Ignoring us, Dave went back in the cold storage room.
Owen’s gaze went to the door to the bar. “I guess we have to offer some to other people, huh?” His expression clearly said he wanted me to disagree with that preposterous idea.
I held the plate close to my chest and growled.
Grinning, he said, “Okay. Good.”
We ate in silence, content to share the moment, but then Meri pushed in. Owen and I flinched guiltily. If I could have, I would have hidden the plate. Don’t judge me!
As it was, I recognized I had to offer her one. I held out the plate. “Dave made seven-layer bars, if you want one.”
She studied them a moment and then wrinkled her nose. “No thanks. I hate coconut.”
Owen and I recoiled at her words, until we remembered that meant more bars for us.
“Can one of you come back to the bar?” she asked. “Rose wants a cocktail, and I don’t know how to make those.”
Owen nodded, wiping off his fingers and following her. I took advantage of being alone with a plate full of bars and had a second one.
“You’re going to give yourself a stomachache,” Dave grumbled as he washed the veggies.
“Mind your business,” I muttered, taking another bite. I glanced around the kitchen. Fergus normally followed Dave in here when he arrived, hoping for handouts. “Have you seen my dog?”
Dave gestured to the dark doorway into my old apartment. From here, it looked like a black rectangle between cabinets. It was a ward. It kept most people out of the apartment that had been my home for seven years, the apartment Vlad was now using.
I resisted the urge to hide my plate of treats somewhere no one would find them and went back into the bar. Owen was studying his phone. He glanced at me and waved me over.
“Mom says she doesn’t know of any spell that can cover just one scent among many,” he told me.
I grabbed Grim’s tankard and refilled it. “Yeah. Hepsibah said the same.”
“I thought of something, though.” Owen moved closer. “Benvair is coming over tonight for dinner.” He watched the ocean crash into the window wall for a moment, lost in thought. “You should join us so you can ask her. She may have an idea. We eat at seven, though. Benvair is a stickler for eating on time. It’ll still be light then, though, so it would need to just be you, not Clive.”
I squeezed his arm. “Thank you. That’s a great idea. And don’t worry about Clive. I can tell him later.”
“Good. I’ll let George know we’ll have one more.” He pointed at the bookstore. “Ready to switch?”
I nodded and waved him off. “Oh, wait. Do I need to dress a certain way?” Benvair, the matriarch of the Drake clan and George’s grandmother, was a terrifying woman. Elegant and powerful, she was a Black woman with perfect skin, high cheekbones, and beautiful dragon green eyes. She dressed impeccably, making me feel perpetually shabby in her presence.
Owen grimaced. “She expects us to dress for dinner. George and I wear slacks and dress shirts—no ties—and Coco usually wears a skirt or a dress. Coco hates it, but it’s easier to just put one on than deal with Benvair’s disapproval. Fyr joins us when he can, but as he mostly works nights, that’s not often. We’ve been adding Sunday brunches to the weekly dinners so we can include him more, which he really appreciates.”
I nod. “A dress. Okay. I can do that. Thank you for the invitation.”
“You bet.” Owen went into the bookstore and I started collecting empties in the bar.
The afternoon went quickly, as people started getting off work and coming in. When Fyr started his shift at five, I told him I needed to leave by six today so I could go home and get changed.
Fyr seemed to take everything in stride. I suppose after one has been abducted and imprisoned for years, needing to work the bar by yourself hardly qualified as a problem.
He tucked a clean bar towel into the waist of his jeans and drew far more glances than the act deserved. He’d been working here for months but still drew attention because he was gorgeous. He was a mountain of a man with long blond hair he mostly wore tied up in a bun. Picture Thor and you had Fyr. He nodded to the people at the bar, rolled up his sleeves, and got to work mixing drinks.
Fyr’s first name was actually George. All dragon families apparently have one George per generation. It’s a nod to St. George, who supposedly slayed a dragon. It’d been explained to me that St. George was himself a dragon shifter. The famed battle was just him fighting with his brother. The humans celebrated one brother pretending to kill the other brother. Dragons continued using the name because they thought it was hilarious that humans were so stupid.
“It’s good that you’re getting changed. Not that you don’t look nice,” he quickly corrected. “It’s just that Grandmother Drake has certain standards.” He glanced at my jeans and sneakers. “Coco regularly gets scolded for wearing boots to dinner.”
Fyr was the last of his family of dragons. He grew up in Wales and was kidnapped as a child, like George’s twin brother Alec. Both had been held captive for too many years by a vampire who liked to feed on other supernaturals. When we ran into Fyr in England in December, he decided to move to San Francisco to be near the Drake clan. There were so few dragons left in the world, family lines were blurred to include all.
“What about you? Do you get dressed up too?”
