Sugar & Dragon Act I: Temptation (Sugar & Dragon #1)

XIII Dago

Dago had a conundrum. Two, in fact.

He was convinced he knew a lot about Hera Galenos, but the last few days had made him realize that he didn’t know her as well as he’d thought. The woman not only agreed to talk about marriage and allowed him to touch her, but she seemed curious about it. It wasn’t the reaction he would have expected from the maga whose image he had in his mind… and it unnerved him a bit. He was usually pretty good at figuring out people’s characters and finding their weaknesses, but now…

He didn’t feel the need to figure out Hera Galenos. He had a desire to watch her. To cause reactions with his words and touch. To explore her body and mind.

He wanted to know her.

He was intrigued .

And here was another conundrum: self-knowledge. He would never have thought that the equation he + woman + library - sex might equal nicely spent time . Nyx Nemesis, even thinking about it seemed absurd.

And yet.

Self-delusion made no sense. He had no choice. He had to admit it.

Today was indeed a nice day.

And strange. After all, it was about him and Hera Galenos. And nothing that had happened.

They talked, read, cooked, ate, talked again… Those were ordinary everyday activities. Nothing.

And yet something .

Taking into account that Dago had a low tolerance for people staying in the same room with him and the number of people he’d ever invited to his castle minus one imp until recently had equaled exactly two and included his friends, the value of this something was so large that he couldn’t consider it a statistical error.

Gazing at the surface of the water located hundreds of chariots below, sparkling with a light borrowed from the moon it mirrored, Dago wondered, Is it because we studied magic together?

Yes, that must be it. This would explain why cooking together went not only efficiently but also peacefully . They had no reason to quarrel because they had quarreled so many times that they inevitably knew each other’s flashpoints and, forced to cooperate by factors beyond their control, had developed a system that allowed them to avoid them. Galenos weighed and measured because she wanted to make sure everything would be exactly as in the recipe. He cut and mixed because counting everything that wasn’t gems and gold bored him sorely. Neither of them liked being rushed. They were both suspicious of the results of their joint work. They’d had to throw an obol to determine who would take the first bite…

Sitting together in a library wasn’t new either. They had the same homework and projects to work on. More than once, their final grade depended on their cooperation, and because they were both ambitious, they learned to tolerate each other’s company even if their teeth hurt from clenching their jaws…

Why did being in the same room with Hera Galenos seem so difficult then, but now it was almost as natural as breathing? He didn’t think he had changed much since school, and she didn’t seem significantly different either. Why was it different between them now?

Dago rubbed his temples but finally gave up and lowered his hands. Even though he’d been walking on the wall for an hour looking for inspiration, he couldn’t find answers to the questions that were bothering him. Wearily, he turned around, intending to return to his chamber…

…and froze.

A gigantic firebird hovered above the castle. The flames dancing on her red-gold feathers enveloped her like a cloak. One hot blast created by the flap of her wings was enough to melt any doubt about their temperature. With a second flap, the bird soared higher and flew away toward the dark sky. With each passing moment, she resembled less an animal and more a shooting star. At first, she was flying fast, as if she was racing with the clouds. Then she dove and made sudden twists and turns like a fiery fairy from the Dreamland.

Dago stood still, enchanted. Even though he had seen Galenos in her daimonic form many times, the sight had never ceased to fascinate him. It was both different and similar to her. As a daimon, a woman was the embodiment of the element. Wild. Dangerous.

Free.

Just as she could be in human form if she didn’t try so hard to be perfect.

What are you afraid of? he wondered, watching her dance. That freedom has no borders? Or that you could do anything with it?

What would you want to do with it?

The weariness he’d felt earlier dissipated and blended into the darkness of the night. He was barely aware of the cold surrounding him. He didn’t know how long he stood there, but he was sure that if the phoenix hadn’t gotten tired and turned back, he would have stood on the wall until dawn.

