That stopped her cold. “You would ally with me against your own clan?”
“That’s just it,” he said, leaning over the table. “We’re not against anyone. This doesn’t have to be a fight or a war or a game or any of those terrible dragon metaphors for life. Just because everyone is expecting us to be at each other’s throats since you don’t want to go back and I’ll die if I don’t make you doesn’t mean that’s our only option. Because we’re not thoughtless pawns with artificially limited moves, we’re dragons, and if we combine our efforts, there’s a good chance we can turn a lose-lose situation into a victory for everyone.”
He finished with a hopeful grin, but Katya was still scowling, her white teeth chewing on her pale lip. The longer she stayed silent, the more Julius worried. Maybe he’d come on too strong? He’d tried to be as honest as possible, but if Katya didn’t believe him, if she still thought his vulnerability and confessions were just a show to gain her trust, there was nothing he could do. He’d gambled everything on this. If she bolted now, he had no way to stop her.
Seconds ticked by like hours, making Julius sweat. But then, just when he was sure he’d lost, Katya sighed. “I’m not agreeing to anything,” she warned. “But I am very tired of being cloistered by my sisters, and even more tired of running. So tell me, Julius the Nice Dragon, what would this proposed alliance entail?”
Julius very nearly fell over in relief. The only reason he didn’t was because there was no time. He was already explaining the plan he’d come up with, laying it out for her just as it had formed in his mind while he was talking to Marci. Within minutes, Katya was nodding, and though she didn’t look convinced, she wasn’t rejecting him either, and that was enough.
Chapter 13
Marci sat in her car, watching through the cloudy diner window as a smiling Julius leaned closer to woman sitting across the booth from him. The amazingly, spectacularly, inhumanly beautiful woman he’d been searching for. The woman who was obviously another dragon, and not one from his family.
No wonder he didn’t want to kiss you.
She scowled and pushed the unwelcome thought out of her head. She’d already made up her mind that she wasn’t going to dwell on that. She should be happy she hadn’t blown their friendship with that stupid slip-up, not mopey because she’d been rejected by a man she’d known was out of her league from the moment she’d spotted him sitting at the bar, especially now that she knew he was actually a dragon. They were an entirely different species, probably with an completely different standard of beauty. Being upset a dragon didn’t want to kiss you was like being upset a horse didn’t want to kiss you, and Marci definitely didn’t want to kiss a horse. Though, of course, if the horse was as good-looking as Julius, maybe she’d have a different opinion.
Still, the situation wouldn’t have been half as depressing if Julius and Katya hadn’t looked so good together. The way his black hair and sharp features emphasized her fair skin and delicate beauty was so perfect it almost looked fake, like some artist had set the whole thing up just for that effect. And then there was Marci, safely tucked away outside so her ugly haircut, shabby clothes, and mundane humanity wouldn’t ruin the moment.
That thought was melodramatic in the extreme, and Marci forced herself to look away. She needed to stop being stupid and focus on her own future, like finding somewhere to sleep now that she had money. She couldn’t afford another night at the sort of hotel Julius seemed to prefer, but the last few days had been humbling enough that anywhere with a real bed and no cats sounded like paradise. She’d just grabbed her new phone to look up reviews for extended stay motels when she felt something icy brush against her leg.
She lowered her phone to see Ghost sitting on the floorboard between her feet, his transparent tail swishing back and forth as he looked up at her with that smug cat smile. Back, he purred in her mind.
“So I see,” she grumbled. “I’m surprised. I didn’t think you’d leave your adoring fans.”
Ghost blinked and leaned on their connection, reminding her that staying away wasn’t an option for a bound spirit. Suddenly guilty, Marci put down her phone and patted her lap in invitation. Never one to pass up the gift of warmth, Ghost hopped up, though he took his time about it to make sure she understood that this lap business was nothing special.
“You freaked Julius out good with that little display back there,” she scolded when he’d settled down at last, his soft body like a bag of shaved ice across her thighs. “We’re lucky he didn’t run away screaming.”
Ghost gave her a disgusted look.
“I know, I know, you saved us,” Marci said dutifully, petting him as much as her cold-stiffened fingers could stand. “And thank you for that. But do you think you could try to be a bit less dramatic next time? We don’t want to get a reputation.”
Her voice was cheerful, but inside, she just felt empty. As much as she liked to pretend otherwise, Marci knew perfectly well there wouldn’t be a next time. Julius had found his dragoness, which meant the job was done, and even though she’d promised to help him with whatever it was he had to do tonight, she wasn’t naive enough to think it would last. There was a reason humans knew so little about dragons. Julius had let her in this afternoon because he’d had no other choice, but the moment this crisis was over, he’d say goodbye. Not cruelly—Julius didn’t have a mean bone in his body—but he’d made it clear there was no place for a human in his life. As soon as he got out of whatever trouble he was in, he’d take his beautiful dragoness and go back to their world, and Marci would go back to being alone. All alone, without her father, without her home, no school, no friends she could call without endangering them. Just a girl and her death spirit on the run in a strange city.
Her vision started to go blurry after that, and her hands flew to her eyes. “Don’t cry,” she whispered angrily, scrubbing at the wetness gathering on her lashes. “Don’t you dare cry.”
But the tears wouldn’t listen to reason. They just kept coming in big, ugly drops. Soon her whole face would be red, which wouldn’t do at all. If Julius saw her like this, she’d have to explain why she’d been crying, because of course he would ask, probably in front of the beautiful dragoness, leaving her no choice but to die of shame on the spot.
Since stopping her stupid tears was now a matter of life and death, Marci threw open the door and leaped out of her car, toppling Ghost to the floor in the process. He yowled his displeasure in her mind, but Marci ignored him, clinging to the car as she gulped down breath after breath of dank, musty, Underground air.
She just needed some space, she thought, looking down the dark street. Space and perspective, and maybe a tissue, and… and…
And there was a man sitting on her car.
Marci jumped straight up, banging her knee on the car door in the process. But even the sudden, smarting pain couldn’t tear her attention away from the stranger who was now sitting cross-legged on the hood of her dad’s sedan.
Oddly enough, her first thought was that he must be absurdly tall. Since he was sitting, Marci couldn’t tell if that observation was factual, or if his long, slender limbs merely created the illusion of remarkable height. Either way, it wouldn’t be the strangest thing about him.
From the waist up, the man was dressed like he was going to a dinner party in a blue silk jacket with black piping and a Mandarin collar over a cream-colored shirt. From the waist down, though, he looked like a hobo. His paint-stained jeans were so old they’d lost all color, and he wore no shoes at all, though his blue-black hair, which he wore in a thick braid that hung all the way down to the small of his back, was tied off with a bright pink shoelace. He also had a pigeon on his shoulder—a live one that was currently tilting its head curiously at Marci. The strange man himself hadn’t even glanced at her, however, and Marci decided she’d better make her presence known before this situation got any weirder.