by Kayla Wolf
He hesitated. This was a thorny one. “I do not – keep count.”
“What do you mean? You can't be much older than me, surely, with a face like that.”
“My human form does not age.”
Lisa stared at him with wide eyes. “So you're... older than thirty.”
He nodded.
“Older than fifty?”
He nodded.
“Older than – any human who ever lived?”
“We measure age in centuries, Lisa,” he said softly.
She took a deep breath. “Centuries. And you want to date – a human woman? Someone potentially hundreds of years younger than you? Alexander, I dated a twenty-year-old when I was twenty-six, and the age gap broke us up. Are you sure about this?”
“There is a prophecy.” He hesitated. “And – we don't change. You have no idea how miraculous the speed of humanity is compared to my people. You do more in an hour than we do in a day. Take you, for instance. Yesterday, you knew nothing of who I was. Today, you are helping me fulfil an ancient prophecy, riding on the back of a creature you thought was a myth, talking freely about things you have only just learned about... it's unbelievable. Lisa, it took me months to gather the courage to come to New York City. You have more adaptability, more flexibility, more... more ability to learn than all of my people combined. The 'age gap' will not break us up. I suspect that the 'age gap' is what will save us.”
Lisa was smiling at him again. “I don't think I've ever heard you speak that much.”
“Sorry.”
“Don't be. I like it. You're an eloquent speaker when you get going, Alexander.” She winked at him. “Now let's get you a few dates.”
Chapter 18 – Lisa
They wound up scheduling him eleven dates in total – three that night, four the following day, and the rest spaced out during the week. She always insisted a first date be no longer than an hour. You needed to get a taste of the person, a sense of who they were and how your vibe was when you were together, but any longer than an hour and most people would start overthinking. Get in quick, get the lay of the land, then regroup to reflect and plan your next move. Her clients got way more second dates when they stuck to her one-hour rule. That being said, she'd often found it difficult to get them to commit to leaving on time – especially when the date was going well (which it often was, at the one-hour mark at least, because Lisa had an instinct when it came to matching up people who were suited to each other, and an hour was a great length of time to warm up to one another.)
The solution? Schedule another appointment, of course. For her problem clients – the ones she suspected would be likely to linger – she'd meet them herself for a debrief in a separate location. She wasn't sure what to do with Alexander. Hard to get a read on his social skills – would he be rude in detaching from the lady he was dating? She was setting him up with a lot of her longer-term clients, after all – it would be disastrous if he offended too many of them. That would be an uncomfortable group email to write. 'Hey guys, so I set you up with a centuries-old dragon prince to see if you were his soulmate as foretold in an ancient prophecy – seems not, my bad! No worries though! Plenty of lizards in the sea!'
Probably not.
The soulmate thing complicated it, too. Regular human beings like all her other clients, they didn't know if their soulmate was out there waiting for them – some of them believed it, of course, a belief of which Lisa didn't disabuse them, but if any of them had an ancient prophecy telling them to heal their people by finding their true love they certainly hadn't mentioned it to her. And with any luck, Alexander would know his soulmate at first sight. He certainly wasn't her typical client, but nevertheless, this was what she did for a living. It was what she was good at.
The short notice for the evening's dates was a bit tricky. She got around it by ever so casually sending through a photo of Alexander, candid, gazing thoughtfully out of the window of the cabin with his hair falling just so over that gorgeous face and chiseled jawline (did he even grow facial hair, she wondered? She'd never seen him looking anything but freshly shaved.) She took a few shots, but every single one of them was perfect. Were all dragons so goddamn good at turning into perfect specimens of human beauty? She wondered if they picked their human forms out of a catalogue. After all, Alexander had made it abundantly clear that the winged, scaled, deer-eating, four-legged creature she'd met a few times now was his truest self. That meant the human form came after. Was any element of it a choice? Had he chosen, for example, to be about six and a half feet tall? Bet he regretted it now – the low doorways in the little cottage were a constant threat, and he'd bumped his head more than once.
The photos, which she included with her emails to her clients, seemed to do the trick – a couple of women were more than happy to break their usual rule of twenty-four hours' notice for a date to see him that night. She picked a couple of places she liked – cozy little wine bars, bustling and lively enough to not feel too intimate or high-pressure, but also not so loud that you couldn't hear yourself think. They were also within walking distance of the skyscraper they'd landed on that afternoon while being a good distance from her apartment, where the wolves were likely keeping watch. She was a little worried about sending him back to New York so frequently, but it was where all her contacts were. And besides, he'd made it clear he could handle himself in a fight with the wolves. The alley had been an outlier.
While they'd been at the grocery store, Lisa had ducked into a little clothing store nearby to pick up a few simple, smart-casual outfits for the man – the shirt and slacks he'd been wearing when she met him would have been perfect if they weren't irreparably bloodstained and cut up, so she modelled the new outfits closely on that one. She packed them into the rucksack – Alexander assuring her that it was easy enough to carry looped over his talons. And as the sun sank lower in the sky, he shifted again into that strangely beautiful, luminescent creature – somehow familiar from all the fantasy books and movies she'd enjoyed as a kid, but at the same time something different, something else. She waved to him as he winged his way into the gathering dusk, wondering idly if this was how her mother had felt when she'd waved her daughter off to school for the first time.
