Page 12

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Az’zae l

T he miniature Az’zael stared at me from where I’d set it on the counter in a daze last night. Its stupid, dopey smile and the embroidered name across the stomach, the perfect match to my own coloring, all created by Elle’s own hand, taunted me. I wanted to simultaneously toss the thing and build it a hermetically sealed display case.

I wandered over to my jewelry collection. My emerald necklace had a smudge on the main pendant, but I couldn’t bring myself to polish it. Why bother? No one was going to wear it. I’d picked out a mate and fucked it up so badly she hadn’t even known I wanted to mate her.

I could take off into the sky, but that required the effort of shifting, flapping my wings, and choosing a destination, when all I had in mind was a vague notion of “away.”

Someone pounded on my door. I ignored it. They’d go away soon.

The door creaked open. Had I forgotten to lock it? I often did. No one would be dumb enough to break into a dragon’s lair.

I plodded to the entrance, prepared to scare off whatever idiot had broken in, and stopped dead. “Niemrin? What are you doing here? ”

He stepped farther into my apartment. “Last night was, as the humans say, a clusterfuck. I came to make sure you hadn’t dramatically flown off in a huff.”

I stared at him. “Okay, ‘clusterfuck’ is a pretty good curse. I’ll give the humans that.”

His wingtips twitched, and he shifted his weight uncomfortably. “How did it go with your human after you left the party?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because one of us should be happy.”

I winced. “Badly. It went badly.”

“She didn’t like your siblings? No surprise. Tika made an absolute spectacle of herself. I can’t believe she was able to talk Udar into coming.”

I narrowed my eyes. Udar didn’t do anything he didn’t want to do, and he’d been angling for a visit for months. I’d bet my gold chalice that coming to that party was his idea. The better question was how either of them had known I’d be there on such short notice.

“Elle wasn’t upset about Tika.” She’d been surprisingly understanding about her.

Or was it surprising? She’d thought she was an employee . But if Tika had talked to Diego like that, I’d still have demanded an apology.

“Then what was she upset about?”

My scales heated with embarrassment. “She didn’t… She was surprised by…” I sighed. “She didn’t know I was courting her.”

“What?” Niemrin’s wings flared out in shock.

“She said that…” I frowned. How had she put it? “That she thought I was offering her a job.”

“Why would… That makes no sense. A job as your mate ?”

“Temporarily. Casually. ”

His forehead wrinkled. “But that’s… Why do they have so many levels of casual? Can’t they pick one and stick to it?”

“Apparently not,” I muttered.

Niemrin ran a hand down his face. “Any chance she’s interested in something serious?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I still want that.” My heart still smarted from last night. The uncomfortable kind of burn, not the pleasant heat I’d felt just yesterday.

“Why wouldn’t you want that?”

“Was any of it real? Did any of it matter?” Had I forced her into doing something she didn’t want to do?

Niemrin frowned. “Did you ask her?”

“She didn’t seem to know either.”

“So there’s a chance. Look. Imagine Elle moving on. She’s dating someone new. They get mated. How would you feel about that ?”

Seeing Elle on someone else’s arm, giving them her sass, her smiles, her time. Her fire. I’d feel like I was being burned alive from the inside, my guts constantly aflame. “Not good.”

“It would feel like a living hell, trust me.”

My phone buzzed. It was Udar.

Went to apologize to your prospective mate this morning about that scene Tika made. Elle has a lot of fire for a human.

Thanks, universe. Now I could imagine Elle happy and smiling every day with my fucking brother, who always tried to take what was mine.

I stared at the screen and just barely stopped myself from responding. It would only let him know he was getting to me .

I glanced back at Niemrin, who was staring at his claws while he flexed and unflexed them. He was stuck in that hell already. Recalling the brief minutes I’d spent with Tiffany and Jack, I said, “Yeah. Jack’s a real jackass.”

“He is. I’d hate him even if he were a wonderful mate, but he treats Tiffany like garbage. It’s all I can do not to rip his puny human heart out of his fragile human body.”

