were decorated with a different video game logo and she was adorned with silver chain mail jewelry she’d designed herself.
Amy sliced a giant wedge off the corner. “I got caught. By Pyro.”
Melody’s brows rose. “Was he very angry?”
“I didn’t tell him the real reason.”
“Real reason?”
“That it was for you.” She shoveled a huge mouthful in. The decadent dessert filled her with tingles of deliciousness.
See? Who needed hot dragon shifters? Butterscotch brownies were at least as good.
She chewed and swallowed enough smooth sweetness to pinpoint, “For your fan fiction.”
“Oh. Right. My fan fiction.” Melody let out a relieved sigh and picked up her fork. “I’ll just have to make up Pyro’s habits. Using my imagination.”
Melody was one of the top twenty fan ficcers on three different websites; her current work in progress was her first try using real celebrities. Dragon aliens were so far from everyone’s real-life experience they might as well be fictional for most people. Less than two hundred dragons total lived on Earth. It was a fluke that two entire businesses had set up a few miles from her home in Portland, Oregon.
“I got you the dragon shifter magazine,” Amy said. “Oh, I left my bag at the bar.”
“It’s in your room.” Melody licked her purple-painted fingers and sat back, sated. “You didn’t come home, and you didn’t answer your texts. I sent Josh to check on you. He came back pretty alarmed. He thought you’d been kidnapped.”
Uh oh. Melody’s video game-addicted boyfriend wasn’t excitable, so if he’d gotten worried, who knew what might have happened? “You didn’t call my parents.”
Melody made a flubbing noise. “I’d sooner call all the hospitals and the police.”
Amy released her sigh. “Thank you.”
“Solidarity.” Melody rose, fist-bumped her, and grabbed her arm braces to cross the kitchen.
Due to a rare childhood illness, her leg bones had grown different lengths. She was fully capable of getting around with braces but she hated the looks she got, so she rarely left the house. Her parents tried to respect her, but they also worried over-protectively. She well understood Amy’s relationship with her family.
Amy licked her own pale pink fingers. The big plate of brownies called to her.
“You should really start a bakery,” she said, trying to talk herself out of another piece.
“I could never do that.”
“Why not?”
But her roommate just laughed. Like always.
The brownies sang a sweet, sweet song.
One more hit of sugary sweetness. One more taste of don’t-worry-everything’s-fine numbness. One more bite and Pyro’s cruel prank would no longer sting.
She’d thought she’d surprised him and held his interest. She’d thought, for a few minutes, they’d honestly connected during their conversation in the warehouse. She’d thought his kiss was real.
But she’d been wrong. So very, very wrong.
“Are you going to the bar again?” Melody asked.
“No way. My excitement with dragon shifters is over. Forever.” And that depressed her. She cut another triple-sized wedge of chocolate serenity. “I’m so busy. And he’s probably never going there again.”
Melody nodded slowly. “I’ll start working on your reward. One batch of cinnamon crinkle cookies and two loaves of chocolate chip bread. Right?”
“Yeah.” She pinched a piece of brownie into a gooey ball and chewed it like a forgetfulness pill.
She’s nobody I care about. His cruel dismissal echoed in Amy’s ears.
She pinched another piece of brownie and, with the tine of her fork, traced the beginnings of a Zentangle in the frosting. It was going to take a lot more chocolate to forget this hurt.
Melody must have known somehow. Sympathy radiated from her. “Want to watch trash television and rot our brains?”
“I have to finish working on my observation lesson.”
“So, yes?”
Amy covered her face. “I really shouldn’t.”
Melody’s voice rose, chipper, as she disappeared into the living room. “Which show? Rich B*tches or So I Married a Convict?”
The click of the TV in the living room was the sound of Amy’s discipline snapping. She needed to veg tonight. Her lesson was almost ready. Enough for her mentor to see her progress and give guidance. She’d finish the details during the commercial breaks.
Amy rose and grabbed the brownie plate. “Whichever show isn’t a rerun.”
“They’re both reruns, but Rich B*tches is the one about the supermodel who thinks she’s marrying a multimillionaire and gets catfished into marrying a convict.”
Ugh. That described tonight a little too well.
Melody’s voice teased her from the other room. “Hey, do you think if we had interesting lives, we wouldn’t have to watch everyone else’s?”
Tonight had been interesting.
Syenite’s phone number crinkled in her pocket like a warning. Failing in her diet and watching trash TV didn’t hurt anyone. Not like breaking into a company, ruining their clothes, and groveling before an irate owner.
