Waking The Dragon

by Alexis Davie

  Brin could feel herself going probably the reddest she had ever been. Her whole face, neck, and chest were hot. “Thanks. I don’t know if everyone sees—”

  Garrick put a hand on her upper arm. It tingled were he touched her, and the feeling swirled out from the point of contact. “No. Everyone does, Brinley, everyone sees you like that. Because it’s just objectively true.”

  More of the mostly gin, splash of tonic. She was either beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol, or the swirling tingles had reached her head. “Well, okay. I’ll pretend to believe you.”

  “Thank you!” Garrick took his hand away. She could breathe again, but all the same, she wanted the hand back. She wanted the hand in other places, too. Damn it. This was such a distraction when they should be saving the world. You’d think that would take precedence, but bodies had a way of being bodies, no matter what else was going on.

  Brin had missed the whole teenage awkward-puberty thing because she’d been home-schooled. She had done it mostly alone, with a few friends she saw now and then. Her first crush had been on a young tutor, Alex, and once her nanny had told her father that his little girl was all moon-eyed and hanging around outside the tutor’s quarters waiting to ‘accidentally’ bump into him and ask him endless questions about his life and his dreams and his hobbies, Alex had been replaced. Joke was on her father, because the next tutor, Alyssa, was even hotter than Alex. And so it had gone, with no talk from her dad, no explanation of the changes that were happening to her biologically or magic-wise. It wasn’t until she started sneaking out at seventeen that she’d got a taste of life. And then she had maybe got rather too much of a taste, climbing back in through her window as the sun rose after hours of dancing and sweating with humans. Doing other things with humans, too, sometimes. But that had been a long time ago. Well, sort of. She’d had her fill of being a bad girl, at least for a while. It became repetitive, drinking, sleeping with people without knowing their names and then trying to hide a hangover during a potions lesson, or while one of her ‘uncles’ was over, asking her questions about her lessons and her plans while surreptitiously staring at her legs.

  “So, someone will be looking for me then? If more money has changed hands? My dad doesn’t have a lot of friends, but he knows a lot of people. I should have changed my appearance, but it all seemed quite calm the first couple of days. I’ll move on after my week at Mollie’s.”

  “A week?” Garrick asked. “No way, Brin. That’s too long. And we’re going to have to do something by then. I only have a week, and the council want results—”

  “Aren’t you the boss?” She knew this would annoy him and was giving him the side eye as she said it. He rolled his shoulders, trying to ignore her, knowing she was goading him.

  “Yeah,” he said, “for now, I am. But I haven’t been exactly… statesman like in the last few, well, decades. Maybe a century.”

  God, he was old. “God, you’re old.”

  “Mature. And therefore wise, and I think we need to make it known that your father doesn’t have the book anymore. Or you.”

  This didn’t sound exactly sensible. “Won’t that just get them looking for it? Raise tensions?”

  Garrick nodded. “Sure, but it’ll draw all of them out and make them angry, and angry people make mistakes. Besides, they don’t seem like the sharpest knives in the drawer.”

  “They aren’t.” Brin had finished her drink now and was definitely tipsy again. It took the edge off the fear, at least.

  “So, they’ll come out smashing things up, unmasked, making a big to-do, and we’ll—that is, the council—will come down on Xander and his idiots with the full force of magical law,” Garrick said. “Simple!”

  Brin sighed. “Yeah, I suppose. Until my father finds someone else to marry me off to.”

  “Hey.” Garrick was touching her arm again, and she could hardly hear what he was saying over that tingling desire. “I won’t let that happen, Brinley.”

  She muttered a reply. She wasn’t even sure what. ‘Thanks,’ maybe, or, ‘Okay,’ but whatever it was, he let his hand fall, looking a little bashful about his sudden display of chivalry.

  “Shall we head off?” he asked. “We can tie down the specifics of this tomorrow… not like we can send a ransom picture of the book with a dated newspaper. I’ll need to talk to the council, get out networks… Why are you laughing?”

