Authors: Alli Sims
He walked past me as if he didn’t care, as if I didn’t scare him, then again maybe I didn’t.
“It was fine.”
“Bullshit.” It wasn’t a hard bluff to call. “It was cramped, crowded, you had to pretend to be nice to everyone even though you probably hate most of them and most of all… I wasn’t there.”
Again I saw a smile touch his face. “You’re right. I did miss you.”
My heart skipped a beat. Was he being honest?
He made his way up to the door and unlocked it; of course I’d already tried to pick the lock- with no luck.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside.
“Are you coming in bounty hunter?” He kept his back to me as he slipped out of his suit jacket; a sign he wasn’t scared of me.
My brow furrowed as anger tugged at me. The wolf wanted to yell, wanted to prove to him that he should be scared of me. I took a deep breath and stepped towards the door, trying to keep myself in control.
I closed his door behind me and slipped out of my heels, careful as I bent down not to show submission. This was an alpha against an alpha here and I wasn’t going to be the one to cave.
I followed him into a sitting room and dropped down across from him. “Why did you invite me inside?”
***
I stared at her. I valued honesty but I wasn’t ready to tell her the truth. “I didn’t want you outside watching me all night. I’d rather have an eye on the person trying to kidnap me.” She smirked.
“Do I scare you that much?”
“I haven’t stayed alive this long by being scared. I’ve stayed alive this long by being careful.”
She crossed her legs revealing a little bit of the top of her stockings. I swallowed dryly. What was it about this girl that fascinated me? I’d seen lots of girls before, sure she was beautiful but there was more at play here- why did I want her so badly?
I forced myself to look away for fear of risking another staring contest. I didn’t want to kill her but if we established a dominance battle it would be difficult to find another way out of it.
And I’m sure more SIBs would come looking for me.
Only this time they’d probably be a lot more ruthless than her.
Why would they send her after me? It didn’t make sense. They should have sent a goddamn army to get me. Not one little half werewolf.
She cleared her throat. “So, is this where you normally stay? Not in a mountain top or anything?”
I laughed. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to be funny or if she really didn’t know, but I was hoping for the first. She smirked.
Good
. It was a joke. Her eyes sparkled as she looked around. “I don’t see any loot.” That wasn’t a joke.
“I… have it some place safe.” After all I couldn’t keep my art out on display; most people thought it had been long gone. I wasn’t going to prove them wrong. Not to mention I had to worry about the slim chance someone would manage to break in.
She raised an eyebrow. I pushed myself to my feet. “Want to see?” I knew I shouldn’t show her. She was a stranger. She was going to get me killed. She was a SIB; but I wanted to show her. I wanted to impress her.
After 300 years that desire to impress a girl was still there. Sad really that I couldn’t overcome that.
I sat there staring at him. This was a joke, right? He wasn’t actually going to show me, was he?
“Y-you’re joking, right?”
“Nope.” He held his hand out to me, come see my stash if you really want. Of course this is just some of it.”
I almost jumped to my feet. “I’d love to see what you have lying around.”
What was his game here? Was he going to bribe me to leave him alone? Or maybe gain my trust and then kill me? No. It’s not like he needed to surprise attack me to kill me. We both knew that if he wanted to he could easily kill me right now.
I followed him out of the sitting room and down a hallway.
The entire house was lavish honestly. Which I expected from a dragon, but it didn’t look overly expensive; again not a huge surprise when you think about it. After all dragons had a hard time parting with their money.
We didn’t need to go very far before he came to a stop in front of a door with three locks on it. I raised an eyebrow. “Now this must have some interesting stuff behind it.”
He laughed softly. “You’ll be amazed.” It sounded like a promise, and one I was looking forward to. I grinned as he pulled out a set of keys and started unlocking the door.
After a minute he pushed the door open and stepped aside, motioning for me to go first.
“Ohhh no. I fell for that one already.” I placed my hands on my hips. “You’re welcome to go first.”
He shook his head, but a smile touched his lips as he stepped into the room. “These my dear are my favorite items.”
I stepped into the room behind him. My jaw dropped.
Holy mother of Gods.
“Wow…” was all I said though.”
He laughed softly. “Like I said, it’s
only
my most prized pieces of the collection.”
