Chapter 11

11

Simon tucked his debit card into his wallet with a whimper, surprised it wasn’t steaming. Definitely contact the Bursar’s Office about delaying tuition this semester.

“I told you to let me pay.” Lilis scowled as she retrieved three of their plastic bags from Tracy’s backseat.

Simon smiled. If she could grouch at him, she was feeling better. He hated seeing her nervous around him.

“And I told you I wanted to do this.” He waved her off. “Don’t sweat it. I’m sure I can take out a home equity loan on my apartment.”

She pursed her lips, but the action melted into a small smile, and all his thoughts of bills and tuition melted away. Worth it.

He took a deep breath and held it, his body relaxing into his surroundings.

It always amazed him how twenty minutes in the car could transport him to another world, another time. No other place combined the scent of pine, dog, and that unique elementary school smell like Medford Barks Dog Park. A set of spiderweb trails that led away from a central fenced-in field sat adjacent to open soccer fields and intricate playground sets, built like palaces for second graders.

Dogs from at least fifteen different breeds chased each other around, like the United Nations of canines, exchanging slobbery toys. They raced across the field and darted amongst the trees that had always seemed like giant sentinels to Simon. As Simon and Lilis passed, the dogs paused, scenting the air, and four broke away from the group to follow from a cautious distance.

Lilis nudged him with her shoulder, frankincense and cinnamon wafting across his senses. His childhood and present collided, pulling Simon out of his memories and into a dream-world of the present, one where a beautiful woman turned into a fire-breathing dragon to save his life.

“You brought us somewhere with quite the audience.”

“Just somewhere I used to come a lot as a kid.” How easy those words sounded. A pang tightened Simon’s chest. “Figured you’d want to be away from other people for a while.”

She watched him from the corner of her eye but said nothing.

Just beyond the edge of the tree cover near a hiking trail that led over a creek and through the autumn foliage, a small bench offered a shady spot to relax and, as long as the dogs were otherwise occupied, snack. The smooth cedar planks pressed into his upper back as he settled with his arm around Lilis.

She opened her first styrofoam treasure chest, revealing a steaming omelet packed with more meats than he knew existed. She took a bite and groaned, leaning back against his arm, her whole body relaxing.

A curious border collie craned his neck forward, sniffing at Lilis.

“ Sulmum, ireeshu ,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

Simon tilted his head to the side. “What does that mean?”

“Hi, stinky.”

It backed up with a grimace.

And sneezed.

On her omelet.

“If you think that’s going to deter me, think again.” She looked it dead in the eye and took another bite.

Simon wrinkled his nose and speared his own omelet with his fork.

“What?”

“That was disgusting.”

“It’s seasoning.”

Simon stopped with the fork still in his mouth. Spitting his food out with a dry heave, he closed the lid again.

Lilis shook with laughter, tossing her silky black hair over her shoulder. “Relax. I shifted my mouth. It was pretty much disinfected the second it hit my tongue.”

“You can shift parts of yourself individually?”

“Oh yeah,” she said in between bites. “It’s my party trick.” Her eyes met his, the forest and mint greens becoming even more vibrant before her pupils slitted.

Simon sucked in a breath, his body instantly hardening at the memory of her doing that in his dream.

While she rode him.

He swallowed a groan and put more food in his mouth to keep himself from suggesting she let him snack on her . He would not pressure her.

A thought struck him. “Hang on. How much control over your body do you have? Really?”

She polished off her omelet and reached for her second breakfast, lifting a knowing eyebrow at him. “I’ll show you when I’m done eating.”

Hell yes .

Her confidence and assuredness set fire to his body quicker than any of her flames could. He adjusted the breakfast box on his lap to hide the uncomfortable bulge his scrub pants would do nothing to conceal. “Two nights ago.” He forged ahead with his question, thoughts still straying to her offer. “Your heart rate, temperature… you put those all in the ranges I gave you to screw with me, didn’t you?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know the heartrate of a human? You gave me a range. I matched it.” She took a bite of her breakfast sandwich and winked. “Screwing with you was an unexpected benefit.”

The collie sniffed around their feet, nudging at the bags. Lilis shooed him away as a golden retriever appeared, giving a little whine. She growled . “Piss off, smelly.”

