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Mr Blade will offer the following terms.
1–2 months of an intimate relationship—on paper only—which will involve the following:
Mixing publicly at events and one-on-one dinners.
Interviews with media as required.
Being photographed together, and these pictures being shared with media outlets as required.
A committed relationship must look authentic to the public, and particularly the Tween Council of Towns and the Land Department, thus some small shows of public affection are expected and will be agreed upon between both parties.
Finally, her gaze scanned to the financial incentive and her eyes nearly fell out of her head.
The proposed sum was for a period of one month, to be renewed at the same monthly or pro-rata rate.
Three hundred thousand Motham dollars.
Three hundred thousand Motham dollars! For a month of fake dating a dragon. The bookshop here, the land around it, that would surely be worth no more than half of that at the most, leaving her with a hefty sum to continue running the shop. To upgrade it, even.
Min sat blinking at the page until the numbers jiggled in front of her eyes.
Could she do this?
Could she pretend to be in love with a dragon?
She’d never had to pretend anything in her life. But then… with a dragon… maybe it wouldn’t be so difficult. After all, she’d always been fascinated by dragon kind, even though there was so little written about them. “It’s perplexing,” her father had told her once, “that I can’t find a more comprehensive history of dragons. A pity, really, because rumor suggests a closely intertwined relationship with humans in the distant past.”
Now she picked up one of the only two books she owned on dragons, which she’d read and re-read since Adina’s visit. It was titled Dragons Since the Great War: A Brief History.
She turned the pages. As history books went, this one was sketchy, authored by a human, not a dragon, but it did have nice illustrations. She’d studied it often enough, but re-reading it now, it suddenly seemed far more pertinent.
While early dragon/human relationships were believed to be harmonious, with shifter dragons fighting alongside humans to ward off aggressive ogre hordes, it is understood that a souring of relations occurred in the lead-up to The Great War. Shifting powers in dragons faded, and eventually they froze into their current dragon form.
There is no adequate explanation for why dragon kind lost their ability to shift. Or why they now retain mixed human/dragon characteristics. Certainly, dragons became more wary of humans in the tumultuous period leading up to The Great War, and it is rumored that as punishment, humans got powerful mages to cast spells on dragon kind to weaken their shifting powers.
Unfortunately, no texts have survived to support or refute these stories.
Min sighed. If her father hadn’t found any more books on dragon history, they probably no longer existed.
She returned to reading.
Modern day dragons: Two strains of dragons now live in Motham: the ferals and the aviators.
The ferals are a smaller, wily, gray-green species with sharp claws. There is believed to have been cross-breeding with other lizard species that accounts for their different characteristics.
The second strain, the Motham aviators, are broad and well-built with strongly humanoid characteristics to their frame, including their legs, arms and torso. They retain the scales and facial features of dragons. This species is directly descended from two dragon clans, the Blades and the Delawares. Bartholomew Blade helped Atholrose Motham establish the city of Motham. These two families share minimal DNA with the ferals. To this day they are considered to be decent, upstanding citizens of Motham City.
Min snapped the book shut and put it aside. There was no point trying to fathom human/dragon relationships in the past. It was the here and now she had to focus on.
She was relieved to read that the aviation dragons were deemed to be hard-working and successful dragons. They were respected in Motham. And clearly, wealthy. And one of them was willing to pay her handsomely for a month of the Westwind name.
Min looked at the sum again. She blinked and shoved her glasses up her nose with a shaky finger.
It was a crazily large amount. Almost too good to be true.
With a plaintive meow, Gingerbread jumped onto her lap.
Min stroked the cat’s ears absently. “What do you think, Ginge? Should I do this?”
