by Alexis Davie
A huge part of her had expected this to be incredibly awkward. In reality, she’d just met him. He invited her to a party, and they ended up having sex a grand total of fifteen minutes after seeing each other for the second time. Then he was standing all mournful and thoughtfully, naked, after they’d had sex.
Every societal rule demanded that this be an uncomfortable scenario, but Sophie found herself confusingly comfortable.
Standing next to him, he coughed softly. She didn’t say anything about it, but it did make her wonder what all the coughing was about. As far as she knew, dragons couldn’t even get sick. She’d never heard of one catching a cold, being injured, or really anything. Their immune systems and healing factors kicked in before anything bad could ever happen, not to mention the sheer rarity of their species as a whole made their genetics something of a mystery to an average person. She passed it off. So, he coughed sometimes. Not a big deal.
She stared at the party outside without speaking. It was eerie but kind of delightful to see the people right there. She half felt like a cop at a police station and half like a creeper stalking her prey. She wondered how many times a fully nude Magnus had stood in that very spot without anyone outside having the slightest idea. She didn’t have the guts to do it now that the hormones had gone back to normal. Even standing next to him while he was naked and being able to see people gave her the creeps. Intellectually, she knew it was a one-way mirror, but her brain refused to process it.
“Well,” she said, to break the silence and because she was not sure what else to say.
“Well.”
She cleared her throat. “So, what now?”
He obviously knew what she was meaning, but he played dumb. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what the hell just happened? I mean, I’m cool with it if it was just a crazy one-time thing, and I can understand that, and I can also understand if you want this to go further, but I’m not a mind reader. I need to know what’s going on in that brain of yours.”
He pursed his lips. “May I be honest with you?”
“I’m gonna go with yes on that one.”
He met her eyes directly, taking her breath away for a fraction of a second from the sheer intensity of his gaze. This wasn’t a man talking casually. This wasn’t a man who was just speaking to hear himself talk. This meant a lot to him. The words she was about to hear came straight from his heart.
“You intrigue me,” he told her bluntly, which at first caused her to feel pretty damn talked down to, but as he kept explaining, her opinion changed. “I haven’t met anyone like you, and I’ve been around a long time. I doubt I’ll ever meet someone like you again.” He gave a long, thoughtful exhale. “At first, I wasn’t sure what the attraction was, but something about you compelled me to want to know more about you. A part of me thought that when I saw you truly naked and bare, I might lose that. But I haven’t. Somehow, you’re only more… compelling to me.”
Sophie felt half complimented and half marginalized, and she still struggled not to stare at his manhood, close enough to her leg now that she could graze him without trying. It didn’t seem to be weird to Magnus whatsoever, but she was starting to find it a bit peculiar.
“I’m glad I’m a compelling figure to you.”
“I don’t know what to feel about you,” he confessed. “You have no bearing on me. You don’t live near me. We don’t share any interests. We’re centuries apart in age. Yet, for reasons I cannot even begin to explain, I want to be near you, around you, spend more time with you, find out what makes you tick.” The way he was saying it was odd, almost like he was finding out about it at the same time she was.
“It sounds like, and I may be crazy, that you like me,” she joked but watched him carefully when she said it.
He smiled at her. “You may be quite right.”
She brushed past the fact that she’d just heard the all-time shittiest “I like you” ever and went straight into panicking about what it meant for her. A dragon had just told her that he was into her. This was completely different territory for her, and yes, it did matter that he was a dragon.
Standing before her, he looked a bit older than her, but she knew how this worked. She’d continue to age, and he just, well, wouldn’t. He’d probably get bored sooner or later. She’d caught his attention. Whoopee. Now, he was going to learn that she wasn’t all that exciting. All her normal fears about relationships came flooding back with the awful inclusion of the fact that he was biologically a completely different species. She tried to buy some time, but he instantly saw through her.
He cocked his eyebrow. “You don’t feel the same way.”
“No, I do! Don’t. Do. Whatever.” The words came faster than she could think through them. “Jesus fuck, I don’t know what to think.”
He took a long breath before exhaling it just as slowly. “Want to hear what I think?”
“Shoot for the sky, big guy.” Her chipper tone did not match the million thoughts flying around her head, like someone had put a bunch of bouncy balls in a box and thrown the box down a hill.
“I think you do have feelings for me, too. If I had to wager a guess, I’d say we’re probably both shit at relationships.”
Sophie had to admit that he was right on that front at least. She gave him a reluctant nod. It wasn’t like her relationships had all ended up in a fiery ball of failure, but… Actually, no, they had.
Magnus kept going. “What do we have to lose if we try?”
She could name about a dozen things right off the bat, namely her pride, time, effort, and emotions, but she found herself agreeing, anyway. “And if it fails, it fails. No big deal.”
He nodded. “If we try it out and it turns out that we’re massively bad for each other, we’ll simply go back to our normal lives.”
“I like this plan.”
“Of course you do. I’m a genius.” He gave her a sly smirk.
She grinned back. “What are you so smiley about?”
