5. Arlo

Hearing the sound of something going through the wall aroused Arlo from his sleep. A groan escaped his lips when Blaze’s roar rattled the house. He knew exactly what that roar meant. If he stayed inside the house tonight, he was not going to have a good day. Blaze was pissed about something.

But what else is new?

Arlo heard the sound of his door opening, and Esen’s blonde-haired head poked inside. "Want to get out of here?"

"Fuck yeah. I am not dealing with this today."

Arlo practically leaped off the bed and rummaged through his closet and drawers to put on clothes. Sometimes, he truly wished he were a Warlock instead so that he would be able to use his magic to get dressed each day. Thoughts of “being a peasant” had gone through his mind while pulling his clothes on himself and made him smirk, especially since it was a simple outfit, too: just a pair of dark-washed jeans and a hunter-green tee since the most he planned to do was walk around town and avoid Blaze at all costs.

Because if he is destroying the house, it is best just to leave him alone.

Arlo was in Esen’s room shortly after. The Breeze Dragon was looking at himself in the mirror. Arlo always managed to walk in on this guy checking himself out; it had become their little secret. Esen tried to play it off many times so that he didn’t appear that into himself. He used to believe Esen. However, when this started happening on a weekly basis, Arlo realized that Esen was a bit egotistical. Despite this, Esen had chosen a simple outfit like Arlo: jeans and a white tee. Arlo wasn’t even sure why Esen felt like looking in the mirror for this long with such a low-maintenance ensemble.

"Dude, you aren’t that pretty."

Esen jumped, and Arlo smiled. It was always fun when one of them got the jump on another, especially on a Shifter like them. Heightened sense of hearing didn’t get anyone anywhere if they weren’t paying attention.

"Shut up. I wasn’t sure if I looked good in white. I was even debating if it was a good idea. It’s so hard to keep white clean."

Arlo shook his head, "Sometimes I am concerned about you."

"I’m not that bad!"

"Sure. You ready or not?"

Another roar rattled the walls of the house. This one was enough to knock a glass off the bedside table. Arlo and Esen looked at each other. Loud footsteps on the stairs had Arlo stepping into Esen’s room and quietly closing the door. Both of them seemed to have the same idea on their face.

"Window?" they asked in unison.

They both ran to the window. Esen opened it enough that they could fit through it. One after the other, they climbed on top of the roof over the porch to the back of the house. With a small jump, their feet landed on the ground. They both broke out into a run and headed towards town. Once they were far enough from the house, they slowed their pace until they could walk.

"Why was he in that kind of mood anyway?" Arlo asked Esen, glancing back in the direction of the house. Part of him wondered if Blaze heard them and decided to fly out after them. With no large red dragon or pissed off redhead in sight, Arlo relaxed a little.

"Kaida. She left early this morning, and he was pissed because she wasn’t afraid of him."

Arlo raised his eyebrows a bit, "What?"

Esen shrugged. "I don’t know. He liked that she was a little afraid of him before, and this time, she actually mouthed off back to him. I saw it happen. It was a little sexy seeing her stand her ground."

Hmm. I guess her dragon emerging is a better thing than I thought. She is already stronger than before in her human form.

Dragons always make men stronger, his dragon said to him.

"I don’t think he realizes that his hatred for her needs to go. She is Beckett’s mate. She’s going to be around for the rest of their life."

"I know. It’s not like how it was before her dragon emerged. She is not a weakling. Fuck... she’s actually quite the opposite now. She’s more powerful than us now, right?"

"I think so. I don’t know a whole lot about her type of dragon. I don’t even think a Plasma Dragon has existed for millennia.

Esen made a weird noise. "Shit. I wonder how she managed to be one then."

Arlo shrugged, "I don’t know. Maybe she is a descendant of one. It would make sense. She was the daughter of one of the most powerful families in Dragaal. They could be powerful because they are part of the line of a Plasma."

"Can you imagine if she and Beck give birth to another Plasma? Kaida could be the reason that Plasma dragons walk the land again."

"Jeez... Kaida and Beckett would rise to power if that were to happen. They could easily take the Storm army if there were enough of them."

Esen barked out a laugh. "Blaze would be even more pissed off than he is now. How long has he talked about taking over Dragaal? Now Beckett may be able to do that just because he is mated to Kaida."

"Let’s not bring that up to him, okay? I would rather we had a house to live in. He figures that out, and he will certainly shift in the middle of our place, destroying it completely."

"Good point."

When they reached town, their plan turned into walking up and down every road. It was a way to stay out of Blaze’s way and check in on their people. It was difficult, sometimes, to do this very thing. A lot of the time, the four of them would just hang around together and plot someday to break the barrier to return to Dragaal and reclaim their right to live there.

Arlo tried to get his mind off Kaida, but it was no use. Esen was correct in his thought of Kaida looking sexy when she defended herself. Her dragon was the most gorgeous creature he had ever laid eyes on. The scales alone looked like an Amethyst geode. Various purples and how they reflected in the light were just exquisite. Arlo had seen his fair share of female dragons. Many were quite small and lean. They were certainly agile while flying through the sky, and some had speed that almost rivaled the princes. Kaida’s, however, just looked powerful with her presence. Her dragon looked as if she had a fair amount of muscle but was still lean enough to be quick through the air. The aura that radiated off her made him want to bow and kiss her feet. Then, when she shifted back into her human form, Kaida stood straighter and no longer looked like the meek girl who washed up on shore after her mate rejected her. Knowing that she stood her ground with Blaze only made him have to adjust himself when Esen wasn’t looking.

