Chapter 4
After Jildarin left the coffee shop, his book under his arm, Rylana accepted a latte from Tezilly and walked into the main room. She intended to sit a few tables away from Zilek, just close enough that she could intervene if he irritated Sylin overmuch.
But as Rylana walked near him, Zilek rose and stood in front of her, lifting a hand to stop her.
“Sylin will be here any minute,” Rylana said.
“Yes, I sense her in the street, waiting for the precise top of the hour before walking in. But I have a warning for you.”
“What?” she asked warily.
“Jildarin desires to court you, but there are once again female dragons in the area. If one of them comes into the city and smells your scent on him, she will be incensed. She may seek to slay you outright, and she will certainly complain to our mother.”
“I’ll try not to put my scent on him.” Rylana didn’t know whether to appreciate that Zilek cared enough to give the warning or be annoyed that he was getting involved.
“That will not be possible since you sleep in his lair, but if you mate with him, it will be even more pronounced. Any dragon would know right away. Even in this lowly form, our senses are superior to those of humans.” Zilek touched his nose.
“It must be difficult to be so superlative.”
“Usually, it is quite enjoyable. I would warn you to stay away from my brother entirely, for the sake of your life and so that he isn’t moved to mourn exceedingly and find a new bookkeeper, but once he gets a notion in his mind, he is quite stubborn about it.
Now that he’s realized he lusts for you, he would likely seek you out, even if you departed his establishment.
He might even toss you over his shoulder and carry you back to his lair. ”
“It’s always nice to be desired.”
“Will you be this flippant when Loxvonla and Foxvonla arrive to slay you?”
“Yeah, flippancy distracts your enemies while you’re untying the tranquility ribbons from your bow.”
“I find you somewhat exasperating but at the same time see why my brother is drawn.”
“I’m starting to like you too.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie. Since Zilek had gone against his aunt’s wishes and hadn’t tried to slay Rylana, she felt less hostile toward him. And, pompous and manipulative as he was, he seemed to care about his brother.
“I’ve delivered my warning,” Zilek said.
“I suggest that if you and Jildarin must rut, you do so in the dead of night and wash yourselves thoroughly afterward. The sisters could show up at any time. Further, be aware that dragons do not court or marry humans. Even if he and his sperm were not eagerly sought by so many females, that would be true. Humans are too far beneath us. Even an elf would be frowned upon, and they are the greatest of the lesser species.”
“They must delight in the way you describe them with such reverence.”
“They are honored by their association with dragons, I assure you.”
At that moment, Sylin opened the front door. Zilek swung to look at her, a smile spreading across his face. Sylin inhaled and visibly braced herself before stepping in.
Believing Zilek suitably distracted and done speaking with her regardless, Rylana moved to step past him. But he caught her wrist, his grip tight. Her latte almost sloshed over the edge of her cup.
“Simply have sex with him,” Zilek said. “Do not allow him to have notions of a more involved relationship. If you are wise, once he’s satisfied you, you’ll tell him to go out and mate with Loxvonla and Foxvonla and the other Sunclaw female with them.”
“He’s supposed to get busy with three females? At once?”
Zilek nodded firmly. “I am certain Mother and the rest of the clan would object much less to you if you weren’t, in their eyes, keeping Jildarin from mating with his own kind. He has the great stamina of all dragons. He would satisfy you no less because he was also inseminating others.”
Sylin arrived at the table, her eyebrows up. “This sounds like an important discussion. Should you wish to continue it, I can leave.”
Zilek released Rylana’s wrist and stepped back to face Sylin. “Dragon stamina is indeed an important topic, one I am greatly looking forward to discussing with you during our date.” He flicked his fingers in a shooing motion at Rylana.
“How fortunate for me.” Sylin slanted a dark look toward Rylana as she moved past.
“Ten minutes,” Rylana whispered before choosing a table near the window so she would have a view of the diner—and she wouldn’t be so close to Zilek’s table that he would believe she was monitoring him. Besides, she had probably listened in on enough of his private conversations for the day.
Zilek sat and waved to the chair opposite him.
Sylin shifted it aside so that she could stand with her shoulder against the wall while facing him.
Amusement made the corners of his lips quirk, and he said something—Rylana only caught the words deliciously eccentric—then waved for Vilma to attend them.
