For the gathering, I was wearing an asymmetrically cut white lace sundress. I’d sort of been thinking about a pantsuit but letting my mom pick the outfit had gotten her off my back a bit. That afternoon, I made my way downstairs with my hair falling around my bare shoulders in soft ways, a silver clutch purse in my hand. My parents were both wearing white and beige and when we greeted Eddie at the door, he was looking dashing in a white linen suit that seemed to have been chosen to match my dress. I was pretty sure my mother had sent him pictures to make sure of it, but I was a little afraid to ask.
“Look at her,” Eddie said, grinning in that perfect way of his. “Ravishing.”
“Thank you,” I said. Eddie took my hand kissed my knuckles, and I swallowed.
It felt so wrong but I told myself that was just my own stupid nerves.
I kept telling myself that even when Eddie pulled me in close and then turned me around, bringing a thin gold necklace up around my neck. I had a chain just like this. In fact, I’d been wearing it when Jude and I had made love. But the sensation of it on my neck made me think of him now; his mouth on mine, our bodies joined. That Eddie was giving me one just like that made me stomach twist and roil.
“It looks perfect on you,” Eddie whispered in my ear.
It felt like an inappropriate gift somehow. For dragons, collecting gold for their hoard is very important for a male. But giving gold to a female is a big deal. It has a sexual subtext. I even saw my parents blush and raise their eyebrows. It would have made sense for him to give me such a gift if we’d been dating for a while and were on firmer footing. But I hadn’t even kissed Eddie yet. Things were still casual. It was more like some formal kind of courting.
The necklace didn’t feel right. Gold was a huge aphrodisiac for dragons but this chain on my neck only felt cold, as if I were wearing a tiny little snake around my neck.
“Thank you,” I said curtly, unwilling to turn my head and meet his eyes.
Eddie kissed my neck, and I took a deep breath. Nothing felt wrong about that. His lips hadn’t turn into tentacles or anything.
Baby steps, I thought.
“Sierra Lowell!” Bedelia Marquez was throwing the gathering. She was the oldest of shifter aristocrats, her status as a widowed dragon making her an elite among elites. Her late husband had come from a line of dragons that went back to Revolutionary War days in New York. There were histories from that time period but my knowledge of it was sorely lacking. All I knew was that in the days when citizens of the new world had been excited to label nearly anything as “witchcraft” and burn it to the ground, shifters had been forced to work much harder in hiding their true natures. Anyone who’d lived around humans that long, had definitely learned a thing or two.
Bedelia was very intimidating, but she seemed to like me, especially now as she took my hand and twirled me around to get a look at me as we all stood in her massive marble -floored foyer. The estate was out on Long Island, hidden away somewhere where you didn’t even need the ward over Manhattan to fly. Which was good because there were going to be a whole lot of dragons taking to the skies tonight.
“I’ve just seen your friend Jude,” Bedelia said. She was wearing a long gown that looked almost iridescent. I think it was meant to mimic dragon scales. I’d already complimented her on it. “He seems to be brooding. Are you two a couple yet? You’re so perfect for each other!”
“Bedelia!” My mother said, just as I found myself blushing. Eddie was frowning, not even as if he were annoyed. He actually looked angry; glaring daggers at Bedelia which seemed like overkill to me. “Have you met Edward?”
For once, I was happy for my mother to push things if it meant she’d take Bedelia’s attention away from me and I went to find Jude. The event was taking place more outside than inside and everyone was milling around out on the lawns where big ice sculptures of dragons in various poses were already melting in the sun and into a fountain.
“Jude…” I found him at the bar under a white tent, looking somber as he stared out into the bit of forest beyond the lawns. He was sipping a cocktail and unlike most of the guests, he was wearing a dark suit. It seemed out of place but it looked gorgeous on him; flawlessly tailor charcoal grey with no tie, the first two buttons undone. His eyes seemed brighter than usual but sad too. I nudged him gently as I came up behind him since he hadn’t heard me. “Jude? Caused any trouble yet?”