Had that even happened? In her tiny apartment, it seemed impossible.
Never again.
“Nah.” Amy dumped the dragon shifter’s contact info in her bag and went to the living room.
Melody propped up her short leg. “Oh well. We’re so boring that we’ll never find out.”
Vegging hurt no one. Only herself.
Chapter Seven
Pyro … Pyro! … PYRO.”
He groaned and rolled over on his back.
Sunlight streamed through his unshaded windows and reflected off his pinball and sports video machines, illuminating his lair.
The movie theater-sized screen dominating the middle of the room showed a gigantic image o
f his younger brother, Kyan. The heavily scarred former mercenary was harsh on the eyes in the morning.
Pyro pinched his eyes shut. “What did I miss?”
“The officer meeting starts in five minutes.”
He yawned and rolled over. “Wake me when I’ve missed it.”
“You’re leading it.”
“Mmph?”
“While the CEO’s gone, you lead the meetings.”
He moved his mouth away from the pillow. “What do you need me for? You have Amber.”
Kyan was silent.
Bilgefire.
Pyro forced himself out of the triple king-sized bed, thudded onto the messy hardwood, and crawled to his closet. “I’ll be right there.”
In any other dragon company, the eldest female always ruled. Amber refused her responsibility with the same fervency that Pyro did. The vice president position made sense — he was second-oldest — and allowed him a great deal of freedom. Mal did the visionary work. Pyro offered just-so-crazy-it-might-work suggestions. Sure, he was theoretically in charge of things, but Mal was always there and he was always working.
Until now.
Pyro rolled into jeans and a T-shirt. In the center of his circular suite, he opened the empty elevator shaft and flew up into golden sunlight. The Las Vegas strip emerged below him and the gorgeous, dry sun of early summer warmed his skin.
He flew across the states, crossing west until he’d almost reached the coast, and then he floated down to the Onyx Corporation office building.
Their skies were empty. The private interstellar spaceship that had brought them here five years ago was gone.
As expected.
He descended into the glass shaft and hovered. Opening the glass door, he floated into his office and closed the glass behind him. With Mal’s absence, everyone would meet in one of the main conference rooms. He exchanged his jeans for business attire in his office closet, straightened his collar, checked his cuffs, and strode out into the hall.
Onyx Corporation head offices buzzed. The intern’s desk in front of Mal’s empty office had a new intern, a male with thick glasses and a nervous smile. Behind him, the warren of upper management cubicles hummed with energy.
He entered the conference room.
Four of his siblings stared at him.
He swerved to the espresso station at the corner of all rooms and tamped in a scoop of freshly ground Brazilian roast. “So, who has the agenda?”
Silence greeted his question.
He poured a glass of frosty milk from the mini fridge into the metal pitcher, steamed and frothed it, and created his morning peppermint mocha with extra espresso. Then, he took his usual seat to the right of the empty CEO’s chair, leaned back, crossed his ankle over his knee, and sipped.
Everyone stared back.
Operations Manager Jasper finally cleared his throat. “In Mal’s absence, the vice president is the acting CEO.”
“You don’t want to trust the fate of this company to me, do you?” He set his coffee on the table and opened his shaky hands.
His siblings stared back at him without blinking.
This smacked of a conspiracy. But fine. He’d play their game.
“Then fine. Here’s the agenda: Let’s talk about the only thing that matters.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “What do we do now that our mother got rid of our ports and we can no longer land on Draconis to sell our exports?”
Silence.
Finally, smooth salesman Alex leaned forward. Not a single hair of his light blond locks fell out of place. “What did you learn during your meeting with Sard?”
“His next product launch is historical. Victorian.” Pyro found the photos of Amy on his phone and passed them around.
Jasper studied them for the longest. They made the rounds of the table and returned to Pyro. He put his phone away.
Alex frowned. His exotic eyes, one turquoise and one lavender, studied Pyro with sharp attention. “Sard wanted to meet with you to show off his next product launch?”
“No.”
“Then what did you speak of?”
“We didn’t speak.”
Amber, Jasper, and Alex looked at Kyan.
The former mercenary was the only one who could keep track of Pyro. The only one who could keep track of any of them. His methods were neither legal nor known outside of highly classified dragon intelligence.
Even so, he wasn’t all-knowing. His gruff voice, the result of a laser blast too close to his vocal chords, remained soft. “You were inside the building a long time.”
“Do you really want to be under the aristocrats? Owned by them?”
His siblings shook their heads.
“Neither do I. And that’s the only possible reason that thieving Sard would negotiate.”
