Chapter Four
Soren
I find her hair tie when I strip the bed.
Thin black elastic, caught near the pillow where she'd been lying against me less than twenty minutes ago. I pick it out of the sheets and stand there with it looped around two fingers while the laundry basket waits beside my feet.
It should go in with everything else.
Instead, I put it in my pocket.
I stare at the basket for a moment, then pull the fitted sheet free and toss it in with more force than necessary.
Six hundred years is long enough to know when I'm lying to myself, so I don't bother pretending I'll return the hair tie later. The dragon in me has already decided it belongs with us. I can feel the satisfaction of it somewhere beneath my ribs.
For fuck's sake.
I finish resetting the room. Fresh linen goes on the bed, the cups and plate go back downstairs, and I drain the bath in the adjoining room. By the time I'm done, there's no sign Margot was ever here.
Except the hair tie in my pocket.
And the faint scent of lavender that still clings to the room.
I leave the window open and head to my office to write up my notes and prepare for my next session. I have more than enough to keep me occupied, but the moment I sit down at my desk, I open Margot's file again.
I read it this morning, as I do every new client file. Gael had already completed the screening, so I went through Margot's limits, what she wanted to explore, and anything I needed to clarify before we started.
Reading it now, I understand some of her answers better than I did a few hours ago. I know how quickly she insists she can do something herself, how uncomfortable she gets when someone takes care of her, and how long it takes before she finally stops worrying about whatever comes next.
Now I can hear her in every answer.
Q: What do you need that you're not getting?
A: I don't know. Everything?
This morning, I read uncertainty in it. Maybe a little embarrassment.
Now I picture her looking down at her hands while she tells me she doesn't know what she wants because she's never had time to figure it out.
I move to the next question.
Q: What appeals to you about a Daddy Dom?
A: The idea of someone wanting to take care of me.
And beneath it:
I know that sounds pathetic.
That bothered me this morning. It bothers me considerably more now.
I've met her. I've seen how uncomfortable she becomes the moment care is directed at her, as though receiving anything she hasn't earned requires an apology. Even when she finally let herself cry, she turned her face away as though the tears were something she should keep to herself.
There is nothing pathetic about wanting to be cared for. It's one of the most ordinary needs a person can have, yet somewhere along the way Margot learned to treat it like something shameful.
The dragon takes exception to that.
Heat builds beneath my collar, followed by a thin curl of smoke that drifts past my face. I wave it away before the sensor above my desk has anything to say about it and turn my attention back to the file.
I have notes to write.
Responded well to praise and clear direction.
Tendency to minimize her own needs and insist on doing things herself even when care is offered.
Significant emotional release during first session.
May need encouragement to identify and ask for what she wants rather than defaulting to what she thinks is expected.
Between-session rules: eat breakfast daily, minimum seven hours' sleep, and say no to one thing she would normally agree to each day. Review next session.
I read it over once before saving it.
Professional. Accurate. Exactly the sort of note I've written hundreds of times.
It feels more personal than it should.
I close the laptop.
That should be the end of it, except my dragon has been suspiciously quiet since she left, and the moment I notice, I'm thinking about the purr again.
It started during aftercare with Margot tucked against my chest, warm beneath the blankets while we talked about books. She relaxed against me a little more with every question, and somewhere in the middle of telling me about rereading Rebecca every autumn, the sound started.
I haven't purred during a session in decades.
Margot probably has no idea what that means. She seemed more amused than anything when she realized what the sound was, but I know exactly what caused it. Purring isn't something I can summon at will. It comes from my dragon, entirely involuntary, when I'm content enough to let my guard down.
Today, with her tucked against my chest, I forgot myself.
And when she noticed, I didn't want her to move.
I've been doing this long enough to know how to keep a session where it belongs. My attention stays on the person in front of me, I give her what we agreed upon, and when she leaves, I reset the room and move on. That distance matters.
Whatever distance I've learned to keep over the years, my dragon clearly has other ideas. I reach into my pocket and feel the hair tie still tucked inside.
Apparently, we're keeping that too.
I have a six o'clock session to prepare for, so I leave Margot's file closed and get on with my evening.
She has been coming to me for nearly a year.
She arrives wound tight from a week of twelve-hour shifts and spends the first ten minutes talking fast enough that I barely need to contribute.
By the time we finish, the tension has left her shoulders and she's laughing again, which is usually all I need to know I've done my job well.
Afterward, I settle her with a drink and something to eat before seeing her out. It's a good session, familiar and easy in the way established clients often are. Nothing goes wrong. Nothing feels lacking.
And not once does my dragon stir.
By the time I make it downstairs, the common room is loud, which is where most Saturdays end when no one has an evening booking.
Evan has bread in the oven, and the warm smell of it has drifted through most of the ground floor.
Ronan sits on the rug with his back against the couch, Grath takes up most of the couch behind him with a bowl balanced on his stomach, and Mikael has draped himself across the armchair nearest the fire despite the room already being warm enough for everyone else.
I'm halfway to the kitchen when Mikael speaks. "You smell like someone else's shampoo."
"I had a session."
"You've had thousands of sessions." He turns a page, apparently far more interested in his book than in me. "You've never come down here smelling like you bathed with one."
Grath looks over, still chewing. "New girl?"
"Is she nice?" Ronan asks from the floor, tipping his head back until he's looking at me upside down.
"She's a client."
