Dragons and Magic

by Blair Babylon

  “Hold on a sec. What was that one?”

  That line between his eyes was back. “It’s something to do with the magic or the bond.”

  Okay, being able to eat anything she wanted to wouldn’t suck. “But the actual mating fever itself,” Bethany said. “It’s just some sort of mating impulse? It doesn’t mean anything?”

  “It means everything,” Math said. “It means I’ll love you for the rest of our lives.”

  “It doesn’t sound like love. You can’t control it. You wouldn’t be able to choose. It’s just some sort of hormonal or chemical or neurological or physical thing. You don’t love me.”

  “I had a lot of time to think while flying back from New Wales. Dragon Airlines has lousy in-flight entertainment, and three hours is a lot of time to consider your life choices when you’re doing nothing but staring down at mountains and desert while you fly.” Math clutched her hands in his. “I am already mating with you because I am already desperately in love with you. If we become mates, I will love you more than I could love anyone else, ever again. It means magic will bind my love for you and make it eternal. It’s a combination of timing and maturation and magical biology, yes, but a mating fever means that I fell in love with you, that my dragon fell in love with you, the stars aligned, and I am yours forever, if you want me.”

  Panic welled up in her stomach. “This is a lot of pressure.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not the jump-first type. I’m the clean-up-other-people’s-mess type.”

  Math smiled at her. “I know.”

  “I really like you. It just feels like it’s too soon to even talk about moving in together, let alone a lifelong, magically bound commitment.”

  Math smiled at her, though his smile was sad around the edges. “I understand. Hell, I agree with you. I’m sorry this happened.”

  Bethany untangled her fingers from his and stood up. “I mean it, Math. I really do like you, a lot. If you can un-mating fever yourself, I’d like to see where this could take us. I think we could have had something amazing. But it’s too fast, you know? It’s too much.”

  “I know,” he said, standing beside her. “I understand. I do. And as much as it pains me to say this, I think you need to leave.”

  “I—I don’t understand?”

  “I don’t know what a mating frenzy is like in dragons. I can’t find any information. I don’t know if it’s going to hit me in an hour or a week, but I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t be around each other. I don’t want you to get hurt. In wolves, from what I read on the internet, anyway, a shifter in a mating frenzy can’t control himself around a woman, especially if she’s his fated mate.”

  “Wait, fated mate? What the heck are you talking about?”

  “I think it’s fated for me, but not for you. King Llewellyn kept saying that the dragonmate has to decide, that they have to accept the mating, or—” He paused, biting his lower lip.

  “Or what?” Bethany asked.

  “He said that the dragonmate has to surrender to the mating.”

  Bethany stared at him. “Oh, I don’t like that at all.”

  “I don’t like that wording very much, either. Maybe it’s just an artifact of the language, an anachronism.” He was still frowning. “Dragon society is so conservative, so maybe the word didn’t change. Or maybe it means something else.”

  “You don’t think it does.”

  Frustration filled his voice, and he spoke quickly, “I can’t find any information. This isn’t a damned spreadsheet. There’s no org chart. It’s nothing but chaos and void.”

  “Well, yes,” Bethany said. “It’s not tidy. It’s not organized and spotless.”

  Math smiled a rueful grin at her. “I knew you’d understand.”

  “It’s simply obvious.”

  “I wish this had worked out for us.”

  “Yeah,” Bethany said. “Me, too.”

  “You should go, while you still can.”

  “Right, before you turn all scaly or something.”

  His smile still looked sad, and he blinked slowly. “Something like that.”

  Bethany let herself out of the suite, glancing back once to see Math standing in the center of the room, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his hands shoved into his pockets, staring at his shoes.

  He looked forlorn and lost.

  But Bethany didn’t want to get married—actually, a magical mating bond that was far beyond marriage—at the age of twenty-two.

  It wasn’t Math’s fault, and it wasn’t hers, either.

  No one gets married after knowing each other only a few weeks and just one date.

  That sounded like a terrible idea.

  Conversation with Meerkats

  BETHANY worked far into the night because she didn’t want to go home to her small, empty, stupid apartment. No one would be waiting for her there. No one would pick her up for supper or send her flowers in the morning. No one would grin at her, dragonly.

  Loneliness felt like a thousand-mile sprint toward nothing.

  By ten o’clock, the dozens of crayon-colored meerkats running around the ballroom had begun to look haggard, and Bethany’s arms and back were aching from conducting their movements.

  She called out, “Let’s bring it in. Ten-minute break.”

  The meerkats all popped up and stood upright to stare at each other and her, confused that they were neither dissipating back into the ether nor doing their job. One fuchsia meerkat was spiraling around the arms of an enormous crystal chandelier, dusting it, and it hung from its hind legs like a bat to peer at her and its fellows.

  “Come on over here,” she announced from the center of the cavernous ballroom. “Let’s sit down for a few minutes and rest.”

  The meerkats dropped down to all fours and trundled over to her, some hopping and skipping, and sat down in a huddle around her. Some hugged, and some wrestled for the fun of it. A few leaned on her calves, so she sat down in their warm, furry midst. “Some night, huh?”

