Dragon 1 Chapter 12 (Patreon)

Jadelyn eventually calmed down, and the calm aristocratic mask fell back on her face. I gave her an extra moment to collect herself before we headed back to Bumps in the Night. I hoped that Morgana had found better luck than we did when she talked with the other pack.

“You know, a vampire owning a nightclub is kind of cliche.” I said, going to open the door.

“Do not say that to Morgana’s face.” Jadelyn warned me with a shake of her head. “Almost like you’d want her to rip your head off.”

I held my hand up in defense, while the other held the door for Jadelyn. “Thanks for the tip. I would rather keep my head attached. Unless, wait, are there para like headless horsemen?”

“There are, but I haven’t seen one around Philly before.”

The club was quiet, and the lights were all on. Morgana’s crew seemed to be still cleaning up from the previous night’s party. The dark floors were staining mops brown as the workers tried to clean the dance floor.

My phone buzzed, and I fished it out. I couldn’t help but smile as I saw it was from Scarlett. I started working on a flirty reply back.

“She must be special to make you smile so much.” Jadelyn said coolly. Her expression was a mask that I couldn’t quite decipher. But I figured it had to do with her unhappy arrangement with Chad. It probably wasn’t fun seeing a happy couple.

“It’s just a first date, but… yeah, I think she’s going to turn out to be pretty special.” I couldn’t help but smile even bigger, thinking about all the places it might go. “Speaking of, any tips for dating outside the para world?”

“First date.” Jadelyn smiled and looked up into the lights. “Exciting. I’ll bet you have all sorts of romantic plans.”

I scratched the back of my head. “Just dinner, maybe some dancing afterwards.”

“Nothing?” Jadelyn asked, sounding surprised. “You at least have to know what her favorite food is.”

I thought about it for a second. Based on our conversation, I guess I’d go with muffins? At least, she’d seemed to like them. They could be her favorite. “I do, but it's breakfast food.”

“Doesn’t matter. Just remember it. It always helps to show you remember what she likes; make sure you have some at your place.” Jadelyn coached me as we found a table. “Besides that, just be a gentleman, but not a doormat.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I can do that, but sometimes my beast likes to get a little pushy.”

“Beast?” Jadelyn asked, her brows pinching down. “Right, why I thought you might be a were. Is it causing trouble?”

“Sort of.” I answered. At that moment, my beast was drooling over Jadelyn. “It’s like holding a part of myself back at times.”

She smiled and leaned close, her lips brushing just past my cheek. It was intimate in a way that should make me uncomfortable, but then a soft clear note rang in my ear. Jadelyn sang a quiet song just for me and my beast. There were no words, simply a lapping of vocals that washed through me and the beast, imparting both of us with a sense of peace and tranquility.

The beast was satisfied, but I could also feel it dig its claws in. It was calmer, but it was also more focused than ever on Jadelyn, like it wanted to possess her. But when she finished, I did feel more aligned with my beast.

“That’s amazing.” I spoke after the song ended. Not only did the beast and I feel less distinct, but I felt like I had gotten a far better night’s rest than the pitiful three hours I had managed.

Jadelyn sat back in her seat, a blush dusting her cheeks. “Don’t tell anyone I did that. A siren’s song is typically a very personal thing. Chad wouldn’t be happy I did that, but damn him.”

I couldn’t help a smirk quirk up at the corner of my lips. “Do what you want. I’ll support you however you want to proceed.” My words only made her blush deepen, a warm smile dancing across her own lips. I had meant to be supportive, but she’d seemed to have taken it as something deeper.

The moment grew strained and awkward for a moment, so I tried to push past it. “So what else can siren’s do?”

She startled, and her eyes focused back on me. “Sorry, what did you ask?”

“Thinking of something?” I asked.

Jadelyn muttered something under her breath so low that I couldn’t pick out what she said. “Anyway, you were asking about sirens.” She seemed to focus back on the present. “We can do a wide variety of mental magics, using our voices as a medium. It’s powerful magic, but out of water, it has its limitations. We can do some simple cantrips of other things such as evocation.”

