Dragon 1 Chapter 6 (Patreon)

While we waited for the book to come, I dug into the food that had arrived. I couldn’t believe the assortment of delicious food in front of me. They’d prepared a medallion of perfectly cooked filet mignon, accompanied by a side of creamy mashed potatoes. Next to it sat a plate of golden-cooked salmon. And next to that was a simple bowl of spaghetti. I wasn’t sure where to begin as I dug in, but the food seemed to vanish in no time. Morgana just watched me, a smile on her face, as I devoured the food.

As I was finishing up the salmon, one of the vampires returned, the thick and worn book in his hands. It was more of a tome than a book.

But Morgana didn’t handle it delicately. She threw it down on the table, using her finger to leaf through the pages as she traced the words with her free hand.

Peeking over the edge of the book, I couldn’t make sense of it. It was a language I didn’t recognize in a scrawled hand written text, small detailed drawings breaking up the text. Even knowing the language, I was surprised that anybody could read it easily.

Morgana flipped around the book, finding passages that seemed to reference other pages and flipping between them, trying to piece information together.

I was just finishing up the plates that had been brought to me when she closed the book.

“Do you need more?” She asked, seeing my plates scraped clean.

“No, it’s fine.”

She nodded at that and called for the server. “Bring another round of food for our friend here.”

“I said that was enough.” I didn’t need to keep eating her expensive food; pizza would be fine on the way home.

Apparently my answer was not satisfactory, because Morgana leveled a stare at me. “No, you said ‘it’s fine’. Which means you don’t want to impose, not that you’re done. Don’t feel bad. I have plenty, and I’m your host into the new waters of the Para world. What kind of host would I be if I let you leave hungry?”

“I feel like I could eat out your entire kitchen.” I admitted.

“I’ll make you a bet. If you can eat out my entire kitchen, I’ll…” She paused. “What do you want?”

I hesitated, not sure how to answer that. So I went with what was most pressing in my mind. “Not to fight Simon to the death?”

“Fine. If you can eat out my entire kitchen, I’ll pull some strings that I’d really rather not and get Simon to withdraw. However, if you can’t eat my whole kitchen, you come work for me for a few weeks. How does that sound?” She smirked in a way that told me she felt confident in her bet.

But neither really felt like a loss for me. Working for her would be a way to introduce myself to the para world and learn more. “Clarify what working for you entails. Do I get paid?”

“Good. Be careful with what you say to others. And I don’t mean you’d work here in the club. I’d get your help with my primary job, which is contract work for the para community. It’s quite lucrative, and I’ll give you an even split.” She surprised me.

“Contract work?” I needed more clarification; the last thing I needed was that to be slang for whoring me out.

“Things people need done that they don’t want to ask their clan for help with. Or things they’d rather be kept quiet.”

“You don’t mean killing people, right?” I wasn’t sure where this was going.

She waved that comment away. “No, I don’t take a hit very often, and I rarely take work that goes against my morals.”

“So you just find things, people?” I clarified.

“Tracking is a big part of it, sometimes quieting people, retrieving lost items... but I do kill often enough, though justified.”

“Okay, I’ll agree to that. But you need to promise to still teach me all the rules either way.”

“Of course, my tutelage is not contingent on this bet.” Her servants placed two more plates in front of me. This time, they served me what looked like a whole casserole dish of lasagna and a lobster. “Eat up.” Morgana said, a bit too cheerily as she clearly waited to win the bet.

***

“How does this all keep coming?” I took another bite of what would be my fifth filet mignon, and I was starting to feel sick of it.

“Because it will never stop coming.” She gave me one of her mischievous smiles, or maybe it was the fangs that made it feel like she was up to trouble.

I paused mid-bite, processing what she’d said. Clearly she’d set herself up to win, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. She did negotiating for a living, and I didn’t know much about the world. I’d have been mad if it was a real bet, but the food had been delicious and was free, so I was taking it as a win. “Is there magic involved?”

“In the para world, you should assume there’s always magic involved. But enough of that. Let me show you what I confirmed.” She turned the book around for me to read.

I almost laughed that she thought the gibberish in the book would make sense to me. “You’re going to have to help. All I see is this picture of a dragon.”

She sighed. “Sorry, sometimes I forget. Old age and all.”

I rolled my eyes, but curiosity lingered. I’d figured by that point that she was older than she looked, but it was still weird to think that the leather-clad woman who looked about twenty was significantly older.

She raised a brow at my eye roll. “Thank you. I think I’ve aged well. But I am quite old; old enough to have been alive when this was written, but just nowhere near where this was happening.” She pointed at the page and read it aloud. “I met one of the unnatural today, a powerfully built man by the name of Uther Pendragon. As we’ve talked, I’ve come to believe that his surname is not a surname at all, but a title passed down through their kind. One of great importance.”

“Does that mean there’s other Pendragons out there? Maybe ones I’d be related to?” I got excited at the prospect of a family I could meet.

Morgana sighed. “I forget how little you know. It’s possible, but there are not many dragons remaining. They were hunted in the old days, and nearly disappeared. They weren’t built for stealth to hide from hunters, nor did they care to be. They were quite obnoxiously obvious about what they were and made easy targets for the church’s cleansing in the 1700’s. While the cleansing was happening, many of us fled the area. The dragons stayed, but unlike the vampires, the dragons didn’t organize.” She shook her head. “Far too many died. By the time they realized their mistake, it was far too late.”

I tried not to show my disappointment. “So, I could be named after a powerful dragon or descended from one. What do you think that means?”

She paused, chewing on the side of her cheek as she thought. “I’m not sure. Names are powerful things, Zach. But a name means nothing if you don’t have power behind it. So far, you seem to be barely a dragon at all, just a tough, strong para. Not much more than a were.”

