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Elle

T he red dragon, Az’zael, was back, and he’d brought a friend—Niemrin, I assumed, based on the bright green scales. They wore the most ornate suits I’d ever seen, embroidered at cuffs and collars, as if to disguise the fact that they were both apex predators.

They were seated in my section. I forced myself to walk at a sedate pace to the hostess stand. Jen, a short, curvy Asian woman, was the hostess that day.

“Jen, what the hell?” I hissed.

She gave me an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Elle. Maya waited on the red one last week and dropped almost every plate and cup she touched. Cal served him the week before, and I thought he was going to have a panic attack right on the floor.” Maya and Cal were our two most experienced servers. “I’ve never seen you lose your cool with a customer, so…”

“So it’s my turn on dragon duty.” I tucked a stray hair back into my messy bun. “Okay. Fine, but ask the kitchen to put all their tickets through first.” I didn’t want to spend any more time than necessary with two dragons focused on me. Just the idea made my breath hitch and my pulse kick up .

Worse, I didn’t just have the same healthy fear my coworkers had. I kept finding my eyes inexplicably drawn to the fitted suits and glittering scales.

After several deep breaths in which I pretended I wasn’t about to talk to two beings who looked like holdovers from the Middle Ages (and topped seven feet), I approached the table, customer service smile fixed in place.

The first time Az’zael ate at Norma’s Kitchen, Jen and I had to scour the restaurant before finding a beat-up, uncomfortable-looking chair with slots cut out between the back and the seat to accommodate winged species. Someone else must have looked for the chairs today, because although Az’zael sat in that same chair, Niemrin perched on a barstool.

In their humanoid forms, dragons were an odd mix of lizard and human. Flat faces, slit nostrils instead of raised noses, narrow eyes, no discernible ears, and colored scales on every visible inch of their heavily muscled bodies.

I’d never seen their larger form up close. A month or so ago, one of them—Az’zael, I think; I’d caught a flash of red—flew over Norma’s Kitchen in his massive second form while Jen, Maya, and I were on break. Maya had been bitching at Jen over some petty bullshit when a shadow fell over us, and I ushered everyone inside. He was too high in the sky to notice us, but the shadow of a massive beast blocking out the sun while I was just going about my day was the most intense mixture of terrifying and comforting I’d ever experienced.

The dragons had the power to destroy us but had promised to protect instead.

Now, Az’zael’s eyes, with their unnerving cat-eyed pupils, tracked every step I took. Niemrin ignored me, speaking to his companion, every sharp tooth on sparkling display .

“Hi, welcome to Norma’s Kitchen. My name’s Elle, and I’ll be taking care of you today.” My words came out too fast, my heart beating in my throat. I took a deep breath. “Can I get you started with something to drink?”

“Rocket Science IPA.” Niemrin didn’t even look up from the stack of papers in front of him. Seemed they were here for a working lunch.

Az’zael’s slit-pupiled eyes tracked to my face and held. “I’ll have the PayCheck Pilsner, please.”

“Great, I’ll be right back with those.” I felt a flush creep up my cheeks. If one of the dragons had to be polite, did it have to be Az’zael? I found something about the deep red of his scales unnervingly compelling. Not to mention his intense gaze.

Which probably meant that Az’zael had a hair-trigger temper and would burn this place to the ground at a moment’s notice. Every man I’d ever been interested in, much less dated, had been a grade-A asshole.

“Thank you, Elle,” Az’zael said.

Something shivered over my spine and settled low in my belly. It should have been fear, what with Az’s intense gaze and the way he’d deliberately used my name, but it was warmer somehow.

Idiot. He’d eat you in one bite .

I scurried to the bar and breathed down the bartender’s neck while she poured the beers. Even though I had other tables, I didn’t dare leave those two waiting any longer than necessary. I didn’t know if dragons were patient, and I didn’t want to find out.

I could have sworn Az’zael’s eyes followed me. Sweat broke out across the back of my neck. What would he do if I took too long? Foolish images of intimate punishments—images I’d only let myself enjoy in the privacy of my own thoughts—flashed before my eyes .

I blinked them away. Juvenile fantasies aside, Az’zael and Niemrin had free rein to do whatever the hell they wanted in this city.

After years of trying to lure in a couple of dragons, Niemrin and Az’zael had “claimed” Kilinis as part of their hoard, and in exchange they acted as protectors. Their presence attracted investors, prestige, and interest that all fed back into the city.

Supposedly. Az’zael and Niemrin had claimed Kilinis eight months ago, so I was still in wait-and-see mode.

When I had the beers, I delivered them to the dragons’ table. “Here you are. Do you need a few more minutes to look over the menu, or are y’all ready to order?”

“I’ll take a burger,” Niemrin said, cradling his beer mug in one clawed hand. I’d thought a mug, with its thick walls and stout build, would be more appropriate for large dragon appendages than a regular glass, but it still looked comically undersized.

Az’zael pried his eyes off my face long enough to scan the menu. “What do you recommend?”

