by Zoe Chant
The apartment had several large dollies that people used for moving their things in and out. They were clunky and grimy, and as it turned out, the largest one was just barely large enough for Morgan's long body to rest upon it with his legs dragging on the floor.
“All right, you know, suit all aside, Mr. Dragon, you are going to owe me big time for this.”
The dolly, never in the best of shape in the first place, clunked all the way to the elevator, and there was one hairy moment when the wheel stuck in the door. Her wrist was twinging more urgently, and Harper promised it plenty of painkillers and a nice ice pack once she was done. Only a little further.
She got the dolly in her apartment, and then she pulled it alongside the couch. From there, she could half-shove, half-roll Morgan over onto the cushions. It went smoothly enough, but when his weight was even briefly on his right arm, Morgan winced until he rolled over onto his back. Then his face smoothed, and she made a note to be careful about his right arm moving on. She knew all about sore spots, both physical and emotional.
Once she got him on the couch, she ended up sprawled on the dolly he had just vacated, breathing hard and more exhausted than she should have been.
In a distant way, Harper realized that she was shivering, and she thought it must have been shock or something like it. There was a strange and unconscious man in her apartment, and apparently, he could sometimes turn into a dragon. All right. That was fine.
Without thinking, she reached for his hand, and still unconscious, his fingers closed securely around hers. Harper knew she could get away if she needed to, but even as she had the thought, a certain kind of calm flowed into her, through her.
Everything is going to be all right.
The words echoed in her head, and for some reason, they were spoken in Morgan's voice.
“You think so, huh?” she asked, and this time she received no answer.
There was a part of Harper that wanted to stay on the dolly like some kind of sacrificial virgin, just stay in place and hope for the best.
The part of her that had started her own business and decided, sure, sewing was a great career for someone whose wrists ached with every new shift in the weather, told her, no, that wasn't acceptable.
It was time to get up, it was time to return the dolly to the bay, to change her clothes and then maybe get some food going. When Morgan got up, it would be time to get some answers.
Even as she heaved herself to her feet, Harper sighed. She had no idea what kind of answers he might provide. Hell, she barely had any idea what the questions should be.
Then, unexpectedly, Harper smiled, a strange delight welling up inside her.
There are dragons in the world…and this one is so gorgeous.
Chapter Six
∞∞∞
When Morgan finally regained consciousness, his first thought was, Have I humiliated myself completely and utterly in front of my mate?
His second thought was, What smells so good?
His head felt as if it was full of cotton the way it always did after a transformation these days. From the low and urgent pain that radiated from his shoulder, he knew that he had to move carefully. Otherwise that pain would flare up unmercifully, and he would be down for days.
Carefully, he sat up on what he realized was a battered couch and looked around in wonder at the explosion of color all around him. His own local residence was a small house high up in the mountains, and when he was there all, he had never thought much about the white walls except perhaps to note how clean and bare they were.
Morgan had thought that he liked the plainness of his home, but now, looking at walls that were drenched in sapphire blues, ruby reds and amber golds, he felt a possessive envy come over him. The apartment was small, made smaller by the plastic tubs of fabric stacked neatly along the walls, but the color gave it a kind of life and vitality that fed something in him.
I didn't even know that I had been hungry.
It took him a moment to realize that it wasn't paint. Instead it was swathes of fabric somehow plastered to the walls, giving both color and texture to the small space.
“It's starch.”
Morgan turned quickly, biting back a yelp at the pain that bloomed through his body at his sudden movement. He wondered if she had caught the discomfort on his face, but Harper looked utterly calm, coming to sit next to him. In her hands was a bowl that she set down on the small table in front of him, carefully and cautiously as if she were feeding a dog she didn't know.
Morgan couldn't miss the wary way she looked at him, and that stung, but he couldn't take his eyes off of her or dismiss the wonder that suffused him. She was his mate, and there was nothing in the world that would change that fact. He was hers, and it was on the tip of his tongue to say it.
However, she was also looking at him expectantly , and he tried to reclaim the part of his mind that was shrieking with joy at having found her, the dragon that was roaring and begging for the open sky.
“Um…starch?” he asked, casting back for the last thing that she had said, and she nodded.
“You were looking at the walls. I can't paint in here, they won't let me. I got some scrap fabric and sprayed it to the wall with a mix of liquid starch and water. It holds it up pretty well when it's dry, and it'll come down easily whenever I move.”
She nodded at the bowl.
“That's for you. If you want it.”
My mate is giving me a present! Morgan thought, and he tried to quell the ridiculous pleasure that gave him.
He picked up the bowl, remembering at the last moment to use his left hand rather than his right. He was prepared to eat what was in it even if it was molten lead, and then he realized where the delicious smell had been coming from.
“You made this,” he said in pleased confusion. “It's pottage.”
She laughed, that bell-like sound sending a shiver straight up his spine.
“That's not a word you hear every day,” Harper said. “But yes. My grandmother showed me how to make it. An onion, a lot of broth, a few cups of barley, and then whatever I have in the house. Comes up pretty tasty.”
