“Right, I’m the one making it all about me,” my dad said, slamming his glass down. “You sit around here and play with some car designs and some sick kids and act like what you’re doing is important.”
“Oh my God,” I murmured into my hand.
“Still sulking about your mother-”
“Don’t.” It was a warning and I meant it but when my father looked at me, I could tell he was just pleased he was getting a rise out of me. “Don’t bring her up. Dad…”
“You need to move on,” my father said.
That he somehow managed to say that with a straight face took me back so much that I burst out laughing and I saw his eyes flash as he seemed to grow a little taller, looming over me as I sat at the counter. I felt weary and older than my years. We’d had this fight so many times already. We had not stopped having this fight since I was seventeen.
“I’d like to,” I said, sounding a little more shaky than I wanted. I stood up and flexed, the corner of my mouth turning up because I was taller than my father as much as he’d always seemed a little unpleasantly larger than life to me. “You won’t let me.”
“That’s a lie,” my father hissed. “You use her as an excuse to do nothing. Oh poor motherless boy… Well, if only someone else had been driving that day-”
“Fuck you!” I shouted, sweeping my arm across the counter and knocking the few glasses and a decorative case that had sat on it shattering to the floor. “It wasn’t my fault!”
“But you don’t believe that anymore than I do,” my dad whispered. “Do you?”
He smiled and shook his head and in that moment, I wanted to kill him. The thing was, I’d gone over the accident with the insurance people, mechanics, people who done complete forensics on anything.
It had not been my fault. But I couldn’t believe that anymore than my father and he knew it.
He looked so pleased now and I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. I’d always felt like I could win any fight, human or dragon. I welcomed it. I was strong and I was fearless, especially when I was shifted. But I’d never really known how to win against my father.
He knew that and he looked pleased about it now, as the corner of his mouth turned up and he softly said, “You really think Sierra Lowell would choose you? You haven’t amounted to a goddamn thing. All the opportunity in the world, and what have you done with it? My little disappointment.”
That did it. I felt like my heart was cracking and I couldn’t sum up a single word but it didn’t matter now as my father straightened his suit jacket and made his way to the door.
“Mercy West,” my father said as he made his way to the door. “Wednesday night. I’ll have my assistant send you the details.”
The door slammed and he was gone.
Chapter Eight: Sierra
I kept telling myself that sleeping with Jude had been inevitable, after all our years as such close friends. I’d always been smarter than that even while somewhat pining after Jude and trying not to. But being gone so long had shaken up our dynamic. Couple that with how riled up I could get while flying… I just had to be a big girl about it and smooth things over. It was going to feel weird, but we’d get through it. It wasn’t as if we hadn’t had fights and strange moments before.
I went home and gave myself an inner pep talk about the whole thing. I was chasing my own future and I knew what I wanted from it. I wanted a mate who I could love who would love me and I did like the traditions of being a dragon in our circles...even if it was sometimes just a little too stifling. All the pressure my parents put on me sometimes made me feel as if I was choking. But it was hard not to let go of that expectation and I didn’t want to displease my parents. For all our faults, they wanted the best for me and I wanted to make them happy too.
At home, I took a quick shower and changed into my comfiest jammies and crawled into bed. But when I got under the covers and closed my eyes, all I could imagine was Jude’s hands all over me.
In the morning, I dragged myself out of bed and immediately opened my laptop to shoot an email over to Scott and tell him I was definitely doing the piece on Jude. It would be weird at first but maybe having some kind of job to focus on would actually help us put this awkwardness behind us.
It had to. I couldn’t lose my best friend. I couldn’t even imagine a life where Jude wasn’t my best friend.
I had to have faith in our friendship, I told myself. I couldn’t let my own feelings get in the way. I’d just focus on that and the future. Although if my parents had a say in things, I wouldn’t need to chase my future. They’d tie me down and foist it on me.
“Good morning, darling!” My parents were having coffee in the sitting room when I came down, dressed for the day and they both looked up at me with big smiles on their faces. I could tell they wanted something. My dad hadn’t looked up from his morning paper in probably twenty years.
“Hi,” I said tentatively.
“You’re coming with us to brunch,” my mother informed me. “At the club. Eddie is coming. Won’t that be nice?”
I took a deep breath and said, “Good.”
Perhaps, in the end, sleeping with Jude had been something I just needed to do. Maybe it was something to get out of my system before I could move on to whatever lay in store. My parents looked absurdly pleased at my reaction, beaming at each other and then at me as I sat down with my coffee and whipped out my phone to see what was happening in the world.
By ten o’clock we were being seated at one of the better tables on the courtyard at my parent’s country club. The place was equal parts shifter and human, not that the humans knew that. But there was always a little winking going on between the shifters when they socialized in such settings and we tended to cluster.
I was just taking the first sip of my mimosa when Eddie arrived, looking like a GQ model for a summer spread in a light yellow suit that somehow worked, especially with his blonde hair. He kissed me on the cheek and I smiled as he took his seat.
“Sierra,” Eddie said. “You look absolutely ravishing.”