Esen suggested grabbing a bite to eat at their favorite sandwich shop. The good thing was they had an assortment to choose from and had breakfast options. Arlo ordered a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich on a biscuit with orange juice. Esen ordered a sausage, egg, and bacon sandwich that used thick pancake circles to hold everything together, instead of regular bread, and apple juice. While they waited for their food at a table, Esen had a weird look on his face.

"What’s going through your head?"

Esen made another face. "I have to ask...have you felt drawn to Kaida? And I mean after her dragon emerged. Did you start feeling a pull to her yesterday? Or even slightly before?"

Arlo gave him a little nod, "Yeah. I have felt drawn to her. I even started thinking about her. It’s like I can’t get her off my mind."

"Yeah! I don’t know what that’s about. We shouldn’t be feeling drawn to her, right? She is mated. When someone is mated, their dragon’s magic kind of turns off the pheromones to attract other mates, right?" Esen continued to make faces. Arlo could see him struggling with this.

"That’s what I was always told. When someone becomes mated, no one will feel a pull to them because there is nothing there for them. No bond to be completed."

"Yet we feel drawn to her? How is that possible?"

Arlo shrugged. "I wish I knew. By all means, it doesn’t make much sense. Prince Enzo is the only person who should feel a connection to her, considering he was the first mate chosen for her. Us?" Arlo gave it a thought, and something inside him clicked." The Great Dragon must be playing a joke on us for being so cruel to her."

Their food was brought to the table, and the cute blonde server gave them a wink. She wiggled her ass as she walked away. Usually, Brendie had Arlo and Esen staring at her. She always flirted with them and made them want more. This girl played her odds close to the chest and never let either of them go further than just looking. Today? Neither of them seemed to want to try to get their chance.

Damn. What has this girl done to us?

He pushed his thoughts aside. It was torture to even have Kaida cross his mind. He ruined his chance with Kaida when he joined in on the "fun" of training her. Arlo could have stopped himself from adding onto the moment she could have died, but he didn’t. He was relentless and treated her poorly. He couldn’t even blame her if she never said a nice word to him.

Arlo sighed heavily and looked down at his food. It almost turned his stomach to smell the savory and salty fumes. Did he deserve to eat? Probably not. Maybe the Great Dragon was doing this as a payback. What better way to teach him how awful he was to a potential mate than by making her unavailable when he was still interested? The Great Dragon could turn this off at any time but chooses not to just to show him what he was missing.

This sucks.

When Arlo took a bite of his sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich, the savory, creamy, and salty flavor was exactly what he needed. The sausage was smokey with a rush of salt quickly complemented by the salty buttery fluff of the accompanying biscuit. The creamy yellow cheese, which normally felt like plastic in Arlo’s mouth, was melted to perfection around the sausage patty, which made up the main part of the sandwich. In short, it was a mouthful of salty, buttery bliss.

"It’s not just me, right?" Esen asked Arlo. "You want her, too? You feel guilty for everything we did, and now you are wondering if we just pissed our chance at happiness away because we listened to Blaze about her not belonging with us?"

Arlo swallowed his food first and thought about how he wanted to phrase this. Yes, he fully agreed. There was just one thing bugging him. "I do want her. I am annoyed that we just fell into a hive mind and went after her because Blaze deemed it so. I just don’t know if she is supposed to be ours, which is why we feel this way. Maybe it is the higher power trying to teach us a lesson. Maybe we need to make amends before we find our mate because we upset them."

"I guess. I wish I knew the right answer. I wish I knew what this all meant so I could stop feeling like this. It didn’t even feel right to attack her the way we did for training."

"Prince Arlo! Prince Esen!"

Arlo looked over to a balding man with a barrel-chested belly waving his hand to get their attention. It was the owner of the market down the road, Mr. Kangley. He was the one who looked out for others and paid attention to things going on around the island. Arlo and Esen called him their "insider man" because he knew everything about everyone.

"Mr. Kangley, how are you today?"

"Oh! Good, good! Can’t complain. How are you, boys?"

"Good," they said in unison.

"I had to track at least one of you down. Something is not right on the island, and I wanted to bring it to your attention."

"Sure, lay it on us."

Mr. Kangley looked around to see if anyone was paying attention to them. Arlo knew this meant that the information he had was worrisome. The man only told them bad things when no one else could hear.

"I’ve been noticing people becoming a bit short-fused the last few days. Not like our usual hot-headedness because we are dragons. I’m talking about ready to throw down because someone glanced in their direction."

Arlo looked over at Esen, and he shrugged. That wasn’t something he noticed, and apparently, Esen didn’t notice anything like that either. They hadn’t even been called to break up any fights lately.

"Is it a certain area of the island? Like maybe more of the Witches or Fae or something? Lycans, maybe, because a full moon is coming?"

Mr. Kangley shook his head, "No, not at all. It’s everyone. Not just the dragons or the Lycans. I have just noticed a lot of people becoming testy over minuscule things while at my store. It’s the damnedest thing. I don’t know what’s going on."

"Well, we can look into it. If anyone causes an issue in your store, just give us a call."

"Thank you, mi boys. Knew I could count on you two. Just keep me updated. I’m sure it’s nothing...but you never know these days."

Arlo and Esen gave another round of goodbyes, ensuring that they would get to the bottom of things. When he walked away, Esen gave him a look.

"What do you think is going on there?"

"No clue."

"You don’t think..."

Arlo had a feeling he knew where Esen was going, "No, I don’t think it’s because of Kaida’s presence here. That really wouldn’t make any sense. It could be anything. For all we know, something from the mainland is moving its way down here, or people just aren’t getting proper sleep. We will keep an eye on things and make sure no one causes too much trouble."

Esen nodded and finished off his meal while Arlo did the same.

What is going on around here?