21 #3
There was a lot of chuffing when we spent too much time together and I moved in front of Joris and gave a few warning noises to people. Like chill the fuck out and wait your turn. This was the whole point and it hadn’t even been five minutes.
Seriously, people needed to check their egos.
Ayao’s spirit dragon was gorgeous and much larger than most male dragons, but again… I couldn’t accept what he wanted in a mating. So we were pleasant, but I held back.
I thought he might be holding his dragon back as well which was surprising. I’d have to ask Myriam or Treena about that later. I didn’t know how much they could sense from our dragons.
Or maybe Belinda would know? Yeah, probably. She knew most everything.
Iris wanted no part of Rigel after his bullshit and it was amusing to see even if it would piss people off. Same with Vigor from Clovergarde.
She was cautious with Scully and he seemed to be the same. Our meal had been quiet and awkward, neither of us hiding we didn’t want to be there, but he hadn’t been ready to open up like the others had. Fair enough and there was no rush.
It was interesting and again, the whole point of this.
Everything changed when one of the remaining prospects changed. Iris’s head snapped up and his dragon started chuffing immediately. They stared at each other for maybe a half minute before I couldn’t have held her back if I’d wanted to.
Same with him.
And we knocked dragons over to get to each other.
I felt like I blinked and was nuzzling necks with a dragon—I’d barely said two words to the man though. And it felt so fucking right that it was like… I didn’t know.
I couldn’t like feel how it just worked.
What? That didn’t even make sense in my mind, but Iris just needed to be closer to his dragon.
Eloise was as shocked as I was and I had the mental image of her mouth hanging open in her third form as we stared at each other.
There was a roar and I turned to block him as Onyx came charging over. I shot fire in the air as a warning and then roared in his face, making it clear I would take him out to protect this dragon.
The pain in his dragon’s eyes gutted me, Sagan, but Iris wasn’t playing around.
He shifted back, kneeling with his head lowered. “Sorry. I wasn’t ready for—sorry. Excuse me.” He couldn’t even look at me as he turned and walked away.
And my heart broke. Iris didn’t care and said he needed to stop being so possessive, but I argued we would be crushed if he acted that way with a female dragon in front of us.
Eloise agreed and we were supposed to be a team. That made Iris settle some and she apologized, promising not to be so harsh on him… And then went back to cuddling with the dragon she wanted.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Do you realize who he is? You had to pick one of the most complicated people. Why do you—how could you do this to us?
“Dragons are dragons. You figure out the people stuff,” she argued and basically told me to shut it so they could spend time together.
I mentally groaned and told her to stop because this was a problem and people were freaking out. She paid attention for real then and remembered herself—who we were and behaved, backing away from the dragon.
Who didn’t like us moving away. He didn’t give chase, but it was like how sometimes I could practically feel Myriam’s tiger swatting her tail even when Myriam was in person form.
The dragon was giving off that energy and counting the moments until he could get what he wanted again. Then the air around the dragon changed and the man was kneeling down in front of me.
“This is fantastic,” the Alpha of Emberward said loudly.
Berlinger slowly lifted his head and I saw in his eyes that he thought it was anything but fantastic.
Yeah, glad we were on the same page on that.
Berlinger Mohan was an issue… His mother more specifically.
Oh boy.
Nothing happened with Ezerial, but Gavriil’s dragon seemed confused with me and it took me a moment to realize Eloise was reacting to him. His dragon was sensing that and maybe having a reaction to her. She was practically doing a mental dance inside of us and wanted to play.
Yeah, see how important it is we’re all on the same damn page?
Iris agreed and promised to chill out… While backing away from Gavriil’s dragon like she didn’t know what to do with him either.
Issa’s dragon seemed bored with the whole thing and that was pretty much how the man always acted. Something was off with Natrix and I was pretty sure he was miffed he ended up going last.
Seriously? He was that petty?
Like… Yeah, that would work out. Someone impatient and having an inflated ego should absolutely mate the ruler of probably the most powerful nation in the world.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
After everyone else changed back, the guards called out to turn around and avert eyes. People weren’t fucking around about that anymore and calling anyone out who even tried last time. I was shocked no one even messed around, but then again the “adults” were there, not just me and my people.
How sad was that?
I thanked Maple when she had something ready for me to wear.
“You okay?” she worried.
“I would be crushed if it was me. Stall for me,” I mumbled and hurried off to go find the rock dragon who had left because… I cared about him too.