A Boy and His Dragon (8 page)

Then he blinked, because that last comment hadn’t made any sense.

“Wait, what?”

Bertie turned away, his nose up in the air as if Arthur wasn’t worth an explanation or he thought Arthur wouldn’t understand one.

The warmth in Arthur’s stomach vanished.

“We really
are
speaking a different language.
Beings
,” he muttered under his breath. He wanted to flop down onto the couch, but he couldn’t with Bertie there and wouldn’t have anyway because that couch was made from a velvet so fine that just touching it once had made him sigh.

Bertie turned back to stare at him and raised one eyebrow, which meant he’d heard that remark. Arthur hurried forward only to stop once he was a foot from the couch. Bertie’s gaze stayed on him, and though his pose was relaxed, like some kind of emperor, a few grapes still in his lap as he lounged, the very air around him seemed hot and still.

Whenever the air had been that hot and still, Arthur’s mother had used to call it earthquake weather, which Arthur had never understood. Not as a child anyway, though he was getting it now. At this exact moment, he suddenly understood how the potential for a disaster could be felt in the air. It was almost as if the house itself was watching him.

“I’m sorry. I don’t… I haven’t read your books yet.” Actually, the two he got from the library didn’t seem to be about dragons at all, and what he looked at on the library computers hadn’t said A Boy and His Dragon

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much. The information on trolls and werewolves and demons was far more complete. He supposed they were a bigger threat and had needed to be studied more. Dragons… no one knew for sure how to classify them: lucky protectors or fearsome beasts. Maybe both. “I don’t know about dragons. Are you… typical?”

“Are you typical for a human?” Bertie idly picked up the grapes and dropped them onto the table behind him without looking to see where they fell. Arthur couldn’t read his expression and tell if he was angry or disappointed or teasing him again.

“That…. I know there’s no such thing as typical.” He’d never tripped over his words so much but he never meant to hurt anyone.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like a jerk, it’s just that I’ve never met anyone like you.”

There was no change in Bertie’s face, but something in his posture seemed to ease. He melted back into the velvety cushions.

The air around them no longer seemed to portend disaster, but Arthur wasn’t breathing any easier yet.

“Do you mean someone who doesn’t like watching a person suffer needlessly?” Bertie sat up just for a moment to twist around and flick open the silver chest so he could take out a cigarette. “That
is
sad, Arthur.”

Arthur’s mouth opened and closed for a moment.

“That isn’t what I meant,” he protested, but of course Bertie had known that. He’d said it too pointedly for it to be a mistake.

“Ah, so you mean someone who flirts outrageously with you?” Bertie stuck the cigarette in his mouth and winked at Arthur’s slight squirm and subsequent frown. “Or do you mean a Being? Surely you must have met a few.”

“There was a fairy in one of my classes.” It just came out.

Arthur wasn’t sure why, because Bertie and Clematis weren’t alike at all, and Bertie was hardly going to be interested in a fairy Arthur had known once.

“A fairy?” Bertie instantly proved him wrong, settling in on the couch again to study Arthur. He seemed to know the whole story R. Cooper

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already, and it made him frown. “And did he or she like you?” His voice deepened.

“Yes.” Arthur wasn’t sure where this was going and answered as carefully as he could. “Yes, he did.” Clematis had eyes like a cappuccino, swirling shades of warm brown, and long wings like green Depression glass, and the broad shoulders of a swimmer.

Despite his muscle, he weighed almost nothing at all when he pounced on Arthur for that first kiss. His glitter rained gently down on Arthur, his come tasted sugar sweet, and his body felt almost fragile under Arthur’s clumsy human fingers.

Then he was gone. Arthur frowned and focused back on Bertie.

It wasn’t that he wanted to make his orientation clear, to let Bertie know he was available and possibly interested. Even if both of these things were true. He hadn’t been planning to talk about himself at all, but after being so insensitive, it only seemed fair to offer Bertie something of himself in return.

