Dragon Scorned

2. River

Natalia screeched like a fucking bird after I told her everything that happened in the auditorium. We ended up staying on campus to find out where all our classes were so we wouldn’t be lost come tomorrow when classes started.

I held off telling her as we walked around campus, but there was no way around it when we made our way inside the cozy café on campus to get lunch. Her eyes pleaded with me to tell her, and I finally gave in to her persistent demand for information. I told her everything, down to him calling me his mate.

“This is amazing, he’s fucking hot.” She squealed, practically bouncing up and down in her chair.

I groaned at her excitement. “No, it’s not. I don’t need, nor do I want, a fucking mate.” I took a bite of my sandwich, flavors exploding on my tastebuds. I was the biggest foodie, and I think I just found my new favorite spot on campus. The food here was amazing.

I ate through half my sandwich before Natalia finally spoke again. “It might not be a bad thing you know…if he is your mate. He is easy on the eyes. So, I’d say you hit the jackpot there.”

I groaned again at her. She wouldn”t be my best friend if she wasn’t always looking for the silver lining. “Mates are not good for dragons, Natalia. They make us lose control, we become so blindly possessive over our mate. Any threat to them risks our exposure. We don”t think clearly when they”re around.” I tried to get her to see my reasoning for why a mate isn’t always a good thing when it comes to us ‘overgrown lizards,’ as she loves to call us.

She just smiled at me, like she didn’t hear a damn word I said. I rolled my eyes at her blatant excitement for something she clearly didn’t understand.

“Just think of all the hot, steamy sex you can have. Maybe you can finally lose that v-card you”ve been holding onto so hard.” Her smile spread wide across her face.

“It’s perfectly normal to not have sex. I haven”t met anyone that sparks that desire in me.” I scoffed at her. I was perfectly content with my array of toys. I was sure they would satisfy me more than any man would. “Does it count as losing your virginity if a toy breaks your hymen?”

Her jaw dropped as she gaped at me. I was no longer able to contain the laughter inside. I clutched my stomach as I bent in half, trying to get myself under control.

“That does not count, and you know it.” She chuckled, still looking wide-eyed at me.

Once I got my laughter under control, I wiped the tears that leaked out of my eyes. “I’m sorry, your face was just priceless.” I wheezed between shaky breaths.

“River, you”re still a virgin by default, even if one of your massive dildos destroyed your vagina,” she said, smacking me on the arm.

I choked on the fry I popped into my mouth, coughing and pounding on my chest to try and dislodge the foreign object from my throat. Natalia handed me my soda and I greedily gulped down half of the drink, finally getting the fry unstuck and washing it down.

“You asshole.” I wheezed, glaring at her through slanted eyes.

“What? I’m just putting the whole truth out there.” She laughed.

“Remind me again why I put up with you?” I asked her, popping another fry into my mouth.

She did the most dramatic gasp and brought her hand up to her chest. “Because you love me and I cook you delicious food.”

I laughed at her answer. “You have a point there. I guess I’ll keep you around.”

She gasped again, and I rolled my eyes at her. “You know I fucking love you, witch.”

Natalia made a display of bouncing the bottom of her black pixie cut with her hands. “I know you do, who wouldn”t love all this hotness.”

“Okay, can we stop talking about my vagina now? Did you see that Supernatural Studies class on our course load? I don’t remember there being a class like that when we picked them out. Do you?” I asked her, subduing my laughter and putting on my best serious face.

“No I don’t. It’s pretty bold of them to add it onto our schedule though. I wonder if it’s just for supernaturals or if humans will be in it too? How did they even know about us? There wasn’t exactly a ‘check here if you”re a supernatural’ box on the application.”

“I don’t know, but I’m not going to lie, it freaks me out a little,” I said, my mind was swimming through the different possibilities of what having that class could mean.

I mindlessly reached for my soda when a scent filled my nose. My back went iron rod straight as I took in the smell that just assaulted my senses.

Panic laced Natalia”s face as she looked at my panicked expression. “What”s wrong?”

Only one word slipped past my lips, and she didn’t need any more explanation. She knew everything she needed to know as soon as the word was said low enough for only her to hear.

“Dragon.”

She looked around, trying to pinpoint the person I smelled as a dragon. She didn’t need to though, I already had him in my sights. He was facing the counter so I could only see his side profile, he had short sandy brown hair and was built like a linebacker. He was so tall I was sure he would tower over me by at least a foot.

His scent surrounded me, the embers telling me he was a dragon, and the smokey campfire scent that must be all him. I watched him intently as he waited in line. He inhaled deeply and turned my way, our eyes connecting across the small space, and my lips parted on a sharp inhale. He was the guy from the news last night, but he didn’t have the same scar.

That means Natalia was right and they were keeping supernaturals there, I was positive he was a dragon. “He’s one of the people from the news,” I hissed at Natalia as she turned to follow my line of sight. “One of the people who escaped from Nevada Private Hospital.”

Natalia turned back to me, all the while, I was trapped in this man”s gaze. “That”s not him, a brother maybe, or a cousin, but it”s not the same guy they showed on the news.”

“How do you know?” I asked, finally breaking eye contact with the stranger and looking at my best friend.

“For one, he wouldn’t be here if he was. There are so many people looking for them, and I doubt he would risk coming out in a populated area in broad daylight. For two, he doesn”t have the scar, the guy last night had a pretty distinctive scar going through his left eye, babes. It wouldn”t be easy to cover that type of scar with a simple glamor.”