He cleared his throat suggestively. “Ready for round two?”
A bit taken aback by his rather blunt question at first, she nodded. “Oh, fuck yeah.”
6
Golden Days
Three and a Half Weeks later
Sophie had massive doubts about the validity of their relationship at the start.
She immediately wondered if this was a good idea or if it would inevitably crash and burn. Her money was on a hell of a lot of crashing and burning. Even beyond the whole “two separate beings” crap with her being half human, half elf and him being basically a demigod, their values and lifestyles clashed together like two bighorn sheep fighting for superiority. Wealth and the high life corrupted even the best of people. She and her sister had gotten along like two peas in a pod until she’d gotten the city fever and bailed, chasing some lawyer and leaving behind her country roots. They didn’t even talk anymore. She wasn’t the same person that she used to be.
Magnus was hot. Simple as that. She couldn’t deny his physical appeal, and the sex was great. They just… clicked, somehow. During sex, they were so unified and united. It was almost like she was with a duplicate of herself. He always seemed to know when to do the right things, knew how to complement her and make her feel good, when to pleasure and when to tease. It was almost like he could somehow secretly read her mind and do things that she didn’t even know she wanted.
But there was one teeny, tiny problem.
It made no sense for them to be together. If she had to sit down and come up with someone who would be just a tragic fit for her romantically, it would be him. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake the worry that sooner or later, be it today, tomorrow, or the next day, he’d pull the carpet out from under her and be the person she feared he was inside: spoiled, rich, entitled, and arrogant. But he didn’t. Not on the first date after the party. Not on the second, or the third, or even the fourth. By the eighth date, her worry started to fade, and she grew more comfortable abo
ut the scarlet-eyed dragon.
If he was actually a dick in there, he hid it amazingly well, and she was looking for all the signs. The moment he slipped up, she’d notice. But he just… didn’t. He had flaws, and sure, she noticed a few of them—he was a bit reserved, seemed to spend a lot of time observing without saying anything, and it irritated the hell out of her because she was never able to read his poker face—but none of them were dead killers by any means. He’d been given extraordinary abilities, the sort of abilities that would corrupt most men, but he remained surprisingly down to earth. If she could turn into a six ton, flying, fire-breathing dragon, be basically immortal, heal at a hundred times the speed of a normal person, and be strong enough to juggle train cars for fun, she knew for a fact that she’d be a terrible person. She was already bordering on high and mighty because, from certain angles, her butt looked good, and she was pretty talented at thumb wrestling.
As she got more relaxed with him, she opened up. For Sophie, opening up was a bit like a rusted hinge being pried open with a crowbar—painful, awkward, and forced, but opening nonetheless. It took her a week to want to talk about the ranch, then another to discuss her goals. She tried to spend most of the time talking about Magnus, because she found him interesting and because people liked talking about themselves. Unfortunately, it seemed like he had the same tactic, and for a good period of their conversations, it was like a game of chicken where the first person to break would talk about themselves. It worked out fairly well. She enjoyed his company, and for all she cared, he could talk about the origins of sliced bread, and she’d be happy just hanging around him. Interacting with him during the first two dates, she almost felt like she was talking to a car salesmen—charming beyond belief, full of smiles, full of clever snippets, always making her feel important. She eventually figured out that it was no act, and he really did just have that personality.
For those three and a half weeks, everything felt like a dream. At any moment, she might wake up and find herself grabbing at her cold sheets alone. A warm, unpleasantly hot dream. As the temperatures quickly turned cooler, people started going out in pants and long sleeve shirts. For just a few weeks, they’d enjoy beautiful temperatures and perfect climates before they skipped straight into cold, wet, and awful time. Sophie didn’t mind the change. After having to either sweat or wear shorts for what seemed like forever, she was more than happy to change it up. After all, everything else in her life was changing, too. She found herself being just… happy, for no reason, during the day. Generally speaking, she was a happy person, but this was a step above and beyond. She was in a better mood, seemed to sleep better, cared a little more about what she was eating and wearing, and put forth effort not to look like a homeless person whenever she went on dates with Magnus.
One date in particular seemed to embody the perfect world that she’d somehow entered—a bright, sunny day with enough of a breeze to wear longer pants but pleasant enough to invigorate more than anything else. Most of their dates had been at restaurants, or at one of their houses, and they’d even driven around and made a date out of wherever they had ended up. This was different. It was outside, at her ranch, in a special cove that she’d been visiting occasionally since she was a kid. With both of them packing picnic supplies, she’d led him down the unused path from her childhood. At first, he was all on board with the idea, but the more they walked, the more doubt seemed to come into his mind about whether she actually knew where she was going or if she was just wandering around.
“It’s here,” she assured him, picking her way around a cactus.
“Of course,” he agreed with a playfully encouraging tone, like one might use on a kid who’d shown his parent a shitty macaroni drawing. “I completely trust that you know what you’re doing.”
“Good.”
“There is absolutely no doubt in my mind. And I never noticed how you got lost a second ago.”
