Chapter 3
Rowan
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…blah, blah, blah, blah blah…blah blah…
Rowan’s elbow slipped and he nearly brained himself on the conference room table as his former best friend (as of one second ago) Troy, shoved him to get his attention.
The absolute betrayal.
He flushed as the whole team stared at him in unison.
“Sorry, what was that?” he asked, picking up his pen and pretending to be professional.
The blur of their project lead, Cornelius, shifted on his feet at the front of the room.
He was fully shifted in his dragon form, his breed allowing him to camouflage against whatever surface he was in front of.
This often happened when he got nervous.
Right now, he was just a pair of floating glasses and a cat print tie.
“I was asking if you had any questions about the slide, sir?”
The slide? There were slides now?
Rowan glanced at the PowerPoint presentation that had appeared somewhere between “What’s your coffee order?
” and his musings of I wonder if that totally NOT attractive guy is still chained to the tree?
I wonder what he’s doing right now? What was his deal, anyway?
My arm still has the indent of his teeth.
Do I need to get a shot? Did he infect me with the disease of not being able to stop thinking about him? I bet he did. This was a conspiracy—
“ROWAN!” Troy exclaimed.
Rowan jumped in his seat. “Lunch? Shall we order lunch? I think now is a good time to break. Cornelius, great presentation.”
Cornelius was flustered beyond measure, his glasses and tie bopping about and his camouflage fading in and out. “But what about—”
“Burgers? Pizza? Calzones? That’s what I like about you, Cornelius, asking the right questions,” Rowan shoved the desk sideways with his bulk as he got up and blustered his way to the door.
He opened it and stepped out, meeting Terry’s eyes and hoping he didn’t look like he was trying to avoid a death sentence, even though it felt like it. He snapped the door shut behind him. “Would you be able to place an order for lunch for the room, please? Whatever is quickest.”
“Sure,” he said, putting a folder aside. “Anything in particular?”
“A mixture is fine.” Rowan mopped his brow with his handkerchief. “Rachel has a gluten allergy.”
“And Cornelius doesn’t do spicy.” Terry jotted it down, a small smile ghosting across his lips. “Tough meeting? Is the guy still chained up? Did he really bite you?”
Rowan cringed but tried not to let it show. He also refused to think about where Terry got his intel when he never left the building during work hours. “We’re handling it. Nothing to worry about. And uh…if my parents call…you can tell them the same thing.”
“Mr. Rangecroft already left a message, actually.” Terry picked up a small memo pad. “He’s eagerly awaiting your team’s solutions to this situation. Also he said he’s consulted Raina and Riley and is strongly suggesting you pull them in on this.”
Rowan saw his life flash before his eyes in real time.
“Please call my father back and tell him that won’t be necessary. I have it all under control.”
He escaped before Terry could ask any more questions, reentering the room and clapping his hands with false confidence. “Where were we?”
Troy gave him the stink eye. “In the same place we were an hour ago. Trying to figure this mess out.”
“I really don’t see why we can’t just go back there. The foreman says that the idiot unhooked himself, so there’s nothing stopping us,” Mitchel said.
Nothing except the voice in Rowan’s head telling him that was a terrible idea.
“We should come up with something better than that to avoid a scandal. The media has already gotten wind of this. It would end up reflecting badly on the company,” he said.
“Then do you have a suggestion?” Troy asked. “You seem to have a lot of reasons why we can’t do anything, but no ideas of how to push the project forward.”
Troy had always been quick to call him out on his bullshit, and he was right, Rowan didn’t have an answer for him readily available, and that frustrated the hell out of him. It was a block in his mind where once there was free thought.
How had that insane tree guy got him so tangled up so fast?
“Uh, sir?” Rachel said. “You’re smoking a little.”
A few wisps floated past his eyes as they streamed from his nose, and he quickly waved them away, then readjusted his tie. “Let’s revisit some options while we wait for the food to arrive.”
Papers were shuffled and voices picked up as they all reviewed the documents and scribbled notes. Rowan tried his best to engage, but ended up in a whispered conversation with Troy.
“What is up with you?” Troy demanded.
“I’m stressed out and hangry, that’s all. And my dad is breathing down my neck about this.”
“This is a big project for the company, and he wants you to do well—”
“So I can prove my worth as the heir to the company. Yeah, yeah, I got it the first hundred times. You know, that doesn’t actually help with the pressure. Thanks, though, for reminding me.”
Troy snorted and rolled his eyes. “You’re so dramatic. I can’t believe you and your sister came from the same womb sometimes.”
“She made sure to take all the carefree whimsy with her when she moved out and left none for the rest of us,” Rowan drawled.
“I don’t know. Ruben is definitely giving it his best shot.”
Rowan thought of his idiot older brother and shook his head. “I think you’re confusing carefree with couldn’t care less.”
“He’ll come around. We all have wild days when we’re young.”
“He’s older than us!” Rowan almost yelled.
“He’s still young at heart.”