He had to be shitting me. I looked around the room. It was covered.
Mostly with shelves, and the shelves were covered with everything. Books, gems, artifacts; the only part of the walls that didn’t have shelves were the parts that had paintings on them. I looked around me in shock.
“This is…. Amazing.”
He padded over to one of the paintings, his arms clasped behind his back. “They are my treasures.”
“They are gorgeous.” I walked around the room trying to take everything in. My eyes widened as I stared at a green gem the size of my fist. “So it’s true, dragons like to surround themselves with their possessions?”
“Yes.” He turned away from his paintings. “Of course in this day and age it’s harder to do that without being questioned, but it’s still nice.”
“Does that mean you sleep on money?”
He smirked. “Money is nice, but it does not give me pleasure.”
“Money doesn’t give you pleasure?” I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you run a million dollar company?”
“I do.” He smiled. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like parting with my money; but that doesn’t mean I like it. I’d much rather have things. Beautiful things.” His eyes roamed over his shelves and shelves of things. He padded over to something and picked it up. “This,” He held it up so I could see the small chainmaille bag. “Is from the 14
th
century. Isn’t it gorgeous?”
“It is.”
“Isn’t it more beautiful than a small piece of paper? It was worth a large chunk of paper if I remember correctly. But it was worth it.”
“So this is what you spend your money on?”
“What else would I spend it on?” He smirked. “It’s not like I have anything else to do with it; anyways when you’re as old as I am you have so much of it and not enough to do with it.” He shrugged. “So you’ve got to find something to do with it.”
“What about a girlfriend?”
“Are you trying to ask me out?”
“No!” I felt my cheeks flush. I hadn’t been, really! I hadn’t even been thinking about what I was saying.
Dammit. I should have been.
I couldn’t take it back now so I forced a grin over my lips. “Dragons aren’t really my type.”
“Clearly you’ve never had much experience with one then.” A grin spread over his face,
Heat rushed to my cheeks. I was a bad blusher. Everything could make me blush and I was sure I was red as a tomato right now.
“Are you offering?”
He stepped towards me. “If I offered would you say yes?”
I stood there staring at him. Not because he’d shocked me or that I didn’t know what to say, but because I had to be careful about what I said. Sure I’d fuck him, but I wasn’t going to say that out loud. That would give him an advantage. I wasn’t even going to answer his question. Instead I forced my grin wider.
“You almost make it sound like you want me.” I’d been put in a lot tougher situations before; I could get out of this one easily. I turned away from him and looked at his paintings; my head tilted to the left. “How many of these are real?”
“All of them.” He stepped towards me, admiring his paintings. See, easy. I had him distracted. Just get a dragon talking about his hoard and you’d never have to admit you’d take him up on the offer of a date.
“You never answered my question.”
Crap.
I thought too soon. I closed my eyes taking a deep breath. Was it really worth it to lie? What if I did and lost the relationship I was trying to build? I needed him to trust me so I could take him into the office.
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes as I turned to face him.
“You said you value honesty so I will be honest. Yes, I would let you take me on a date.”
I refused to meet his eye, not because I didn’t want another dominance battle but because I couldn’t bring myself to to see his reaction to my words. I turned away from him and his stuff and strut to the door.
It wasn’t until I was in the hallway that I could sense him behind me. I didn’t turn around, I didn’t slow down and I didn’t even let on to the fact that I knew he was there. His fingers curled around my wrist but I pulled away, and he let me.
Something tugged at my heart, something I wasn’t willing to admit I felt.
I made it to the door, paused to see if he would come after me then pulled the door open. He didn’t. Was I surprised? I shouldn’t have been and I knew it. But I was and most of all I was hurt.
I took a deep breath as I came to a stop in front on his steps, trying to collect myself.
“Are you really going to run away on me?” His voice was soft behind me.
I spun to face him.
He leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest. “I mean, I haven’t even had a chance to ask you out yet.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Well, here’s your chance. You might want to make it quick or I might change my mind.”
He smirked. “You’re cute, you know that?” He pushed away from the door frame and stepped towards me. I could hear my pulse race in my ears.
“Come back inside, please? Let me buy some pizza and offer you a beer.”