“Not yet,” Jude said softly, turning now to look at me. “But it’s early.”
“Are you alright?” I said, unable to keep my concern completely to myself. “You’re so...broody lately. Is it because of what happened between us or-”
“What happened between you?” I hadn’t even noticed Edward following me but suddenly he was there, having handily dismissed Bedelia, I supposed. I flushed, probably so deeply it was conspicuous and Edward narrowed his eyes. “You and Jude…?” He looked back and forth between us. Jude smirked, and I tensed up, hoping he wasn’t about to say something stupid.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Jude said.
“Sierra, I think I deserve an explanation,” Edward said. “If there’s something between you two. Anything at all…” He’s mouth was pursed and his eyes flashed. He was angry, much angrier than he was letting on and it pissed me off a little. Edward and I had only just begun what was barely even a courtship, and I hadn’t promised him anything. “Tell me this second.”
He was speaking to me like I was a child.
Jude turned to me then, looking less cocky than genuinely confused. “You guys weren’t dating when we-”
“No,” I said firmly. “We weren’t.” I turned to Edward and met his gaze steadily. I didn’t want him to think I was afraid of him. He got off on that or something, this was never going to work between us. “Don’t cause a scene, please. This isn’t the time or the place. I’ll be perfectly honest with you, but I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“We will talk about this right now,” Edward said, and he seemed to grow larger suddenly, almost as if he was shifting. The energy in the tent shifting a little and the other dragons must have felt it because they were looking over at us now and beginning to clear out as if they expected trouble. “We will talk about how you’re apparently a slut-”
“Whoa!” Jude blurted, stepping between us. “Call her that again, Eddie. I’ll rip your head off!”
“Guys!” I said, clenching my teeth. The very last thing I wanted was some fight to break out though I realized I was much more concerned with Jude getting another black mark on his reputation than Eddie. “Stop it.”
Though it certainly didn’t help that Eddie had just called me a slut.
“Don’t pretend all this hasn’t been leading up to you taking me as your mate,” Eddie said, hissing in my face. “I have been absurdly patient with you, Sierra-”
“Patient?” I snapped. “Is that the word for kissing my parents asses so hard you must have chapped lips by now?”
Jude snorted a laugh at that. It was the kind of thing I would have said when I was younger; when the two of us had been rebellious teenagers rolling our eyes at all the stuffy old folks with their stifling traditions. But then I’d go home and be a good girl. I’d been trying to stuff myself into that little tiny good girl box and just go along with what my parents wanted.
I felt as if it was all catching up with me now.
“All I get is pressure!” I said, a little breathless now. “Pressure from you and pressure from my parents to find a mate and start pushing out the baby dragons! And I’ve tried to go along! I’ve been trying to tell myself all this time that this is what I want but I don’t know! I don’t know if I’m just trying to make myself feel like that because it’s what’s expected-”
“I swear to God,” Edward spat, “if you back out now, I will ruin you!”
“I haven’t promised you anything!” I cried.
“Oh, please!” Edward said, stepping forward and getting in my face. I could feel Jude’s rage
coming off of him in waves. There was a terrible tension between all three of us. I felt as if we were all about to burst into flame. “I flew with you and your parents! I gave you gold! You know exactly what this has been-”
“You better step away from her right now,” Jude said. His voice was low, rough with the promise of potential violence. I’d only heard him use that voice a few times in my life. Once it had been with a guy about twice his size who had cornered me in a bar. Jude had won that fight too. You didn’t want to mess with Jude when he used that voice.
“What’re you gonna do?” Eddie said in that same threatening low voice. “Are you going to make a big scene? Embarrass your daddy? Again?”
That took me aback and disgusted me more than a little. The gossip mill among us shifters was always working overtime yet somehow the way Eddie talked and carried himself, I had thought him above such things. Or maybe it had been my parents talking badly about Jude. But either way, it pissed me off.
“You think I care about embarrassing my father?” Jude whispered. “You don’t know me.”