“And when did those wild days start for you and me? You’re already married with two kids.”
“Some people would consider that wild.”
“Wilder than a six-person orgy?”
“Explosive diapers, my man. Explosive diapers,” Troy said.
Rowan shuddered in disgust. “I’ll stick to plants and leave the repopulation efforts to you and Raina.”
“How are your plant children coming along?”
“My panda plant bloomed,” Rowan said proudly, feeling his chest swell in pride.
“Congratulations?”
There was a knock on the door before it swung open, and Terry held it for the delivery person to enter. Their upper body was blocked by bags that had a recognizable Blazin’ Hot logo on it.
It was a local dragon-owned chicken wing place that had recently opened up nearby. None of them had had a chance to try it yet, but it was on everyone’s radar at the office, so they perked up considerably upon seeing it.
Bless Terry, Rowan thought as he watched his secretary walk toward the floating pair of glasses and set a small bag in front of them. No spice was written on the bag, and Rowan heard a quiet, squeaky “thank you” before the glasses turned to look down.
Rowan smiled and got up from the table to help the delivery person out. There was no way they could see where the hell they were going like that, and the stack in their arms was swaying dangerously.
“Let me grab that from you and get your tip,” Rowan said.
“I’m good!” a cheerful voice rang out. “Just tell me if I’m getting hotter or colder toward the table.”
Rowan shared a weird look with Troy, who just shrugged.
Rowan cleared his throat. “That’s fine. I can just grab it.”
“Does that mean I’m cold?” They went to about-face and walk toward the window, and Rowan quickly grabbed the bag to avoid the ensuing headache.
In the next instant, he wished he hadn’t.
The person revealed on the other side of the greasy paper was none other than the tree-chained lunatic who’d bitten him.
Those icy blue eyes widened as they landed on him, shock rippling across his face and his jaw dropping. Rowan didn’t know what his own face was doing. Was there steam coming out of his ears now?
“You!” they said at the same time.
“Who?” Troy glanced between them.
“Hey,” Cornelius said. “Isn’t that—”
“Have a chicken wing, Cornelius.” Rowan slid the bag onto the table carelessly while he grabbed Milo’s arm with the other hand and tried to drag him from the room.
Only, just like at the tree, Milo would not be moved.
“What the hell, sasquatch? Keep those claws to yourself before I sue your scaly ass!”
Rowan let go like he’d been burned, if he could be burned that is, flushing as red as his eyes but still scowling.
“What are you doing here?” Rowan demanded.
“My job? What does it look like?” Milo propped his hands on his hips.
It was a normal response. Completely plausible.
Rowan was not in a normal headspace.
“Are you trying to infiltrate our meeting?”
“Infiltrate?” Milo scoffed. “Oh, of course. You’ve uncovered our geriatric spy society that gathers intel via chicken wing deliveries. How ever will we recover from this blow to our organization? We’ll all have to go on the run. Look out for us on Elderly’s Most Wanted.”
There were a few stifled laughs throughout the room, and Rowan felt his neck heat up at being publicly ridiculed and it being so obvious that he was being a moron.
“Why the hell would I want to infiltrate your stupid, stuffy meeting? There’s nothing in here that I want to see.” Milo continued to rant, gesturing wildly and freezing when he saw the slide on the board.
Which was about the destruction of his building.
Rowan felt the uncomfortable squirm in his chest turn into an all-out squeeze around his organs, especially his heart and lungs.
This was his job, so why did he want to throw Cornelius’s laptop out of the window? Why did he want to apologize? Why did he care?!
It was driving him mad.
Milo’s hands clenched into fists and he turned to Rowan with an angry flush high on his cheeks and spreading down his neck. “You’re really not going to stop, are you? After everything I told you.”
He started to close the distance between them, and Rowan found himself backing up despite his size.
Milo reached out and grabbed his tie, yanking Rowan down until they were nose to nose. Out of his periphery Rowan saw Troy stand up, as if to go get security but Rowan held up a hand to stop him, keeping his eyes on Milo’s, which were shifting wildly.
Wait…
Rowan studied his eyes closer, watching the pupil shift into a slit and back in the wake of his anger.
“I’m not going to let you destroy that building. It’ll be over my dead body, got it?”
“How is that possible?” Rowan whispered out loud, nose tingling from a crisp scent rising that was definitely not his own natural smoky one. It reminded him of pink noses in winter, the scent cold and clean like snow.
“It’s completely possible! You will have to murder my ass before—”
“How are you a dragon?” Rowan asked.
Milo startled, his grip loosening. “What?”
“You’re a dragon!”
Notes:
Headcanon:
Terry, Rowan’s nosy secretary has the hots for Cornelius, the shy little dragon project manager. Cornelius is a chameleon type dragon and blends with his surroundings so Terry got him the cat print tie so he could spot him around the building easier.
Will that be in the story? No.
Does it live rent free in our heads? Yes.
And now it does in yours too. You are most welcome.