“Oh, come on. No one hates retrievers.”

“If you had my sense of smell, you’d have a different opinion. As if it isn’t bad enough that they reek , their stench is similar to another demon, the enemy of dragons.” Her face morphed into a snout, and she spat a tiny fireball at an entrepreneurial dachshund that had gotten too close to one of her bags. “And I constantly have to put them in their place”—she raised an eyebrow at the dachshund—“when they think they can steal my breakfast .”

Simon laughed, swirling one hash brown in hot sauce. “Okay, so how do you do that part? Breathe fire?”

Lilis reached for a bottle of water. “We have an extra chamber in our bodies for mixing gases we pull from our stomachs. Inhaling puts pressure on those gases, making them easy to ignite.”

“Doesn’t any food come out when you do that?”

She downed half the water in a few swallows. “When we’re little, yeah. But as we grow, our digestion changes and we practice releasing fire so that it happens less and less. Fledglings are pretty putrid little scraps to be around, though.”

Simon nodded sagely, then grinned. “So… if molten food can come out the top end…”

She squirmed in her seat as though reliving a particularly uncomfortable memory. Color rose in her cheeks.

“Well, well. I didn’t think Patient Twelve could blush.”

“Only if I’m really sick, okay? It hasn’t happened since I was a kid!”

Simon guffawed. “That’s amazing. How do you hide that?”

“It was a long time ago, so I didn’t have to work too hard. There was a lot more space back then.”

“Oh, this is too good. I’m picturing some poor medieval town torched because you got a case of the runs.”

She snorted. “Try further back.”

“How much further?”

“About sixteen hundred years.”

Simon squeezed his eyes shut, trying to calculate. “That’s… wait, that’s…” He opened his eyes wide. “You’re how old? ”

“Three thousand six hundred years.” She tipped her hand side to side. “Give or take.”

“So, what you said earlier… what language was that?”

She stuck the last bite of sandwich in her mouth and blew air out her nose. “Akkadian. I’m from the area humans now call Lebanon. It was Assyria when I was growing up. Is this going to be a problem?”

“Which part?” Simon laughed as a bulldog sat down expectantly in front of her, a rope of drool hanging from one jowl. “The part where you’re a dragon or the part where you’re older than dirt? I feel like we got the hard part out of the way yesterday.” He tightened the arm around her shoulders.

She opened her third breakfast box and poured enough syrup on her Belgian waffle to turn each crevice into a small lake. Food disappeared into her mouth so quickly, he almost didn’t see the fork move.

Now he understood her embarrassment about needing food. Had he just hit a nerve with her age, too? Hopefully not, but sticking clear of physical questions couldn’t hurt.

“Why do you firefight, Lilis?”

“Where else am I going to soar around in a real fire?” Though her words sounded flippant, a deep sadness bled through them. For a long moment, he thought she wouldn’t continue. She stirred her waffle soup, staring straight ahead as though debating something.

“There aren’t many safe spaces for dragons these days. This arrangement works for everyone. I get to play in the flames, and more humans stay alive.”

She stopped stirring, and the very air around her seemed to still. Her pain reached out to him. He stroked his knuckles up and down her bare neck, feeling the tension under his fingers. She spoke as if she didn’t care. But the tightness in her body, the blankness in her eyes—she did. And she was trying to deny it.

“This one’s different, though,” Simon said softly. “Isn’t it? Otherwise, you wouldn’t care so much about keeping your job.”

“Most demons don’t really like me, and I don’t like them. But that doesn’t mean I want to see them get killed. Someone’s been starting fires across the northeast, designed to draw in and trap demons. I was positive it was a human until yesterday. Now, I’m less sure, but I still think one of them is involved somehow . Moving among the humans as one of them is the easiest way to find out who.”

She ate another bite of Belgian waffle stew, and some of the whipped cream stuck to her bottom lip, stark white against the berry. Her pink tongue was only just visible. He traced that lip with the pad of his thumb, slipping the tip in her mouth for a second before wiping away the cream.

He licked it off his thumb. “So sweet,” he murmured before capturing her lips. “Even sweeter.”

“It’s the syrup,” she whispered, opening her mouth to deepen his kiss.

