Chapter Three
The next morning, I drag myself up, determined to get off to a better first day than our brief meeting. The guys traveled half the night, so maybe they were just tired and grumpy. I decide to make breakfast because who can be grumpy while eating chocolate hotcakes? Not me.
I set my music box on the counter and wind the knob until cheerful, get-shit-done pack-punk grinds out of it.
Werewolf punk, it’s a thing. Then I start cooking.
Pax got me the griddle last spring when we decided to move in together.
He made a joke about how I could cook him breakfast every day, and I told him to keep dreaming.
Secretly, I loved the idea of us eating hotcakes together every morning, and my heart warmed at how well he knows me, that he knows my favorite food in the world is the sweet hotcakes in wax paper they sell for a coin at the corner shop in the marketplace.
My mouth waters when I imagine how good the homemade ones will taste.
If this isn’t the perfect occasion to break in the griddle, I don’t know what is. It’s the first day of classes at DLSA, and Pax and my first full day as roommates.
Also True’s.
A little shiver of anticipation goes through me when I remember the gorgeous hunk of man standing over me. Grumpy or not, he won’t mess up my friendship with Pax. And I’m determined to rock this breakfast and put everyone in a good mood to start the year.
I throw on some coffee and start setting the table while the iron fills the air with the scent of melting butter. Then I throw in some batter and dance around the kitchen to my favorite upbeat song, “Wolves Just Wanna Have Fun.”
When I look up, I’m pierced by a pair of frost-blue eyes. I shriek with surprise and skid to a halt. Where the hell did he pop out of? When the Sharp Toothed ginger from yesterday called me oblivious, I thought he’d just been sneaking up on me, but maybe the creep had a point.
“Phoenix feather! You scared me,” I say, clutching at my heart.
“I seem to do that every time I enter the room.” True frowns, and I can’t help but notice that he doesn’t say it whatsoever like a joke. To be fair, the fact that I practically fall on my ass every time he enters the room is accurate.
“That might be true, True.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you, Vynessa.”
My name melts like butter on his tongue.
I feel something inside me heating up too, and I’m pretty sure it’s melting my cotton bloomers.
Heat rushes to my cheeks, and it’s not just because he caught me dancing.
Flashes of a dream that I must have forgotten rises in my mind, True pushing me back on the sofa and hooking his hands into my belt before peeling my pants down.
His long fingers spreading my legs and his perfect face leaning closer to where I was laid bare…
Holy dragon eggs. I must have completely repressed that uncharacteristically naughty dream, but staring at those broad shoulders and muscular arms brings it all roaring back.
His hotness is on full display this morning in a white sleeveless top worn over loose, drawstring gray trousers.
How can he be so ice cold and scorching hot at the very same second?
I spin away, hoping he can’t see the lava-tone of my face. Taking a steadying breath, I ask, “You like hotcakes?”
“You don’t have to cook for us.”
“I know. I thought it would be fun on our first day as roommates—oh, crap!” I hurry to the iron, where the steam has stopped curling up.
When I open it, the sandwiched batter lifts to the top part of the iron and stays there.
It’s a little darker and harder than it should be, but oh well.
That’s what he gets for scaring the fire out of me.
I try to pry the wedge off the top of the iron only to find it cemented on.
Damn. I make little grabs for it, pulling back quickly before I burn my fingers each time.
True strides across the kitchen, grabs my waist, lifts me straight off my feet, and sets me on the floor a few feet away.
I’m so shocked by the fact the guy just scooped me away from the griddle iron like it was an attacking demon that I just stand there, gaping.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” he growls. His hands linger on my hips for another second, and I open my mouth to make a smart-ass comment, but the tingle of his touch has me stuttering. Damn, it feels good. Before I know what I’m doing, I start to lean back against his chest.
True steps away so quickly I have to pinwheel my arms so I don’t fall on my ass.
He yanks open drawers until he finds the silverware, then starts prying the cake loose with a fork.
Within minutes, it’s a shredded pile of scraps on a plate, and the top side of the iron is covered in bits of dried batter.
He turns and hands me the plate of scraps. “Here’s your hotcake.”
“Wow,” I say, then crack a grin. “Thanks for making me breakfast. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to impress me.”
“I’m not.”
Okay then. Still not friendly in the morning.
“Good,” I say. “Because you’re not doing a very good job of it. No offense, but this hotcake looks like crap. You could really stand to up your cooking game.”
I give him a wink to show I’m kidding, trying to get the guy to lighten up.
I’m rewarded with a slight flaring of his nostrils. Annoyance? Amusement? Honestly, I’ll take either from the guy. When he responds, though, he just sounds bored. “I’ll have to work on that.”
“You do that,” I say, sloshing syrup onto the batter shreds.
“Just a little tip, though. You might try washing that mess off the iron before using it again. And a little more butter probably won’t hurt.
I’ll leave you to practice that while I go enjoy my coffee and this delicious breakfast on the veranda. ”
I turn to slink out of the room, only to walk straight into Pax’s bare chest. My plate hits his iron abs like I was intending to smash it there, and batter bits go flying in all directions. Syrup trickles down the ridges of his muscles. Damn if he hasn’t been eating right over the summer.
“What’s this I heard about coffee and hotcakes on the deck?” Pax asks, a smile in his voice as he looks down at me with a sleepy grin.
My mouth waters, and for one absolutely insane moment, I consider licking off the drop of syrup rolling toward the waistband of his pajama pants.
Oh, hell no. It’s like my chastity goal woke up a raving sex-beast that’s been sleeping in my vagina, and now no one is safe.
Guess that’s what I get for moving in with two sexy-as-fuck men.
I clear my throat and lift my plate, which only contains a mangled bit of breakfast carcass. “More like scrambled hotcakes.”