Tezilly brought a steaming cup of black coffee to a male ogre standing at a counter near the door—the tables and chairs were too small for their kind—and also set down a small plate holding four flower-shaped pats of butter.
The ogre rumbled a thanks and dropped the pats into his coffee, then took a spoon and stirred them in.
“The preferred ogre brew,” Tezilly said, noticing Rylana watching.
“It’s becoming popular with other species as well, especially those who labor at the docks or other demanding physical jobs.
May I join you?” Tezilly pointed to the empty seat across from Rylana and lifted a notepad and pencil. “I’m brainstorming a list of ideas.”
“Of course.” Rylana looked toward Zilek and Sylin. They were talking—mostly, he was talking—with nothing alarming taking place yet. Sylin’s expression was masked, but that was typical for her.
Tezilly sat. “I like to start my lists on my own before Brella comes over and tells me what I prefer.”
“It’s good that you have a system that works. What are you brainstorming?”
“We’ve been thinking about names for the coffee shop again.”
“Again?” A couple of times, Rylana had wondered why the shop didn’t have a name—the sign out front merely showed a cup of steaming coffee with nothing written below it.
Tezilly nodded. “We’ve been open three years and had… four names, I believe. Each time, we’ve chosen something we could both agree on—despite our many years together, that’s not always as easy as you’d think—but the names haven’t worked out for one reason or another.”
“Why is that?”
“The first time, a haughty elf informed us that Brew with a View was the name of his apothecary only a couple of miles down the street—we had no idea—and he’d had it first, so we had to change it.
The second time, we learned that Espresso Yourself sounds disturbingly similar to an orc-ish curse.
And we won’t even talk about how much giggling from the goblins there was over Lake View Grind.
I suppose grind has certain connotations in our language as well.
” Tezilly waved. “It’s an ongoing quest to find something that no species finds suggestive or offensive.
I think having an erotic bakery next door lends people who visit this area to already be in a certain state of mind. Did you see Mya’s new scones?”
“The ones with the berry nipples? Yes.”
“She douses those berries in a sugar-alcohol mixture that’s delicious, but, given their position at the apex of the scone, it’s a little disturbing to chew them off.”
A gnome driving a wagon from the grocer arrived across the street, and Gniknik came out of the diner with his dish-collecting contraption. Apparently, it could tote crates of ingredients as easily as dirty plates.
Seeing him hard at work made Rylana feel she should get back to the diner, especially since Jildarin had said nice things about valuing her.
It warmed her heart that he thought highly of her, particularly given the way their relationship had started.
She smiled at the memory of him striding around the kitchen, calling her my enemy.
As if her thoughts had summoned him, Jildarin appeared in the doorway of the diner, striding out to lift a heavy crate from the back of the wagon.
He said a few words and tilted his head, probably telling the gnome he should have brought the load to the carriage doors of the storeroom in the back, but the broad cobblestone street out front appealed more to delivery people.
Jildarin didn’t force the issue, merely stacking a second crate atop the first and maneuvering both through the door.
Rylana admired his backside as he disappeared inside, and Zilek’s suggestion of how Jildarin should push her up against the wall returned to her mind.
She would be extremely amenable to that.
Should she tell Jildarin? To forestall him going to see her father or whatever notions that book was putting into his head?
Yes, she should. As soon as possible. If Jildarin was not only drawn to her, as he’d admitted to his brother, but having thoughts of mating, why should they delay?
It wasn’t as if they needed to go on coffee dates to get to know each other.
As Zilek had pointed out, they’d spent most of their days and nights together for weeks.
She would love for Jildarin to heft her, as he had those crates, and carry her to the storeroom and to the bed.
Tezilly shifted in her chair, making it squeak against the tile floor.
“Maybe we should have a contest and let the patrons help name our shop,” she mused, tapping her pencil on her notepad.
Rylana realized she hadn’t heard anything Tezilly had said for a while and blurted, “Yes, good idea,” to feign attentiveness.
Tezilly smirked. “Judging by your expression, you were thinking of something besides coffee-shop names.”
“Possibly.” Rylana sipped from her latte.
Tezilly, who not that long ago had observed Jildarin standing close to Rylana and smelling her hair, asked, “A certain sexy dragon?”
“Possibly,” Rylana repeated.