  The meerkats, which were sentient though nonverbal, gazed over the ballroom, staring at the wide swaths of grimy wooden floor and several chandeliers that were still dull with oily dust.

  “Yeah, I know. It feels like it’s never going to end, right? I mean, this enormous ballroom is taking forever to whip into shape, and then there’s that damn fountain with the sea serpents in it. I have to banish those somehow and then summon something else to eat the algae. Banishing legendaries is master-craftsman, guild-level magic. I don’t think I can do it. Even if I could, then I’d have to summon something else, and there won’t be time for whatever shows up to eat all the green crud. That sludge is growing every dang day.” She sighed. “Well, I guess I’m going to have a lot more time on my hands now to get it all done.”

  A fluffy little chartreuse meerkat waddled up and put its paw on her knee, peering into her eyes questioningly.

  “I’m okay,” Bethany sighed. “I’m probably okay.” She sighed again. “I think I’ll be okay, someday.”

  Two more meerkats touched her legs, and one hopped onto her shoulder to curl around her neck.

  They knew. Bethany had discovered long ago that, while her apparitions took on whatever form she asked, the spirits that guided them returned day after day. They remembered her and their lives together, and she’d formed long friendships with them.

  They knew when she was sad.

  “I can’t believe Math asked me to marry him after knowing each other just a few weeks and only one date,” she demanded of the apparitions as they inched closer to her. “That’s crazy, right? We just met! I don’t know him well enough to marry him.”

  The meerkats surrounding her sat up on their haunches or hind legs and watched her, their pointy little faces angling as they studied her.

  A cobalt blue meerkat laid its chin on her knee and stared up at her with fathomless black eyes.

  They were concerned, the sweet little things.

  “I’ll
be okay,” she reassured it. “I mean, I really liked him. Math is a nice guy. He’s actually a great guy. He’s a great guy, and he’s kind, and he’s funny, and he liked my magic and you guys, and he really knows how to go overboard on presents. That’s not a bad quality in a man. And he’s so ripped that he’s shredded, though I’ll bet I could fatten him up with a few months of my cooking, unless that dragon metabolism he talked about really does let him eat anything he wants and still look like that. Home and hearth witches are good at cooking. If you guys could eat, I would make you some of my peanut butter-chocolate cookies. They’re awesome. I never even got to make them for Math. But we’ve only known each other a few weeks, you know? And we had just one date. It would be crazy for me to marry him or dragonmate with him, or whatever he calls it.”

  The little blue one rolled his head and gazed up at her, while the pink one snuffled her ear.

  Bethany scratched the little blue apparition absent-mindedly and rubbed her cheek against the other meerkat’s satiny fur. “But you can’t fall in love that quickly. No one can. If I had fallen in love with Math Draco, I’d know it. I’d be horribly lonely, now that we’ve broken up. My heart would break.”

  Water splashed on her hand.

  Bethany wiped it on her shirt.

  The dampness left a dark spot on her red top.

  “How could anyone who loved Math Draco just give him up? Just walk away without a backward glance? He’s too good for that. He’s too good a man. He deserves someone who really loves him, not just someone who’s known him less than a month.”

  A teal meerkat and a gold one slithered into her lap and curled up on her legs, snuggling against each other and her.

  She said, “I mean, Math said that he was in love with me. So, evidently dragon shifters can fall in love that fast, though he seemed more level-headed than that. But I wouldn’t do that. I’m a sensible witch. I’m a home-and-hearth witch, not an elemental witch like Ember who can literally blow hot and cold. Or a potions witch like Willow who brews up a new potion every day and constantly tinkers with recipes. I’m steady. I’m neat and organized. I’m not the type to run off and get married to a guy I’ve only known for a few weeks, even if he is a great guy like Math Draco.”

  Her face was hot.

  A violet meerkat stood up on her thigh and held her chin in its paws, staring at her soulfully.

  She told it, “And if I loved him, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you guys. I mean, you’re great. You’ve been my little buddies since I first summoned you when I was four. But if I were in love with Math, I’d go to him. I’d jump in with both feet. I’d run to him, and I’d tell him that I love him and that I want to spend the rest of my life with him, that I wanted to make a home with him and have a hearth with him. If I were in love with a man, it wouldn’t matter that we’ve only known each other a few weeks and that he was in the grip of some biological imperative. I wouldn’t let him go because home-and-hearth witches know that magic springs from love.”

  The violet meerkat stared up at her, its black eyes large and solemn.

  “I would,” she told the apparition. “I would go to him and tell him yes, and I’d stay with him, if I were in love with him.”

  The violet meerkat’s nose twitched.

  The gold and teal meerkats in her lap watched her from where they lay on their backs, tummies up, blinking.

  The rest of them were watching her, too. The ones in back were standing up on their hind legs, staring.

  Fifty sets of large, dark eyes silently watched her and waited.

  Behind her eyes, an idea snapped into being.

  Bethany said, “I’m in love with him.”

  The meerkats didn’t move except for blinking eyes and twitching noses.

  Her heart was flipping around in her chest, and she said, “I’m in love with Math Draco.”

