Dragon 5 Chapter 14 (Patreon)

After finishing up at the station, I swung by the coffee shop again. I thought I’d order another ‘dragon king special’. But to my surprise, I wasn’t the only one. I heard a couple a few places in front of me ordering it as well.

“What’s the dragon king special?” A girl with a knit hat in front of me asked the couple that made the order.

Someone on the other side of the rope divider heard her. “You don’t know the dragon king special? It’s this place's hottest off the menu item. It is amaze-balls.”

Apparently, it was the new ‘thing’.

If I was getting hip coffee drinks named after me, I’d hit a new level of stardom.

The line moved forward and a good half of them were ordering this new special drink.

Honestly, I thought it was pretty tasty myself, so I didn’t blame them. When I got to the front of the line, the para winked at me. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you the extra special.”

The barista sold coffee like a pro, but when I watched him make my coffee, he pulled a little bean out of his coat.

I let my eyes start to shift, only for a second to see the magic in that coffee bean he added to mine. Then my eyes shifted back before anyone noticed.

Taking my dragon king special, I stood to the side, and he never again pulled out a magic bean for the coffee.

At least satisfied that he wasn’t giving college kids magic coffee to keep them coming back, I headed into the Atrium.

Slipping down the hall, I ducked into my room to find it empty. I was disappointed, but it was probably best for my time management.

Grabbing my bag, I went back through the door to my apartment and came out of my closet. The liquid gold creature was in my hoard, but there was little I could do about it until I knew more. That and it wasn’t getting out of there.

Already I could hear shouting in the apartment I shared with Frank.

There was a huge temptation to just turn back and find another way to class, but I took a deep breath and stepped out.

“—just tell me.” Frank ended some plea he was making to Maddie.

Maddie shifted her focus to me, as if she just found a life preserver in the middle of the Atlantic.

Frank noticed and turned. “When did you get in last night?”

“Late.” I lied. “You two need to stop fighting. Maddie almost died and you are picking fights with her?” I frowned at Frank.

“She’s not telling me something. She won’t even kiss me.” Frank looked like he was in near tears.

Maddie couldn’t look at him. “I told you. I just need to process things.”

“You freaked out and ran across the apartment when I tried to kiss you.” Frank lamented.

I knew what was really happening. Maddie was being extra vigilant of her new saliva and its potential effects on Frank.

“Probably some of the drugs she was on.” I went to my usual multipurpose excuse. “Some of them can cause paranoia. Just give her some time?”

Frank didn’t like that answer, and his eyes shifted back and forth between the two of us. “Were these the drugs you were involved in, Zach? Is that why they talked to you alone at the hospital? There must be a reason the FBI agent wanted to talk to you. What do you know?”

“He’s not into drugs.” Maddie stomped her foot, and it sounded like she nearly cracked her bones with it.

“This!” Frank gestured at her. “This too! You suddenly do a one-eighty on Zach? What the fuck happened in that hospital room?!”

“Nothing.” Maddie insisted, putting her hands on her hips in a classic ‘don’t test me’ pose.

Frank closed his mouth, but he looked like a volcano ready to erupt, and Frank rarely lost his cool.

After a few loud grunts, he took a deep breath and looked at Maddie. “I love you Maddie.” He grabbed his bag and stormed out.

My best friend wilted and braced against the wall as she slid down to a sitting position and grabbed her legs with tears pooling. “Fuck. How did you manage this? Keep everything a secret?”

“Well, I haven’t had a close relationship with someone who didn’t know.” I sat down next to her. “But you saw how it strained our friendship.”

“Not helping.” She informed me.

As I sat next to her, I noticed her snotty nose begin wiggling. She took a sniff of my scent. “Your blood smells fantastic.”

“I’ll break your nose if you try to bite me.” I replied.

“Maybe the pain would be nice?” Her voice broke over a sob she was trying to hold in. She was hurting, and she wanted to feel it.