God, that reminded her. Her parents. They'd be on their way back from camping by now, and probably wanting to hear from her – their favored campsite had notoriously terrible phone reception, but a call on the way there and back was almost tradition. She'd wanted to do a little bit of work – get a few more dates lined up, maybe, and touch base with her clients about rescheduling the next weeks' worth of meetings – but it was a Saturday night, and that could wait. Family had to come first, at least sometimes.
“Good to hear from you, sweetie.”
“Dad? I called Mom's phone.”
“She's driving.” Her father's voice on the line was crackly – they must have still been in the mountains – but she could still hear her mother yelling indistinctly in the background. “Wants to make sure you're not murdered yet.”
“Not yet, no,” Lisa smiled, but something about that particular joke felt a little bit strange now that she'd had four frightening and dangerous strangers break into her house.
“How's work? Made any magic lately?”
“It's fine.” She hesitated a little. Hard to know how much to tell her parents. Obviously, she wasn't going to tell them she was helping a dragon find a girlfriend, her mother would drive straight down to New York to have her committed. And besides, Alexander had sworn her to secrecy. (Did he know how ridiculous that was? Okay, Alexander, I won't tell anyone about the dragons that live in the Rocky Mountains. Fine.) “Working on a pretty odd one at the moment, actually.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. This guy – in his thirties, handsome, successful —”
“What's he do, then?”
“Politician.”
“Lisa's working with a politician,” she heard her dad shout at her mom. “You can't tell us which on
e, right? Confidentiality and all that?”
“Right.”
“Interesting. What's wrong with him?”
“Dad, we talked about that question.”
“I know, I know, everyone can use a little help with dating, it's this modern society that makes it difficult and blah blah blah, but what's wrong with him? A handsome young successful politician needing a dating coach to get women?”
“It's – complicated. He's an unusual guy, that's all.” She loved talking through stuff with her dad – his refreshingly irreverent attitude was always welcome – but there was a lot about this particular guy she couldn't talk about. For a lot of reasons. “He believes in soulmates,” she said after giving it some thought. Technically true.
“Soulmates. Ugh. That romantic nonsense? If your mother and I believed in soulmates, we'd have been divorced a hundred times.”
Lisa laughed as she heard her mother yell agreement from the background. “I know, I know.”
“There's no magic person who's perfect for you! Just a bunch of imperfect people trying to get along in the world. Your wife could be brought down from on high by Aphrodite herself and presented to you on a clamshell, you're still going to fight about the bills and the mortgage —”
Lisa giggled, hearing her mother's strident defense in the background of the call.
“Find this guy some tough woman. Someone professional, with plenty of their own stuff going on. Someone who can talk to people.”
“Someone like you!” Lisa's mom interjected, and Lisa heard her dad scolding her to keep her eyes on the road. When she thought about it, her parents had the perfect relationship. Full of constant bickering, true – but also full of so much love and warmth and commitment that it'd take your breath away. They could always talk about what was bothering them – always trust one another to speak the truth.
“I don't know if I want my girl to end up with some sappy politician who believes in soulmates,” her dad concluded after a brief but ferocious argument with her mom. “But have you ever been tempted to swipe one of them for yourself?”
“Nope.”
“I can always tell when you're lying.”
“Oh, leave me alone. This one's really good-looking, that's all. It's just a crush.”
“Just a crush my ass! That's the first time you've admitted to having actual human feelings for another human soul in all the years you've been in New York! I thought you might've turned into a robot. I was planning an intervention and everything. Marry him, Lisa! Make him President! Reform the healthcare system! I have so many ideas —”
“Dad! As much as I'd love to plot to take over the government with you – it's not meant to be. He's not for me.”
“That's what they told me about your mother,” her dad said smugly. “High school dropout, no job, no prospects, and her the brightest in her class at the best college in the country —”
“It's a bit more complicated than that, Dad.” She loved her parents' love story, but it didn't apply here.
“Sure. Ah, well. So long as you're happy, baby.”
“I better let you go. How far's the bakery?”
“The miles are in the double-digits. My mouth's watering already.” Lisa smiled. They'd always stopped at a little roadside bakery that was about halfway between home and the campsite. Maybe she'd go home for next year's trip. It was funny – as a kid, she'd found the long drive absolutely insufferable, though she'd suffered through it for how much she loved camping. Now, she'd love to be in a camper van for a few hours heading for a bakery.
After they'd said goodbye, she headed outside to retrieve the bedding from where it had been airing all day in the tree. It was in surprisingly good shape – old and a little faded, but obviously clean and decent enough quality to have stood the test of time. And it'd surely beat sleeping on the floor again. She made the bed, humming to herself and staunchly pretending that she wasn't thinking very hard about what her father had said. He'd always had unerringly good instincts —
Stop it, Lisa.