“So now you’re going to try to get me drunk?” I smirked as I stepped towards the house. “Alright, but I want mushrooms on my pizza.” I made my way back up the stairs and came to a stop in front of him. He grinned stepping out of the way and motioned for me to go into the house. This time I wasn’t nervous about being in front of him.
I made my way back into the sitting room, thankful he’d come after me since I left my shoes behind. And unlike Mr. Dragon behind me I couldn’t afford to buy new shit whenever I wanted, let alone shit as old as he was buying at least.
I felt him stop behind me. I wanted to stop to, to see why he’d stopped but I forced myself to keep moving and made my way over to the couch, dropping down and curling my knees under me. I glanced up under my lashes as I fiddled with the dress I was wearing to make sure my upper legs stayed covered. He had a cell phone to his ear.
Right. He was ordering Pizza.
***
After I ordered pizza I slipped the phone back into my pocket and glanced at her. She was still fidgeting with her bright green dress. Her black hair fell into her face in soft ringlets; though I wasn’t an expert I was pretty sure she’d used a curling iron on them.
I forced myself to look away from her before those hazel eyes looked back up at me. Instead I made my way to the kitchen for a quick second, grabbed two beers and then went to the sitting room. I held a beer out to her. She glanced up and took it from me, careful not to touch my hand, before I sat down across from her.
“So,” I popped my beer open and took a sip. “How did you get into the S.I.B?”
“It’s a long story.”
I could tell a hint to drop it when I saw one, so I did. Kind of.
“You know what they want me for, right?”
“
Questions.
I told you already, we just have a couple questions for you.”
“How high up are you?”
“What?” she snapped. Her eyes narrowed.
I knew I should drop it but I couldn’t. “How high up on the food chain are you?”
“Why the fuck does that matter?”
“Because, it will tell me how much you’re told. Based on the fact you think I’m wanted for questioning you’re not very high up- are you?” She stared at me, her mouth slightly ajar. Before she could say another word I continued. “Do you really think they want to question me? Do you think they will be happy with just questions? Think about it Natalie, I’m old. I’m fucking old; I’m one of less than one hundred dragons left on the earth. Do you think all they want to do is ask me a couple of questions? The dragon gene is hard to carry, they want to dissect me. Why do you think they want me in alive?”
I stared at him unable to answer his question. They normally sent me out to kill. He made a point. This was an odd job. No that wasn’t right.
“They wouldn’t lie to me.” I didn’t know him, he was the one lying.
“Do you really think that?”
No. I had to admit, even if it was just to myself, that they probably did lie. I wasn’t supposed to care about the details of my job.
I couldn’t answer him. I refused to say it out loud. So I took a sip of my beer. He didn’t take his eyes off me but he didn’t say anything else.
Once the bottle was almost empty I turned my attention back to him, lowering the drink from my lips. “What’s your deal?”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s your story? You’ve been alive a long time, it must be sorta interesting.”
“I’ll tell you mine, but I expect you to tell me yours sometime.” Without giving me time to say anything else he started talking. “I was born a long time ago; I won’t give exactly when away but needless to say it was another time all together. I’ve lived through wars; I’ve lived through depressions but most of all I’ve lived by myself.
When I was little I realized what I was… even before my mother could tell me. I woke up one day lying in bed with a tail and scales.” He smirked. “I thought I was dreaming but she told me I wasn’t. She explained everything and then… well I knew the truth about myself.”
“Was your mom… a…”
“A dragon? Yes. She didn’t spend much time in her human form until I came along, then one day…. She was out and never came home. I was 16 at the time, a man in those days. I knew what had happened. I understood she wasn’t going back. So I did what she taught me to do. I stuck around for a little while then packed up and headed off. I didn’t go to another city like we had before though; I went into the mountains. To her mountain.” He paused and took another sip of his beer. “Since then I’ve just been traveling. First it was through Europe, then to Japan and China, after all dragons are lucky in China. I didn’t even have to steal my gold there.” He smirked.
Before he could say another word the doorbell rang. John jumped to his feet and made his way to the door.
I stared at the coffee table, not really looking at it but more lost in thought than anything else.
***
Was he right about the S.I.B? Had they lied to me about why they wanted him…? I had to admit it was a possibility. I glanced up as he came back into the room holding a large box. I took a deep breath, my stomach grumbled.