“That depends on what you like,” I replied. He must be able to eat regular human food, right? Social media had lit up with all the restaurants he and Niemrin had eaten at since they’d claimed the city. Norma’s Kitchen had gotten a nice boost in business since Az’zael’s first visit, for all that it was little more than a mid-priced restaurant specializing in comfort food.

“Meat.”

Right. I should have guessed that. All those sharp teeth. My stomach swooped. “The pulled pork is a personal favorite. I’d recommend the ribs as well.”

“Do you like the ribs, Elle?” he asked. The way he kept saying my name, like he was carefully fitting his inhuman mouth around the human syllables, made me want to simultaneously crawl away and crawl toward him.

I shrugged as naturally as I could manage. “They aren’t my favorite, but lots of customers rave about them.”

“I’ll take the pulled pork sandwich, then,” Az’zael said. Niemrin glanced up at him sharply, eyes narrowed.

“Excellent. I’ll get those put in for you.” I fell back on comfortable server scripts as I cleared away the menus and left.

I put in their orders and figured I had time to check on another table when Maya caught me. “Table twelve’s drinks are empty,” she said.

“On it.” I glanced over and mentally pulled up table twelve’s order—sweet tea and Diet Coke. Both glasses had a few inches of liquid left.

Maya didn’t let go of my arm. “You can’t just ignore the rest of your tables because you have a VIP. It’s bullshit that he gets to come here and fuck everything up and still get everyone to treat him like a king.” Maya’d had to find a new place last month because her landlord sold her building to some fancy new development the dragons were backing. I understood her anger, but she didn’t get to take it out on me. I had my own shit to deal with.

“Do you want to handle the dragons?”

Her fair skin went several shades paler as her eyes found the two dragons. I followed her gaze to Az’zael, whose slit-pupiled eyes were fixed on me, his head cocked to one side.

Throat suddenly dry, I forced myself to focus on Maya. “Didn’t think so. We want them to have a delightful time and then leave as quickly as possible, right? So they’re going to get the best service I can give them, and if you have a problem with that, take it up with Deja.” Deja was our manager.

“No need to be a bitch about it,” she snapped .

“Apparently there is.” I broke her grip and went to refill table twelve’s drinks. Maya and I weren’t exactly buddies, but I couldn’t believe she was giving me shit about how I handled the dragons when she couldn’t handle serving them herself.

I had just enough time to refill table twelve’s glasses before the dragons’ food was ready—thank goodness for small favors. When I dropped it off, Niemrin ignored the minor interruption. But Az’zael took a moment to thank me, and I felt my shoulders relax a notch.

He seemed like he was going out of his way to be polite. Maybe some dragons were just intense, like some humans. Though why his intensity was focused on me …who knew? Maybe he’d treated Cal and Maya the same way, and that’s why our two most experienced servers hadn’t been able to control their nerves. Hell, I was barely controlling my nerves.

I distracted myself from the red dragon’s attention with a quick round of all my tables, some of whom were less enthused about their food now that the two most powerful beings in the city were mere feet away. Seemed eating at a dragon-patronized restaurant was only cool if the dragons weren’t actually present. Two of my tables closed out early.

I trotted up to my last table, where a white couple in their mid-thirties were absorbed in conversation, unaware of their surroundings.

“You have the house list? I think we’re meeting the real estate agent in somewhere called Collins Park.” The woman, her blonde hair pulled back into a bun that would not survive long in the spring humidity, named one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Kilinis in a slight New York accent.

Or maybe New Jersey? Damned if I could tell the difference, but I supposed I’d learn, since more and more of my customers were from up north. Or California. Seemed everyone wanted to move to Kilinis lately.

“Yes, it’s right here.” The man across from her tapped his phone, a sleek new model. Then he turned to me. “Do you recommend anything? We’ve never really eaten Southern food.”

His face froze, and all the color drained from it as his attention moved behind me. “Are those the dragons?”

Shit. Was Az’zael staring at me again?

“Yes. The red one is Az’zael.” I stumbled over the double-Z sound in the middle, blushing and feeling like the biggest idiot for not knowing how to say his name when he lived in my city. “And the green one is Niemrin.” Thank god his name was a little easier to wrap my tongue around, though the i-e wasn’t comfortable and stretched his name into almost three syllables. Ni-em-rin.

Neither of the humans in front of me noticed my blunder.

“Does he…” He licked his lips, still bug-eyed. “Does he come here often?”

“Yes,” I said, since every week for three weeks straight seemed like “often” to me, though who knew? Maybe he’d move on to some other restaurant next month.

They both stared at him, mouths agape.

I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see Az’zael’s eyes snap back to Niemrin. Hopefully, my table’s stares hadn’t offended him.

“We have burgers, of course, and you can never go wrong with barbeque in my book.” I tried to steer their attention away from the dragons and toward food. Something local that wouldn’t be too far out of their comfort zone.