  And she was. Brin couldn’t stop laughing. She was almost falling off her chair with it. She leaned on the bar for support.

  “It’s just… I think that was my plan,” she said, “to stop the wedding. God, what would I have done if I hadn’t bumped into you!”

  13

  Garrick

  What would I have done if I hadn’t bumped into you!

  Garrick’s heart leapt at this. He was so full of appreciation for this witch, for how full to the absolute brim she was of life. It was like it had begun spilling over onto him, into him, from the moment they had met.

  “Oh,” he said. “I’m sure you would have found someone else to insult.”

  She smiled at him. “Yeah, but it might not have been so easy. And we probably wouldn’t have just happened to have the exact same battle to fight right now.”

  He drank the dregs of his pint while she talked, and he said, “I mean, it’s not the exact same, is it? No one’s buying a night in a hotel room with me.”

  She was still smiling at him, goofily. Harry had put another gin and tonic in front of her. “You want me to find you paying customers? You weren’t so bad—”

  “Woah!” Garrick stopped her before she loudly announced their activities that morning to the whole bar, including the sharp-eared vampire pulling pints who would certainly never let him hear the end of it. Then he picked up her new drink and took a gulp.

  “My god, Harry, is there any tonic in this?” Harry shrugged, showed his strong yellow teeth.

  “She’s like, a hundred pounds!”

  Brin took the drink from him and put the straw in her mouth. “Hundred and twenty-two,” she said when she was done, “last time I checked. Why do men always underestimate women’s weight like that? You want to be more threatening to us?”

  He knew she meant this generally and as a comment on society, which, admittedly, had been really messed up regarding gender roles in the last couple of thousand years. And especially the last few hundred. It was monotheistic religion that had really put the nail in the coffin, Garrick thought, but that wasn’t the point. He knew she meant it generally, though it was quite the gut-punch to hear he might even theoretically, simply due to his gender, be thought of as threatening to someone he so wanted to protect… which he guessed was also problematic. Five-thousand years of differing social norms were so hard to cram into one brain!

  “No,” he said. “You’ve seen me as a dragon. I just didn’t estimate your weight, and that’s the threat?”

  “In like, a sociological sense, maybe.” She grinned at him, or flashed a grin, at least, showing she was mostly messing. Then she proffered the drink. “You can share it, though. We need to be fresh for our planning session tomorrow.”

  Their fingers brushed as she handed over the glass. The tingles ensued, climbing his arm until they filled up his chest entirely. And again, breathing was difficult. It often was when they touched. How had it been so little time since they had met? So much had changed in him in just a couple of days. And she had been sullen, their first meeting at the bar. Funny, quick, lively, lovely, but down. Mean. Maybe it was the gin, but she was sparkling with light now. He wanted to say something stupid. She would punch him in the mouth. Instead, he drank, like always. Except not; this was only his second drink of the evening, and he was sharing it. He’d walked the two Bloodies off with his trek across the city, and no doubt Xander had stiffed him on the vodka, anyway. He was clearly the type.

  “Shall we get going after this?” Garrick asked.

  Brinley narrowed her eyes at him, taking the glass from his ha
nd. “What do you mean, ‘we’?”

  “I mean, shall you and I stand up and leave this drinking establishment?”

  “And go to our separate homes?”

  He couldn’t read her now. She looked cheeky, or annoyed? Who knew. He envied her power to feel out emotions. Intentions, even. “Alright, home’s a bit rich for you right now. You could come to mine to shower. Did you leave anything there?”

  Her face froze when he said that.

  “Yeah,” she said, “one thing…” She must have left the book, which was a good idea. They shouldn’t be in the same place, Brinley and the book, because whoever was after them now was after both. He wanted to tell her this but couldn’t do it here, obviously.

