Chapter 14
Emmett
My pancakes were good. A may cause spontaneous moaning, fork abandonment, and inappropriate thoughts about the chef, kind of good. I’d made them from scratch while Vito grumbled about me making a mess in his kitchen, all because my dragon had been pacing under my skin, snarling for me to feed her.
She’s ours to feed. Ours to keep.
No amount of logic could shut him up, so I’d made the damn pancakes. And now, watching Elana chase the last bite around her plate, I decided my dragon might’ve been onto something.
“Your verdict?” I asked.
She pointed the fork at me without looking up. “I’ll tell you, but you don’t get to be smug about it.”
“So they’re good?”
“They’re obscenely good.” She finally captured the bite, ate it, and set her fork down like she’d just surrendered in a war. “You had Vito help you.”
“I did not.”
“Then you used magic.”
“Not a drop.”
She looked at me with deep suspicion. “Don’t tell me this dragon is also a secret culinary artist?”
“Centuries of practice. But I can only do breakfast.” I refilled her coffee, watching as her gaze locked onto the dark liquid swirling into her cup.
Her shoulders relaxed just for a second before she was all stiff poise again, like she’d just remembered she wasn’t supposed to let her guard down. “I’ve had a lot of Sunday mornings.”
Next to us, Melly was losing her tiny dragon mind over her rattle.
It took me a moment to realize that she grabbed it not with her mouth but with her claws. She shook it violently like it owed her money, before jamming it into her mouth with a look of pure scaly triumph.
I choked on my coffee.
“Don’t worry, she can’t hurt herself. It’s soft.”
“No,” I said, trying to keep my voice down so I wouldn’t startle her. “She’s holding it with her hands. Well, her paws.”
Elana didn’t look surprised. “She’s been doing that all day. I’ve been showing her how to use her hands to grab things. I’m hoping it might lead to her shifting just to use her human hands.”
Melly shook the rattle with even more enthusiasm.
“But I’ve been trying to get her to use her hands for months.”
She frowned. “With what?”
“Food. Handshakes. Anything.”
“Food goes in the mouth anyway, so she’s going to go with it with her snout. As for the rest, I didn’t see any fun toys in there before that would entice her enough to use her hands.”
Melly, oblivious to my excitement, tossed the rattle and immediately lunged for it again, shaking it with even more enthusiasm. Then she started smacking it against the floor with determination. Thwak. Clatter. Thwak. It was loud, and she was having the time of her life.
I’d watched Melly for three months now. I’d watched her every morning, every afternoon, every night. This was new. This was progress.
Hope blossomed in my chest.
Elana looked at Melly for a moment longer, and I saw the look in her eyes. A look that told me she was getting attached and had already decided that fighting it was futile.
After breakfast, I suggested we take another trip into town.
Despite Leroy’s insistence that we not bring Melly, we drove into Solstice mid-morning, just the three of us.
I’d decided that since most of the town knew who I was already.
Regardless of when I started bringing Melly in, they’d know she was a dragon.
I couldn’t keep her in the castle forever, not when there was a whole town to explore here.
Elana had prepared a bag with food for Melly, as well as her toys to keep her busy. She’d called it a diaper bag even though there were no diapers in it. She’d been shocked to find out that we didn’t have any, on account that Melly always stayed a dragon.
Elana was equally horrified when she asked where the stroller was, and I told her we didn’t have one either. And when I tried to use the same excuse, she’d shut it down immediately.
“Unacceptable. There are plenty of options. Melly’s a dragon, not a half-demon like my granddaughter Eadie. She can’t float to the ceiling just for fun.”
I’d blinked. “You have a granddaughter?”
“Yep. About the same age as Melly.”
Elana was currently tucked into the passenger seat of my Range Rover, and Melly’s carrier was strapped into the back with her cooing to herself.
The ifrits had followed, and I’d asked Cassian to come along as well.
The ifrits had done such a great job trailing behind us and not making a scene or looking like guards the other day that I’d decided Cassian needed to take some notes.
Cassian usually portrayed himself as the biggest, baddest demon in existence whenever I needed him around, but it was clear to me that subtlety worked best in many cases.
Yesterday, I’d barely noticed Blaze or Flame unless I really looked around.
Despite keeping their ifrit forms, they didn’t stand out like sore thumbs.
That was easier to do in a place like Solstice, where they’d look just like yet another magical being.
I suspect that if they were in a big city, they’d adjust accordingly.
Solstice on a weekday was a different creature altogether from Solstice on the weekend. It was much quieter. Nearly all the foot traffic was locals running errands rather than visitors chasing charm after learning about the new magical mountain town.
In the years since I’d settled on the mountain, I’d come down only when I had to for supplies, and then, I went to Edmonton or Calgary, where I could just disappear into a city full of people.
New faces there were easily and immediately forgotten.
A dragon kept his territory safest by giving the people in it no reason to look too closely.
I parked near the hardware store, and we’d barely made it onto the sidewalk when someone called out.
“Sir! Pardon me. Sir!”
I turned, curious as to who would be hailing me down.
A big, broad-shouldered man, barrel-chested, with a thick dark beard, came out of the bakery at a brisk walk, carrying a baguette over his shoulder.
