The Dragon Daddy's Good Girl

Chapter One

Soren

Helen is on her knees straddling the sybian I positioned between her legs an hour ago, wrists bound behind her back, the low hum of the vibration the only sound in the room besides her breathing.

She's been holding out. Stubborn woman—it's why she's good at her job.

But her thighs are shaking now and each inhale catches before she can quite finish it.

I slide my thumb beneath her chin and tip her face toward me.

Her pupils have swallowed most of the blue from her eyes, and her lips part when I touch her.

"You've been so patient," I tell her, keeping my voice low and steady. She responds to warmth better than severity, always has. "You've earned this. Come for me, Helen."

She does.

Her whole body tightens before the release moves through her, leaving her shaking against the restraints. I keep my hand beneath her chin and hold her gaze for as long as she can manage it.

"Good girl."

I reach behind the saddle and kill the vibration. Her eyes close, and the last of the tension drains from her shoulders as she sags back onto her heels.

I give her a few seconds before reaching for the cuffs. Once her wrists are free, I turn her hands over and run my thumbs across her skin beneath the restraints, checking for tenderness. Nothing beyond the faint pink we expected. She shivers at the heat of my palms, then settles into my touch.

"There we are." I help her onto the aftercare bed and pull the weighted blanket over her. "Tea?"

She gives me a sleepy smile. "You know I'm going to say yes."

"I do."

The kettle is already filled. Earl Grey, no sugar, a little milk. Helen has booked the same monthly appointment for nearly two years; at this point, asking how she takes her tea would be stranger than simply making it.

She spends the next ten minutes tucked beneath the blanket while I sit nearby and let her come back to herself.

Outside these walls, Helen is a divorce attorney who spends most of her waking hours negotiating with people determined to turn the worst moments of their lives into somebody else's problem.

Once a month, she comes here and lets me take control for two hours.

By noon, she's showered, dressed, and standing at the door with her handbag over one shoulder and her professional face firmly back in place.

"See you next month, Soren?" she asks.

"You're already booked, love."

I watch until her Audi disappears down the drive, then return to the room and reset it for whoever comes next.

The sheets go into the laundry chute. Fresh linens replace them.

I wipe down the leather, check every restraint point, restock the aftercare tray and replace two protein bars that expired yesterday despite Grath's insistence that expiration dates are a conspiracy invented by humans with weak stomachs.

I've done some version of this routine thousands of times. Long enough that the routine has become second nature.

Helen left relaxed and steady. She got what she came for, and I know I gave her a good session.

Inside me, the dragon never stirred. No heat beneath my skin. No smoke. Not so much as the twitch of a scale.

There was a time when I wondered if that meant something had gone wrong. Now I know better. Not every session needs to reach into me. It isn't supposed to, it's not about me. Helen trusted me to give her what she needed, I did, and next month I'll do it again.

I close the door behind me and head down the corridor.

Godric, our resident gargoyle, is in the dungeon when I pass, checking the upper restraint on the St. Andrew's cross.

His stone wings are folded against his back as he gives the cuff a hard pull, frowns, then reaches for the tools beside him.

He lifts a hand when he notices me, and I return the gesture as I pass.

The boudoir door stands open farther down, silk drapes shifting in the faint current from the hall. Three candles burn beside the bed despite nobody being booked in there for another two hours.

For fuck's sake.

Someone left the candles burning again.

I step inside and blow them out before one of us burns down a three-hundred-year-old estate because eight grown men with supernatural lifespans still can't be trusted with an open flame. Gael is going to find out and heads will roll.

The last fire-safety notice was laminated.

I expect the next one to come with illustrations and threats.

The heavy door to the sensory room is next. Its indicator light is dark, so I pass without stopping and nearly make it to the temperature room before a wave of humid heat rolls into the corridor.

Kiran has the thermostat set to ninety.

Naturally.

He's arranged himself across the heated platform, coils gleaming green and gold beneath the lights while he reads from a tablet propped against his tail. His tongue flicks once when I pause in the doorway.

"You know there are tropical resorts with lower ambient temperatures."

His gaze stays on the screen. "And yet you keep your bedroom at eighty."

"Seventy-eight."