“No.” Simon cupped her cheek, holding her still to taste her better. “It’s not.”

The Rottweiler chose that moment to bark, and Lilis backed up with a snarl. She inhaled as though to say something, then grimaced and let out a pained grunt. She rubbed the crescent moon scar at the base of her neck and rolled her shoulders.

“May I have a look?”

Lilis waved him off. “I’m fine.”

“You seemed pretty beat up yesterday.”

“Yeah, well. I wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t just beaten the crap out of a dragon that fights dirty. Cowardly asshole poisoned me. That’s probably why I broke so much when we hit the ground.” She laughed, but Simon’s arm tightened protectively around her.

“Then please let me see.”

She blew out an indulgent breath, but pulled her hair out of the way. Tilting her head to the side, she revealed her neck and the top of her shoulder. Simon pressed gently, feeling for any swelling or tender spots. Her light brown skin was soft and warm under his hands.

“I don’t feel anything here other than tightness. And heat, but that’s probably because you’re hot enough to destroy my thermometers.” He winked. “And my sanity.”

Goosebumps erupted under his fingers, and Simon left his hand on her shoulder, massaging her and enjoying the feel of her skin. It simultaneously satisfied his need to touch her while leaving him craving more of it. More of her .

“You don’t have to take care of me, you know. I can usually take a much harder beating than that.”

Simon swallowed. She spoke from experience. “I know I don’t have to. I want to. And I’m sorry you’ve been through that.”

“Don’t be. Life of a dragon with shitty luck.” She shrugged. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I get to ask you all sorts of invasive questions now, right?”

Simon chuckled. “Sure. Fire away.”

Lilis wrinkled her nose. “Whatever you say.” She inhaled deeply and opened her mouth, revealing a small glow.

Simon clamped a hand over her mouth with a laugh. “What I mean to say is: ask away.”

“You have to be very specific.” Her eyes sparkled as he removed his hand. “Were you serious about that home equity thing?”

Simon took a drink from his water bottle. “You don’t mess around, do you? Right to the financials.”

She lifted both eyebrows, and he sighed.

“I’ll be okay. My job pays well enough, and I have a little flexibility in tuition with my classes.”

She snorted. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“It’s not a lie.” Simon tried not to sound defensive and failed. Especially if I decide to pause taking classes next semester. That’s flexible.

“Fine. We’ll pretend that’s the whole truth. What about here? Where are we now, Simon? Really?”

His whole body tensed, and he fought down anger. “I told you. My parents used to bring me here a lot when I was little. I guess I wanted to be here after yesterday.”

“But we’re not here because of happy childhood memories.” Her gaze seemed to reach past all his barriers to the very center of him. “Are we?” She penetrated him, surrounded him.

Like a predator.

The breath whooshed out of him. She knows. She backed me into a corner on purpose.

He pulled his arm back, pain twisting his gut. Lilis knew the subject would hurt him, and she pushed him anyway.

“No.” His voice had a frosty bite. “We’re not. We’re here because I wanted to honor a promise they couldn’t.” Simon’s parents made the promise to him. It should be his decision to share it, but she was taking that from him. Maybe she was having fun toying with him like this. “You know. I’m not surprised you hate dogs. You have more in common with a cat.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means mind your own damned business.” He shot to his feet. “I need to go.”

Sadness flashed in her eyes, but she hid it quickly. She stood and shoved the two unopened boxes at him. “You might as well take these.”

She turned on her heel and stormed off in the direction of the ranger station without looking back.

The uneaten breakfasts in his hands weighed like anchors on his already sour mood as he watched her depart. She’d left him with nearly half. He hadn’t meant for her to give any of it back to him. What if she hadn’t gotten enough to eat?

What do you care?

But he did.

She was still healing, after all. The fact that she had a scar showed him she was more capable of being hurt than she let on.

He nearly fell over at his last thought.

Moon scar.

How had he dreamed of if a wound capable of causing it before noticing it on her this morning?

That wasn’t the first time you’d seen her naked , he reminded himself. She was naked twice last night, too. You probably saw it and didn’t realize it.

True. But coupled with the white scales on her tail, the sense of precognition left Simon feeling completely adrift. Something was seriously wrong with him if he was able to predict things about her before he saw them in real life.