Dragon Soul

Chapter 3-2

“Zara!” I called, skipping the last piece of sidewalk as I found her standing outside in the cold. I breathed out a cloud of smoke and grumbled at myself. It really wasn’t proper to make a lady wait, but I could’ve sworn I got here on time. I quickly checked my watch and confirmed I was ten minutes early.

Huh. Maybe she was as eager as I was?

“Good evening, Marcus.” Zara’s mouth curled up and her smile put dimples in her cheeks. The light of a street lamp caught her eyes and there was something utterly magical about the banality of the moment.

What was this beautiful woman even doing going on a date with me?

“Sorry, I’m late.” I straightened out my tie nervously and scratched my cheek.

“You’re not. We’re both early,” she corrected me, a glimmer of amusement flickering through her eyes. Blue and green. She had two different eyes. How unusual, yet I couldn’t imagine something that would fit her better.

Unique. That was the right word for her.

“I’m just glad you showed up, I could be a murderer for all you know,” I joked, immediately regretting my choice of words. Why, why, why would I suggest shifty like that?

“Wow, only one minute in and you already shot yourself in the foot?” Zara snorted, bringing up her hand to hide the grin stretching across her face. “Did you place a large bet against yourself?”

I groaned, shaking my head as I cringed away. “Sorry, I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

“Relax. I’m not just going to run away.”

“I’m pretty sure I could catch you,” I flapped out before I could stop myself. Zara gave me a questioning look and I slapped my forehead. “I’m such a dick.”

She laughed as she pushed me inside the restaurant. She shook her head in amusement, but curled her arm through mine. “A little bit, yes. But you’re in luck, that’s just my type.”

“Is that why you’re out with me tonight?” I asked, pulling up my nose as the strong scent of fish hit my nose. Oh no, why did I let this weird dragon girl pick the place to eat? Why did I not remember the overly sweet and weird foods from the banquet?

Zara waved at the waiter and he gestured towards a very cosy table in the corner of the restaurant. I helped her out of her coat and draped it over the weird wonky chair. The dark woods gave me a bit of an ominous vibe and the carved dragons staring at me were just bizarre. They certainly were an interesting breed that just loved their own species a little too much. Vampires didn’t have fangy restaurants decorated with stakes and crosses. That would just be weird. But apparently, dragons just liked to show off their nature any chance they had.

“Interesting decor,” I muttered, patting the wooden dragon behind me, hoping that wasn’t offensive. I really didn’t know enough about the culture to pretend I was part of it. Why did I ask her out again?

Zara smiled as she passed me the menu and I knew why again. She was utterly beautiful and there was something about her that just drew me in. I wanted to get to know her, even if I was going to end up hurt. She seemed worth the risk.

“What’s your favourite fish?”

I stared at the menu, scanning it for something meaty and edible. Maybe a nice steak or good slab of ribs? No such luck, there was fish, fish, and… surprise, fish. Great.

“Uuuummmmm…” I drew out a long breath, buying myself time to answer her question. What fish did I like? Salmon? Bass? Tuna? People claimed that was the steak of the sea, so that would probably be my safest bet. “Tuna. I love tuna,” I made up, hiding behind the menu. If she couldn’t see me, she couldn’t see I was lying.

“Really? That is one of my favourites too. And I love the crab here as well, it’s so juicy and delicious.”

“Aha. You come here often?” A waitress passed with a tray full of empty shrimp tails and I licked my lips. That wasn’t too bad looking and I did like grilled seafood. Maybe I should get that instead of a tuna steak.

“Every once in a while. The owner is a friend of my father.”

“Ah right. Your father is one of the Elders, isn’t he?” I asked, remembering what Devon told me.

“He is.” Zara sniffed the salt and threw a pinch over her shoulder. She chuckled awkwardly as she noticed that I caught her and put the shaker down. “Just for good luck.”

“Right…” Dragons really had a lot of strange traditions, no wonder Ayra had a hard time adjusting.

“Actually, I’ve never seen you before, Marcus. You’re not from our community, are you?”

I choked on my spittle and hid behind the menu again. s**t. Why did I not think this through? “Errrmmmmm… No, yes, not really.”

She pulled up her eyebrow. “Not really?”

"Yes, not really," I said, nodding my head.

"And that's supposed to make me feel really secure in this date, and that you're not a murderer?" Zara said, studying me intently. I liked her mismatched eyes on me. I'd let her watch me do pretty much anything so long as she was looking.

Well, maybe not just about everything. There were some things that a man should keep from the woman in his life. I was sure she didn't want to see me during my morning routine after all.

Or drinking blood. Nothing could freak a girl out quite so fast as sucking a little bit of O-negative when she doesn't even know you're a vampire. Hardly the biggest turn on.