He didn’t think it was that big a deal, not with Bertie admitting that he’d been flirting, though Arthur still didn’t know whether his flirting was personal to Arthur or just a habit. This was a college town after all, and Bertie was a man of learning and intelligence and unlikely to be a bigot about Arthur being gay. Anyway, dragons, like many other Beings, didn’t have the same hang-ups about morality that a lot of humans did, or at least, what morality they had was different.

“Yes.” Bertie stared at the unlit cigarette in his hand. “About that….” His pause was heavy and his slight frown made him seem pained again. “You should watch yourself around Beings, Arthur.

Some of us have a definite type when it comes to humans. A taste, if you will.”

He raised his head and met Arthur’s shocked, wide-eyed stare.

Arthur couldn’t quite process what Bertie’s look was telling him. He thought faintly that if Bertie was trying to say
Arthur
was the preferred boyfriend material for creatures of unbelievable magic, power, and beauty, then that was ridiculous because he wasn’t anything special to look at. He’d never be an underwear model even A Boy and His Dragon

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if he ate normally and gained some weight back. He was a good student who loved his choice of career, if he ever got back to it, but he wasn’t a genius. He was, he thought tightly, a skinny kid with little to no free time who usually had his snub nose in a book when he wasn’t working.

His conversation was lacking, too, and not just because some dragon seemed to enjoy rendering him speechless. He closed his mouth, at least, so he wouldn’t ask if that’s what Bertie meant, and if so, why, because he’d already put his foot in his mouth once in the last few minutes, and he didn’t want to do it again.

Bertie shook himself and broke the stare.

“Were you sad when the fairy left you? He did, didn’t he?” He rose in one fluid, restless motion and went over to the fireplace.

With his back turned, Arthur only saw the spark and then the thin trail of smoke rising from the cigarette.

Yes
, Arthur thought but didn’t say out loud. He was sad when Clematis left. Sad and lost because knowing a fairy would leave was something he’d chosen to ignore during their time together. Frankly, he’d been so swept away, grateful, and happy to be with someone that he hadn’t wanted to think about it.

Arthur’s stomach rumbled, the snack reminding him that he did need to stop, and he ought to find some real food if he wanted to make it home without passing out.

“Yes and no.” He shrugged for show, though Bertie couldn’t see. If Bertie
was
tasting the scents in the air, all he had to do was lick his lips to sense Arthur’s distress at the memory of waiting for a call that never came and looking for those green-glass fairy wings in his classes, only to realize Clematis must have left the school completely. But Arthur had been an undergrad then—it was years ago. He hadn’t had time to think about it since then, not really. It only stung now instead of making him cry. “He was never going to make it through the history program,” he dismissed it as evenly as he could. “He had no focus at all.”

Bertie gave a soft snort before turning around again. Arthur couldn’t read his expression, but his eyes were old and sharp, more R. Cooper

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than human. Of course he wasn’t surprised the fairy left. Why shouldn’t a fairy have left Arthur? It was pathetic that Arthur would even try to deny how alone he’d felt afterward, how bereft. It was nice to feel loved by someone other than his sister, and he hadn’t wanted it to end. That was the truth. Having a fairy to teach him things was almost a bonus, like a dream come true—for a while.

He did his best to focus on the present and to keep his face blank, but those eyes were still on him.

“Is it true that no one can fool a dragon?” Arthur was rough and loud again, and swallowing did nothing for his voice. “Because when you look at me like that, I feel like you’re weighing my soul, or at least reading my mind.”

Arthur couldn’t believe he’d said it. Maybe it was the embarrassment of talking about his fairy ex-boyfriend or the pity he knew Bertie had to be feeling. He really was softhearted for a fearsome dragon. He already offered to feed Arthur. Arthur shouldn’t be dumping his problems on him too. He’d humiliated himself enough as it was. If he kept this up he’d be telling Bertie about the dream he had last night in which a gleaming lizard held him down by his shoulders and then slowly, slowly lowered its head until Arthur woke up, breathing hard.