Ronan holds my gaze for a moment, his ears twitching slightly. "That wasn't what I asked."
I have an answer. I'm simply not stupid enough to give it to this room, so I turn toward the refrigerator and open it as though I came over here with a specific purpose.
"He's hoarding."
Godric's voice comes from somewhere above and behind Mikael. I look up and find the gargoyle perched on top of the bookshelf, stone wings folded neatly against his back. I could have sworn he wasn't there when I walked in.
The fire still cracks behind Mikael, something simmers on the stove, and Evan's timer ticks steadily on the counter. But every other bastard in the room has stopped what he's doing and turned his attention to me.
I become abruptly aware of my own hand.
It's in my pocket, closed around Margot's hair tie.
Fucking splendid.
I've been carrying the thing for hours, and brought it downstairs with me without once considering that I could simply put it somewhere.
There's little point denying anything now, so I pull it out.
Grath stops chewing. Ronan sits up straighter. Evan glances over from the stove with his wooden spoon still in one hand. Mikael closes his book and looks at the thin black elastic looped around my fingers.
Mikael's mouth curves into a slow grin as he looks from the hair tie to me.
"Well, well, well."
"It's a hair tie."
"I can see that."
"Then we've covered everything there is to say about it."
Mikael places the book facedown across his knee. "Oh, I don't think we've even begun."
I put the hair tie back in my pocket and leave before he can say anything else about it.
Grath's laughter follows me into the hallway, with Ronan's joining a second later.
Mikael calls something after me involving shampoo and several centuries of denial, but I keep walking.
There are moments when maintaining one's dignity requires a strategic retreat, and I've lived long enough to recognize one.
I take my retreat all the way to the third floor and don't stop until I'm inside my rooms with the door firmly shut behind me. Their laughter doesn't follow me this far, though I have no doubt Mikael will find another opportunity to be insufferable about it later.
My nest takes up most of the bedroom, exactly as it should. Blankets overlap in no particular order, pillows are piled against the headboard and along the wall, and one of the quilts has been half kicked onto the floor since sometime last night. Nothing matches. Everything is soft, warm, and mine.
I take Margot's hair tie from my pocket and set it beside the lamp on my nightstand, where it won't get lost.
Only after I put it down do I realize I've given it a place in my nest rather than putting it somewhere to return to her next week.
I should probably move it.
Instead, I leave it exactly where it is and open the linen closet.
The better blankets are stacked toward the back, mostly because anything left within easy reach has a habit of migrating downstairs and ending up around Mikael's shoulders.
I pull out a cashmere throw, then pause and take down one of the heavier blankets as well. A spare pillow follows, then another.
I carry everything to the far corner of the nest, where the wall holds the evening warmth longest, and start arranging it.
Not the way I would for myself. I sleep hot enough that half my blankets end up shoved aside by morning, and I've never cared where the pillows land as long as there are enough of them.
This is different. I fold the heavier blanket so it can be pulled up easily, layer the softer one beneath it, and arrange the pillows against the wall before stepping back to look at them.
One is too high.
I move it, reconsider, then put it almost exactly where it started.
That should probably be the moment I stop.
Instead, I test the heavier blanket across my forearm, making sure the weight is comforting rather than restrictive. I add another throw within reach and catch myself considering the cloud pillow from my side of the bed. But I leave that one where it is.
By the time I finish, the corner is warmer and softer than the rest of the nest, arranged so whoever crawls into it wouldn't have to adjust a damn thing. She could simply lie down, pull the blanket over herself, and let someone else worry about the rest.
My hands go still on the edge of the throw.
I'm making room for Margot.
The realization has been circling me since I opened the closet, but I needed to build half the damn thing before I was willing to acknowledge it.
We've had one session.
One.
I should put everything back. There's no reason for a client to have a place in my private nest, and certainly no reason for me to be standing here deciding which blanket she'd prefer.
I smooth the edge of the cashmere throw instead.
My dragon is entirely too pleased with itself.
There have been evenings when the nest has felt too large for one person.
More of them lately. Usually I ignore it.
I'm a dragon; I take up space, and after centuries of being told what a hoard should look like, I've earned the right to fill mine with as many blankets and books as I damn well please.
But I've never answered that occasional emptiness by preparing a place for someone else.
Until now.
I look at the corner again. It doesn't seem dramatically different from the rest of the nest. A few extra blankets, two pillows, a warmer spot against the wall. Anyone else might not notice it at all.
I know exactly what I've done.
I leave it anyway.
There's still enough sanity left in me to step away, so I sit on the edge of the bed and reach for my tablet. I want something ordinary to occupy my attention, and next week's schedule should qualify.
Margot's name is there.
Next Saturday.
Seven days from now.
I stare at the date longer than necessary. A week is nothing. I've watched kingdoms disappear in stretches of time that felt shorter, and normally I couldn't tell you how many days remain before a particular client returns without checking the calendar.
I set the tablet aside.
Her intake comes back to me. I don't need to open it; I've read it enough today that several of the answers have lodged themselves firmly in my head. One in particular has been irritating the dragon since this afternoon.
The idea of someone wanting to take care of me.
I know that sounds pathetic.
Smoke slips from my nose before I can stop it.
I exhale slowly, but that only produces more, a thicker curl drifting upward until gray begins gathering near the ceiling. My dragon's opinion on the subject has not improved with time.
Neither has mine.
I get up and open a window before the smoke alarm goes off again.