Nice Dragons Finish Last (Heartstrikers) (37 page)

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

M
arci 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.

“Excuse me,” she said, quite politely, she thought, given the circumstances. “What are you doing on my car?”

“I couldn’t possibly explain,” the man replied, never looking away from the diner window where Julius and the dragoness were still deep in conversation. “But don’t worry. I’ll only be a moment.”

Marci bristled at the curt dismissal, but she didn’t yell at the crazy man to get off her hood. Rude as he was being, this was the DFZ. For all she knew, he was a spirit of some sort, and it never paid to insult spirits. “Can you tell me who you are, at least?”

She’d barely finished before the man spun around to face her, and Marci stifled her gasp just in time. And here she’d thought Julius and Justin were handsome. This man was something else entirely. He was so good-looking it was actually off-putting. Even in the dark, it was impossible not to see that his skin was bronzed and flawless. This, combined with his ruler-straight black hair, high cheekbones, and sharply beautiful face, made him look too perfect to be real. He reminded Marci more of an ancient artifact than a living thing, something sacred and powerful preserved from a more mysterious, magical time. After all that, the familiarity of his impossibly green eyes was almost a relief.

“You’re Julius’s brother.”

The dragon flashed her a brilliantly white smile. “I’m Julius’s
favorite
brother,” he corrected, his deep voice rich with humor and secrets. “But he won’t realize that until next year, so don’t spoil the surprise.”

He winked and turned back to the window, humming to himself as he resumed watching Julius like nothing had happened. Marci, however, was not so easily put off.

“What happens next year?” she asked, stepping around the car door to stand right behind him. “And why would it be a surprise?”

The dragon growled, making her shiver. Apparently, she was asking too many questions, but it wasn’t every day a dragon landed on the hood of her car. Once Julius left, it would probably never happen again, and she was determined to make the most of the opportunity. “If Julius is your favorite brother, does that mean you’re here to help him?”

“You’ve got that backward,” the dragon said without turning around. “I’m
his
favorite brother, and helping him would defeat the point entirely. This is a test, you see.”

Marci frowned. “A test for what?”

The dragon arched his shoulders in an elegant shrug, forcing his pigeon to flap in order to stay on. “That depends on Julius. The poor boy was going nowhere. I had to do
something
, so I gave him a little shove, just to shake things up.”

She arched her eyebrow. “A shove?”

“You know,” he said. “Trial by fire, adversity as crucible, et cetera, et cetera. He’s in the middle of a make it work moment, and between you and me, I hope he pulls it off. I need him for a project I’ve been working on, and it’s a little late in the game for me to start over if he flubs things and gets himself eaten.”

The dragon rattled all of this off so quickly, Marci had trouble keeping up. What she did catch, though, she didn’t like at all. “Does this trial by fire have to do with the seal that’s on him?”

“
That
was Mother’s idea,” he said. “Though I will admit, the seal has made things easier. Put his back against the wall quite nicely, which always leads to results. And trauma. But really, what’s a dragon without a little trauma?”

He laughed like this was hilarious, turning back to flash Marci what would have been a devastatingly charming smile if she hadn’t been too angry to notice.

“Hold up,” she said. “
You’re
the one who did this to him?”

The dragon sighed. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to be a little more specific. I’ve got a lot of pots on the stove.”

Marci began to sputter. “This!” she cried, flinging her hands out at the dark buildings. “Shoving him into Detroit! Leaving him alone with no money, no power, and no support in a city where he can be shot just for being what he is!”

“Oh,
that.
Yes, that was me. Mother needed someone to throw at this Ian nonsense, and I thought Julius would be just the ticket. All it took was a few oblique suggestions at the right time, and Mother thought the whole thing was all her idea.” He beamed at her. “Isn’t that brilliant?”

“It’s terrible!” Marci said. “What kind of brother are you?”

The dragon looked confused by her outburst, and then he spun all the way around again to face her head on. “Why, little human,” he said softly, resting his long arms on his raised knees. “Are you attempting to call me out for being cruel to baby Julius?”

The soft mockery in his voice sent Marci’s fists clenching so tight, the spellmarked bracelets on her wrists began to glow. The dragon’s green eyes glittered in the light, but she didn’t let the magic fade. She
wanted
to slam a spell into his smug, beautiful face. She had no idea what game this dragon was playing, but Marci knew exactly what it felt like to be kicked out of your home, and the thought of Julius—sweet, kind, thoughtful Julius who’d never had a harsh word for anybody—being dumped into this crisis by his own brother was more than she could stand.