She hopped over a log, rattling the cutlery she was holding. “It looks a lot different now that I’m grown up!”
“Uh-huh.”
“We’re gonna get there,” she protested. “Just give it due time.”
“Of course I trust a guide that got us lost a mile ago.”
She grinned back at him. “Ha-ha. Very funny. For your information, I happen to know exactly where I am.”
“Oh?”
“Give or take.”
He nodded. “Right.”
Not paying attention to where she was going like an idiot, she went off peripheral vision and instantly snagged her hair in a low-hanging mesquite branch. Her brain didn’t process this information in time, so she took another step and jabbed herself in her high, half-elf ear with one of the spines on the tree, prompting a quick yelp. She instantly froze, hands full of picnic stuff, staying perfectly still in an awkward half-crouch to appease the mesquite tree so it wouldn’t stab her again. She didn’t even turn her head to look behind her. Even the slightest motion could get her poked, not to mention that her hair had somehow gotten mightily tangled in the quarter of a second since she’d walked too close to the low branch. So far as she didn’t make any motions, nothing would happen, but if she moved too much, she’d probably get rewarded by another thorn.
“Care to lend me a hand?”
She heard Magnus come up behind her casually. “What’s in it for me?”
“Well…” She stayed in her half-crouch. “You get my eternal gratitude.”
“Eh, what else?”
“We get to keep walking and eat.”
“Boring.”
“You don’t get shot by your girlfriend.” He snickered and reached up to untangle her.
“There it is.” He really tried, God bless him, to safely, gently remove her hair, but alas, the mesquite tree was having none of it, and Sophie happened to have extremely sensitive hair. On ninety-five percent of her body, she had absolutely no problems. Punch her in the arm, no big deal. But even so much as think about messing with her hair, and it all went to hell. After trying to hold back pathetic, mew-like whimpers as he tried to untangle her, she finally felt herself go free and stood up, muttering a quick “thanks” and trying to hide that her eyes were starting to get moist. After hanging out with him for as long as she had, she was pretty sure he wasn’t physically capable of feeling pain.
On their third date, things had been getting naughty in her bed when Magnus jerked his foot to the side and slammed his little toe into the bed frame enough to literally break the bed frame. He hadn’t done much more than grunt, pause, and keep going. That was when Sophie knew that if anyone ever tried to rob them, she had absolutely nothing to fear. That was subhuman. That was sub-dragon. That was sub-everything. It was, without a doubt, the most impressive and terrifying thing that she had ever seen. It had literally taken her out of the mood for a second. Even though things were getting hot and heavy, she couldn’t believe he’d just busted her bed with his toe. If it had been her and their situations had been reversed, that would have been the end of that. They would have stopped immediately. She would require counseling.
But, then and there, while hiking, she was determined not to show that messing with her hair had caused her to tear up. He either didn’t notice or didn’t say anything, leaving her to stiffly hike through more territory that looked vaguely familiar.
And then, abruptly, she found it: the hidden grove. The second she walked around the oak tree and came to see it, all the memories of it came flooding back. Before her was a small spring, not enough to put out tons of water but enough to produce a sweet, quiet trickle. Thanks to the water source underground, the trees around it were huge and mighty, leaning over it with thick, ancient branches and creating a sort of cove. The rope swing still hung, though the seat had rotted through. It was a little spot of paradise. Even in the middle of nowhere, even during the worst droughts, this little patch was always green.
“Oh, wow…” Magnus came up beside her. “This is incredible.”
“Told you I’
d find it,” Sophie replied, surveying the beautiful, tranquil scene in front of them.
It took a few minutes to set up the picnic. They’d brought some sandwiches made from French bread, a bit of wine, some kiwis because both of them liked kiwis, and assorted cutlery for the pie that she’d semi-successfully made for the occasion. All of it was topped with a classic, retro picnic cloth that they spread out on the ground and sat on. It was a rare treat to be able to spend time in Texas outside, and an even rarer treat to spend it with someone like Magnus. As they ate, she found herself reminiscing about the spot. For a while, all she could do was think about the swing. She and her sister had spent a great amount of time on it, back before the changes. For a split second, she wondered if she was doing the same thing—finding some city guy and changing herself for him. Then she noticed Magnus flicking a grasshopper off his leg while using a claw to open the wine bottle, and she realized that she wasn’t even coming close to doing the same thing.
While she watched him, he coughed softly, and a brief, strange look that she wasn’t able to quickly identify came over his face. When he noticed her watching him, he let out a deep sigh.
“Can we talk?”
7
Human
Magnus had put it off long enough.
He’d been coughing for what seemed like forever. It wasn’t a big deal, just an occasional cough like his throat was always dry. Since he’d made love to Sophie that first time, he’d decided to find out what it was. As of that morning, he’d gotten the report back on what it was, and truth be told, he didn’t know how he felt about it. He’d been going back and forth on whether he should lay it on Sophie yet, but right then and there, when he coughed and saw the worry in her eyes, he knew he had to tell her.