He had a gracefulness that didn’t quite match his lumbering bulk.
Human-looking, until you caught the almost ursine set of his eyes and shoulders, and the shifter aura.
He had to be a bear shifter. He wore a small enamel pin of a stylized sun on his lapel.
I’d been seeing that around town; it must be their town logo.
“Forgive me for chasing you down.” He slowed as he reached us and stuck out a big, meaty paw of a hand. “Name’s Bjorn Halvorsen. I’m the mayor of Solstice. And you’re the gentleman from the mountain, aren’t you? The dragon.”
I took the offered hand warily. “I am.”
“I thought so.” His grip was firm, his smile wide and genuine. “I hope you’ll excuse the ambush. I’ve been hoping for a chance to finally meet you.”
The warmth in his expression caught me completely off guard. There was none of the guardedness reserved for meeting a dragon that might burn down your village if he had a bad day.
Bjorn turned to Elana with the same warmth. “And you are?”
“This is Elana,” I said.
“A pleasure. I’m thrilled to have you both in my town.” Now his eyes strayed to Melly, who was in my arms, and reaching for his beard with her claws.
“A dragonlet! That’s wonderful. If you ever need some time to yourselves while you’re in town, you can always drop her off for the day at the daycare. We’ve got a good one, staffed by folks who know their way around little ones of all shapes and sizes. Scales, feathers, fur, the works.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said.
“Which brings us to the real reason I wanted to talk to you. I’ve been meaning to thank you for handling the mining situation, and the logging thing too. You didn’t have to get involved, but you did.”
“They were on my mountain.”
“We are on your mountain too,” he said with a certain knowingness.
“Every soul who settles in Solstice knows there’s a dragon on the mountain.
You could have kicked us out too.” He paused.
“But you didn’t. And after you ran those greedy fools off, you never came down to ask for thanks, or coin, or anything at all. We don’t take it for granted, Mr.…?”
“Emmett,” I said. “Just Emmett.”
I thought of Elana’s reaction to my attendants calling me “my lord.” She was right. It was outdated, but I know it would be difficult to change now that the habit was ingrained. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t start fresh with the townsfolk.
“Emmett.” He said it like he was glad to have it. “We don’t take it for granted, Emmett. I just thought you ought to hear someone say so out loud.”
“I appreciate that,” I said, and meant it more than I’d expected to.
“We also want to extend the offer for you to be our official dragon. If Darlington can have a dragon, then why can’t we?” Bjorn put both hands up. “No pressure, though. Just think about it. You can always reach me by calling the mayor’s office. It goes straight to my cell.” He patted his pocket.
“Thank you. I will think about it.”
He clapped me on the arm with a startling familiarity for a man I’d just met two minutes ago, then made a beeline for a pickup truck with the town’s logo emblazoned on the side.
“Looks like you’re already quite a hero in these parts,” Elana said as we made our way down Main Street.
“I had no idea they knew I’d stepped in.”
“You know what they say, actions speak louder than words. Now let’s hunt down a proper stroller. Maybe Natasha would know where to look first.”
Natasha fawned over Melly like she was the most precious thing she’d ever seen.
We left with a mouse plushie that looked suspiciously like the one she’d toasted, the one I hadn’t replaced, because Melly grabbed on and wouldn’t let go.
Natasha sent us over to the daycare, which also doubled as the town’s sole purveyor of things like strollers, car seats, and carriers.
Sure enough, we found a convertible one that flipped from a standard seat to wagon style. According to Alice, the woman we talked to, it was their best seller for shifter families.
Then, with Melly securely inside her stroller, we took a walk first down Main Street, and then through the park that led out to the lake. That scene was incredibly domestic, and my dragon rumbled happily the entire time.
After our walk around the lake, we met an eagle shifter named Noreen and her two boys. Melly played rambunctiously with them, all three children in their shifted forms, beating their wings and trying to get some air time. It would be a while before any of them truly flew.
At first, I worried they might hurt each other, but my fears were unfounded. The older boys understood that Melly was younger and played accordingly. Then we received another invitation to story time on Friday.
By the time we drove back to the castle, Melly was passed out cold.
With Melly safely tucked away for her nap, I found Elana out in the courtyard.
She’d found the hammock strung between two oaks at the far edge of the terrace garden, half-hidden by the hydrangeas Nak’s wife, Dizzi, tended to.
It was the only flower bed my groundskeeper was not allowed to touch.
I hadn’t used the hammock in years. Elana lay in it under the shade, one leg dangling. There was a book open on her chest, but her eyes closed and her face was serene.
I dragged a chair over and eyed the naked purple man-chest on the cover of the book. The model wore nothing but a loincloth.
“Claimed by the Hunter?” I read.
She opened one eye. “So sue me, I like my alien romance. Get your own hammock; I found this first.”
“I don’t want your hammock. I have a chair.”
“Then what do you want?”
Her question had me thinking. What did I want? It took me a while to give her an answer. And when I did, it was this: “I want to spend the rest of the afternoon with you doing absolutely nothing,”
That seemed to satisfy her, because the corner of her lips lifted, and she closed her eyes. I leaned back in the chair and did the same.