I sighed. “Maddie, don’t do that. We’ll work through this.”

“No. I either need to tell him or break up with him. But the way Morgana explained it, if I tell him, he’s my responsibility.” Maddie sighed. “I won’t be able to survive just feeding off of him, and there’s a pretty large risk that I would kill him if I try before I get this under control.”

“You could always get a harem to feed on.” I teased.

She glowered at me. “Ha.” She said with zero amusement. “Harems aren’t the answer to everything.”

I bumped into her with my shoulder. “Okay, so if you could find a way around this, would you tell Frank?”

Maddie bit her lip and nodded. “Yeah. I think I would. I love him Zach.”

“I know.” I paused before bringing up the elephant in the room. “You seem to talk like you will forever be a vampire. You’re not thinking about returning to being human?”

She opened her mouth to protest, but then snapped it shut. “No, I’m not. Morgana said I only had a few days, and I’m coming to terms with what I am becoming.”

“We still find whoever turned you, regardless of what you decide. I won’t let anybody have control over you.” I explained.

“Morgana explained that to me too.” She whispered. “Thank you.”

If they could make it work, then I was willing to help. “Make sure Frank is okay with it. You can explain the consequences, even if you can’t tell him why. I’ll see what we can do about helping him survive your bites.”

“Really? You think there’s something?” She lit up with excitement.

I chuckled. “Yes, Maddie. There’s now magic in our lives. You’d be surprised what we can accomplish.”

“But what would something like that cost?” Maddie’s hope started to dim. She didn’t have a lot of money.

“How about you let the dragon king figure that out?” I jokingly puffed up my chest, and she rolled her eyes, but I got a laugh out of her.

Relaxing back into the wall, I returned to being serious. “The fae would happily do me some favors, and if it involves actual payment, I have that covered.”

She peered over at me. “Are you suddenly rich?”

“Like I said… dragon king.” I grinned. “Fuck yeah, I’m rich. I work for payment in gold, and I had a rather large… inheritance.” That sounded better than saying I’d stolen all of my dragon parents’ gold.

Mine. My dragon instincts reared up.

“Next you are going to tell me that dragons have hoards.” She laughed at her own joke.

But I didn’t laugh. I sat there, a little awkwardly, until she noticed.

“Oh. Oh shit, you have a hoard? Can I see it?” Maddie gave me big puppy dog eyes.

“Not now, but sometime later. Maybe we can take Frank too.” I didn’t like letting others into my hoard, but I’d put up with it if it made Maddie happy. The thought of visiting my hoard seemed to be distracting her from her negative thoughts.

“Is it big?” She asked.

“Huge. My real mother, Tiamat, had a vast cave of treasure. She’s kind of an airhead.”

Maddie’s jaw dropped open. “You met your freaking mother, and you didn’t fucking tell me?! What the hell, Zach!”

I scratched the back of my head. “Well, it isn’t my mother, really. She’s likely dead at this point. It was an image of her memories she and my father were storing in a magic crystal. So… I couldn’t really tell you without you being in the paranormal know.”

“You just had to keep this all bottled up?”

“My mates helped me.” I said quickly. I owed them a lot.

She grunted. “Right. Okay, so now that I know. What’s with all the girls?”

“It’s a dragon thing. It started when I wore Scarlett out to the point she pushed me onto Jadelyn. And then Kelly and Morgana just kind of happened. And while we were saving Morgana, I built up a bond with the Highaen sisters that went deeper—“

Maddie held up a hand. “Wait, I’ve heard of the Highaen now. They are like the rulers of elves?”

“No, they are the rulers of Sentarshaden, which has an enormous population of elves.”

She let out a low whistle. “So you have quite the impressive bevy of beauties. You must be quite the catch. What’s with the six new girls?”

“I’m the king of dragons. Do you remember when I went away for a week last spring?”

Maddie nodded, listening intently.