“You did not meet with Sard?” Amber’s voice was flat but fire crackled around her auburn eyes and hair. “You went to his building and you did not meet with him?”
“Good, it sounds like you can hear me,” he snapped. “He knows we’re stuck. And, unlike us, he doesn’t have a crazy mother throwing away his company in a fit of rage.”
“You can’t know what he wants until you hear the words from him.”
He waved her off. “I know.”
“As acting CEO, it is your responsibility to explore every possibility to save this company.”
“Mal wouldn’t give his company to the aristocrats. Neither will I.”
“Is there no other possibility?” Jasper asked. The steady Operations Manager was a careful speaker and a deep thinker. He rarely acted outside of authority. “None?”
Pyro opened his hands wide. “I don’t see one.”
They fell silent for a long time. Pyro let each caffeine-soaked swallow heighten his hate of Sard Carnelian and the rest of the smarmy aristocrats.
Alex leaned forward. “Then, distasteful as it is to bow under command of Sard Carnelian, what choice do we have?”
“Destroy the company. Flames from the ground up.” Preferably with the thieving rivals inside.
“This is your proposal? We neither try to sell our company nor try to negotiate with another family who has ports. We should destroy it?”
He leaned back. “Yep.”
The empty chairs — Mal’s CEO chair and his youngest brother, odd Flint — gaped. If Pyro’s plan went through, all the chairs would be empty. And on fire.
But that would never happen.
His siblings would never allow him to destroy this company. All he had to do was force them to acknowledge he wasn’t Mal. Then they’d take the responsibility off his hands and ensure their oldest brother’s company didn’t burn.
Amber tapped her fingers on the conference table. Her tone was subdued, but not shocked. Apparently taking control from him was something they’d planned.
But then her words penetrated.
“I’ll conduct the end-of-business closing costs and outstanding balances. Jasper, clear our inventory.”
“When did you want me to surplus our office equipment?”
“As soon as you have a buyer. We need to find a new placement together or else we’ll be spread across the universe again. Alex?”
“Old friends in Serpenta IV are interested in a security officer. Salesmen are always useful. I talked them into taking a specialist in logistics.” Alex nodded at Jasper.
“Nothing financial?” Amber, Chief Financial Officer of the Onyx Corporation, asked hopefully.
He hesitated. “They will not accept a female unless she is the new owner.”
Because on Draconis, females ruled companies. They didn’t work in a lower position like finance. Amber only got away with slacking because she was so far from the heart of the Empire, and technically, the Onyx Corporation was owned by their mother. That was how she could destroy it on a whim by giving away their port privileges.
Amber studied her black tights. “Thank you for asking.”
“You can stay with our moth
er until you arrange a marriage.”
She nodded.
“Mal will remain on Earth with his human wife,” Jasper said, ticking off everyone on his fingers. “We will disperse.”
The hell? They were actually going to destroy the company? All because of his little joke?
“What about Flint?” Pyro asked, just to play along.
Alex met his gaze. No judgment stained his two-tone eyes; just cold resolve. “He will do as he wishes, as always.”
“And me?”
“I assume you will also remain on Earth with whatever Earth female you marry.”
“And if I don’t?”
They quit playing around with making their self-destruct plans and stared at him.
“What are you waiting for?” Amber asked bluntly.
Steady Jasper also frowned in confusion. “You have no particular female you want and a plethora of willing lovers. It should be easy to secure a bride.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“You have a lot of women,” Alex agreed.
“The most of any dragon shifter,” Kyan said.
“A shocking number,” Alex said.
“Hey,” he said. “They come to me.”
“So don’t be lazy,” Amber said, chiming in. “It might take more time and effort to secure a female than you think.”
“Or I could not bother,” he said. “Become the Empress’s consort.”
Now they stared at him with shock. It was almost insulting. They accepted his suggestion to burn down the company like it meant nothing and then they looked like the world was ending when he said he’d marry the Empress.
Amber finally said aloud what they were all clearly thinking. “Do you have a death wish?”
He shrugged one shoulder. The rush of familiar adrenaline crackled under his skin, radioactive. “I’d be an aristocrat.”
“You hate aristocrats.”
“But as the highest one, I could order the rest around.”
Amber frowned. “You won’t last a week.”
“Aw, come on. Worried about the Empress? I know how to please females.”
Jasper and Alex both shook their heads furiously. Kyan looked at his phone as if he’d just received an urgent security call.
“She’s barely female,” Alex finally said.
At the same time, Amber made an un-dragonlike snort of disbelief. “You? Please females?”