“Oh, Nessie,” he says, using the nickname that only he calls me.
“It didn’t feel right being away from you this summer, but this feels right.
” He squeezes my shoulder and slips past me, leaving me needing a cold shower and a lobotomy.
Somehow the brief brush of his skin on mine ignited a coal of heat in my belly.
Now I’m imagining Pax’s hands gripping my wrists, his broad chest pinning mine to a mattress.
And then I spot True leaning against the counter and watching me with an expression I can’t quite identify.
The heat in my belly ramps up a notch, and I squeak, “Excuse me.”
I spend way too long in the shower, hoping the cold water will put the raving sex monster back to sleep. When that doesn’t work, I give up and hold the stream of water on my clit until I come in a quick burst.
I get ready as fast as I can, but both guys are already standing in the living room waiting for me when I come hopping out of my room on one foot, trying to get a slipper on the other. “I’m ready, I’m ready!”
I look up, surprised to find True standing next to Pax with a backpack on.
My heel finally slips into my shoe, and I straighten. “Oh, True. Are you going to DLSA too?”
“I am,” he says, and duh. Pax met True while he was training for the program this summer.
It stands to reason that True is a student too even though he looks too old for it.
I can’t help but wonder if he tried something else and failed—maybe Scholar school, which has a terrifying failure rate, and now he’s back to square one.
A mixture of curiosity and sympathy rises in me when I think of how hard failure must be for a man like True.
It might explain the surliness though.
On my way to class, Pax takes my hand, as we often used to do in the village back home. Unlike back then, a warm shimmer of heat climbs my arm and settles in my heart. Absence definitely made that dumb old thing grow fonder.
“Nervous?” I ask my bestie.
“You’re going to be in a whole different section,” he frets. “Who am I going to cheat off now?”
“Whatever.” I bump him with my shoulder because Pax might have maintained a reputation as a playboy, but he got top marks without seeming to even try.
The campus is warm and muggy as we make our way along the stone paths toward the buildings of the school.
DLSA consists of several large buildings circling a central pantheon.
The campus is outside, the only shade provided by lines of palm trees and open-concept buildings with glass exteriors.
Well, the buildings look like they’re made of glass from a distance, but close up, I can’t help but notice that the nearly transparent exterior is much too thick and has a prism effect like its actually made of a transparent stone.
“Dragon stone,” I breathe because I’ve never seen the legendary material. Even a regular human from a small town knows about the stone, which is basically what happens when a Sun Dragon concentrates their fire on a stone, similar to the way a lightning strike turns sands to glass.
Besides that, the one building with opaque walls waits at the exact center of the university, and I immediately recognize the palatial eight-story library from my parents’ stories about the school.
Dragon Liaison and Scholar Academy doesn’t promote itself.
It doesn’t have to. They have thousands of applicants every year and only accept one-hundred students for liaison studies and ten scholar applicants.
Of those, maybe one or two will ever actually work with a dragon, and that will be years down the road, after proving themselves worthy. Dragons are nothing if not suspicious.
Not that they don’t have good reason to be.
“You’ll have to tell me if you meet any cool supernaturals in the dragon liaison program,” I say to Pax. “They only accept humans as Scholars.”
We’re the only race that’s both cunning and physically non-threatening enough to the dragons to handle their treasure troves.
To be honest, I’m a tad disappointed about that, since I was hoping that I’d get to bump elbows with shifters and fae once I left village life behind.
The liaison student population is about fifty-percent human, according to Pax.
As we turn down the wide path towards the main building, a flash of red catches my eye.
I turn to see the Sharp Tooth redhead walking our way, his hair a shock of copper that stands out among the greens and greys of this damp morning.
He has a backpack, and somehow in this mundane setting, he looks a hell of a lot less scary.
The guy is tall but not even as close to as bulky as the two guys standing beside me.
He’s actually a little cute and looks about our age. And he notices me staring.
I turn back to the path, only to have Pax and True say that they need to head in a different direction.
Pax pulls me aside as True waits a few feet away. “You going to be okay, or do you want me to walk you to class?”
“Seriously, Pax,” I say, punching his arm. “I’m going to class, not riding off with Wild Hunters.”
Pax doesn’t smile. He lifts a hand as if to stroke back the lock of my hair that’s blowing in my face, but he stops himself. Then we just stand there awkwardly for a second.
“Have fun in class,” I say, standing on tiptoes to plant a quick kiss on his cheek.
Without staying to see his reaction, I turn and jog towards the scholar building.
My lips tingle, and the raving sex monster that’s taken up residence in my genitals threatens to reawaken.
Still. I hope Pax thinks about my lips on his cheek half as much as I’m going to think about it this morning.
The distance to the Scholar Library is further than I thought, and I look back only to find the flame-haired guy walking a few paces behind me.
His eyes meet mine, and a little unease passes through me at his nearness.
I reassess my reassessment of him and pull the straps of my backpack tighter as I hasten my pace.
Behind me, his footsteps beat harder, and I’m all but running when I feel him right on my heel.
A squeak catches in my throat as I dart aside, sure he’s going to make a grab for me.
But the guy doesn’t stop, just passes me easily and continues up the road toward the library.
I slow my pace, a tide of embarrassment washing over me. Why am I suddenly so jumpy?
I’ll have to ask Pax if there’s a squid shifter in his program who can tattoo “scared little country girl” on my forehead.
As I trudge up the hill, wanting to pull a grain sack over my head to hide my burning face, a realization hits me.
The redhead is a scholar. Which means he’s one of forty others in my program, and definitely a human despite the odd features.
It also means that no matter how uneasy I feel in his presence, there’s no way that I’m going to be able to avoid him.