"I'm not a murderer," I protested. "I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry."

"I gathered. If you were, you wouldn't have let me bring you to a dragon run establishment." She watched me as she said the word dragon, probably trying to establish whether or not I knew about their existence.

Not sure why she'd do that. I'd seen someone nearly shift just yesterday.

"Maybe I'm the kind of murderer that gets off on living dangerously," I teased her.

"Is there a kind of murderer who doesn't?" She frowned at me, as if actually trying to work out if that was actually the case or not.

"I would think so. What about a murderer who worked on death row in the US? He'd be a murderer not living dangerously, because no one knows he's a murderer."

"Wouldn't legally killing people count as not murder?"

"I have no idea, I can safely say I've never thought about murder this deeply." Which I realised was kind of ironic for a vampire. But it was also true. I'd had control over my feeding even before I became of age at twenty-five. Murder has never really been on my radar, and I didn't intend for it to be now.

Except as dinner date conversation with a pretty woman.

"Me neither, but it's kind of fun," she admitted, her eyes lighting up as she said it.

"I think that's what leads to serial killing," I deadpanned.

A light tinkling laugh came from Zara, but she was stopped from replying by the appearance of one of the waiters. How annoying.

"Do you know what you want?" she asked me.

I shook my head. "No, you order, you know what's good here."

"You okay with sharing?" she checked.

I smiled lightly. "The food, yes. You, no."

Her eyes darted to me, and I instantly wanted to call back my words. Why had I said that? What the hell was wrong with me? Oh yes. There was a pretty woman in front of me, and I was unmistakably male. Rational thought tended to go out of the window when those two facts combined in one.

"I should hope not."

I swallowed the lump in my throat. She was going to end up making me say something really cringe worthy at this rate.

"What can I get you?" the waiter asked Zara, checking her out as he did.

I only just managed to hold back a growl. This could be her mate after all. I wouldn't want to start a fight with the man she was meant to be with. I'd lose that just by breathing.

"Can we have the tuna platter, for two. Sides of the crab, and the grilled prawns. We'll have a jar of sake, and two glasses of water too, please," she ordered with a smooth confidence that told me I'd made the right decision in letting her choose.

"Thank you, miss." The waiter nodded at her, before scowling at me. Ah, the problem probably wasn't that he was her real mate. It was more likely that he could smell the vampire on me. There wasn't much I could do about that. Maybe roll around in some dragon dung. Or take a dip in their sacred lake thingy. I'd never been there, but I'd heard a lot about it. I suspected that some people would have a fit if I ever set foot in the vicinity.

Just imagine what they'd do if they found out what Tate and Sian had done on the banks of their precious lake while Devon and Ayra had been busy sticking their egg in an underwater nest.

"I don't think he liked me," I said as he walked away.

"Does anyone like you, Marcus?"

I thought about it for a moment. "Ayra and Devon like me."

"Who is Ayra?" Zara asked, c*****g her head to the side.

Shit. What did I do now? I wasn't supposed to reveal that Ayra wasn't Tate.

"Did I say Ayra? I don't know what I was thinking. I meant Tate."

"And those two are easy to mix up because..."

I laughed slightly to myself. She really had no idea quite how easy it was to mix up the two women. They were almost identical in every way. Except the whole one being a dragon and one being a vampire thing. Well, and I suppose the fact that one of them had a girlfriend and one had a husband. That was quite some difference too.

"I have ex-girlfriends called both?" I offered weakly.

"First murder, now exes. All we need to do now is talk about anthrax or STDs and we'll have covered most of the topics we should avoid on first date."

"And yet you'll still consider going on a second one with me?" I asked hopefully.

A look of shock flitted over Zara's face. "You want to go on a second date with me?"

Why was she so surprised? She was beautiful, and so far we'd seemed to click, even if we weren't far into our meal. And by not far in, I meant I was starting to get super hungry, and if the restaurant wasn't careful, they were going to end up with a grumpy vampire on their hands.

I wondered if dragon blood tasted nice or not.

But I didn’t need to worry much longer. The waiter with the stink eye brought a whole platter with seafood and managed to both smile at Zara and glare at me at the same time. Maybe his face was just like that.

Hungrily, I drew in the scent and almost gagged. Whatever he brought, it wasn’t fresh seafood. It smelled… Raw and fermented. I glanced at the plates of food he clonked down on the table and pulled up my nose as the crab meat wobbled inside the shell. I was ninety-nine percent sure crab meat wasn’t supposed to do that. At least the shrimp were… black. The shrimp were black. That didn’t count as ‘grilled’, lousy dragons.

“You okay there?” Curiously, Zara caught my eye.

“Primo perfecto,” I lied, holding up my thumb. My stomach turned as I inspected our feast and I wondered whether I would throw up before, during, or after the meal. How was I ever going to eat this?