I don’t know why when Jude said that to people, and I knew he was just charming them it seemed endearing but from Eddie…
You’re looking for flaws.
I shook myself. It was true. Eddie was everything I wanted in a mate. He was an up and comer in the business world and even if money didn’t matter to me like it did my parents, I did appreciate the stability. He went after what he wanted. He wasn’t afraid to show his interest. He was strong, but he wasn’t an asshole. He was perfect.
“Thank you,” I said, giving him a genuine smile. I shifted a little closer as if forcing myself to embrace him as a prospect.
Not that there weren’t others attempting to force me…
“You know what I thought for you two,” my mother said. “There is a jazz show in the park this weekend…”
There went my mother, setting us up on dates. Not that we were even dating, but I needed to stop stringing the guy along and I knew that. There was also the Draceryn Gathering coming up and I was thinking it would be the right opportunity for Eddie to take me out officially. Pull the Band-Aid off and really give this a shot. The Draceryn Gathering was a very old tradition among dragon shifters of some nobility and still celebrated by us socialite types. It was held at a massive estate on Long Island every year. Nowadays it was really just an excuse to schmooze, but it was sort of nice to that communal shifter element and we’d all fly together and sometimes there were friendly duels. As a kid, I’d always loved it but I guess I was sort of a nerdy kid.
I smiled to myself, thinking of the old days of Jude and I running around the Draceryn Gathering, flying over the adults heads while they were still drinking cocktails and setting fires we had to put out again before we destroyed the place. This year’s would never be as fun as that.
I love him.
I downed the rest of my mimosa, attempting to numb myself a little and make that thought go away.
“Jude F
airchild?” Eddie said. I’d lost track of the conversation and now my ears perked up and I sat up straight. “Yes, I met him at the New York Good Citizen’s Banquet? I don’t think he likes me very much.”
I saw my mother about to speak and managed to speak first. “He’s my best friend,” I said. “He’s just a little protective.”
“We think she needs a better class of friend,” my father said. They’d had some wine now, and they were loose but not drunk. Still, I pursed my lips. Jude was protective of me but I was also protective of Jude. I didn’t like anyone speaking badly of him, particularly my parents.
“Ugh, the two of them have been thick as thieves almost their whole lives,” my mother said, rolling her eyes. “New York’s favorite bad boy dragon. And about as reliable as you might imagine.”
“He does a lot of work with terminal kids, mother,” I said, practically growling.
“Yes, well that’s very nice,” my mother said. “He races cars around and plays with them. I’m not sure I’d call it work.”
“He’s always been very flighty,” my father said.
“And you two are quite close, huh?” Eddie said. He was squinting in a funny way. He almost looked angry but even he were jealous, it seemed like a silly reaction to be angry.
“Yes,” I said. “Best friends.”
Oh yeah, also we just banged.
But I wouldn’t go into that. Eddie and I weren’t officially dating yet, and I didn’t think I owed him a goddamn thing even if we would be soon. I squinted at him myself now and imagined him as a father. He looked like one. Eddie would probably be good at it. He seemed so responsible and stable.
When the server came by, I ordered another mimosa.
“You know what we should do!” My mother said now just as I was finishing the last of my Crab Benedict. “Let’s all go flying.”
I almost choked on my crap and looked around the table with wide eyes. “All four of us? Together?”
My father looked like he was about to cry. “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”
Eddie looked very pleased and then all three of them looked at me expectantly as I chewed and swallowed.
The subtext was that this would be just an ordinary flight. The parents of a young maiden dragon taking an eligible male dragon out flying was an old fashioned tradition just like that Draceryn Gathering. It meant they were giving Eddie their blessing to court me. Originally anyway, that’s what it meant. These days the subtext was more like they were begging Eddie to take me as his mate. I couldn’t see how it wasn’t absolutely mortifying, but I was the only one at the table who didn’t seem exceptionally pleased.
You’re afraid you won’t love Eddie as much as Jude, I told myself. But you won’t know unless you try. And it would be so much easier...
“Sure,” I said, feeling the full weight of my parents’ expectations on my shoulders. “Why not?”
I’d been away two years and I told myself my anxiety about what came next in my life was just the regular kind of cold feet anyone would feel as a young person embarking on real adulthood. I would find a good mate and get married and I’d still be able to write and chase my career. I’d just have this whole other life that went with it. Maybe it would be with Eddie, but maybe not. Yet on our way back to my parent’s car that was going to take us out to a remote parkland area outside Manhattan where we would feel freer to fly, Eddie took my hand in his and it was nice, I thought, to not be worrying about it meant and how it might affect a friendship or any of that stressful bullshit. It was just a solid hand in mind and a smile that went with it. I took a deep breath and in the car, I let Eddie keep holding my hand.
I didn’t know what anyone else was talking about in the car, I was focusing on just trying to relax and go with the inevitable flow, but when we pulled over and the four of us got out and strolled up a grassy knoll to a little hill top where we could shift, I felt like I saw my entire life laid out in front of me. It was scary, yes. But I thought I was ready for it. I just had to trust myself and take a chance.