It was more than pretty tasty. Morgan took a few bites and had to keep from groaning in gratitude. Dragons were always hungry after a transformation, and crippled or not, he was no different. He wolfed down the bowl of pottage, paying no mind to how it steamed, and he was just finishing up when Harper spoke again.
“That's your suit, isn't it?”
He blinked at her, setting the bowl aside so he would not be tempted to lick it clean. God, how long had it been since he had had a meal that wasn't something he grabbed on the road?
“Um. Yes?”
“No, I mean your suit originally. It's always been yours.”
Morgan had liked it a little better when she thought it didn't fit because it belonged to his grandfather. He couldn't lie to her, however.
“It's mine. I picked it up sometime in 1936.”
“That makes sense, the shoulders and the lapels –“ Harper shook her head. “So how old are you really?”
“Two hundred and seventy-four.”
“Wow.”
Harper was sitting very still, her body turned towards him, her hands folded neatly in her lap. She had removed the brace at some point, but he could see the slight discoloration on her skin that suggested she wore it regularly. It struck him that she must not keep herself still very often.
“Just wow?” he finally asked.
“You are two hundred and seventy-four years old, and you turn into a dragon. And someone attacked you.”
“You're taking all of this rather well.” he hazarded, and she gave him a pointed look.
“I had some time to think about it while I dragged you into my car with the help of some plucky teens and then loaded you into a furniture dolly to get you up to my apartment. You're lucky this is kind of a crappy apartment. They don't really blink at the idea of someone moving bodies.”
Morgan sta
red.
“You…dragged me from the parking lot? In your car?”
“Not like I had a choice,” Harper said, sounding slightly put out. “You dropped at my feet, and then when I was all set to take you to the hospital, well, you refused to let me.”
Morgan winced, finding a great black spot where his memory of that incident should have been. It happened more frequently after he transformed now.
“What…that is, I hope I didn't say anything untoward to you.”
To his surprise, she gently rested her hand over his. The touch was soft, but it still sent a jolt of electricity through him. From the way she paused, he could tell that she felt it as well. When she spoke, her voice was calm and even.
“You only asked me to take you home. You were pretty insistent, and I didn't know what a hospital would make of you anyway. I was afraid you might flip out, so here we are.”
Morgan flinched at that. He thought that perhaps he should take his hand from hers. He felt as if he didn't deserve it for how shamefully he had acted, but instead she turned so that he could hang on to it.
“You are being kind,” he said, eyeing her. “I suspect that I was rather more than upset.”
Now it was her turn to look down.
“You were in pain,” she said quietly. “I'm not going to hold that against you.”
It felt like getting punched in the gut. It had been a secret, his secret, for so very long, and then Harper simply said it out loud, as if it were as self-evident as the color of his eyes, the smell of her citrus lotion.
Mine, he thought helplessly, but the emotions were too much for him, warring in his chest as his dragon growled. Things were easy for his dragon. His dragon saw his true mate, and his dragon wanted her as close as possible. His dragon didn't understand the humiliation of being too broken to fix.
It was too much. Morgan ended up on his feet, pacing the small space in front of the table.
“Did you tell me some kind of big secret?” she asked. “Are you not supposed to mention the dragon thing?”
He uttered a sharp laugh, utterly humorless.
“It is not considered ideal, no, but you were bound to find out sooner or later.”
“At any point, a woman might be confronted with the weird paranormal world that lives alongside her own?” Harper actually laughed at that. “I could buy it.”
No, because you are my true mate.
He might have just blurted it out then, but she raised her gray eyes to his.
“Who was the dragon who attacked you? Is that just a normal thing? You're lucky we're on the edge of town, and everyone's probably home already...”
Morgan's lips tightened over the urge to bare his teeth.
“It was likely a dragon from another clan. It's a thing that happens sometimes, though usually not so close to civilization or with witnesses.”
“What, you just…try to kill each other?”
“Not usually. It's a feint, a way to assess the strength of the other clans, to test their guardians. These little tests are ways for us to find out if other clans are weak and if their treasures can be claimed and taken.”
“Do you do that?” she demanded, and Morgan laughed.
“I know it sounds barbaric, but it really does save on the bloodshed and warfare that we engaged in before we came up with this system. And no, it's not something I've done. Not in the last hundred years or so.”
It was true, and Harper relaxed.
“Good,” she said, and there was just a little tremble in her voice.
“You were afraid for me,” he said, surprised enough that he couldn't resent it.
“Of course I was.”
“You would be as afraid for anyone,” he offered.
He thought she would seize the excuse, anything to gain her feet in what must surely be an incredibly strange moment in her life, but instead she met his eyes squarely. With her silver hair and the strong bones of her face, her lips set in an uncompromising line, he was struck not just by her beauty, but by how tangled it was with her strength.
Remember, oh remember, his dragon whispered. This is who your mate is.
“No,” she said, her voice clear. Morgan could sense the confusion there, the way she barely understood what she was saying. She didn't understand, not with her mind, but her heart understood just as his did.