"How restrained of you."

"Some of us appreciate being able to feel our fingers."

"You're a dragon."

"Exactly."

His tongue flicks again, which I've learned is Kiran's version of an eye roll.

I leave him to his sauna and keep walking.

Voices carry from the primal room before I reach it.

The door stands open, revealing considerably more wilderness than could possibly fit inside the mansion.

Fae magic has its uses. Step across the threshold and the room unfolds into acres of dense forest, uneven ground, streams, rocky slopes, and enough places to run, hide, and be hunted to your heart's content.

Gael can alter the terrain depending on the session.

Today, apparently, the problem is a log.

"It's a barrier," Grath says.

Everything Grath says reaches at least three rooms farther than necessary.

"It's a vault." Ronan crouches beside the fallen trunk, studying the distance to the other side. "She comes through here, hits the straightaway, gets enough speed and clears it. Easy."

"Or she catches a foot, breaks an ankle, and Gael spends the rest of the week explaining to us why magical liability waivers don't cover stupidity."

Ronan glances up at him. "You're assuming she trips."

"I'm assuming you're an idiot."

"I've cleared higher."

"That is not the reassurance you think it is."

Ronan gets to his feet and takes a few steps back, gaze fixed on the log.

Grath watches him. "Don't."

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're about to jump it."

"I'm looking at it."

"You're measuring."

Ronan takes another step back. "With my eyes."

Grath closes his own for a long moment. "For fuck's sake."

Ronan grins and backs up again.

I leave them to it. Whatever happens next, I want plausible deniability.

The Nest is quiet when I reach it. Not my nest upstairs, but the aftercare room we all use for clients who need somewhere soft to land after a session. No restraints, no equipment, nothing expected of anyone once they come through the door.

Amber light warms the walls, and wide heated beds line one side of the room beneath stacks of weighted blankets and pillows.

There's water and juice in the small refrigerator, snacks in the cabinet, clean clothes for anyone who needs them, and a shower through the adjoining door.

The sound machine murmurs softly from the corner, just loud enough to dull whatever noise carries through the rest of the house.

It's probably my favorite room downstairs.

I straighten a blanket someone folded badly, then check the cabinet.

Water is running low. Juice is fine. Hand towels need replacing.

The chocolate protein bars are gone, while the lemon ones remain untouched. As usual. I'm fairly certain Gael keeps buying them because our collective refusal to eat them has become a battle of wills she intends to win.

I add water, towels, and edible protein bars to the list in my head before continuing toward the common room.

The noise reaches me first.

The common room sits at the center of the ground floor, where the mansion stops pretending to be an imposing three-hundred-year-old estate and starts looking like eight men actually live here.

The open kitchen takes up one end, a long, scarred dining table the other, with a collection of mismatched couches and armchairs clustered around the fireplace between them.

The place looks intimidating enough from the drive, all dark stone, iron gates, and old trees.

The illusion doesn't survive long once you get inside.

By the time I get there, Grath and Ronan have somehow beaten me. Apparently, whatever happened with the log resolved itself while I was in the Nest. Since neither of them is bleeding, I don't ask.

They've claimed the largest couch and, judging by Ronan's expression, resolved absolutely nothing.

Grath takes up most of it on his own, seven feet of green-skinned orc compressing the cushions so badly that Ronan is wedged against the far armrest to keep from sliding into him as they continue arguing.

"I'm saying it improves the chase," Ronan insists.

"I'm saying you don't know what a barrier is."

"I know what a barrier is."

"You called it a vault."

"Because you vault over it."

"That makes your legs the vault."

Ronan stares at him. "That is the stupidest thing you've ever said."

Grath's eyebrows climb. "You want to make a list?"

Across the room, Corvin, our kraken, turns a page; one of his tentacles has drifted from his lap to rest against the sofa cushion, curling absently at the tip while he reads.

He's been in the same spot since breakfast and has somehow managed to ignore Grath and Ronan completely, a skill I've spent several decades trying to master.

I'm deciding whether I have time to make lunch before my next appointment when Mikael sweeps in from the east hallway wearing a black silk robe and the deeply aggrieved expression he usually reserves for minor inconveniences.