Chapter 19 – Alexander
Alexander, King of Dragons and leader of his people, shifted uncomfortably on a bar stool, feeling deeply and profoundly nervous. He had followed Lisa's directions to the letter, found the cozy bar where his first prospect would be waiting, arrived ten minutes early as instructed, and ordered a drink. That had been the first hurdle. The bartender had wanted to know what kind of drink, and he'd been absolutely lost. Dragons did not often have 'drinks,' and his foggy memories of human societies he'd spent time in had not helped him – the man behind the bar had just smiled strangely and said that not many wine bars stocked mead these days.
He'd been given a glass of red wine after a little more awkwardness, and he was clutching it like a life buoy. The first woman was due to arrive in five minutes. Would she be his soulmate? Would trumpets sound or a light shine down from the heavens? (Damnit, he'd started thinking in Lisa's phrases.) Was this really the best way to go about this? It was a lot of pressure. He wished desperately that he'd just insisted on wandering the streets at random. Surely she'd walk by and find him. Surely destiny would help him, even if it was just a little bit.
Besides, he was worried about the other shifters in town. Every time someone came through the door he looked up at it sharply, fight-or-fight reflexes activating – to the extent that he caught the bartender grinning at him.
“Big date?”
“Yes.”
“Try and relax, buddy. They're as scared of you as you are of them.”
“I am not scared.”
“Alright, alright.” The bartender raised his hands. “Good luck.”
He spun around as the door clattered – and this time, it seemed he was rewarded. A tall, elegant looking woman in a form-fitting black dress. She caught his eye at the bar, and her face shifted with recognition – he remembered that Lisa had sent an image of him to the women, an image she had somehow captured with one of her various rectangles.
Sure enough, the bartender had been right. It wasn't so difficult to simply talk to a person. The woman was extremely friendly – she introduced herself, laughed at many of the comments he made (none of which he had intended as jokes, but it seemed Lisa was not alone in finding him humorous even when he was as serious as possible.) He bought her a drink, as Lisa had instructed him, and asked her questions about what she did – she was a trauma nurse at a busy hospital in town. She had an early shift the next day, in fact. Could this be his soulmate? Could this be the woman who was to save his people? Perhaps her knowledge of illness and disease could help them – but would she want to leave a job she clearly found so important and rewarding to live in the mountains with a tribe of dragons? How could he even begin to go about bringing that up?
They parted ways after an hour, as instructed, and he escorted her politely to the cab she had called. Then he walked to another bar, to meet another woman, his confidence growing. This was fine. He could do this. He could sit politely in bars and listen to women tell him stories about their human lives. Helena would be furiously jealous, he thought, smiling, and resolved to try to remember as many stories as possible so that he could share them with her. He never thought he'd miss his aggravating little sister so much.
The second woman he met wore a sparkling metallic dress that made him look twice – it was almost the same shade as his scales, and he had his mouth open to tell her that before he remembered that human men on first dates didn't traditionally share details of the other body they were able to magically transform into. He eyed the glass of red wine (after his earlier embarrassment, he had ordered the same thing every subsequent time) with consternation. Lisa had warned him that too much alcohol could have this kind of effect. The woman didn't seem to mind, though – she was sparkly and effervescent, kept leaning across into his space to touch his arm. He was getting the idea that his human form was an attractive one. After all, Lisa had found him pleasing enough to sleep with – he tried not to think too much about the pa
ng of sadness that particular memory stirred in his chest. This woman told him she was an actress. Another pastime he found fascinating. A person who transformed herself into other people to tell stories... in a way, they had that in common. He was doing that right now, in fact! Could this woman be his soulmate? Again, no trumpets or bright lights. Should he be taking notes?
Their conversation went well – Alexander came away with a dozen film recommendations (“they're all on Netflix!” the woman said brightly, and he was grateful that he knew what that was, thanks to Lisa.) He was beginning to see what Helena found so entrancing about human beings. They just moved so quickly, felt so intensely, did so many things with their lives. Jane, the actor, had moved halfway across the country to be here in New York for her career – simply packed up her bags and moved, all within the space of a month. His people would need decades for a decision like that.
Feeling pleasantly warm, Alexander escorted Jane out to her taxi. She turned to him, her blue eyes sparkling– she was a tall woman, taller with the fascinating high-heeled shoes she was wearing, and she was almost elevated enough to look him straight in the eye.
“Hope to see you again, Alexander. Watch those films!” Then she threw her arms around his neck and pressed a kiss to his cheek, and was gone, her taxi merging into the New York traffic. He raised a hand to his cheek, watching the road. He wanted it to be Jane because he knew how delightful Helena would find her – but did that mean they were soulmates?
The third woman he met had reached the bar before him and rose to shake his hand when he found her. She had short dark hair and a quiet but intense bearing. He brought her a glass of wine, and she told him about her work as an environmental scientist. She kept having to pause to explain unfamiliar terms – the greenhouse effect, global warming, pollution. It seemed that in the last few centuries, human activity had caused a catastrophic amount of damage to the world. He listened, mouth agape, as she spoke. She and her colleagues were working furiously to reverse some of the damage – specifically, to remove a huge quantity of garbage from the ocean – all the while lobbying Congress to impose stricter regulations on the dumping of trash. It sounded like difficult, thankless, exhausting work – but the light in her eyes when she spoke about it was awe-inspiring.