by Starla Night
“Now, for ourselves, we’re going to investigate our invisible similarities.”
She passed out a worksheet to answer questions like, “What makes me angry is… What makes me happy is… My favorite thing is… My greatest fear is…” and then she instructed them to add a question from the board at the bottom: “My pet is…”
“After you fill out the worksheet, count up your similarities with the other classmates in your group.” Mentally, Amy ticked the learning outcomes for the lesson as she doled out the instructions. “Which group do you predict will have the most invisible similarities? Let’s find out.”
They shared in groups and she went around listening to the investigation. The groups also filled in pie charts of their similarities and translated the charts to percentages.
One of the parents stopped her. “Is your husband okay?”
“Yes.” She caught Pyro’s eye, still watching with interest from outside the class, resting his palms on the window. “He came to support me tonight.”
The parents were quite surprised.
“If no one objects, I’ll introduce him at the end of class.”
They were obviously curious to see the person who had survived kidnapping and torture.
She brought the class back together for their final report.
Her students predicted that the group composed of three best friends or same sports players would have the most invisible similarities, but after reporting out, a more creative group won. In the pet example, for instance, three had pet hamsters and the fourth had a pet rat, so they counted it as “We all have pet rodents” and got the most similarity points.
“I like how you worked together,” she said, silencing grumbles, “because it shows how differences might actually be similarities after you widen your view. If we did this activity again, I bet every group would discover even more similarities.”
Everyone immediately wanted to redo the activity, but she just had to time for them to get out their reflection journals and write a paragraph of what they thought.
While they were writing, she approached Pyro.
He studied the class with avid curiosity, like every single thing they were doing was completely new to him.
She rested her hands on his. “Do you mind doing a little show and tell?”
He glanced behind him at the administrators. “You don’t mind?”
“I want to introduce you to everyone I know.”
One corner of his mouth quirked.
That gorgeous lopsided smile made her heart flip. He had been rejected, discounted, and relegated to the unworthy shadows so long he’d put up a reckless front to protect himself. Even she had been fooled.
But Pyro was more than worthy to step into the light and be recognized for the smart, confident, caring male inside.
Yes, he was reckless. Yes, he ran headlong into danger and flirted with the edges of what was right. But that roughness only made his strengths shine with more beauty. He’d known true injustice in his lifetime and he had overcome it with fiery charm.
Amy recognized this as she walked him to the front of the class. “This is my husband, Pyro.”
Pyro waved.
“He’s a businessman. He has five brothers and one sister. He has no pets. He plays video games and pinball. And he came here to class today to watch me teach and meet all of you.”
They studied him intently. He grinned.
“He has many similarities to you, but one difference caused him to get hurt earlier tonight. Can you guess what the difference is by looking at him?”
Most everyone shook their heads or remained politely silent, but one of the students said, “Maybe.”
Pyro blinked. “You can? How?”
The student turned red and played with her fingers shyly. “You’re wearing a suit.”
A rumble of laughter came from the parents because many of them wore suits also, and so did the administrators.
The student squirmed.
Amy stepped in. “That was a brave guess. He’s very brave also, so that’s actually an invisible similarity you both have.”
The student straightened, pleased to be called brave.
“My husband has one difference that made him a target.” To Pyro, she lowered her voice and tapped his hand. “You want to show them?”
“The whole thing?”
Wasn’t he not supposed to shift? Trust Pyro to show off for her and hurt himself. “Just do your hand. No claws.”
He held up his hand and his skin shimmered to red.
Everyone leaned forward with an audible, “Whoah!”
“My husband is not human.” She wrapped one hand around his shoulder and leaned against him in support. “He’s a dragon.”
“Most people can’t tell.” Pyro rotated his hand to show the kids who were practically leaning sideways out of their seats to get a close look. “Unless I do this.”
One of her students looked at her. “Can we touch?”
“That’s up to Pyro.”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
The kids poured out of their seats and swarmed him. Exclamations of “It feels like my pet snake!” and “Ooh, my pet lizard,” floated above the chaos, along with one bright, odd observation, “It feels like my cat.”
What kind of cat did her students own?
“His other hand feels normal!” one of them exclaimed, and then everyone went back to feel both hands.
She stopped them before they got ideas to feel up anything else.
“I want to write in my reflection journal more about what I learned today,” one of her students said.
“That’s the mark of a careful scholar,” she said, and the entire class elected to stay after the bell and write more in their journals.
Meanwhile, the parents lined up to meet Pyro. He had well-earned cynicism about his fame, but the conversations were about normal, respectful, “adult” topics: the school, his business, and his pinball machines. One parent asked if the school would be sponsoring a field trip to the dragon shifter’s business; another wanted to know if future study abroad trips for high schoolers might include Draconis.
As the last parents filtered out of the room, Pyro spoke to her out of the corner of his mouth with a cheery twinkle. “Great lesson, teacher.”