“I went and held a conclave of dragons, where I led a group of dragon leaders. It was a little intimidating, honestly. Many of the dragons were thousands of years old.” I paused, letting that sink in for her. The age of the paranormal community was hard to wrap your brain around after being human for so long.

“Okay.” She nodded. “And you did kingly stuff? Wait, did you have a throne?”

I laughed. “No, no throne, but I do lead us. I needed to help us decide if we were going to go to war with another organization. That and I had to arbitrate over dozens of minor disputes among their groups.” A sigh ripped itself out of me, and my chest rumbled with a depth far larger than my human frame.

“Got it. Dragon kings have to do a bunch of not so exciting work. So the new girls? They are all dragons like Trina?”

I nodded. “They are an ‘honor guard’ sent by the other leaders. Really, they all hope that I mate them and have more dragon babies.”

“Because the world needs more dragon babies?” She hazarded.

“Pretty much. So, when you feed, you are really feeding on mana. All paranormals rely on mana, and dragons are one of the few species that produce it naturally. If dragons were to decline or die off, so would the entire rest of the paranormal world.” I felt like that was almost comically too much, but it was the truth.

Maddie nodded. “Harem and sex to save the world. Got it. You lucky dragon boy.”

I gave her a joking grumble. “Dragon man.” I emphasized the second word.

She laughed, leaning over and nudging my shoulder as we sat against the wall. It felt so good to be back to us. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed Maddie.

I waited, knowing more rapid-fire questions would be coming my way.

It didn’t take long. “Okay, so that explains a little. You are an incredibly hot commodity and sex with you could save the world. But how are they okay with it?”

“Scarlett wasn’t at first.” I told her honestly. “We dated a good three months before she got used to it. After that, they sort of had to be okay with it to start, because I wasn’t going to ditch Scar. The dragons don’t mind at all. It’s just part of dragon nature.”

It was very much a shift in identity. One that I was still adjusting to.

I wasn’t human. I was a dragon and with that came a difference in what was expected of me. And it also came with a whole bundle of instincts that I still thought of as a separate entity in my chest.

“Well, when you put it that way… I guess it makes sense. But this is an example of the type of thing that might break Frank and I apart. I’m scared, Zach.”

“I’ll back you one hundred percent if you get him to agree to the stipulations of telling him.” I said again. “Deal?” I raised my pinky.

“Deal.” Maddie pinky promised and sighed before pushing herself up off the floor. “I guess I have some work to do, then. See you later.”

She rushed out the door. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to get away or just needed some space to think through her next steps.

Either way, I was late for my class on fae customs.

Grabbing my bag, I left the apartment and headed across campus.

I let my mind wander as I walked. Talking with Maddie had made me realize just how much my life had changed.

But then my thoughts drifted to showing them my hoard. Frank’s face would be so priceless. I grinned to myself.

He’d be far more impressed than Jadelyn. My dragon hadn’t loved her reaction. It was like I’d shown her some mundane gold pile.

Kelly’s had been better, though. Her wolf and my dragon had played in the gold.

As I thought about her wolf, I decided to find time to drop by and see her. I played through my schedule for the day, and I had some time after class. I’d go visit my beautiful werewolf.

I got to the chemistry lab and opened the door to find Amira waiting patiently inside.

“Are you teaching me today?” I asked.

“Yep. Most of them would rather start getting ready for dinner tonight.” Amira replied, as if it was normal for dragon ladies to prep for nearly half the day.

But if I was honest, I had no idea what that entailed.

“So, Fae.” I started simply, coming up to the lab bench and sitting down next to her. “What do I need to know?”

The black dragon watched me for a moment. She was a petite thing with short black hair cut at a sharp angle.

Amira was pale, looking more like her mother rather than her father, Herm. But she had the brightest green eyes. They seemed extra bright against the neutral colors she normally wore. And she was doing so again today, wearing a white blouse tucked into a black pencil skirt. She looked professional, but her body wasn’t hiding.

“Well, first off, you need to understand the fae.” She started getting right down to business.