  “So, you’ll come and shower? And then I can walk you back to… where you’re staying.” Suddenly, Garrick was hyper-aware that anyone could be in this pub. They’d been having a lovely time, loudly discussing things that could get them in a lot of trouble. That could get everyone in trouble. They shouldn’t get so carried away. It was just so lovely to see her, even though he’d seen her that morning.

  Brinley finished up the drink and set it on the bar. “Thanks, Harry!” she called.

  “See you soon,” Harry said, with a wave.

  He has a soft spot for Brinley, Garrick thought, above and beyond the nausea charm. Then again, who wouldn’t?

  “So?” he asked as they walked towards the door.

  “Sure,” she said and stopped to look hard at him. “To shower.”

  “That’s what I said!” He held his two hands up, as if in submission to her. “This is a working relationship now, right? We’ve got things to get done.”

  Well, that was a stupid thing to say. Had he just made himself into her creepy old boss? Garrick didn’t remember how to do this, and certainly not with a young witch who had no idea of her beauty or power yet. Maybe he shouldn’t be doing it… In fact, he was trying not to, but her pull was magnetic.

  He’d had loves, of course, in his life. A human, which was always a big mistake. They lived for, pretty much, moments. But it meant they savored it. He could see her now, when she had been young, and then when she hadn’t anymore. And he’d had affairs, relationships, dalliances. But this felt like a love. This was a hard, fast fall; wanting to smell her, to hold her, to talk to her constantly about every little—

  The swing-door of The Gimlet almost hit Garrick in the face. He caught it with one hand. “Fuck!”

  Brin was laughing at him. “Sorry, sorry, you just looked so off in a dream. I was waking you up.”

  And she had. She really had. Brinley had woken him up, and now he felt like he had to make up for the time he had been sleeping. He wanted to fix the world, he wanted to dance, make love, breathe deep even when the air smelled of east London in the summer. He wanted her with him, too, through whatever was going to happen. But he knew he had to tread carefully. She was young, and scared, and far, far smarter than he was.

  Brinley walked ahead of him, her footsteps ringing off the paving slabs, her hair bouncing, leading him back to his own home.

  14

  Brinley

  Brinley was just tipsy enough to be… well, she shouldn’t be happy. She’d just found out her father was, like, a crappy supervillain. No, that was putting it too lightly. She had just found out her father valued money more than he did her, more than he did their family, the world—which he had set, now, to burn. Maybe he didn’t know what Xander wanted the book for. But this seemed unlikely. Her father knew everything. Or, rather, he knew everything he needed to, usually. Also, he wasn’t an idiot.

  But Brinley was almost happy. She walked bouncily in front of Garrick through the streets, which were just getting dark. The happiness wasn’t specific. She knew the situation was bad, but it was there. It was bubbling away within her, just a low simmer. It was more than she’d felt for some time.

  She could feel Garrick’s eyes on her back as she walked, though they didn’t speak. Some of her happiness came from being out of her father’s house, from the book responding to her, from her surprising bursts of power the last few days. Some came from the weather, the new part of the city, the gin. And yes, just a little came from Garrick’s eyes on her back.

  She waited for him when she got to his door, and he brushed past her to open up. The flat was dark, and he held out an arm to keep her back as he turned on the lights.

  “What are you—”

  “Indulge me, Brinley? I’m an old and suspicious creature. Just let me check there’s no one in here.”

  “Like ghosts? Or like bad men who want to grab me?”

  He gave her a look. “The latter. What’s wrong with ghosts?”

  Brin shrugged, though he was scanning the big living room-kitchen now. “I’ve never met a ghost. Couldn’t say.”

  “They’re annoying, one track minds, gotta find that unfinished business. But not scary.” Brin couldn’t read his tone.

  “Are you messing with me?” she asked. “There are real ghosts?” Garrick laughed as he opened the hall cupboard. A mop fell out, and they both jumped out their skins.

  “Fuck!” Garrick stepped back, then he picked up the mop. “Of course there are. God, you’re so young. And if you tell anyone I was scared by a mop, I’ll kill you.”

