Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Isaac had never met another shifter more reluctant to shift. He understood Maverick was busy. Chief legal officer of a top ten company was no easy job. But surely a few hours here and there, or taking the scenic route home, wouldn’t be such a hardship for him. He didn’t have to do absolutely everything himself.
The thought made him snort. Who was he kidding? This was Maverick he was talking about. The dragon didn’t know how to let go. If he wasn’t up to his eyeballs in work, he wouldn’t have even hired Isaac. It was written all over the man’s face the first few days after his arrival. Maverick had control issues, and didn’t know the definition of the word delegate.
“You know what? Now would be a great time. You can take an hour long flight while I make lunch. Then come back and tell me how you feel. Afterward, you can help me study.”
Irritation flared on Maverick’s face, which was… a little cute, actually. Was Isaac starting to like Maverick’s grumpy face? It had nothing on his smile, but it was still cute. Like an angry toddler. You wanted to cuddle them and take pictures of the grump at the same time.
“I don’t think it’s relevant, and–”
Isaac cut off Maverick’s protest with a palm raised in a stop gesture. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of excuses, but it won’t change my mind. I’m in charge of your emotional stability for the time being. You agreed to it. As your emotional guru, I’m telling you to go for a shift.”
He made a face, his eyebrows drawn together tightly. “Emotional guru?”
The stubborn dragon wasn’t going to distract him by being pedantic. “Go shift, Maverick,” he said with a sigh.
The refusal was clear on the dragon’s face. Too bad Isaac wasn’t a pushover.
“Go shift or I’ll make you.”
Maverick scoffed. “I’d like to see you try.”
Isaac raised an eyebrow at him. He’d figure out eventually that challenging him wouldn’t work. He pointed a finger at the door.
“The rule still applies for screwing with my apartment. Go outside. If you want to be an asshole about it, we’ll discuss it out there.” Where the dragon would definitely shift, if only to avoid getting shocked.
Not one to back down from a fight, Maverick spun on his heel and stormed off, grabbing his jacket on the way. This wasn’t any more fun for Isaac, who absolutely hated being cold. He whispered a spell on his way out, wrapping the warm air from inside the apartment around him to protect him from the cold. It wasn’t perfect, he’d get cold eventually, but it’d last long enough to get Maverick moving. Seriously, what shifter refused to shift? Didn’t half of them prefer to be in their other forms?
They headed for the nearby park, since there were so many businesses around Isaac’s apartment complex. Using magic around an area that was that crowded wasn’t legal. The park was safe enough, and there was a large open space for Maverick to shift once he stopped being so stubborn.
Once they got to the center of the park, Maverick spun around and glared at him. “Well?”
Rolling his eyes, Isaac summoned his magic. The sky was already gray, and it was easier to summon lightning when the clouds were already there. The sky overhead darkened and, because Isaac was feeling mischievous, he directed the charge to only a few feet from Maverick. It made the dragon jump and whirl around with a snarl before snapping back to face Isaac again.
“What was that?”
“A warning. I’m not someone you can push around, Maverick. You agreed to let me help you. I gave you an instruction. Give your dragon the time.”
Maverick’s eyes narrowed, and he looked contemplative for a moment, but something crossed over his face that Isaac couldn’t quite decipher before he said, “If you’re so determined to make sure I follow through, you should come with me.”
Isaac faltered a little. He wanted Isaac to fly with him? What? Flight shifters notoriously didn’t allow that unless it was with a mate or family member. And Isaac sure as hell wasn’t either of those. What was Maverick’s goal here?
Not one to back down from a challenge, Isaac lifted his chin. “Fine. Let’s get going. You’re a major asshole if you haven’t eaten and I don’t want lunch to be later than it has to be.”
Maverick glared at him for a moment before relenting. He shifted, a shimmer of magic overtaking him before his dragon form replaced the man. He was enormous, bigger than a private jet, and stood so tall over Isaac that he had to take a few steps back and crane his neck to look at his face.
Dragons came in all colors, depending on your family line. Gold, Azure, Emerald, Ruby. Isaac had even read an article about a pure white one, though the family line the color was connected to was thought to be lost. The Van Buren line of dragons was pitch black, like obsidian, and had spikes on their faces and down their spines. Maverick’s eyes were a brilliant gold in both forms, but the gold seemed more liquid in his human form, and more glowing in his dragon form. He blew out a puff of smoke, probably hoping to make Isaac choke, but the dragon didn’t realize Isaac already had a spell going to keep him warm. It knocked the smoke away effortlessly, and Isaac raised an eyebrow at Maverick in response.