Bug-eyes made a noncommittal sound, attention still fixed behind me, but Blondie’s gaze slipped back to my face .

I couldn’t help but add, “Shrimp and grits are also a local favorite.” Just to see how they handled the suggestion.

He barely hid a grimace. “I’ve never had grits before. They look so…gelatinous.”

I smiled blankly while he dissed one of my favorite foods.

“If it’s a local delicacy, shouldn’t we try it? I’ll have that,” Blondie said.

“I think I’ll stick with the barbecue,” Bug-eyes said, mouth tight.

“Great, I’ll get that put in for y’all.”

The couple exchanged a look when I said “y’all.” I’d grown familiar with that particular look in the last eight months. It said: Real Southern Charm! How cute.

I suppressed an eye-roll. As much as I wanted newcomers to appreciate my hometown, their reactions felt a little condescending at times.

I rushed back to the dragon table to refill drinks, check on their food, and make myself scarce again. They were deep in discussing some business thing or another, as if even in the middle of Sunday brunch neither of them could think about anything else. I heard mention of “training programs” and “more taxes,” two phrases that made my throat tighten.

Every headline I’d seen in the past nine months had mentioned proposal after proposal, but the only thing I’d seen so far were skyrocketing prices. Seemed everyone wanted to get in on the ground floor of the latest dragon-claimed city, but the only people profiting were the out-of-towners moving in. Would their programs and taxes fix things, or make them worse?

Luckily, while Az’zael and Niemrin were eating I didn’t feel like I needed to watch them as closely, only checking on them every ten or fifteen minutes. I took the extra time to breathe and make sure my other tables were taken care of.

Every time I checked on them, Az’zael exposed his sharp teeth in the most unsettling version of a smile I’d ever seen, but I suspected it was just politeness. Something about the way this massive predator seemed to try so hard to put me at ease settled deep into my bones, relaxing my shoulders another notch.

When I’d cleared away both their plates and deemed that they’d had sufficient time not to feel rushed, I came back to the table.

“You’ve got the university taxes sorted out?” Niemrin asked Az’zael, picking something out of his teeth with one deadly sharp claw.

“Yes. They’ll get to you tomorrow,” Az’zael replied. He’d finally stopped staring at me every other second. “You’re doing something cool with them, right?”

“Relax, Super-sniffer. You handle the gold. I’ll handle the knowledge,” Niemrin said.

Az’zael was the public face, some bizarre combination of mayor and city manager, while Niemrin stayed in the background and had taken over the university, community college, and public libraries. A divide-and-conquer approach.

I vaguely remembered learning about dragon-claiming in high school history. Apparently it was a common medieval practice, but two dragons had brought back some bizarre, “modernized” version ten, maybe twelve years ago. They saw their “updated” approach as a way to solve contemporary urban problems. Since their city, Sutton, was thriving, it had caught on.

“Separate or together?” I asked softly, not wanting to interrupt if they were in the zone .

Az’zael’s golden gaze drifted over to me. “Together.” Then he exchanged looks with Niemrin, and the vibe shifted from all business to an odd sort of competitive.

I hightailed it back to the register and printed the check before I could learn what that was about. My fascination with dragons did not need any more fuel.

When I returned, things had only gotten weirder. Wrapping paper was strewn everywhere, and both dragons had small items cradled in their claws. Something about seeing those delicate gifts held so carefully sent wicked heat through me.

Niemrin held a set of fountain pens. Probably a luxury brand, if such a thing existed, and Az examined a diamond-studded watch.

“Mine’s more expensive,” Niemrin said with a sharp smile.

I couldn’t quite bring myself to slide the check to the center of the table and back away. If I did, I’d have to stop watching the bizarre exchange unfolding in front of me.

“Rainport stopped making pens fifty-four years ago. It took me hours to track those down.” Az’zael’s chest puffed out.

I glanced between the two, feeling like I was watching two friends compare fantasy football stats.

“I’ll pay.” Niemrin slumped back before seeming to recall he sat in a backless barstool, and he straightened up again with a wing flap that pushed the hair off my face. “How do you always win these things?”

“Here you are.” I set the check on the table and left, my shoulders relaxing completely. Maybe dragons weren’t that different from humans. Competing for the check with a friend was pretty normal behavior, although their method was admittedly unconventional.

The tail end of their exchange floated across the restaurant as I turned to check on Blondie and Bug-eyes .

“I’m the better treasure finder,” Az’zael said. “I’ll always find the best gift.”

“You still can’t organize a library for shit.”

Az’zael replied, “Well, I have to leave something for you knowledge-sniffers. But I’ll be generous and take care of the tip.”

Was his voice a little louder than it had been a few minutes ago? I was a handful of steps away and could still hear him perfectly.

When they looked like they’d finished bickering, I picked up the check with another strained smile and ran the card. When I returned with the credit card and slip, I almost dropped them on the floor.

Az’zael had placed his wallet on the table. He tapped it. “Take whatever tip you think you deserve, Elle.” He said my name slowly, like he was savoring it.