Page 3 of Ignite the Infernos

The wasps slowly gathering in my stomach encourage me to tear out of here, but if I do that, I’d need to find another bank and be back at square one. Temmeh Financial had the best strategic positioning and the most bugout options. I need to trust the plan and do what I’m here to do.

My pulse thumps loudly in my ears, but I focus on my breathing and work to calm down. Magic eddies against my edges, and I beg the restless beast pacing inside of me to get comfortable and go back to sleep. It feels beyond wrong to stifle something I’ve spent my whole life chasing, but if I reveal now, it will fuck everything up, and I can’t let that happen.

“Miss . . . uh . . . Tenebrae?” a man calls, and I turn to find an attractive human standing off to the side. He’s the kind of pretty that invites strangers to be too trusting, but it’s infused with just the right amount of edge that people in these parts need to feel comfortable. I’m sure he makes a killing on his sales quotas. “Hi. I’m Omari. I’ll be helping you with your account today,” he greets, his hundred-watt smile dimming as soon as I come within smelling range.

I don’t miss the brief flash of reproach Omari gives the woman tending the front desk before he ushers me down a hall to his office. The human moves to take a seat behind his desk, his focus on holding his breath and pulling up the translucent display on his monitor, which means he’s not paying any attention to me when I finally decide to remove my cloak.

I’m nervous for a handful of reasons but eager to reclaim this part of my life. To exist without having to hide what I am is a hard thing to wrap my mind around, but this is the first step. And it feels so much bigger than it is.

“I apologize for the stench,” I airily tell the account manager. “I was accidentally splashed by a wayward spell, and I haven’t had time to get my cloak treated. Can you recommend anyone to look at it while I’m in town?” I ask, aiming for easygoing as I drape the offending fabric on the back of a chair.

“I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head since that’s not something we normally han—” Omari’s voice stalls midword as he finally looks away from his holoscreen and glances up at me.

His eyes grow comically wide with shock, darting from my hair to my face, down to my armored suit, before settling on my dragon mark. Instantly, he shoots up from his seat, his hands hurrying to smooth the front of his crisp navy-blue shirt.

I can practically see the questions and doubts flapping around in his mind: I can’t be what he thinks I am; I wouldn’t be sitting here in his office if I were. It could be a tattoo or something else, but imitating dragon marks is illegal in Drameric, so what does that make me? He doesn’t know the answer, but he does know that whatever just walked into his office is dangerous and important in equal measure.

“Y-your cloak?” he stammers, scrambling out from behind his desk. “We can absolutely get it cleaned for you. That’s not a problem at all,” he insists, darting around me and plucking the garment from the chair before I can respond. Omari flings his office door open and awkwardly croons, “Francine.”

A few seconds go by, but the summons is met with silence.

Omari looks back at me and chuckles nervously. “Francine,” he calls louder, his voice breaking with apprehension.

Again, no one answers. The human’s smile shifts from charming to distressed, like he expects me to go full dragon any second now and swallow him whole.

Like he just heard that thought, Omari screams, “Francine!”

The high-pitched panic in his voice has me biting back an unexpected laugh. I distract myself by taking a seat in front of the desk. Maybe the human will calm down if I look a little less intimidating.

Omari lets out an alarmed squeak, and I turn to find him eyeing one of the many lock-sheaths I have attached to my back. Shit, maybe I should have left the stinky cloak on. Flashing the small arsenal I’m carrying definitely isn’t helping the jumpy human.

Just then, the woman from the help desk appears in the hallway, and Omari practically sprints to her. Their exchange is a flurry of dark blue fabric, alarmed whispers, and fingers pointed in my direction. My heightened sense of smell is immediately overwhelmed by the sharp scent of fear mixing with the bright bouquet of excitement. The abundant reek of centaur shit underlies everything else, and just like the desk clerk earlier, I find myself wanting to plug my nose.

Suddenly, Omari is back in the open doorway of his office, looking like he’s trying to decide if he just hit the jackpot or if he’s about to lose everything. Behind him, Francine—I presume—darts back down the hallway, my stolen cloak in hand.

I expected a reaction when I showed myself, but I’m out of my depth with this. I was hoping Omari would be so overwhelmed with my presence that he’d set up my account without doing all the checks he’s supposed to. Then I could be out of here quicker than he could stutter dragoness. But now that I’m in the thick of his panic, I feel less powerful than I thought I would and entirely too exposed.

“Is there anything else we can get you, Ms. Tenebrae, uhhh . . . I mean . . . madam. Sorry! Dragon . . . you are a dragon, right?” he stammers, his face achieving a deeper shade of embarrassment with each fumbled title.

“Ever is fine,” I assure the human as he starts to bow stiffly and then curtsy.

“I don’t think I can call you that,” he argues. “Aren’t there rules? Oh god, am I even allowed to look at you?” he rasps before training his eyes on the ceiling.

Yep, definitely should have left the cloak on. I glance at my com and check the time. Crap. I’m cutting it close. Maybe this was a mistake.

“Omari,” I half sigh, half growl. “I need to open an account and deposit these vials,” I tell him, pulling two of the security-sealed vacutainers out of my pack and setting them on his desk.

An eager glint flashes in Omari’s gaze, and I hope this is what he needs to get his shit together, because I really need him to get his shit together.

“I’d like half the funds transferred to this device,” I continue, setting a credit band next to the vials of blood. “Can you do that in the next twenty minutes, or should I go somewhere else?” I threaten, knowing damn well I don’t have anywhere else to go.

Omari rushes back to his side of the desk and practically throws himself into the chair. He turns to the translucent screen floating above his desk and starts typing frantically. “I can do that. Not a problem at all,” he answers, and I exhale a discreet sigh of relief.

I wait while the human does what he needs to do, peppering me with questions here and there. Time steadily ticks by, and I teeter between the urge to abandon this plan and the desperate need for this gamble to pay off . . . literally. The longer I wait, the more each click of Omari’s keyboard starts to sound like a warning shot I should be sprinting away from. I can’t help but think about the fact that, any second now, a drake or a dragon could come crashing through the ceiling or walls.

“Almost done,” Omari chirps, and I work to breathe through my mounting worry. “I just need you to unlock these so they can be rated, monetized, and then deposited. It should only take a couple of minutes.”

I enter the codes to unlock the vials and hand them back. We’re only twelve minutes into the twenty-minute deadline I gave, but everything inside of me is all too aware of what’s at stake.