I’m not the type of person who has a lot of hang-ups around sex. It’s a bodily function. A need. When we’re hungry, we eat. When we’re thirsty, we drink. When we’re a dragon in our alignment, we fuck as often as possible. As long as all parties are consenting adults, there’s no reason to be shy about it.
Only moments ago, I’d considered telling Zoe that I wanted her. I considered confessing that the reason my dragon was interested in her was that I desperately needed sex. That sweat she keeps noticing on my forehead is a sign of a serious fever with only one cure—her. For reasons unknown to me, she’s the only medicine my dragon wants to take. Spooning her tight ass over the last several hours was like smelling my favorite appetizer baking in the oven. Now I’ve got clinical-grade blue balls and heart palpitations.
One thing stops me from sharing all that with her, though. She’s not well, and it’s my fucking fault she can’t walk three feet without almost passing out. I’m not sure I can ever compensate her for what she’s doing for us. What I saw on that paper of hers was the start of something seriously valuable to my kind. I knew when I roped her into this mess that she was taking a personal risk to help me. I just didn’t realize how immediate and intense the side effects would be. I may be straightforward about sex, but I’m absolutely not going to seduce a woman who has a growling stomach and is fighting dizzy spells. I’m not a monster.
I sit her down at the breakfast nook and pour her a glass of orange juice. Then I dig under the counter for a frying pan. “What are you going to make?” she asks.
“The only thing I actually know how to make.” I reach into the cupboard and pull out a box of pancake mix, holding up the box for her. “Sorry, I don’t have blueberries, and I guarantee these won’t be as good as Alice’s.”
“Do you have whipped cream?”
“Of course.”
“They’ll be perfect. They may not be Alice’s, but I can eat them in the middle of the night in a pair of silk pajamas. That makes up for a lot.”
“True. Chocolate chip or strawberry?”
She grins. “You’re thinking small, Seb. Why not both?”
I chuckle, loving that she’s feeling excited enough about this meal to joke with me. “Both it is.” I grab a bag of sliced strawberries from the freezer and dump them into a pan over low heat, then add a little sugar and water. While that’s cooking, I collect the ingredients for chocolate chip pancakes.
“How is it you only know how to make pancakes?”
“Mom cooked, and then Patrick cooked.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see her cringe and backpedal quickly. “It’s not that I think I’m too good to cook or anything. My brother Connor is a chef and makes the best food you’ll ever eat. Cooking just never seemed important enough to learn.”
“You have a brother named Connor? How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
“Oh, uh, Connor isn’t my biological brother. I do have a sister, but she lives in upstate New York with my brother-in-law, Todd, and their two rugrats. Connor is a fellow member of the Zodiac Brotherhood, the band of warriors charged with defending dragonkind.”
She rests her chin on her fists. “So that’s why you were the one who came for me. You and your brotherhood are responsible for stopping the Saint’s Order from killing dragons.”
“That’s right.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Twelve, just like the Zodiac, but you’ll likely meet Remus, Ellison, and Lucas in the near future. We’re the four taking point on this one.”
A pocket of silence opens behind me, and I dart a glance over my shoulder at her as I finish mixing the batter. “That wouldn’t be the Remus who works at Venomous Ink? I mean, Remus is a name you don’t easily forget.”
“Uh, yeah. He mentioned that he did the tattoo on your calf.” I might as well be the batter dripping into the hot pan with that admission. Is she going to think we manipulated her into doing this?
“I knew he was trying to get into my head. I felt it,” she says with a snort.
“He does it to ease people’s pain. He didn’t know you were a witch.”
“Yeah, I bet. Tell me, have I run into any other brothers before I volunteered for this?”
“No,” I answer quickly. “We didn’t manipulate you, Zoe. I would’ve been willing to ask another witch if you’d referred me, but then you agreed to help us.”
She nods. “I didn’t think you manipulated me. I got that tattoo years ago. I’m just surprised. I thought you were the first dragon I ever met, but I was wrong.”
“We are relatively rare compared to humans. We tend to live around art or art communities.”
“Why?”
“Dragons are made of creative energy. We emit it. Being near us brings out innovation in humans, and I guess you could say it’s our purpose. Creating is definitely wired into us, like a compulsion.”
“So, you have to produce art?”