“I beat Chad.” I scowled back at her.

“A pup who wasn’t even channeling his pack. The strength of the weres doesn’t come from individual strength, but strength in number. If you marched up to the football field and picked a fight with him right now, it would be a very different story.”

I couldn’t help but frown.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t feed you all of that food for nothing. You’ll come back here every afternoon. We’ll train, and I’ll feed you all you can eat. Hopefully, before this weekend when I take you on a job, you’ll be able to handle yourself and maybe even survive your fight with Simon on.”

There was a knock at the door as I went to remind her that the fight hadn’t even been set yet. A servant entered holding a scroll, and dread set into my stomach.

“Do you want to bet with me on what is on that scroll?” Morgana gave me a knowing smile.

“No, I’m afraid to tempt fate.”

Morgana waved the servant over.

“An elven envoy came with this.” He held it out for Morgana. “It is addressed to him, but I informed them that you’ve taken sponsorship of him.

“Thank you. That’ll be all.” She dismissed him, and I looked at the scroll in her hand.

It looked like it was an ancient thing, browning at the edges. It was definitely not the clean lines of paper used now. But it definitely didn’t look like something that had been written that day, giving me a moment of relief.

“Elves,” She tapped the paper, “Are often artisans, or they like to think of themselves as such. They don’t like manufactured things.” Finishing her explanation, she unrolled the parchment. “You can read it yourself. They want a duel tonight at midnight.” She rolled her eyes. “Dramatic.”

“Tonight?” I asked, surprised.

“Don’t worry, I’ll push it off to next week, though they’ll push for Monday. That way you have time to at least get your feet wet in a real fight this weekend.”

“I have work.”

Morgana rolled up the scroll and gave me a dry look. “Cancel it. What’s more important to you? Going to whatever normal job that pays you a pittance, or working with me and learning what you need to stay alive?”

What she said made complete sense, but it also meant setting aside my mundane life. I wasn’t sure I was ready to do that. The para world was still unfamiliar. “Can’t I do both?”

Her responding sigh was so heavy that I knew the answer was not going to be positive. “Try if you must. It won’t work out; it never does. At some point, Zach, you are going to have to commit to one of the two lives you now lead. And there’s a very strong chance that if you are in fact a dragon, you won’t get much of a choice.”

Having choice taken away from me rankled the beast, and it growled in my chest. “Why is that?”

“Because even if you aren’t some special dragon, if you can grow and eventually transform, you’ll be sought after heavily. While the heartbeat of a dragon produces mana, everything about a dragon is magical and among the most potent reagents. Ground scales of a dragon can cure almost all ailments. Tears of a dragon are capable of waking even those in a coma.” A smirk crossed her lips “The semen of a dragon is part of a very popular beauty potion.”

I reared back. “Wait, do people actually sell this stuff?”

“Yes. And they don’t wait for you to offer it up. You stood up to an elf and now they are challenging you to a duel. Imagine what people would do for powerful ingredients like your scales. Heck, if they can get your heart, they could use it for a portion of immortality.”

But I needed my heart. That wasn’t exactly something I could part with… willingly. I felt a lump in my throat at the thought.

She leveled me with a steady stare. “But you can also use it to your advantage. You could sell your seed once a year and never work another day in your life.” At least there was that. Sperm donor supreme.

Morgana smiled at the look on my face, seeming to enjoy teasing me further. “Don’t get me started on what is going to happen when word gets out there’s a fifth male dragon around. I wouldn’t be surprised if the council steps in and starts arranging women for you and trying to find unattached female dragons for you to meet and ideally procreate with.”

“There are more dragons?” I ignored the other parts of what she’d said, focusing on what was most interesting to me.

“Offers of money and numerous women, yet you focus on if there are other dragons?”

I felt a little heat dust my cheeks. “I want to find out more about my birth parents.”

“Ah.” Her eyes softened, seeming to understand my motivations. “I don’t know. And unfortunately, there isn’t another dragon in America; the current head of the dragons lives in Dubai.”

“Dubai?” I asked.

“Where else can an insanely wealthy, several thousand year old creature saturate himself in debauchery? Last I heard, his harem broke triple digits. But he’s also provided the world with a dozen daughters, so no one blinks an eye.”

“Harem? Daughters?” I didn’t understand.

“Yes. Dragons and their ability to produce mana are needed for all paranormal, in an attempt to stop or even reverse the decline of mana in the world. That’s how important you just became.”

I let that sink in, starting to feel my head spin from all the information I’d been given in one day. “I think I’d like to go home and rest.”

Morgana nodded. “Sleep on it. Do your classes if you must, but be back here tomorrow afternoon. I’ve taken you on, so know that I am responsible for you. Running away from this and me is not an option.”

I nodded. I wasn’t the kind of person to run from a tough situation, but it had crossed my mind. Everything was changing quickly, and it didn’t feel like I had much control over it. I’d somehow gone from wanting to save lives to needing to learn how to kill.

I got up and left, but at the door, Morgana called one last thing to me. “Oh, and it should go without saying. You don’t tell norms about the para world. After the 1700’s, we have worked very hard to quell any knowledge of us, both those that spread it and those that know.”

I took her words for what they really meant. I and anyone I told would be killed if I told them about the para world. Not looking back, I stated “Understood.” And with that, I walked out of the bar and headed back to what was once my life.

Hmm where could I put the current head of dragons... I has to be some place extraordinarily extravagant. I mean, he's got to be f'ing loaded. Not to mention somewhere harems might not be odd. Ah Dubai. Maybe next book we'll head over there and meet said dragon. I'm sure that won't go poorly...