Everyone would end up blaming Jude, I was sure. But in the end, I didn’t know who shifted first. They both seemed to at once. All three of us were still standing under the big, white tent with its nice open bar and suddenly the two of them were dragons and I jumped back when Eddie breathed fire; a warning shot that almost scalded me. Jude turned his big, horned head to see if I was safe, his eyes flashing with rage. It meant something. I thought that Eddie had just blown fire right in my direction with no thought to my safety. The two of them burst out of the tent and went at each other; snapping and whipping their tales.
As much as they were causing a scene, I saw a whole lot of stuffy old shifters who looked rather gleeful as they watched the fight go down on the expanse of lawn behind Bedelia’s giant mansion. The Draceryn Gathering has traditionally been a place for duels just like this one but nowadays they were more like formal challenges. I think they liked the idea of an old fashioned battle for love.
But it was mostly scaring the shit out of me as Jude and Eddie took off into the sky and flew at each other. When Eddie got Jude’s neck in his jaws, I gasped, and shut my eyes.
“Oh my goodness!” That was my mother, my parents appearing next to me along with a growing crowd. “Sierra, what happened?”
“I…” I shook my head and all at once it was crystal clear to me. I knew the truth that had been staring me in the face the whole time. I felt like a complete idiot suddenly. “I think Jude’s in love with me.”
Jude managed to get out of Eddie’s jaws and he took a vicious swipe at a wing, slashing him once, the first injury of the fight. But it didn’t seem to slow Eddie who soared straight up and came around and body slammed Jude with all his might. Jude lost his position in flight and the combination of gravity and Edward took them both back down to the ground and then it was a furious and messy wrestling match that made me hide behind my hands, my heart thudding painfully. I heard my mother gasp and peeked through my fingers again. Jude had a clear shot at Eddie’s throat and was holding him down to the ground. He was clearly the winner. It wasn’t as if they were going to kill each other. He had Eddie pinned but the two of them didn’t look too badly hurt and the fight was clearly over. I found myself breathing normally again as Jude slowly let Eddie go in a clear signal that the challenge was resolved and he was the victor. Eddie go to his feet and nodded, acknowledging the victory and Jude shifted back into human form.
“Oh, thank God that’s over,” I said, though I still clutched my heart.
But just as a human Jude was dusting himself off, looking only a little worse for wear, the still shifted Eddie swiped at him with his great claw, throwing him clear across the lawn. My eyes bugged out as I saw Eddie breathe in.
Clearly he was about to breathe fire and roast Jude right there. As dragons, they couldn’t hurt each other with fire. But as a human, Jude was as vulnerable to fire as any other human.
I couldn’t think. I heard screaming and realized it was me. But just as I thought I was about to see Jude burning to death in front of me before I could possibly move fast enough to stop it, three full-grown male dragons were attacking Eddie from the back, yanking him back. They got Eddie down on the ground, restraining him. Finally, Eddie caved, helpless at the mercy of not just three dragons but the rest of party who was clearly not going to allow him to murder Jude Fairchild over a romantic spat. Finally, Eddie shifted back into human form and a crowd of shifters gathered around him, keeping him away from Jude.
I looked at Jude across the lawn and suddenly, I was running. He’d barely gotten to his feet before I was throwing my arms around him, squeezing him tight. He hugged me back, and I felt hot tears sliding down my cheeks as he held onto me. I could feel his heartbeat and it calmed me.
He’s okay, I told myself. He’s okay. He’s alive. He’s safe.
“I thought he was going to kill you,” I whispered.
“It’s okay.” He pulled away, smiling sheepishly. “Dragons tempers. You know? We got carried away.”
“Carried away, my ass!” I said. “You’d clearly won, and he waited until you were shifted into human form to… What a coward!”
Jude grinned at that and shrugged. “Well. I won’t argue.” He reached up to stroke my cheek, and I leaned into the touch. It seemed obvious to me now that there was something between us. I’d been too blind to see it all this time, too sure that I knew Jude so well that I would have known all along if he loved me in a romantic way. But I think we’d both been blind.
