Chapter Seven: Liana
After the day had started out strange, it seemed it was going to become only stranger.
Suspiciously, Liana stared at the man sitting at the counter across from her. He was dark-haired—much like the men who’d attacked her. But unlike them, he was wearing a pair of black jeans and a white shirt that stretched over an impressively athletic body. He could have been Timothy’s brother—or maybe a workout buddy.
Instead, the man who was currently wolfing down the blueberry pancakes Timothy was making was a fire dragon. One of those monsters who could breathe fire and who’d nearly killed her.
“I’m not going to eat you, you know,” the man said, as if he’d read her thoughts. He scowled. “Eat your pancakes before they get cold.”
“Hey, watch how you talk to my mate,” Timothy called out, expertly flipping another pancake.
Distracted, Liana watched him. It was a little weird to see Timothy standing in his designer kitchen with a smudge of flour on his nose, flipping pancakes as if that was a completely normal thing to do for a billionaire with his own tower in the city center. She’d assumed he had a cook to do all of his work for him, or that he ordered in from one of the many restaurants nearby. But it turned out that Timothy made excellent pancakes with just the right amount of fluffiness, drowned in generous amounts of syrup and butter.
“Anyone want any bacon?” Timothy called out and began heating another pan.
“Yes, please.” Liana determinedly stabbed a fork into her pancake.
If she was going to go out in a blaze of dragon fire as soon as she stepped out of this tower, she could at least enjoy the time that was left to her.
“I’m not a monster, you know,” the fire dragon said and glared at her. “Human women usually like me once they get to know me.”
“Sure, I totally believe that,” she shot back and then demonstratively grabbed the syrup to pour more over her already drowned pancakes, just when he reached out for it as well. “Setting people on fire and dropping them from the sky is something we human women absolutely love. I’m sure you have so many admirers you have to beat them back, fire dragon.”
“My name’s Braeden,” he said and glared again, then grabbed the syrup and poured what was left of it onto his own stash of pancakes. “And I’ve never harmed a human woman.”
Timothy chuckled. “Well, there was that time with the storm dragon’s mate...”
Braeden blushed a bright red. “I said I’m sorry for that,” he mumbled, then stuffed a huge slice of pancake into his mouth.
“What did you do—eat her?” Liana asked, then smirked when Braeden choked on his pancake and began coughing.
He didn’t stop until Timothy came around to cheerfully hit his back, sending him nearly headfirst into his pancakes.
“What the hell did you do that for?” Braeden sputtered.
Timothy grinned. “Didn’t want you to die in my kitchen. Not sure how I’d explain that, given I’m supposed to babysit you.”
“Will you please stop calling it that,” Braeden forced out from between clenched teeth. “I’m not a baby.”
“Only babies don’t know about rockets and space.” Timothy was still grinning. “Anyway, as long as I’m forced to watch you, I get to call it however I like.”
“Maybe you’d better watch your mate,” Braeden said grimly. “Doesn’t sound like you did a great job of it today.”
“Because your people decided to attack me,” Liana said sharply. “That wasn’t his fault.”
“They’re not my people! Not my friends, at least,” Braeden then added, leaning back in his chair. “Look, I’m really sorry they attacked you. But I had nothing to do with that. I couldn’t hurt you if I wanted.”
Demonstratively, he shoved his hands at her.
Two circles of a weird, black metal curved around his wrists.
Fascinated, she touched one of the strange handcuffs. It didn’t look like anything she’d seen before. It was cool to the touch—but she didn’t feel anything else.
Braeden smiled bitterly. “You don’t feel anything, do you? That’s because you’re human. But as long as I’m wearing these, I can’t access my powers. And they keep me dosed with dragonsbane as well—which seems like overkill, if you ask me, but no one ever does.”
“That’s because we don’t get answers to the questions we do ask,” Timoth
y said pointedly. “Like where the hell these fire dragons come from, how many there are, where they are hiding, who their leaders are, and what the fuck they’re trying to accomplish with these attacks.”