“No, not for anyone. Just for you.”
Morgan couldn't stop himself from crossing the room and dropping to his knees in front of her. He was tall and she wasn't; they could see eye to eye, and Morgan paused. Everything in his body was telling him to reach for her, to take her and to never let her go, but somehow, he pulled himself back from that precipice.
“Tell me I can,” he whispered. “Tell me you want me.”
in the light from the single lamp in the corner, her eyes were dark pools of ink, her lips parted. He was ready to hear a no. He was ready for her to tell him he needed to earn it and to make up for what a goddamn mess he was.
“Morgan,” she whispered, and a full-body shiver went through her as she spoke his name.
“Morgan, yes…Yes, I want you.”
Chapter Seven
∞∞∞
All that Harper knew, all that she understood, was that she needed to be in Morgan's arms. She needed it more than almost anything she had felt in her life. She had known it from the moment he had touched her in the back room of her shop. The last few hours, from that moment until this, she had been resisting the utter madness of it.
He was a dragon, an actual-facts, fire-breathing dragon, and then when he fell down at her feet, all she could think was that she needed to help him. The urge to kiss him had faded while she dumped him on the couch and then heated up again after some badly-needed food.
Then he knelt down in front of her, and the moment his eyes met hers, she could see clear to the bottom of him, the pride, the hurt, the heart that she somehow knew was beating as fast as her own was. Then there was absolutely nothing she could do about it but give in.
With a soft cry, she opened her arms and wrapped them around him, drawing him close. At the last moment, Harper remembered how jostling his right arm had made him wince as she laid him on the couch, and instead she put her hand on his hip . She was just starting to revel in his warmth when his hand came up, cupping her cheek, and then he was kissing her.
Harper liked kissing well enough. She had always figured it was like getting a cheeseburger. It was nice, but she privately thought it was a bit overrated. Now though, wrapped in Morgan's arms, Harper very quickly learned the difference between a cheeseburger and a steak grilled to perfection at some restaurant she was likely too poor to eat at.
His lips against hers sent a jolt through her body, and when she opened her mouth in surprise, his tongue licked forward to trace a soft sweet line over her lower lip. The sensation, the sudden intimacy of it, made her knees tremble, and Harper clung to Morgan, suddenly afraid that he might leave.
She couldn't tell whether he was the one who deepened the kiss or if it was her, but a moment later, she was nuzzling his mouth open in return, encouraged by the soft pleased sounds he made. It felt so good to have his arms around her, to have his mouth on hers. It felt right in a way that nothing ever had
It took her breath away, how he carefully devoured her mouth, how she could feel just the hint of teeth behind it as well as his desperate need not to hurt her.
“It's all right,” she found herself saying. “I'm not fragile, I promise.”
He raised her to her feet, and still kissing, hands still learning each other, they made their way to her bedroom. It was her bedroom, the place she had slept every night for years, but as she slapped at the light switch on the wall, she remembered how it would look to strangers.
“I thought your living room was beautiful...” he murmured in surprise, and she grinned a little, knowing what he saw.
Her bedroom was swathed in fabric like some fantasy princess's room. Her four-poster bed, complete w
ith canopy, had been picked up on Craigslist. She'd made the silk and velvet curtains herself with fabric bought wholesale.
“Don't laugh. I live alone, and I've gotten used to doing what I like.”
“I would never laugh,” Morgan said gravely, guiding her to lie down on the bed. “Not when you make such a beautiful princess.”
She wasn't a princess. She was a tailor, a small business owner and tough as nails on top of it. She wasn't anyone's idea of a delicate princess, but something about the reverent tone in Morgan's voice made her smile.
“And if you're a dragon, does that mean that you're going to eat me up?”
“We never did,” he said, coming to rest beside her on the mattress.
His hand came up to tilt her chin to one side, nuzzling her throat before planting a line of kisses from the point of her jaw down to the crook of her neck.
“No?” Harper asked, the words coming out with a little quiver. “What did you do with princesses?”
“Well, as family legend goes, adore them,” Morgan murmured, his breath warm against her skin.
Harper's breath caught as he eased down the straps of her tank top and her bra, baring her shoulder to his lips. The tingle of pleasure that it sent across her skin made her sigh, and that was before he placed his hand on the gentle rise of her belly, stroking first over her clothes and the slipping under her top.
His hand on her skin was warm, almost hot, making her think of fevers and forges, and then he slid his hand up to cup her breast, his touch gentle, and yes, reverent.
Adored. Maybe being a princess wouldn't be so bad.
“I want you naked,” Morgan whispered, propping himself up on his elbow to kiss his way down her breastbone. “Will you let me undress you, princess?”
“Only if you strip first.”
She felt the hesitation. It was so slight that she doubted that she would have seen it if she hadn't been looking, but there was just a moment's pause, a moment where he was uncertain. Before she could tell him that he could simply keep kissing her if that was all he wanted to do, Morgan rose gracefully from the bed, pulling his T-shirt over his head and letting it drop to the floor.