“You probably shouldn’t. I’ve heard it’s difficult to court grieving women.”

“I know . And I’ve tried everything to get over my fixation but—”

“You want her,” I said.

“So don’t end up like me.”

The full weight of Niemrin’s nightmare hit me. I wanted to avoid that at all costs, to figure things out with Elle. But I didn’t know how. With another dragon, I’d show up with a gift, but that was obviously the wrong thing to do.

“Okay, okay, I get it,” I said.

Niemrin hung out for a few more minutes before making an excuse to leave. He hadn’t been gone five minutes when another knock sounded. It better not be Udar, come to be a nosy asshole. I flung open the door.

“Elle?” I sucked in a breath and stepped aside to let her in.

Her hair hung limp, and dark circles framed her eyes. An oversized T-shirt hung off her frame, and some kind of stretchy pants hugged her legs. She inched inside, holding a wicker basket with something poking out of it. “Um, yeah. Can we talk?”

“Sure.” Was this good or bad? Was she here to break the news that Udar had won her over in a single conversation?

“So, uh.” She bit her lip, her knuckles white where they gripped the basket. “I don’t want to leave things like we did last night. ”

“I don’t either. That was terrible.” My stomach twisted.

“Agreed. I get we come from very different cultures, but I don’t think I really understood how different, especially around dating and gifts.”

“Obviously.” My throat tightened.

“And, um, now that I’ve had some time to think about things, I can see how hard you tried to respect human dating standards. You were trying to give me space and not pressure me while still showing interest. I think I put some pressure on myself instead.” She swung the basket in front of her.

A small sliver of hope crept inside my chest.

“It’s been really hard for me to figure out anything about dragon dating because you guys are such recluses, but, well, your brother dropped by this morning.” Her eyebrows drew together. “How the hell did he even find me?” she asked, almost to herself.

My fingers flexed into a fist. “Humans have way too much of their private information available publicly. It likely only took him a few hours of digging.” And Udar had always been good at turning up whatever knowledge he wanted.

Elle shivered. “That’s so creepy.”

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t do it again.” Or punch him. Whichever was most convenient at the time. I really didn’t like knowing he had tracked down my prospective mate.

“But he did clear some stuff up, even if I don’t think he meant to.”

I zeroed in on her face. “What did he say?”

She grimaced. “I get what you said before, at coffee, about him doing whatever he could to be an asshole. I kind of took what he was saying with a grain of salt.”

My heartbeat thudded in my ears. “He said he went by to apologize. ”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, for someone else’s behavior, but not his own. And before you showed up last night, he egged Tika on.”

The corners of my mouth turned up involuntarily. People always bought whatever Udar was selling. Not Elle.

“So, like I said, I didn’t take his word as gospel. But he seemed really hung up on us going out in public together, and I kind of figured out it was a bigger deal to dragons than to humans. He also echoed a lot of what you said about time, and gifts, so that, um.” She blushed. “That was good to hear. I’d obviously been pretty confused about that.”

“Yeah, going out in public is one step before mating.”

“I think I get that now. About how serious you are about me. I did some thinking and, um, well, I didn’t want a relationship because I always end up with people who take more than they give. And the last few days, it sort of feels like I’ve been on the other end of that equation. It’s a weird feeling, and I don’t think I like it. That’s not how I want to have a relationship.”

“You still want to have a relationship?”

“Yeah. I think I do, if you do as well. And, um, I brought you a gift.” She held up the wicker basket. “To kind of even things out.”

I gingerly took it out of her hands. The basket looked tiny in my claws.

“It didn’t feel right to buy you a gift with money you’d given me, but I’m a decent cook, and you said you liked the parks, so maybe we could go on a picnic date to the park? I picked up a couple of kites too, so we can fly together.”

I was in front of Elle in an instant, my mouth a heartbeat from hers. Blood pounded in my head. “Yes.”