“Don’t be an ass. How do you want to do this? Because I think it’d be hard for me to get on your back with all those spikes.”
Maverick grumbled, like the idea irritated him, and his voice filtered through Isaac’s mind with a snarled, “That’s not ever going to happen. I’m not a horse.”
Dragons communicated telepathically. That was interesting.
“Well, then?” Isaac demanded.
If he thought Maverick looked intimidating while scowling at him in his human form, it was nothing compared to when Maverick’s dragon form made that same face. There were a lot fewer fangs involved as a human. He didn’t think Maverick did it deliberately to scare him. More like that face was such a habit for him, he forgot how much more terrifying it’d look in that form, but Isaac still took a step back. It caught the dragon’s attention, and his eyes narrowed.
“Are you afraid of me? I thought you could handle me,” he taunted.
“You’re really annoying,” Isaac shot back. “You should look at yourself in the mirror sometimes and let me know just how calm and under control that face is. Even the bravest would react to a dragon baring their teeth like they’re going to hurt them. Only idiots would ignore it.”
Another low rumble, this one significantly more unhappy. “I’m not going to hurt you. Are we going or not?”
Jackass. Isaac crossed his arms and gave him a pointed look. “You still haven’t said how you’d like to do that.”
Ever see a dragon roll its eyes? It’s weird. But Isaac didn’t get a chance to comment before Maverick launched forward, snatching Isaac into one massive claw and barreling straight into the sky. Isaac felt like his stomach was left on the ground and he had to swallow his shriek, clinging to the dragon’s claw for dear life.
“You asshole!” he shouted over the noise of the wind.
That rumble was definitely a laugh. Stupid dragon.
It took maybe two minutes to figure out why Maverick had demanded he come with him. Dragons ran warm, thanks to their fire, but mages didn’t. And it was fucking freezing up here. Isaac didn’t even have mage’s robes that could be spelled to keep him warm, and the spell he’d used to stay warm when he went outside with Maverick wore off pretty fast. Isaac felt his teeth chattering, and he curled in on himself. He knew Maverick did this on purpose, probably to punish him, but he was too cold to do anything about it. He wasn’t even sure Maverick could hear him up here. He was freaking fast, and the wind whistled as they flew through the air.
The cold started to hurt at one point, and Isaac worried for a minute about frostbite. It would be just his luck that his failed attempt at trying to help Maverick would end up with him getting hurt. Just like when he dealt with the smoke and ended up shoved against the bookshelf. He seriously needed to stop underestimating just how much of a jackass Maverick was. It was his good looks. It took Isaac off guard.
Warmth spread down his back, and Isaac shuddered from the shock. While he’d been silently berating himself, his eyes squeezed shut to protect himself from the wind, Maverick had shifted him closer to his chest, pressing him against the center where heat seemed to radiate, surrounding Isaac with it. It took a minute for him to thaw out, but once he did, he let out a long breath and cracked his eyes open.
Okay, once he was no longer in danger of turning into a mage-sicle, it wasn’t that bad. They flew just below the clouds, over the city, and Isaac sucked in a breath as he took in the view.
“Holy shit. You get to see this every day?”
He’d only murmured it, figuring Maverick couldn’t hear him over the wind, but Maverick had better hearing than he thought, because he answered with a rumbling hum.
“It loses its charm after a while.”
Isaac found that hard to imagine. He leaned a little farther over the curl of Maverick’s claw, looking straight down at the cityscape below him. They were moving too fast to get any details, like people walking on the streets, but he had to imagine they looked like ants from up here. If he leaned just the right way, he could block the dragon completely from his view and imagine he was flying by himself. He dreamed of flying his whole childhood. Being an air mage, he thought it’d be possible with a spell, and was unimaginably disappointed when that turned out not to be the case. His magic could do many things, but it couldn’t make him fly. Not long distances anyway. He got his feet off the ground a few times, but that was about it.
“If I could fly, I’d do it as often as possible,” he murmured dreamily, resting his chin on Maverick’s claw as he watched the city pass them by. With the warmth at his back and the strong but careful grip holding him up, it was definitely in the top ten moments of his life. Screw sex. Could he barter helping Maverick in exchange for taking him flying?
His mind strayed back to the first time with the accidental knotting.
Okay, nevermind. Could he be greedy and have both? Please and thank you.