“Would you mind if I was?” The question startled him and he jumped. “Would I find something you wouldn’t wish me to know, Arthur?” The question curled slowly around him, like the trails of gray, spicy smoke.

Arthur looked over—into those eyes, at the shining hint of scales at his throat, at his mouth—and then looked away, nearly gasping in relief when his gaze landed on the piles of books.

“Are your books that successful? To pay for this house I mean.” Arthur stepped back and went over to the table. He wiped his hands on his jeans and took some more almonds.

“You might say I have family money with me, but yes, the books do well enough in certain circles.” Amusement—it had to be amusement—made Bertie’s voice even rougher, but he came away from the fireplace, slowly sauntering in Arthur’s direction.

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Arthur moved again, though he didn’t have a destination.

Bertie stopped by the arm of the couch.

“You mean with Beings. There aren’t many books on them that weren’t written by humans.” As Arthur discovered during his trip to the library. The Internet wasn’t much better. He’d mostly found a bunch of anti-Being hate sites full of ignorance and misinformation, and human/Being fetish sites with message boards advising him to get a werewolf lover if he could.

He’d really rather not. He had enough problems. But he replayed Bertie’s words and forgot all about FangandFur.com because Bertie had meant the treasure. His mythical but very real dragon’s treasure.

He almost choked as he swallowed a whole almond.

“Is that in the
house
?” Unlike before, when it had been a vague concept, now he could picture mountains of gold and jewels strewn about, and the image wasn’t reassuring. “You keep your family’s treasure in this house? And you don’t even lock the door?” Arthur was wheezing as images of armed robberies sprang to mind. People had to know a dragon lived here. “You need to start setting that alarm! What if people find out? They’re going to take it and probably kill you!”

He only got his mouth closed when he realized that Bertie didn’t seem to be listening. He had his eyes closed and a strange, happy smile on his face. He looked like he was dreaming about something nice and wasn’t at all concerned about Arthur’s panic.

Ash dropped to the floor, ruining a costly carpet. Not that Bertie seemed concerned about that either.

“Oh, Arthur, stay as long as you like,” he purred at last, and reopened his eyes. He came forward and around the table to pick up an apple in one hand. He spun it like that globe for one moment and then slowly stretched out his arm to offer it to Arthur. “You will stay, won’t you?”

Arthur’s concerns caught in his throat. He didn’t take the apple, and after a moment, Bertie wrinkled his nose and set it down.

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He stared at it so forlornly that Arthur felt like he had to say something.

“I… I still have a lot of work to do,” he remarked, and the warmth of his flush spread from his cheeks to the skin hidden by his T-shirt. Bertie instantly perked up.

“Wonderful news.” He released a pleased little puff of smoke.

“If you’re still working around dinner time, we must get something.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Arthur tried to wave it off, but it was too late. Now that he’d eaten, now that he was agreeing to stay, he was also apparently agreeing to eat again. Bertie stepped away, grinning in a way that made Arthur’s heart beat faster. It could have been alarm, but Arthur didn’t think so. He was too hot for that.

“So, I’ll leave you to it, shall I?”

“You shall,” Arthur agreed quietly, trying to figure out what just happened. He’d been insulting, then revealed he had his heart broken once, and now he was to go back to work and maybe have dinner later? He glanced down at the apple as Bertie left the room, going toward his study.

It was a plain red apple, not covered in wax because it was organic—the sticker said so. He had no explanation at all for why it seemed to gleam.

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IT CERTAINLY tasted like an ordinary apple. Arthur rediscovered it later that afternoon when he realized that he was still starving, and ate it quickly before getting back to work. He hopped on his bike to head home not long after that. It was getting dark, and he didn’t really want to put Bertie through any trouble in finding or cooking any food for him.