At least, that’s what I was counting on.
“Jude.” Jude’s father came walking up to his, looking a little pale. “Jude, are you alright? I saw what happened or… I didn’t see how it started but it looked like he was going to kill you, for God’s sake. Jude-”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jude said, narrowing his eyes. “It was a stupid fight, got outta hand. I know you don’t like me causing a scene.”
Mr. Fairchild sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He looked shaken, as if he’d just come face to face with a terror he’d never thought about before. “I’m...just glad you’re alright, son.”
“Fine,” Jude murmured.
“Okay, I’ll...we can talk about this later.” He looked chagrined. He ducked his head, sticking his hand in his pockets. It was a shocking look on Mr. Fairchild really. But I was a little happy to see him actually concerned for Jude’s wellbeing.
“That was kinda nice?” I said, testing the waters.
“Screw him,” Jude said.
I cackled at that and nodded, The two of us were still standing there in the middle of the lawn. The guests were all clustered in little groups and everyone seemed a bit riled up. Soon enough they would be flying. I was pretty sure if anything the duel had bought some excitement to the Draceryn Gathering for the first time in maybe twenty years. People would be talking about this forever. I shaded my eyes as the sun blazed down and looked for Eddie. He was still surrounded by some older shifters. His shoulder was bleeding; doubtless from Jude’s swipe at his wing. He looked very contrite but at this point it only made me more suspicious. My father was there and he and a Mr. Salazar and a Mr. Holt, old and respectable shifters, came walking over with Eddie trailing behind him. The whole thing had the feel of two teams in a sports match being refereed.
“Jude,” Mr. Salazar said, nodding curtly. “Edward wants to convey his apologies. He insists he had no actual intention of um…”
“Killing me?” Jude said wryly.
“Yes,” Mr. Salazar said.
“I apologize for my behavior,” Eddie said behind him. Suddenly he was back to his usual congenial and stiltedly formal self. “My temper got the best of me.”
“Perhaps it got the better of the both of you,” Mr. Salazar said.
I opened my mouth to defend Jude on that score. I felt like I’d just seen Edward’s true colors for the first time and I didn’t think Jude had been very wrong at all, although
I liked to think at least that Eddie was telling the truth when he said he wouldn’t have killed Jude.
“I can put this behind me,” Jude said. “Consider it something entertaining for the Draceryn Gathering.” He squinted at Eddie, still looking awkward behind the others. “No hard feelings.”
“Of course,” Edward said, nodding.
The two of them shook hands and everything. I supposed it made sense in the tradition of dueling male dragons. But even if Jude wasn’t going to hold hard feelings against Eddie, I sure was.
I felt sick at what I’d seen Eddie do. I felt as if he’d been pretending to be another person all this time and the guests all returned to the party and Edward declared that he was going to go home so as not to raise anymore fuss, I found myself taking off the gold necklace he’d bought for me.
“Are you okay?” Jude said, gently holding my elbow. It was just the two of us now.
“Yes,” I said nodding. “Why don’t you go find some shade? Get a drink and cool down. I’ll be right back.”
I didn’t wait for his response, instead chasing after Edward as he walked quickly across the lawn and back to the house.
“Edward!” When I called out, he turned around immediately, and I saw the expectant expression on his face. It only pissed me off further.
Clearly, he expected me to beg for him.
So it was very satisfying to hand him the gold necklace and say, “This isn’t happening. Whatever it was, it’s over. Have a good night.”
I spun on my heel and walked back to find Jude and leave Edward behind for good.
Chapter Eleven: Jude
Somehow I’d gotten into a huge fight at the most prestigious gathering of dragon shifters on the east coast and managed to come out of it smelling like roses. Even my father wasn’t pissed at me. It felt a little like the world had turned upside down. I truly hadn’t wanted to make a big thing out of it if the elders were going to decide to let it go as an “unfortunate incident.” After all, the important thing was, I’d won. Edward knew he couldn’t take me in a fair fight now and he knew I’d stand up to defend Sierra. That was all that mattered to me.
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