Jules lowered his foot to the floor, demonstrating not a single tremor in his other leg. He’d perfected balance years ago. “Isn’t it you who tells me not to expend more effort than necessary?”
Radomir gave a tired smile. “Here I thought you hadn’t listened.”
Jules had listened, as he did to all of Radomir’s words. Here, he exercised caution, not out of self-preservation, but because he feared harming his mentor. Radomir wasn’t a young dragon, growing slower with each passing day. Jules would rather hurt himself than his guardian.
“Fighting is as much about misleading your foe and lulling them into a false sense of security as it is about making contact. Most look at you and see a small, easily defeatable opponent. Use their underestimation of you as another weapon in your arsenal.”
Radomir, at six feet, towered over Jules’s five-feet-nine, or he had before age stooped his shoulders. His hair, now more gray than sandy-blond, stood up at odd angles, defying any efforts at taming. His brows also seemed like furry, living entities on his broad face, standing guard over shrewd gray eyes, the color of a stormy day. Or so his mate, Moira, claimed.
“Had enough for today, old man?”
Radomir sighed. “I have, but you need to practice one more thing.”
This time Jules sighed, placing the staff on a nearby table and extending his hands. The fingernails of both index fingers immediately shifted into claws, golden scales trailing to the second knuckle. A little more concentration shifted the middleand ring fingers. His hand shook. The more he willed the fingers to change, the more violently they shook.
“Don’t force the change. Tell your dragon what you want. Let him do the rest.”
Jules’s two little fingers sprouted claws, albeit smaller proportionately to the others. His thumbs shifted last. Scales now extended to his wrists.
“Very good!” Radomir smiled. “Very few dragons ever master a partial shift. You’re truly blessed by the Goddess.”
Jules watched his hands slowly revert to human. “You and Moira always said omegas like me aren’t meant for fighting, so why did the Goddess give me this skill and not the two of you, born beta warriors?”
This time, Radomir’s smile turned indulgent. “Ours is not to question the Goddess of Fire, but to accept her gifts, knowing she gave them for a reason. Now, go wash before dinner. I believe Moira has made one of your favorites tonight.”
Jules dashed into the house from the garage, down the hall, through his room, and into his private bath. He dropped his loose pants and shirt to the floor and showered, letting the warm water soothe tired muscles. Radomir had increased their training sessions as of late. Did he know something Jules didn’t?
He dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, leaving his feet bare. Carpet felt so good on the bottoms of his feet, but he also liked the cool smoothness of the kitchen tiles. The scent of cooked meat wafted through the air the moment he opened the door, and he hurried into the dining room, beckoned by the promise of steak. She cooked steak, right?
Moira looked up from depositing plates onto the table, a smile on her weathered face. “Ah, Jules. Just in time.” She sat on one side of the six-seater table with Radomir at the head and Jules opposite her, where she’d already placed his plate of medium-rare T-bone. He’d argued long and hard to let Radomir sit at theend, next to her. Positions at the table, and social ranks, were foreign concepts to someone who’d never seen them in action, only heard of them from his guardians, and couldn’t see the point.
She finally abandoned her efforts for Jules to sit at the head of the table as the highest-ranking dragon present, taking her place across from him as she and Jules handled most of the dinner table discussions.
Moira didn’t wrinkle her nose at Jules’s choice of clothing either, as she’d done when he’d first started dressing as a human his age. She wore a loose cotton robe close enough to the casual dresses depicted in style magazines not to draw too much attention to herself in the unlikely event she set foot out of the house.
Radomir wore loose trousers and a tunic, similar to his training attire. They’d said both were common garments for betas back in the territory of the Sandy Shoals Court in their home realm, when they weren’t in uniform. While they didn’t particularly dislike humans, they certainly didn’t emulate them, keeping as much as possible to the old ways. Human servants in Sandy Shoals exacted revenge when seeking their freedom. Although Moira and Radomir hadn’t been alive then, nor had their parents, the stories lingered.
Seeing the humans here in Terra, so preoccupied with daily living, left Jules wondering about the ones who lived in Adrakus.
“Would you like a potato?” Moira asked, passing a bowl containing three baked potatoes. While she didn’t particularly embrace human customs, she’d adapted to their ways of eating out of necessity. Jules had even found her secret stash of Oreo cookies.
“Thank you.” Jules transferred a potato from the bowl to his plate.
“Radomir tells me you’re getting better control over your partial shifts.” Moira beamed like a proud mother.
“I’m getting there.” Jules couldn’t help the warmth blooming in his chest at her praise. He worked hard to make Moira and Radomir proud.
Moira’s bright smile fell. “Just remember, you can’t let anyone but us see. They’d know you’re a dragon. I maintain the spell that hides us from others of our kind, but they’d notice a human suddenly sprouting claws.”
“I know, Moira.” Jules should. She’d lectured him often enough.
“Now, tell me about your day out with the humans.” Moira had gotten better at hiding her reservations when discussing Jules’s newfound life outside of this house.
Stroking her ego helped. “I had a math test today. My professor said whoever homeschooled me did an excellent job.”
Moira beamed. “Sakaris granted me knowledge of human studies when we came here since you were too young at the time, so I can’t take full credit.”
“Yes, but who wouldn’t let me leave the table until I’d finished my lessons?”