“Strength or speed?” I asked.

“Outside the water? Still within the human range, but in the water we are incredible. Not much wants to tangle with a siren in the water. It’s why we spend so much on enchanted items.” She brushed the pendants hanging from her neck. “They keep us safe outside the water, too. After all, it’s pretty hard to do much if you keep yourself in the water. We need to be able to operate on land as well.”

“Most of the world is water.” I added helpfully. But she didn’t seem to think it was quite so helpful, her face set into an unamused glare.

“Look at you two. So cute together.” Morgana’s Swedish accent spoke up behind me. “How did your investigation go? I hope it went better than mine.” She swung around a chair and mounted it backwards, her leather pants crinkling against the chair’s own leather padding.

“Not so great.” My eyes darted to Jadelyn, whose eyes dipped down. I avoided the parts that were less than flattering to the siren and gave Morgana the rundown. “I think Kelly knew something that she wasn’t telling us. It seems to revolve around these omegas that shouldn’t be able to have pack magic.”

Morgana nodded along, her blue pointy ears bouncing slightly with the motion. “Brent had much of the same concern, but without hiding anything. He’s convinced there’s no way they have pack magic, insisting it must be something else mimicking it.”

I shrugged; this was clearly out of my depth.

“I can ask around, but I think if it was common knowledge, it would have come up at the council.” Jadelyn bowed slightly. “I’ll take my leave; I’m quite tired.”

Morgana waved her away and watched her go before turning back to me. “Going to challenge Chad for her?”

“What?! No. God, Morgana, where did that come from?”

She shrugged. “It’s in the air.”

There wasn’t time for this. “No. I have enough problems with Simon coming up. Even if I was interested, I don’t have the capacity to deal with another problem.”

Morgana’s lips curled into a smile that showed off her fangs. “So you are interested. Then we better get you prepared for your duel with Simon. It is only two days away.”

I frowned at her as I stood. “Do not meddle with this. Besides, I have a date on Sunday with an incredible woman.”

She swung her leg off the chair in a way that was controlled, almost like a ballet. “Do not forget what you are. Like many paranormal, you will not be constrained by your human thoughts on relationships.”

I flashed to what I’d learned of Chad and the pack. A shudder ran through me. “I don’t know if I want to have anything but a normal relationship.”

The beast would have smacked me if it could, growling in my chest after Morgana as well. Greedy little thing.

“I think you’ll find that your ability to resist what you are will be harder than you give credit for. Your ‘beast’ as you call it is part of you that you’ll need to come to terms with.”

“You make it sound like it’s holding me back.”

Morgana arched a brow at me as she opened the door and looked back. “I think that is exactly part of your problem. It’s why you cannot access what you are; you’ve separated it from yourself, thinking you have to abide by all these social rules.” She stepped through the door into another area.

I rushed behind her. “It’s not like I can go do whatever I want. There are laws, rules everyone has to abide by.” I realized we were already in the training room with the sparring mats almost a moment too late.

Morgana’s foot lashed by my head as I rolled to the side. “You don’t have to become a murderer or a rapist to be true to yourself. But you must embrace what you are. Holding back your nature is only going to cause headaches for you.”

“What do you know? You hide down here completely separated from the rest of the world.” I came up swinging, but Morgana leaned back and swayed around my fists.

“I know far more than you, little whelp.” Her legs went to sweep me, but I dropped my center of gravity and weathered her strike as firm as a mountain. “You are a dragon, a creature of such great lineage that your heart beats with mana and your blood dances with dominance and power. To pretend to be human is a disservice to yourself, to who you are, and who your parents made you to be.”

She hit me deep with that last statement. I let myself get angry and joined my beast in charging her, tackling her into the wall. I could hear several of her bones crackle as my full strength crushed her to the wall.

“Yes.” She smiled as her legs wrapped around me and wedged one of my knees to buckle. The slight shift in my stance was enough for her to throw her own weight into it and roll against the wall, bringing me with her.