I glanced at my date and puffed up my chest. Come on, Marc, don’t be a p***y now. I told myself, subtly breathing through my mouth to dim the horrendous stink. This was all in my head, I just needed to flip my mindset. Yes, I could do that.

I loved raw crab and burned shrimp. Loved, loved, hated, hated it. Why did they eat such weird things? Couldn’t they just have proper food at their festivals? Just one nice steak was all I wanted.

“Shall we dig in?”

I gestured at the plate. “After you.”

Happily, Zara picked a black shrimp from the platter and pure bliss appeared on her face as she sucked the burnt flesh out of the tail. I eyed the seafood, trying to figure out what would be the least horrible thing to eat. Black shrimps, a hunk of fermented tuna, or raw crab.

Why, why, why did I have to take out a dragon?

The sour scent of the fermented fish hit my nose and I settled on the crab. I poked my fork into the squishy white blubber and cringed. The meat curled around the tines of my fork and I drew it up like a slinger of snot. Gross.

With trembling hands, I brought the fork of sea mucus up to my mouth and stared at Zara. Did I like her so much I was actually contemplating eating this disgusting food?

She grinned as she munched down on the tuna and there was something so undisturbed about her. Most girls I took on dinner dates ate the salad and were so fidgety and tense, it wasn’t very fun. But Zara was genuinely having a good time.

Yes, I liked her this much.

I shoved a heaping fork of stringy crab meat in my mouth and pretty much cried as the salty taste hit my tongue. I was never going to make it through this dinner, not unless I wanted to end the date sobbing like a child.

“You sure you’re okay?” Zara tilted her head as she deshelled another crispy shrimp.

“Yuuuup!” I shrieked, my voice high like a choir boy. It was as if my testicles never descended.

The beautiful woman across me broke her usual composed stature and guffawed so loudly, she choked on some of her seafood. Coughing and hiccuping in laughter, she gulped down some of her water and sprayed her side of the table as I retched on the other side.

The waiter glared at our table, but luckily left us to it. Thank f**k for that. I really didn’t have any words to explain just how badly this date was going.

Zara chortled and hid her face in her hands. “I-I-I’m so so so sorry,” she snorted, slipping back in a laughing fit. She’d probably disagree, but I liked it. She was carefree and loud, and a little obnoxious. But it beat the stiff and awkward from before, even if I had to eat a stinky mouthful of slimey crab to crack her real smile.

“You’re beautiful when you laugh out loud,” I said, hoping to turn the situation around. If I could flatter her in the same breath as almost throwing up, I should give myself a pat on the back.

“Stop it,” she sniggered, swatting the air as if that would help her stop laughing.

“I’m serious, it suits you.” I pushed the platter of food away, hoping it would stop the smell wafting up in my nose, but it didn’t really do anything. Good thing I didn’t have that super sensitive sense of smell most vampires had. The one time that being a halfling came in handy. Although now I would have to find a way to explain to Zara why I almost puked out her favourite meal. Maybe I could claim to be sick? Did dragons even get sick?

“O-O-Okay, I’m good.” She hid the last snort behind her hand and regained her composure. She mopped up the water and threw another shrimp in her mouth. “So what’s up with your weird voice.”

I loosened my tie and contemplated lying. But I already did enough of that today. I’d been doing a lot of it throughout my whole life. Vampires weren’t that accepting of halflings, but as long as I didn’t let them get close to me, they would never find out. Only Ayra knew about my secret parentage. I’d told her when we were teenagers. After the humiliating rejection.

But this girl… Zara? I didn’t know her, she didn’t know me. Maybe it was time to tell someone the truth. When Ayra’s egg was ready to leave their sacred lake nest they wouldn’t need me to housesit any longer. I could go back to my own, vampire life without needing to see her everywhere I went.

“I’m going to tell you a secret. Come here.” I beckoned her to come closer and she leant in with a conspiring grin.

“I love secrets. What is it?”

“I’m not a dragon, not really. I’m a halfling.”

Zara’s brows furrowed and the smile fell from her face. “Jerk!” she called, tossing the crab guts in my face as she stormed out of the restaurant. The slimy seafood slid down my nice shirt as I ran behind her.

“Wait!”

She slammed the restaurant door and ran out into the street. I tripped over my own feet and scrambled up as I practically floored a bypasser. I spilled some of the crab meat on him and feverishly apologised.

Zara turned the corner and I quickened the pace. Damn, this girl was fast. I hurried behind her and almost yanked her back by her arm, until I remembered what Ayra taught me when I grabbed her without permission. My crotch hadn’t liked that lesson. So instead I cut in front of her and halted her storm.

“Let me explain.”