Embers - Chapter Nine (Patreon)

I'm scheduling this up so it *should* post while I'm away... I've made the appropriate sacrifices to the Tech Gods, so I hope it is enough!

Things are starting to get traction now... :) Hope you enjoy this one, and again, I'm sorry these chapters are shorter than usual, but that's the format I'm going for for this long-running series, so I'm sticking with it! This one is 1228 words, so not too miserly!

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The ‘murder mystery dinner’ was still a couple of weeks away, and you still had no idea what to wear to it, but you’d figure that out later. Hanging out with Mikaeïl and getting to know him took up a lot of your spare time. On one of your earlier dates, he took you to the Old Trollbridge museum and art gallery, a place in which - ironically, given your career as an artist - you’d never set foot. Often you met for a quick coffee in town - the number of espressos that that boy - rather, wyvern - could knock back in a single sitting was concerning at best, but he seemed none the worse for it. 

Watching him open up over time was a treat that you hadn’t perhaps expected in this budding relationship. You’d - quite wrongly - assumed that someone who was over two hundred years old would have had all their shit figured out by now, but perfection, it seemed, was not obtained in a mere two centuries of existence. He was vulnerable and funny, shy and even a bit goofy at times, and it was easy to see why most of his students must have absolutely adored him. He was the quintessential inspiring academic: often lost with his head in the clouds, unaware of how the world really worked in many ways, extremely knowledgeable about his chosen field, and surprisingly interested in what you did. 

The topic of his late partner didn't come up again, though you were definitely curious, but you did enjoy a number of dinners together, some out in town, and others at his house. On one such evening, he cooked the most gorgeous pasta dish, herby and aromatic but not too fiery because, apparently, he couldn’t handle spice. 

“Excuse me?” you gaped when he’d dropped that bombshell. “But… you’re a dragon, right?”

“Wyvern,” he’d corrected, waving a wooden spoon at you as if it were a lecturer’s pointer. “Please,” he’d added over the top of his circular spectacles with mock seriousness. “There’s an entire two limbs worth of difference between the two of us and that, my dear, is a lot of difference.”

“Oh?” you’d said, half snorting and half giggling. “I… see?”

“No you don’t,” he retorted playfully, shaking his head. Turning on his ‘patronising teacher voice’ while the pasta sauce bubbled away like a witch’s brew in the pot beside him, he turned to face you with one hand on his sharp, narrow hip. “A wyvern,” he said in a very slow voice, “Is bipedal. Related to the dragon, and with a tail which often ends in a diamond- or arrow-shaped tip or barb. Some have poisonous scales and spines, while others do not. Our sea-dwelling cousins, imaginatively known as the sea-wyverns, frequently have fishtails in place of our barbed tail.”

You burst out laughing and his own face cracked into a wide grin. 

“I’m glad you find me amusing,” he said in his usual voice. “But seriously, a tolerance for capsaicin has nothing to do with the ability - or lack thereof - to breathe fire.”

“I love you,” you blurted before you could stop yourself, and he went very still. 

A slow, surprised smile dawned on his handsome, porcelain face and he laughed quietly. “Come here and say that again,” he said, opening one arm and inviting you to hug him. 

“It’s not too soon?” you said as you stepped over to him, flushed and hot and a bit clammy with nerves now. 

He shook his head, his red hair tied back in a scruffy bun. “If that’s what you feel, then it’s not too soon to acknowledge it. And… I have grown very fond of you too. I believe I might also be in a position to say that I love you too.”

“You’re such a prude,” you grinned, poking him in the ribs. “Only a professor - and a dragon, sorry, wyvern - would be so ‘verbose’ about it…”

Mikaeïl’s lips twitched but he suddenly seemed insecure, so you rolled your eyes and snaked an arm around his slim waist. You had yet to see what his body looked like underneath, but from the way he barely moved as you tried to tug him close to you, you figured he must be incredibly fit and lean. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, turning his attention to the pot of sauce and stirring it without dislodging you from your place at his hips. “I must be a great bore to you at times.”

“If you were, do you think I’d stick around?” you countered and he made a side to side motion of his head. 

“Perhaps not,” he admitted. 

You reached up on tip toes and planted a kiss against his smooth cheek. You wondered fleetingly if he was like an elf and couldn't grow a beard, or if he was just fastidious about shaving immaculately every morning. You’d not been near enough to his bathroom yet to spot a razor. His cheeks flushed, as they always did when you showed him affection - verbal or physical - and he tucked you tighter against his side, planting a fond kiss atop your head. 

That night, it turned out, was not a night for finding out about what lay beneath his shirt, or whether he kept a razor in his bathroom, but it wasn’t long before you were invited back to the mansion, and this time, he asked if you’d like to bring an overnight bag. 

“We’re getting serious then,” you had grinned over the phone that morning, doodling idly with your stylus and trying to tweak a font that wasn’t working on a business logo commission. 

“So it would seem,” he chuckled. “But if you’d rather not, then -”

“Mikaeïl,” you said flatly but gently, “I’ve been ready for this for a while now. I’m honestly glad you’re ready too.”

“I am,” he said, sounding a little dazed about it.

On your first visit to the house it had seemed strange to be there without your enthusiastic niece, Celia, as a chaperone, or under the guise of work, but he welcomed you inside again and this time, he kissed you on the threshold the moment you were indoors. 

As before, when things got heated for him, he began to growl softly, but here in the safe privacy of his home, he pushed you up against the wood of the front door and kissed you breathless to a soundtrack of his rumbling growls. His strong hands pinned your wrists beside your head and you felt your knees go weak as he held you there and kissed you senseless. 

Finally, however, he did pull back, breathing hard, his eyes glowing like embers. “You’re gorgeous,” he said before closing his teeth over your lip and sucking until it tingled. 

“Mikaeïl,” you gasped, tilting your head back to allow him better access to your neck as he kissed along your jaw and down to your racing pulse. “This is new…”

“I’m ready; I want you,” he whispered. “Is that wrong? Is it too fast?”

Your answer was simple. You’d had chaste date upon chaste date, with barely a peck on the cheek, and he’d driven you wild with it. “Then why are we still standing in the hallway?”

“You’re too distracting,” he laughed, pulling back. “Are you sure this is alright?”

With a fond smile, you nodded. “More than.”

Hope you enjoyed it! Chapter Ten