2
Ryu
I drummed my fingers against the counter, waiting. There was no shortage of people walking around outside, and with the amount of dragons and other magically-aligned shifters in Cinderhollow, I knew for a fact there was no shortage of magic-users who could brush up on their skills.
Nonetheless, it was still a slow day at Ryu’s Magic School.
I sighed and slid deeper into my leather chair. I could only perform so many magic tricks alone before it got boring. Making intricate ice sculptures with my water magic was pretty fun, but it always left a big puddle of water on the floor to clean up after, so I stopped doing that a while ago.
My eyes roamed to the little bonsai tree on the counter that Gabriel helped grow with his earth magic all those months ago. I smiled at the bittersweet memory. Gabriel, an omega wolf, was the mate of my good friend Dante, another dragon shifter like me. But I’d barely seen Gabriel since the birth of their first child, Noah, and they had both been crazy busy since the birth of their second, a daughter named Noelle.
Since Gabriel stopped coming, things had been quiet around my magic school. Not that I blamed him or anything. Being pregnant and giving birth to two young kids in such a short amount of time wasn’t a walk in the park. Not thatIknew anything about that. I was an alpha with no omega mate of my own, so I’d never experienced that sort of thing firsthand.
Thattrain of thought made me even more depressed. Here I was, alone in my school, with no customers, no one to train in magic, and no family. I usually wasn’t one to mope, but with nothing better to do, I rested my forehead on the counter and allowed myself to slump into those bad feelings.
The bell rang.
I shot up, heart racing with excitement.
A man I didn’t recognize stood at the door with a curious expression. But it was moreweirdcurious thaninterestedcurious. Still, I couldn’t complain—a student was a student.
I leapt over the counter and exclaimed, “Hello! Welcome to Ryu’s Magic School, where—”
“Hey, man, do you know this area? I think I’m lost,” the man said.
My enthusiasm quickly died. Not wanting to be rude, I replied to his question anyway. “Um, yeah, I’m pretty familiar with it.”
“Alright, cool. Me and some buddies are getting shitfaced after work. Do you know a place called the Drunken Dragon?” he asked.
I perked up at the name. That was the name of Scar’s bar, where I’d taken Gabriel once to speak with the man himself. Long story short, both of them were escapees from their old pack, Stoneheart. But although Gabriel wanted to go back and help his old pack, Scar wanted nothing to do with the place that nearly got him killed - and I couldn’t blame him. I hadn’t seen Scar since I let him know what occured with Gabriel’s whole magic quest to save the place. Truthfully, he didn’t seem to care either way, but at least he knew the whole story now.
“Yeah, I know the place.” I gave the man directions to the Drunken Dragon.
“Thanks, man.”
Before he could leave, I tried to squeeze a return favor out of him. “Hey, if you ever need someplace to hone your magic skills, you know the place!”
“Huh?” The man looked totally confused.
Did he not read the sign before he came in?
“Er, this is a magic school,” I explained.
The man blinked. “Okay.” Then he left.
Anger was not a useful emotion, or one I experienced often, but I was pretty annoyed after that.
But then I got to thinking about Scar. What had he been up to all this time? I wouldn’t exactly call myself a regular, but I did like to grab a drink at his place and chat once in a while. We weren’t close by any means—I don’t know if he would even consider usfriends—but I got the feeling he could use someone to talk to sometimes. He had no mate, and I didn’t know if he wanted one.
A thirty-five year old omega would have found his fated mate by now… right? I wondered if some alphas and omegas just didn’tgeta fated mate. Sure, I knew of couples who never experienced that initial intense pull. There were even beta couples in Cinderhollow who didn’t consider themselves fated mates, but loved each other all the same.
But as an alpha, Icravedfinding my fated mate. Who didn’t? Especially since two of my closest friends, Dante and Lorenzo, found their fated omegas recently, I was admittedly feeling more hopeless than usual.
I sighed and glanced at my reflection in the computer monitor. Was it because of how I looked? Sure, I wasn’t as tall and muscular as Dante, or ruggedly handsome as Lorenzo, but I was pretty attractive in my own right. My smooth black hair, dark eyes and toned muscles weren’t ugly by any means. If I was an omega, I’d date myself for sure.
I wondered if it was my dragon, instead. Unlike Dante and Lorenzo, whose dragon forms took the shape of fire-breathing winged dragons standing on two legs, mine was entirely different. My dragon was an Eastern dragon; a winding, serpentine creature with long whiskers and a mane. Instead of flying with wings, my kind used air magic to manipulate the air currents surrounding us. Much easier than flapping wings all the time!
My burst of self-confidence fizzled out like a popped balloon and I laid my head down on the counter again with a sigh. Maybe I needed to do some kind of promotional event to attract more students…