  “No, you won’t,” Brin said, following him to the hall cupboard, the bathroom, and then the bedroom. He opened the doors to his closet. She didn’t mean to say her next words; they just leapt out of her mouth. “It still smells like us in here, from this morning.”

  Garrick turned and smiled down at her, softly. It was the softest, the sweetest she had seen him look so far. He put a hand up and stroked her hair away from her face. He kept his thumb rubbing her cheek, fingers on her neck. He smelled good. A little sweaty, a little like cigarettes. Sweet, warm skin under that. Brin turned her face a little to kiss the heel of his hand, and Garrick closed his eyes.

  “I want to kiss you,” he said, quiet and low, “but you said just shower. And I can see, obviously, why this is not a good idea right now.”

  Brin nodded against his cupping hand. She was almost overwhelmed by her desire to be touched by him, for him to run his lovely pale hands across her breasts, for them to push open her legs and find her between her thighs.

  She couldn’t think about it and look at him. She turned to face the wall, and the hand that had been lightly on her face now slipped down her back, found her hip.

  “We have things to get done,” she said, “and sex wouldn’t help. It’s just… a chemical thing.”

  Garrick laughed. “Isn’t everything, Brin?”

  Brin nodded. “Okay, you’ve got me there, but you know what I mean. This is hardly the time to indulge our base lust.”

  “And,” Garrick said, “despite appearances to the contrary, I’m a considerate man. I know how much older than you I am, and I don’t want to—”

  “I’m an adult!” As soon as this was out of her mouth, Brinley realized that it was a sentence that did not make her sound very grownup. She felt Garrick smile behind her, felt his tickle of amusement.

  “Yeah, you better be, we already had a taster session…”

  “Gross, Garrick!”

  “Sorry. I just meant that I know that you’re an adult. In fact, you’re brilliant. But you have a lot to learn, and I can’t be the one to teach you.”

  She still couldn’t look at him. She stayed turned away. She could hear his soft breathing, almost hear his heartbeat, they felt so in tune to one another.

  “I can teach myself,” she said. “I usually have where it counts. But you’re right, this is a distraction. We need to focus. We need to stop a wedding! You know, get this dark romcom really going. And save the world, I guess.”

  Garrick didn’t laugh. Instead, he said, “Just know, I really…” The pause here left time for Brin to hear the blood in her own head. Surely, he couldn’t be about to… But no, thank goodness. “Just know,” Garrick started again, and he pulled her clo
se to him, arm around her waist, “that I really, really want to.”

  She could feel him against her, rock hard and needy for her. She couldn’t help it; she let out a small, animal moan and pressed back against him for a moment. And then he let her go, and she was halfway across the room, pink cheeked and reeling.

  “Shower!” she said. “I’ll… yeah… towels in the bathroom.”

  This time, in front of the mirror, she touched herself properly. She had turned on the shower to hide the noise, though it was a courtesy. He must know this was what she was doing. In fact, it made it better knowing, and knowing he was either doing the same now or would be later.

  She got in the shower and let the water run down her back as she continued to play. She imagined her small hands were his large ones while she pushed ripples of pleasure through herself. Soon, she had to lean against the shower’s glass wall, and then she was trying to stay quiet, biting down on her free fist, swallowing her moans. Her legs gave out halfway, and she slipped down to sit under the stream of hot water.

  15

  Garrick

  He was trying to do the right thing. It didn’t feel good, but in Garrick’s experience, doing the right thing rarely did.

  Standing in his room, he pushed back his hair and took a breath. He let his excitement, his want for Brinley, subside. It was still pulsing through him, however, much deeper than just a physical need. She’d got to him. She was right for him. He knew that on a cellular level now. He’d loved a human, and a human had loved him. That had been beautiful, although it had broken him. So what did it matter, the age difference? He just needed her to be as sure as he was. He didn’t want to hurt her, and he didn’t want to get hurt.