Hera must have noticed him because instead of landing right away, she hovered over the castle as if wondering what she should do. He waited patiently until she finally decided to confront him.

“You couldn’t sleep?” he asked when she landed a few chariots away, gradually reducing her size.

“No,” she said. Her head and legs took on a human shape. The rest of her body resembled a dress of fire.

He took off the cloak he’d thrown over his tunic and walked toward her. “You don’t like your room?”

“It’s fine.” She watched him warily like he was a snake that might be poisonous. Yet she didn’t move away when he got close enough to touch her. The flames streaking across her feathery dress cast wavering shadows around them. “Why haven’t you tried to touch me today?”

He didn’t expect this question from her, but he wasn’t overly surprised either. After all, it wasn’t the first time she’d behaved differently than he had imagined.

“I wanted to see if we could communicate without teaching aids.”

The corners of her mouth twitched, but she didn’t smile. “And what do you think the test result is?”

“Rather positive.”

“Rather?”

“I need to check something to be sure.”

He moved closer. He risked getting burned, but he was too curious about her reaction to worry too much about it.

She watched him for a long while. Eventually, the surrounding flames faded away and the feathers melted into her skin, but he could only see it out of the corner of his eye because his gaze was focused on her face. When she finished transforming, he crossed the distance between them and wrapped the cloak around her, but instead of buckling it and moving away, he stopped, holding the fabric with his fingers. They were so close now that she had to tilt her head up to look into his eyes.

“Is this how you seduce women?”

The moonlight wasn’t bright enough for him to tell what was hiding behind her gaze, but the quivering vibration of her voice told enough for him to guess.

“Why are you asking a question you don’t want the answer to?”

A hint of a smile danced on her lips, but it disappeared when he raised his hand to brush a strand of hair from her cheek. In a voice like the rustle of leaves, she asked, “Why are you so confident?”

“Because I’m not afraid of rejection.”

He more sensed than saw her surprise.

“That’s wise,” she said after some thought.

“Of course. I’m wise, so I say wise things.”

She snorted.

He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. She tensed but let him repeat the caress. The third time, she parted her lips slightly, and he increased the pressure. Her breathing was uneven, as if she was struggling to remember to breathe. He ran his tongue across her upper lip, and when she twitched in surprise, parting her mouth wider on reflex, he slid it inside.

She stood frozen at first but eventually began to respond to his movements. Shyly, then with growing engagement.

Dago couldn’t pinpoint the moment when engagement turned into passion. All he remembered was that he liked what they were doing, and when he woke up again, he was in the center of an emotional tornado. He wanted more. Harder. Deeper.

He desired.

He craved.

He needed.

He must…

He pulled away and focused on steadying his breathing. One thing he knew about humans: women were not that different from men. The more often they were shown something, the greater the chance that they would remember it. If the presentation was accompanied by pleasant feelings, the opportunity became an event with a high degree of probability. If the pleasure was proportionately high but not fulfilling, the obsession was almost certain. Add a bit of charisma to it and the belief that one couldn’t live without the object of presentation became deeply rooted.

Scholars called it an advertisement. Dago preferred the term “teasing.”

“We should go to sleep,” he said when his breathing evened out. “We have only one day to find koralion, so it’d be better to gather strength.”

Like him, she tried to keep her face and voice composed, but even in the dim light she couldn’t hide her confusion. “You’re right,” she said, squeezing the folds of his cloak.

As she began to turn, he took a step and leaned down, gathering her into his arms. When he picked her up like a knight would a princess, she cried, “What are you doing?!”

“I’m carrying you to the bedroom,” he replied, trying not to pay much attention to the softness of her curves or the pleasant weight that rubbed against him when she instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck to steady herself.

“Why?”

The faint note of curiosity behind her suspicion fueled his desire to tease her, but his learned habit of keeping his desires in check helped him control himself. Instead of giving a juicy answer, he just said, “Because you have no shoes.”

He had to be patient. From a long-term perspective, patience was more profitable.