I tried to be an excellent student and jump right in with what I knew. “They fight wars constantly, rotating power between the queens, with the ladies leading the vanguard of each effort.”

Amira shook her head. “I meant more about their culture. They tend to be much more emotional than humans. You see it a lot in their art and their children. They are a very vibrant people, but given the nature of war and the schemes in the courts, the fae learn at a young age to create facades and reign in their passion so that others cannot manipulate them as easily.”

“That seems… sucky.” I commented.

She shrugged. “It is who they are. But when there is a party and rules of hospitality are in play, they can let loose.” Amira stared at me over the bridge of her nose, waiting for me to jump in.

“So, this isn’t just going to be a party. This is going to be a rager.”

“Yes.” Amira said with little emotion. “They will be fairly unrestrained. There will probably be an orgy before the night is over, if not several. Sex is fairly casual for them. Only once they bear a child with someone is it considered a coupling. Children are rare, but like most paranormal species, they can have kids with other races, especially those more virial than their men.”

“Fae dudes don’t have great swimmers?” I asked, surprised at the revelation.

“It is a mix of factors. With the typical restraint they show, men are rarely willing to give women that sort of trust. After all, during sex, the fae are quite vulnerable. Also, the fae are a matriarchy, if you haven’t picked up on that yet.”

I nodded. I’d heard of queens and ladies, but no kings. “Do the queens have husbands?”

“Probably not permanent ones. Those fae men would be likely to be targeted during court schemes and would take a bullet for their queen. Again, they wouldn’t be coupled until they had a kid. So they may have a number of men cycling through their bed until that happens.” Amira tried to explain it.

I understood the concepts, but didn’t get how it could happen.

But I was becoming used to the strange new cultures that existed in the paranormal, so I just accepted it for the moment to move on. “So sex is freely given and taken. And then at some point, sex leads to a child and those two people are then a couple? How do they know who the baby daddy is?” As soon as I said it, I knew the answer. “Magic.”

“Very much so. The fae realm is much richer in mana than in this plane. They are experts in magic and mana literally has seeped into their very being. Mana is an element of logic and laws, thus they have some rules forced on their very beings.” Amira continued. “They cannot lie, but they can be misleading or obscure. You have to be careful and specific with your questions. Also, if they say something three times, it is binding.”

“Like an apology.” I remembered Maeve being surprised that she had apologized to me three times.

“Yes. And these things go both ways. Saying something three times creates a spell-like structure for them. So apologizing three times would put them in your debt and you could force them to do something. While that is in place, they also wouldn’t be able to harm you such that it could prevent them from fulfilling their debt.”

She paused and stared at me closely. “But it works the other way, too. Say that tonight you should thank someone three times. They could create the same sort of structure back to you and be able to force you into a favor. I suspect that more than a few will try to get a favor out of you.”

“That’s not so bad.” I replied.

“What if the favor is to impregnate them? Dragons are known for being quite virile.” She paused and let that sink in as she switched her legs and which one was on top. I found myself following the movement.

Then I realized she was waiting for me to reply. “That would further create a connection between us, and we’d become a couple.” I realized how far the simple apology could be stretched. “Got it. Be careful of who I thank. Does this carry over between conversations?”

“If the conversations are close, I wouldn’t say something thrice to someone tonight, but over the matter of a few days or a week, nothing would happen.” Amira explained.

I nodded, glad I wouldn’t be tracking statements I’d made to each fae for the rest of my life. I would have definitely slipped up.

But knowing this new information did make me rethink Maeve’s behavior, including that she’d apologized three times. I wasn’t sure what that truly meant. From what Amira had said, it did seem meaningful.

It could just be a way to show her sincerity, but I had a feeling there was more to it.

“Good. Now, we need to talk about the risks with their food and wine. Then we’ll run through some misleading verbiage they use with some exercises to get you used to it.” Amira smiled, and I could tell I was about to process a lot of new information.