Julius smiled back. “Thank you.”
“I don’t understand why you’re letting that hold you back, though,” Katya went on. “I’m a failure because Ican’tuse my magic, but your problem sounds more like an attitude issue than a true handicap. Have you tried just gritting your teeth and pushing through?”
He sighed. “Several times. Most recently last night when I let my brother convince me to try and break into your old sewer compound through the side and ended up stuck in a lamprey pool. That’s how we met Ross, actually.”
Her eyes went wide. “You went into that horrid place and lived?” and then, “Wait,twoHeartstrikers attacked Ross?”
If Julius had any remaining doubts that Katya really did care about her human shaman, her violent hiss at the end of that last question would have put them to rest. “No one attacked Ross,” he assured her. “My brother was going to, but I stopped him.”
She lifted her chin. “And you tell me this to curry my favor, I suppose?”
Julius’s eyes went wide. “No! That’s not it at all! Really, I didn’t even think about that angle until you pointed it out just now. That’s how bad I am at the ‘conniving dragon’ stuff, and honestly, I’m fine with that. I don’t want to be someone who saves people just to get leverage on their lovers.”
“But that’s life,” Katya said flippantly. “Use or be used. You can frown on it all you like, but if you want to survive, you’ll do what you have to just like the rest of us.”
Julius shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
She gave him a sharp look, but she didn’t cut him off, so Julius hurried to explain. “When you treat everyone you meet as either an enemy or a pawn, you give others no choice but to hate and fear you.”
“So?” Katya said. “It’s better to be feared than loved.”
“Maybe in the short term,” he admitted. “If you’re strong enough to take it, but no one’s strong forever. No matter how good a user you are, when you treat others like tools, you’re setting yourself up for an endgame that inevitably leaves you outnumbered and alone with no one but resentful pawns for backup. That doesn’t sound like victory to me.”
“What would you do instead?” she scoffed. “Be so nice that all the dragons have a change of heart? Teach us the power of friendship like some sickening moral tale?”
“No,” Julius said. “But I am going to try beingyourfriend. Because I think if you stop dismissing this out of hand and actually consider what I’m saying, you’ll find we make much better allies than enemies.”
That stopped her cold. “You would ally with me against your own clan?”
“That’s just it,” he said, leaning over the table. “We’re notagainstanyone. This doesn’t have to be a fight or a war or a game or any of those terrible dragon metaphors for life. Just because everyone is expecting us to be at each other’s throats since you don’t want to go back and I’ll die if I don’t make you doesn’t mean that’s our only option. Because we’renotthoughtless pawns with artificially limited moves, we’redragons, and if we combine our efforts, there’s a good chance we can turn a lose-lose situation into a victory for everyone.”
He finished with a hopeful grin, but Katya was still scowling, her white teeth chewing on her pale lip. The longer she stayed silent, the more Julius worried. Maybe he’d come on too strong? He’d tried to be as honest as possible, but if Katya didn’t believe him, if she still thought his vulnerability and confessions were just a show to gain her trust, there was nothing he could do. He’d gambled everything on this. If she bolted now, he had no way to stop her.
Seconds ticked by like hours, making Julius sweat. But then, just when he was sure he’d lost, Katya sighed. “I’m not agreeing to anything,” she warned. “But I am very tired of being cloistered by my sisters, and even more tired of running. So tell me, Julius the Nice Dragon, what would this proposed alliance entail?”
Julius very nearly fell over in relief. The only reason he didn’t was because there was no time. He was already explaining the plan he’d come up with, laying it out for her just as it had formed in his mind while he was talking to Marci. Within minutes, Katya was nodding, and though she didn’t look convinced, she wasn’t rejecting him either, and that was enough.
Chapter 13
Marci sat in her car, watching through the cloudy diner window as a smiling Julius leaned closer to the woman sitting across the booth from him. The amazingly, spectacularly, inhumanly beautiful woman he’d been searching for. The woman who was obviously another dragon, and not one from his family.
No wonder he didn’t want to kiss you.
She scowled and pushed the unwelcome thought out of her head. She’d already made up her mind that she wasn’t going to dwell on that. She should be happy she hadn’t blown their friendship with that stupid slip-up, not mopey because she’d been rejected by a man she’d known was out of her league from the moment she’d spotted him sitting at the bar,especiallynow that she knew he was actually a dragon. They were an entirely different species, probably with a completely different standard of beauty. Being upset a dragon didn’t want to kiss you was like being upset a horse didn’t want to kiss you, and Marci definitely didn’t want to kiss a horse. Though, of course, if the horse was as good-looking as Julius, maybe she’d have a different opinion.
Still, the situation wouldn’t have been half as depressing if Julius and Katya hadn’t looked so good together. The way his black hair and sharp features emphasized her fair skin and delicate beauty was so perfect it almost looked fake, like some artist had set the whole thing up just for that effect. And then there was Marci, safely tucked away outside so her ugly haircut, shabby clothes, and mundane humanity wouldn’t ruin the moment.
That thought was melodramatic in the extreme, and Marci forced herself to look away. She needed to stop being stupid and focus on her own future, like finding somewhere to sleep now that she had money. She couldn’t afford another night at the sort of hotel Julius seemed to prefer, but the last few days had been humbling enough that anywhere with a real bed and no cats sounded like paradise. She’d just grabbed her new phone to look up reviews for extended stay motels when she felt something icy brush against her leg.
She lowered her phone to see Ghost sitting on the floorboard between her feet, his transparent tail swishing back and forth as he looked up at her with that smug cat smile.Back,he purred in her mind.
“So I see,” she grumbled. “I’m surprised. I didn’t think you’d leave your adoring fans.”
Ghost blinked and leaned on their connection, reminding her that staying away wasn’t an option for a bound spirit. Suddenly guilty, Marci put down her phone and patted her lap in invitation. Never one to pass up the gift of warmth, Ghost hopped up, though he took his time about it to make sure she understood that this lap business was nothing special.
“You freaked Julius out good with that little display back there,” she scolded when he’d settled down at last, his soft body like a bag of shaved ice across her thighs. “We’re lucky he didn’t run away screaming.”
Ghost gave her a disgusted look.