She appreciated his compliment. At least he had enjoyed it, and she had too. “I may have just torched my job opportunities.”
“I was riveted.”
An administrator walked up to Pyro. “I didn’t realize you were Amy’s husband. We’ll need to get you a badge and take your photo for security so there won’t be any more questions. Do please stop by the office whenever you visit. We have candy for visitors.”
He looked at Amy with wide eyes. That was a change. “Now?”
“Yes, if you have a moment.”
The administrator dragged Pyro away.
Amy packed up her Nobel Prize portraits. The excitement and tension of the day drained out of her and a slight headache twinged.
Corinne stood close by.
Amy filed away the photos, unsure of what to say. She’d done the one lesson Corinne had told her not to. There was no easy way to apologize.
“Amy,” Corinne said.
She couldn’t run. She had to be fearless and face the consequences.
Amy closed her folder and faced her mentor, who’d taken her under her wing and given her so many opportunities and unending support, and affirmed her desire to be a teacher. And who she’d just betrayed. “Yes?”
“That was beautiful.” Corinne smiled whole-heartedly and squeezed Amy’s forearm. “You taught from the heart. Watching you, I felt reinvigorated about the whole profession.”
A lump formed in her throat. She swallowed. “Even though I did the wrong lesson?”
“Sometimes the best thing is to ignore your elders and go your own way.” Corinne’s smile changed to determination. “This school has the chance to hire an exceptional teacher. Wherever you land, you’l
l do fine.”
The lump swelled. “Thank you.”
“And, if the administrators are smart, they’ll keep their once-in-lifetime chance to advertise dragon shifter study abroads and field trips.” Her cynical smiled lit on the unusually jovial administrators surrounding Pyro in the hallway.
Pyro’s smile looked forced as though he were hitting the end of his endurance.
Amy strode forward, finding a good place to insert herself, and told him, “Let’s go home.”
He perked up. Bidding the administrators farewell, he walked with her out to the beautiful courtyard and twined her arms around his neck. “Your home?”
“Our home.” She rested her forehead against his shoulder. “In Vegas.”
Chapter Thirty
Pyro’s excitement fought with his tiredness.
The med patch had dispensed enough energy to get Pyro through Amy’s lesson and not a minute longer, emphasizing the youngest Onyx sibling’s diabolical mind. Pyro was so grateful to go home.
To his lair. With Amy. Where she belonged.
He couldn’t help teasing her on the flight. “And on a school night.”
“It’s almost the last week of class.” She hugged him gently, pressing her soft curves where he hungered for them the most. “Besides, I know you’ll fly me in on time.”
Her relaxed, confident tone was such a change from the must-have-everything-planned nervousness that had strangled her in the beginning. She sounded more certain of herself and more certain of him.
He would endeavor to deserve her faith.
“You were really watching the class,” she said. “Was it interesting?”
“Fascinating.”
“Not like school on Draconis?”
“I was given the choice between a miner’s hat and a soldier’s gun. And even that wasn’t much of a choice.”
He’d wanted to mine like his father but had been forced into soldier school after no mines would apprentice him. His “radioactive” scales and eyes assured the mines he had a dangerous attitude before he ever got a chance.
Perhaps a rounded education and career choices made humans creative. Dragons too might thrive if they received a balance incorporating language, history, math, and self-discovery.
But that was a question for another time.
They landed in his Las Vegas apartment … and then he needed to lie down. His chest ached and a draining sensation started behind his bandage.
She noticed.
“You look pale.” Amy helped Pyro to the bed and took off his suit, searched his closets for something more pajama-like to wear, and gave up and returned to him when he said he didn’t own anything like that.
She had changed into an adorable lavender chemise that looked far more classy cupping her full curves than it did on his closet rack. She brought him a bottle of water and climbed onto the bed next to him. “I don’t suppose it’s possible to get delivery.”
“Call Kyan.”
“I was thinking of getting the ingredients for making you a soup.” She spread her fingers across the white body-sculpted bandage. “How did the negotiations with Sard go?”
“No need to torch his building,” he assured her.
She wanted details, so he cast his mind back to the negotiations that had begun in the medical room, as soon as she left, while he was still half naked on the air cushion.
“I’m here to deliver the terms of our counter offer,” Pyro told Sard with a straight face. “I apologize for my lateness. I was held up by circumstances beyond my control.”
The heavyweight CEO snorted. “Never thought I’d hear those words pass your lips.”
Automatically the urge to growl rose. He stamped it down. “What words?”
“An apology.”
Funny. He let the weight of his silence prove his control of the conversation. Sard would neither intimidate Pyro nor derail him.
Sard waved his fingers. “Fine. Let’s have it. Your counter offer is?”
“You’ll produce the jewelry and you’ll become our subsidiary.”
He blinked.
“As our subsidiary, we control the hiring and firing decisions. And as terms of the agreement, we will freeze all current employment as you desire.”