“I guess you”re right,” I told her, glancing back up to look at the man in question, only he was no longer there.

“Is this seat taken?” A deep, raspy voice said from my right, and I almost jumped out of my skin. I put my hand on my chest, trying to calm my racing heart. I looked over at the man now standing next to me, my mouth moving, but no words were coming out.

“No, it’s not. Please have a seat.” Natalia beamed at the stranger before shooting me a warning glare, silently telling me to be nice.

He smiled kindly at Natalia, setting his tray down and extending his hand out to her. “Tate Stonewell, nice to meet you.”

“Natalia Hailsmith, likewise,” she said, placing her hand in his.

“And you are?” He turned to me, offering the same hand Natalia just shook. I eyed it, hesitantly, before meeting his eyes again. They were the same shade of green as the guys from the news, flakes of gold danced in the jade depths. I was trapped in them, a feeling began turning in my core that I didn’t understand.

Natalia kicked me under the table and I jerked back to the present. “I’m River Moonstone, and I have a touching problem,” I told him, eyeing his outstretched hand once again.

“Noted,” he said before retracting his arm and having a seat next to me.

Call it intuition if you want, but meeting two dragons on the same day didn’t feel like a good thing. My gut wasn’t screaming danger, but my dragon was stirring, making me uneasy.

“You might want to calm your beast, it’s showing in your eyes, beautiful,” Tate told me, staring at my eyes intently.

I closed them, taking deep breaths to reel in my beast. She wanted to break free because of the dragon sitting beside us. I didn’t understand her sudden interest in this man.

“So, are you guys freshmen?” he asked. My eyes popped open to meet his green ones.

“Yes, we are,” Natalia said through gritted teeth, turning her head and looking back and forth between Tate and me with wide eyes.

I knew my bestie to a T, and this was her way of telling me to knock it the fuck off and be nice.

“Are you one of the escaped patients from the hospital?” I blurted out in the sweetest tone I could muster. That question landed me another kick to my shin from Natalia. “Ouch, that fucking hurt,” I growled, reaching down to rub the sting away.

“It was meant to,” she said in a high-pitched tone.

“I feel like I’m interrupting something between you two, so I’m just going to go,” Tate said, pushing back from the table.

Natalia covered his hand with hers, halting his movement. “No stay. River here just does not know how to people very well, don’t take it personally.”

He glanced my way, and I sighed. “You can stay if you answer my quest—oow, Natalia, I swear to god if you kick me one more time.” I glared at my best friend, once again reaching down to rub my leg.

“You won”t do anything. You wouldn”t want to lose your favorite cook.” She beamed at me.

Tate cleared his throat, bringing my attention back to him. “It wasn’t me, actually. It was my twin, Ryker.”

My jaw dropped. I saw the sorrow in his eyes as he gave me my answer. “I’m sorry, I didn’t ask to cause you pain.” Well, now I just felt like an ass. I was accusing him of being one of the people breaking out of the hospital and never considered it wasn’t actually him. I know Nat said it couldn’t be, but I still had my suspicions. Their similarity was uncanny.

“It’s okay, you didn’t know,” he said, taking a bite of his sandwich. After he swallowed, he looked my way. “By the way, the news is full of liars. All those people were taken there against their will. They are not crazy or dangerous. They are supernaturals who were torn from their homes and away from their families.”

Natalia and I gasped simultaneously. “I’m so sorry, Tate. We didn’t know” I said, wanting so badly to reach out and comfort him. Where the thought of touching him came from I couldn’t tell you, but I pushed that idea deep down and threw away the key. I did not need any dragons to complicate my time here. I just wanted to get good grades, graduate, and get the hell out of dodge.

“It’s cool. Just maybe don”t jump to conclusions next time. All the people that escaped were different supernaturals that were taken by the hunters,” he said before taking another bite of his sandwich.

“We had a feeling Moonbeam Enterprises was up to no good, but we didn’t know how bad it was,” I told him, feeling like an ass for being a bitch to him.

He looked at me, the bright gold was swirling in his green orbs, I was transfixed, unable to look away. “I don’t know a lot, my brother is still missing, so I can’t ask him what goes on.”

“Do you think he will come home?” I asked, curious to know what happens after the hunters take you. If Tate”s brother was found then he could tell us what they were doing behind closed doors.

“I’m not sure,” he told me, the gold flaring in his eyes, telling me he was finished with this conversation.

Natalia cleared her throat, and we broke our connection to look at her. “This has been nice, and it was wonderful to meet you, Tate, but we have to go.”

Hurt flashed in Tate’s eyes when he looked back at me, confusing the shit out of me. Why did he look upset that we were leaving? We only just met the guy. As quickly as the hurt was there, it was gone, and he pasted a dazzling smile on his face.

Once again, he held his hand out for Natalia to shake, and she didn”t hesitate for a moment, grasping his hand in hers. My dragon growled within me at the contact, confusing me even further. Why the fuck was my dragon angry at him for touching Natalia?

When Tate finished saying his goodbyes to my bestie he turned to me, arm extended in front of him and a panty dropping grin on his face.

I eyed his hand, furrowing my brows. “Touching thing, remember,” I said, holding my hands up by my head and wiggling my fingers.

“Worth a shot,” he said, tucking his hand into his pocket. The smirk never left his face, though.

We grabbed our trash to throw away before heading out the door, and I turned to look at Tate before we walked outside. He was standing in the same spot, with his hands in his front pockets, watching me the entire time. A shiver passed over my skin as we stepped outside. I doubted it was caused by the cold.