Embers - Dragon shifter romance story, Chapter Three (Patreon)

It's Friday again! That means a new chapter! This week we get to know a little more about our somewhat prickly-seeming dragon friend...

Hope you enjoy it! Looking forward to your feedback as always. 

One, Two 

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While Mikaeïl held the door open for you behind him, he didn’t meet your eye and turned away the moment you’d passed the threshold, striding elegantly down the corridor with his long red hair swinging gently from side to side. You tried not to let your canvas shoulder-satchel bash on the immaculate paintwork of the architrave as you passed through it to hurry after him. Part of you didn’t dare break the silence of his stern wake, but another part of you - the feistier and cheekier part - decided it couldn’t hurt. 

“Has your family lived here for very long?” you ventured. 

Mikaeïl’s shoulders stiffened slightly, and you thought for a horrible moment that you really ought not to have spoken up at all. Then, without breaking stride, he turned just far enough to shoot you golden-eyed look over his shoulder that revealed a microscopic smile at the corner of his inordinately pretty mouth. “We have,” he said. “My grandfather built the current house.”

“Your grandfather?” you murmured, still a couple of paces behind him, because trying to walk next to him in the narrow confines of the corridor would have been a bit odd. “I thought the place was older than that…”

“You aren’t particularly observant, are you?”

“Excuse me?” you blurted, eyebrows rising. 

He only chuckled darkly and shook his head, and you started to feel like he perhaps wasn’t as nice as Frankie had indicated he could be. 

Just when you had thought about letting this new-found dislike of him settle more permanently in your estimation of him, his quiet, regular footsteps stalled and he halted. “I… That was unfair of me. I apologise,” he said without looking at you.

“Don’t socialise much outside of work, do you?” you quipped back rather sharply, and to your surprise he turned slowly to look at you with a dolorous, heartfelt expression on his beautiful face. His porcelain mask had vanished completely. He didn’t speak, but his faltering smile said plenty, and it was your turn to apologise. 

Mikaeïl laughed softly and said, “I think I deserved that one,” and stretched out his elegant hand to you. “Call it even and draw a line under it?”

You couldn’t help the way your lips twisted into a wry smile as you shook his hand and nodded. His hand was cool, which surprised you for some reason - you’d assumed he’d be warm, though perhaps it was just the fiery hair - and he had the soft skin of a scholar. 

“And you’re absolutely right,” he said as he released your hand. “I don’t socialise much. Besides, humans… confuse me at best.”

Casting him an amusedly puzzled look, you grinned, “Anything I can help clear up? I mean, while you’ve got one captive…”

His eyes flashed suddenly, flaring a bright yellow before returning to their usual burnished gold, and you frowned, but he laughed gently enough. “Nothing I can think of right now, but I’ll be sure to ask. I do have your number after all…”

“That was for Frankie…” you grinned playfully. 

“I don’t know that he’s interested in humans, though I’m not sure.”

“And you are?”

“Again,” he said with a slight tilt of his head, “I’m not sure.” Mikaeïl smiled and twitched his head towards the other end of the corridor. “Come, let’s get you that drink.”

“You make it sound like there’s a champagne fountain waiting for me behind that door,” you muttered. “I mean with this place, who knows…?”

Taking a deep breath, Mikaeïl said, “Well, there has been a champagne fountain here in the past… at my brother’s birthday, but personally I’m more of a fan of the conventional ones. Outside.”

“You like gardens then?”

He nodded. “I have…” and then he laughed quietly, interrupting himself with his own private amusement. “Sorry. I have what you might call a small ‘hoard’ of plants.”

You narrowed your eyes and let your gaze slide upwards to the curved horns in his fiery red hair. “You know…” you began apprehensively, “The first time I met you in the cafe, I thought you might have some tiefling in you… I’m wrong, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” he said, though he didn’t elaborate or clarify your speculations. His hand found the door knob and he ushered you into a bright and surprisingly modern, homely kitchen. Modern it might have been, but it was not modest. Contemporary fittings, top of the range appliances, and stunning marble counter tops all gleamed in the spotlights from above, and every surface gleamed, spotless. 

“Wow,” you breathed. 

“I like to cook,” he offered almost shyly. “Tea? Coffee? Or… wine or something?”

“Maybe it’s a little early in the day for that,” you said with a smile. “And I need to be able to drive Celia home.”

He answered with only an understanding smile.

Mikaeïl was a creature of contradictions. Prickly and cold on the outside, he walked with a stiff back and kept his jaw permanently clenched when he wasn’t speaking in clipped but articulate sentences, and yet there was a softness to the way he smiled and a shyness to the corners of his mouth and eyes that spoke of a sense of humour and maybe even a kind heart. You also found that you absolutely adored his gold-framed, completely round glasses. 

“Maybe just a cup of tea,” you suggested.

“What kind?”

“Uh… the tea kind?”

His harsh exterior cracked visibly as he snorted delicately with obvious and unexpected amusement, and he drew you over to a cupboard on the other side of the kitchen. Before you got there, however, you glimpsed a modern conservatory attached to the south side of the house and gasped. The space was absolutely full to the ceiling with plants: some dangled down from macrame hangers, while others spilled and tumbled their leaves and tendrils over shelves and still more reached proudly upwards for the glass roof above. 

Mikaeïl’s gaze followed yours, and he shrugged. “Part of my hoard…” he said with a smile. 

They almost seemed to glow and sparkle in the clear light, glimmering like coloured glass, and as much as you wanted to go and examine them, you tore your eyes away and looked back at him. “They almost don’t look real,” you murmured. “They’re beautiful. Sorry,” you added, returning your attention to him. “Tea?”

“Yes, tea,” he said and cleared his throat. As he opened up the cupboard, it was your turn to laugh. Every spare bit of space was stuffed with Kilner jars full of exotic blends of tea. A spicy, fragrant, and enticing cloud of scent wafted out to greet you.

“Oh my god,” you laughed. “I didn’t need this to turn in to a lesson in herbalism… I just wanted a cup of tea. I thought it’d be easier than coffee… Are you sure this isn’t your real hoard?”

He seemed highly amused by that, and said, “Well, tea is a plant, is it not?”

You had to agree with that, and let him choose you a blend to try. 

With your tea brewing, he offered you a seat in the conservatory, and you adjusted the strap of your shoulder bag before deciding to set it on the ground. “I love the light in here,” you commented as you gazed around. 

“You sound like an artist,” he said, still standing, statue-straight, in the squared-off archway into the space.

“Graphic designer,” you said. “But I love to draw.”

Interest flared in his expression. “Do you take commissions?”

You nodded. “Yeah?”

“Then I might have a job for you, if you’d be interested…”

…To be continued next week!