Unable to gain my balance, I couldn’t stop her. She had far more experience in wrestling that I’d have in several lifetimes. The room tumbled, and I felt my back smack on the mat as Morgana stood up, using my chest as a step. That only made the anger burn brighter.

“You want to find out who your parents were?” She gave me a cocky smile as she stepped away for me to get up for another round.

I glared at her, standing up. “You know the answer to that. Of course I do.”

“Then you must be stronger, and you need to be a proper dragon. If I took you today to Dubai and introduced you to the head of the dragon clan, he’d see you as a weak whelp and tear you apart. Dragons are not humans, the whole of the para world is not human. So stop holding yourself to human standards.”

Frustrated with her, I was ready to let loose, and based on the growl rumbling in my chest, my beast was in full agreement. What she was saying wasn’t untrue, but I refused to think about it. It brought up things I’d struggled and already figured out how to deal with my entire life.

I charged again. Morgana shifted to roll me, but I pulled up short and snapped a kick into her leg. It cracked in half, and she bent over with a hiss. I knew by now that she could handle it. She was tough, and I wasn’t going to hold back.

For the first time, I wanted to breathe fire, and it came. More controlled than any of the previous times. A rumble in my chest like jet engines starting up before I blasted fire over her.

Only seconds after I released the jet, my logic returned to me, and I realized I might have gone too far. Cutting off the flames just after I started, Morgana was suddenly not there.

“Careful.” Morgana said just as her heels hit me in the side of the head. “If you want to play with magic, we can do that.”

I punched, but it seemed to stretch on forever, like I was throwing a punch from a mile away. Even worse, I’d thrown my whole body into the move, and it wasn’t ending.

Morgana swerved unnaturally to my side, and it was like she barely had to move her arms before jabs cracked into my side like machine guns.

I pulled my punch, preferring to end it rather than be trapped in Morgana’s magic. It still made me wobble as I came out of it off balance. “Why not use your magic last night? I saw you absorb my fire breath before; this time you teleported.”

“My magic, though great, comes at a great cost. Why should I make a small pocket of void to kill people when I can just connect the space between my bullet and their skulls? Every bit of mana I use had to come from something living. It isn’t something to be wasted on extravagant shows of magic.” She glared at me; somehow I’d touched a sore spot.

I squared off again. I could feel the heat in my chest, ready and at my beck and call. Jadelyn’s song and my anger had somehow brought the beast closer than ever before and for now, he was willing to help me how he could.

“Your magic changed when you became a vampire, didn’t it? You lost something.” I tried to anger her just as she had done me.

She came at me again, her heels snapping at my head. I dodged back, but even then, they still connected with my temple. I was as disoriented by the hit as I was by the logistics of how it had connected. “Like my magic? It is very rare, almost unique.”

Another kick connected when it shouldn’t have. This time the side of my leg.

“When a vampire bites someone, it changes them. Infests them with a greedy little magical parasite that does everything it can to strengthen the host so it can get more mana. It often gives rudimentary magic to a human, but to an elf, a drow sorceress...” She punctuated the statement with another kick. Even as I raised my arm, space bent and my arm shifted back, opening me up to another kick in the side of the head.

“It warps their magic into something different. Greater, some might say, but all at the cost of perpetual hunger.” She let out a cry of rage, and I could see the strength of this next kick. Even through those tight leather pants, I could see the flex of her muscles.

I could see so much. The air around my head warped and shifted with dark particles of her magic. I realized I was actually seeing the magic she was using. So this time, instead of blocking her leg, I slammed my fist with the same anger that I used to breathe fire straight through her magic.

It bent and cracked just as her leg used it to try to bypass my guard again. But instead of hitting me, my fist disrupted her magic and connected with her shin, shattering it and putting another joint in her leg.

Morgana rolled out of her kick, clutching her leg as she let out a cry of surprise. “How?” She looked up at me and her eyes only grew wider. “Zach, your eye.” The smile on her face grew until it threatened to split her face in half. “Zach, look at your eye!”