  They stared at her, alert, unmoving.

  She shoveled the apparitions off her lap and shoulders and stumbled to her feet. “Oh, my God. I have to tell him. I have to go to him and tell him. Um, meet back here tomorrow morning?”

  The meerkat apparitions popped back to the ether, filling the vast expanse of the ballroom with the scent of lavender and a hint of glitter that swirled in the air and disappeared after them.

  Mating Frenzy

  MATH lay on the wide bed in the penthouse suite, his arms stretched out from his sides, panting.

  The ceiling spun every time he opened his eyes. His heartbeat roared in his ears and cramped in his chest.

  Fire was consuming his flesh and bones.

  When he managed to raise his head and look at his chest and flat stomach, his white dress shirt, dark slacks, and skin were miraculously intact.

  And so the searing pain would continue.

  If the fated mate wasn’t present, the mating frenzy hurt.

  One more damn thing he hadn’t known about dragon biology.

  And on the other side of this pain lay senescence, a thirty-year pit of despair and suffering.

  But for now, he was burning himself alive from the inside, out.

  His skin must be sloughing off in the fire of his soul.

  If he could release the fire, breathe it out, the burning might stop.

  But he didn’t. Math swallowed the fire rather than kill everyone in the hotel by arson.

  And so the fire burned him alive from within.

  The mating frenzy cascaded through his muscles and bones, hollowing him like a burning tree.

  Agonizing seconds lasted hours.

  His dragon writhed within his soul, trying to escape the pain, becoming a mindless, desperate beast.

  His skin felt like it was searing and curling, but he wasn’t sweating. His body was tinder-dry and burning.

  Flames leaked from the corners of his mouth and trickled down his neck, but he could hardly feel them.

  The mattress must be on fire. The hotel must be burning down around him.

  This self-immolation would surely lead to his death.

  He prayed to the Dragon Lords to die.

  The door of his suite opened.

  Bethany’s smooth alto voice called, “Math? Are you in here?”

  His dragon roared in his head, trying to climb over him and out of his body.

  Math struggled to sit up and managed to roll to one elbow. “No.”

  “Math? Is that you?”

  His voice rasped in his throat. “Bethany, you can’t come in here.”

  She stood in the doorway to his bedroom, holding a plastic square in her fingers. “I used the master keycard you gave me.”

  “Don’t come any closer,” he begged her, fighting down his dragon that longed to throw fire at the world.

  She called out, “I need to talk to you.”

  “Get away. I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t know what will happen.” He couldn’t speak above a whisper, and his voice was lost in the roaring of his dragon and the fire in his head.

  Somewhere outside the pain, Bethany said, “I trust you.”

  “You shouldn’t trust me,” he said, air rushing in his scalded lungs. Fire was swirling in his head and chest, turning to rage. “Don’t trust me.”

  Bethany floated across the darkened bedroom, light as a sail before the wind, and sat on the bed beside him.

  Couldn’t she see the fire filling his veins?

  He said, “Leave. Now.” His gravelly voice echoed in his head and the room.

  “No,” she said, leaning down, the fragrance of her breath inches from his lips. “I made a mistake.”

  “Please, leave,” he said, his voice thickening as his dragon fused with his soul and body. He dragged one finger down the cool heaven of her arm.

  Where his fingertips touched her, the burning eased, ice to his fire.

  She said, “I should have said yes. I want to say yes. If you’re still asking, I accept. I accept your offer of marriage or mating or whatever you call it. Yes, I want to marry you. Even though it’s crazy and too soon
and altogether ill-advised, I don’t want to live without you. I want to live my life with you. I love you, too. I want to be with you, whatever that entails, whatever it means.”

  Her words reverberated inside his skull as he fought the fire and noise. He couldn’t make them out, other than I accept and I love you, too.

  His dragon trampled his consciousness, and Math became a burning, crazed whirlwind of need and want and desperation to relieve the pain.

  His skin burned for hers.

  His body burned for hers.

  His heart yearned for her.

  His hand slid down her arm, and his fingers wrapped around her wrist.

  “Math?” she asked, looking down at his hand.

  He meant to tug her toward him, but the dragon was strong in him. His pull dragged her across the sheets, and she laughed as she skidded over to him. “What are you—”

  Her eyes widened, and she pressed her palm on his forehead.

  He closed his eyes as her hand cooled the fire in his face.

  “Holy cow, Math. You’re burning up. You need a doctor!”

  He swam on the scalding desert of the sheets to try to get closer to her ice. “Touch me.”

  She pressed her hands to his face and neck. “Your fever must be over a hundred and five. I need to call an ambulance for you.”

  “No,” he whispered, laying his hands over hers and pressing her skin against his. “No ambulance. They won’t know what to do. Just touch me. You’re so cool. I feel like I’m on fire. You feel so good.”

  She slid down to lie beside him. “Your fever has to be off the charts. I’d be seeing pink elephants, but I often see pink elephants. They helped me move last time. But I think you belong in a hospital.”

  He grappled with her, pulling her smooth limbs over his legs and chest. “Touch me.”