“My brother will never consent to run a subsidiary.”
“He will take my position as vice president of the main company.”
Sard’s chin dropped. “And you?”
“Will head your subsidiary.”
He lifted his chin again and crossed his arms. “You’re going to rule over a bunch of aristocrats? There’s a low caste bastard male’s dream.”
His blood heated as Sard clearly intended it to. But he controlled his anger. “Any male who can’t accept the ‘dishonor’ is welcome to leave.”
Sard’s jaw clenched.
Pyro pushed on with the terms. “Regarding the Zentangles, we will not sell the finished product.”
“You must!”
“We will sell books and kits. Amy will teach summer classes on how to produce this unique human craft.”
“Dragons cannot produce art. They do not possess creative skills or ambitions—”
“That remains to be seen.”
He shook his head. “No. We have seen it. Dragons slavishly copy the creativity of other species. We lack the mental freedom to create. And that is why society has crystalized into aristocrats, low caste, and unquestioning obedience to rules that cause needless pain.”
“Zentangle patterns are intended to be slavishly copied until the creator feels empowered to combine them into a unique art form.”
“That will never happen.”
“Then perhaps dragons don’t deserve to be free.”
Sard blinked.
“You wish to burn down the hierarchy of society by releasing fake family crests and causing chaos.” Pyro smiled with all his teeth. “We wish to distribute the fuel, wicks, and matches to light a fire within each dragon to burn down his inner rules and become free.”
His gaze narrowed. “Is such a thing possible?”
“Is it possible for a low caste dragon to negotiate business with an aristocrat?”
Sard shook his head at the same time a new light entered his eyes. Here they were, discussing business in relative peace. “Paper products will easily pass the censors.”
Pyro nodded.
“I would rather distribute the finished product,” Sard grumbled.
“Your ‘uncreative dragons’ may surprise you,” he said, falling back on Amy’s philosophies. “Things are not always as they seem. Meaningful change begins from within.”
Sard grimaced.
Exporting the product as an educational kit had been Flint’s idea. Amy assured Pyro the craft was simple to learn and meditative to master. They would test her assertion on his and Sard’s employees. If true, once the craft made it into popular consumption, even if the art kits were recalled, it would turn into an endless hunt to suppress all dragon creations.
And the dragons, empowered with their own potential, might just begin to change.
“Very well.” Sard’s lip curled, exposing his dragon fangs. His deep voice shook the very walls. “If you mistreat my employees, I’ll have your scales pinned to my wall.”
“So long as they don’t consider obeying orders from a low caste bastard to be mistreatment,” Pyro growled back.
A slow grin spread over the heavyweight aristocrat’s face. He loosened his shoulders and shook his head, then gazed around the spaceship. His company, his legacy. The whole world. “It’s going to get hot in here. I hope you’re ready for it.”
“Of course I am.” Pyro flexed his claws, the radioactive red scales shimmering along his arms. “I like to play with fire.”
“And so you do,” Amy agreed.
Now, hours later in Pyro’s Las Vegas lair, he finished the story and relaxed as she stroked the new pink skin growing under the edges of the bandage. Her gaze played over this nude form to the hard er
ection bulging from his waist. “What’s this?”
“My feelings for you.”
Her soft smile turned wicked. “A good girl shouldn’t encourage you.”
“A very good girl should.”
She wet her fingertips and stroked him from tip to base and back, sliding with silky pleasure. He moaned.
Then, she frowned. “You’re still healing. Is playing around like this safe?”
He didn’t care. “Absolutely.”
She licked her lips, causing him to shudder, and then dipped her head, taking his length into her hot, wet mouth. Her tongue stroked the ridges of his vibrating hot cock. His balls clenched.
“Clearly this isn’t your first time,” he managed.
She lifted her head. “If you can form a witty comeback, I’m doing something wrong.”
He grabbed her soft arm and drew her up his body to straddle one thigh. “You’re doing everything right.”
“Prove it.”
He cupped the back of her head and drew her to him. “Gladly.”
Their mouths united and tongues tangled. Tasting, enjoying, savoring. The pleasure of sex with Amy was intense from the first kiss to final explosion.
He stroked her curling tongue, then dipped under her chemise and scooped free her heavy breasts. Swiping across her nipples, he sucked one candied peak into his mouth and massaged the other. She whimpered with pleasure. Her wet center slid across his bare cock.
He released her. “No panties?”
She shook her head, the wicked smile returning. “Do you like it?”
He liked everything about her. This new confidence was most sexy. “Yeah.”
She rubbed her slick center across his hard cock, making him groan, and then positioned herself over his tip. He steadied her. She slowly bore down, taking him in. Her tight channel squeezed his cock with delicious pleasure. She moaned as they connected, complete.
Here was where she belonged. His wife. Gorgeous, innocent, and so responsible it pushed him to be a better male. She deserved it. And so did he.