Page 5 of Dragon Heir

I try to be diplomatic though, since we’re apparently all going to be staying under the same roof for the foreseeable future. “I took the bigger bedroom, since the other one has a washroom,” I say. “I know how you like your space to get ready, Pax. But I can switch rooms with you guys, so you’ll have the bigger room.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Pax says. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

“It’s pretty small.” I chew at my lower lip, suddenly uncertain. Pax isn’t with this guy, right? I know he’s hooked up with guys before, but he’s never courted any of them. Actually, he’s never courted anyone. Maybe all that training led to something more intimate than the village school experience.

“He said it’s fine,” True says, heading down the hall without waiting for me to show him to his room. It’s a small house, so it’s not like he’ll need help finding it, but it still seems abrupt and kind of rude. He has a bit of an accent I can’t place, so maybe it’s a cultural gap.

I make a mental note to do what I can to make things right between us. If he’s Pax’s friend—or lover—he’s a friend of mine. Pax may not be discerning about who he’ll screw, but he’s a good judge of character for the people he keeps around. I don’t know how many guys he warned me away from in the village back home. He wouldn’t bring anyone who was less than a hundred percent trustworthy into our home.

“The place looks nice,” Pax says, no irony in his voice, or at least none that I can detect.

“Pax, it’s a hovel. You’re allowed to be annoyed at me for my fuck up.”

He shrugs.

The fuck is this? Pax seems different, not the jovial, testosterone-fueled prankster I went to school with. I touch his arm, trying to find comfort for myself as well as offer it with a familiar gesture.

“Is everything okay?” I whisper. As protective as Pax has always been of me, I’m just as protective of him. I don’t know what he got mixed up in, or if he lost a wager or owes this guy, but I want to make sure it’s nothing that could cause trouble for him at school this year.

“Yeah,” he says with a thin smile. “Maybe a little tired from the journey.”

“Oh.”

Even though he says he’s tired, I halfway expect he’ll want to stay up and talk, at least for a few minutes to catch up on what we’ve both done over the summer. But True calls from down the hall, his voice more than a little demanding, and to my surprise, Pax doesn’t tell him to fuck off.

Instead, he gives me an apologetic smile and squeezes my shoulder. As his calloused fingers brush over my skin, a tiny flare of warmth ignites at the point of contact, and tingles travel down my arm. Pax clicks his tongue once before following True’s voice. Dread sinks into my stomach when I realize that the ghost of our brief contact lingers well beyond the actual touch. I shouldn’t have agreed to move in with Pax if I’d had even the slightest interest in him. I can’t imagine anything worse than the awkwardness of living with an ex if things didn’t work out.

Which means it’s a good thing that he heads down the hall to his new room, leaving me standing in the middle of the living room alone.

Totally a good thing.

Chapter Three

The next morning, I drag myself up, determined to get off to a better first day than our brief meeting. The guys traveled half the night, so maybe they were just tired and grumpy. I decide to make breakfast because who can be grumpy while eating chocolate hotcakes? Not me.

I set my music box on the counter and wind the knob until cheerful, get-shit-done pack-punk grinds out of it. Werewolf punk, it’s a thing. Then I start cooking. Pax got me the griddle last spring when we decided to move in together. He made a joke about how I could cook him breakfast every day, and I told him to keep dreaming. Secretly, I loved the idea of us eating hotcakes together every morning, and my heart warmed at how well he knows me, that he knows my favorite food in the world is the sweet hotcakes in wax paper they sell for a coin at the corner shop in the marketplace. My mouth waters when I imagine how good the homemade ones will taste.

If this isn’t the perfect occasion to break in the griddle, I don’t know what is. It’s the first day of classes at DLSA, and Pax and my first full day as roommates.

Also True’s.

A little shiver of anticipation goes through me when I remember the gorgeous hunk of man standing over me. Grumpy or not, he won’t mess up my friendship with Pax. And I’m determined to rock this breakfast and put everyone in a good mood to start the year.

I throw on some coffee and start setting the table while the iron fills the air with the scent of melting butter. Then I throw in some batter and dance around the kitchen to my favorite upbeat song, “Wolves Just Wanna Have Fun.”

When I look up, I’m pierced by a pair of frost-blue eyes. I shriek with surprise and skid to a halt. Where the hell did he pop out of? When the Sharp Toothed ginger from yesterday called me oblivious, I thought he’d just been sneaking up on me, but maybe the creep had a point.

“Phoenix feather! You scared me,” I say, clutching at my heart.

“I seem to do that every time I enter the room.” True frowns, and I can’t help but notice that he doesn’t say it whatsoever like a joke. To be fair, the fact that I practically fall on my ass every time he enters the room is accurate.

“That might be true, True.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you, Vynessa.”

My name melts like butter on his tongue.

I feel something inside me heating up too, and I’m pretty sure it’s melting my cotton bloomers. Heat rushes to my cheeks, and it’s not just because he caught me dancing. Flashes of a dream that I must have forgotten rises in my mind, True pushing me back on the sofa and hooking his hands into my belt before peeling my pants down. His long fingers spreading my legs and his perfect face leaning closer to where I was laid bare…