Eddie squeezed my hand gave me the dazzling grin of a handsome man who is used to getting what he wants. All four of us shifted and Eddie and I let my parents take off first, the two of them soaring into the sky. Dragons’ scales fade a bit as they get older and I tried not to let myself get sad at the lighter, somewhat grayer color of my parents’ scales and their more sluggish way of flying these days. It was partly down to them just not shifting very often. But that was typical of my parents. They were all about the traditions of aristocratic shifters but sometimes I wondered if they’d forgotten what it all meant. It had always been clear to me, that I was closer to my dragon nature because I was friends with Jude who seemed to understand it and appreciate it more genuinely than both of our parents and a lot of their friends. We embraced our true dragons, fire and all. After all, if we didn’t do that, what good were the traditions?
The four of us flew high. Typically when you shifted and took off into flight, you flew straight up and then around. It was sort of like an opening salvo. I found myself competing with Edward as the two of us soared straight up and we were neck and neck, but then he pulled ahead, his deep red scales glimmering in the sun as he blurred by me and looped around and dove again. He was a very good flier. I still thought Jude was better, but perhaps I was too biased on that point.
My parents didn’t do anything fancy. At their age, they were just content to calmly soar the skies and watch Eddie showboat. It was very good flying, even if it was obviously a big, flashy move to impress me. In fact, there was something nice about that. I was used to inwardly pining away. Before I’d gone away to London, it had become something I didn’t even think about much. I’d just accepted it as my secret little heart ache. If I thought about too much, then it would hurt. But for the most part, my friendship with Jude had never been heartbreaking to me. It had been something solid, my constant that I’d always held onto.
I watched Eddie flip around and blow a little plume of fire in my direction and I chased him and the two of us wove around each other, occasionally ramming into each other by accident or turning suddenly and clashing horns. It was sort of amusing. We just weren’t synced to each other like Jude and I were but that was hardly surprising. Jude and I had been flying together since childhood after all. I couldn’t expect the same almost telepathic sense of unity with Eddie, who I’d only known about a year, and that included all the emails.
Finally we came around and landed. I at least wasn’t riled up at all. The last thing I needed was to be turned on anywhere near my parents. But I did think Eddie looked good as we shifted back and made our way back to the car. He looked sort of rugged, his hair blowing around and his eyes bright. He rested a hand on the small of my back and we chatted and laughed as we climbed back in the car and made our way home.
“Oh, he is just a dream,” my mother said. I could swear sometimes, she sounded like a mom from the 1950s, and not the present day.
We were eating dinner that evening at the table. My parents hadn’t stopped talking about Eddie. Once I just sort of shook off the way they were pressuring me, I could sort of appreciate how much they liked him. Why wouldn’t they? He was perfect.
“He really would make such a good mate, Sierra,” my father said over his glass of wine. Our dining room was lit by candle light. It was a narrow and drafty room already and for a moment, it felt a little like the walls were closing in.
“I know we’re driving you crazy, darling,” my mother said, chuckling to herself. It was a rare moment of self-awareness and I raised an eyebrow, a little pleased. “But we just want the best for you. I want you to find the one. Your true mate. Do you know they say that a dragon shifter’s fire when breathed for the sake of his true mate, is incredibly powerful? It can break curses, it can stop armies… That was the old lore anyhow. Isn’t that the kind of love you want?”
I actually found myself smiling, and I nodded before sipping my wine.
“Yes,” I said.
“It is.”
Chapter Nine: Jude
I spent most of the day feeling pretty shitty. My dad had a way of getting under my skin. If any other guy said the things my dad had said to me and tried to make me feel that worthless, I would have laughed in their face and socked them into next Tuesday. Unless they were a dragon, then I would have shifted and challenged them and we would have gone at it with tooth and claw. But my dad was my dad. Whenever he spoke to me, I didn’t quite feel like an adult. I felt like a dumb kid again; a kid under my father’s thumb. I couldn’t shake him off and I’d never known how to. Couple that with Sierra making a quick getaway from my bed, and I was feeling pretty shitty about myself.
I couldn’t stop thinking about this Eddie guy either as I sat at Rupio’s for a few hours and scribbled notes about what I would do with Fairchild’s charitable works if my dad would let me.
Of course, I was jealous. But there was something else and I couldn’t put my finger on it.. I’d only met him once and he’d rubbed me the wrong way. There was just something so phony about him. I’d googled him up the wazoo. I couldn’t find anything incriminating but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he just wasn’t what he seemed, and it bothered me. I was used to protecting Sierra, even if I hadn’t been able to when she was in London. She told me she’d gotten mugged one night when she was on her fellowship and the idea that I hadn’t been there to get between her and danger had driven me completely crazy.
Sometimes, I felt like she was already my mate. I had the same sense of possessiveness for her. I thought of her as mine even if it wasn’t true. More than that, I thought of her as the most precious person in the world. If anyone ever hurt her, I would hurt them. In fact, they’d be lucky if I didn’t kill them. I found myself heading back to my apartment after a couple of espressos, wired up and a little paranoid about Edward Didion. If there was something wrong with him, I was going to find it out and protect Sierra from it even if it managed to piss her off.
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