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Quill and Raven floated down to join us on the main floor, having returned from monitoring their patient upstairs. The pair politely waited on my brusque nod before helping themselves to a drink, then settled themselves at a table nearby. For some reason it struck me that Quill and Raven were mighty interested in Dan’s convalescence. Was it just their job or something more pulling them to his side?
I shook my head. Not my monkey and definitely not my circus.
With all this insta-lust zapping around, my matchmaking brain had clearly been flipped into overdrive. I didn’t need to go looking for trouble where there wasn’t any, I had plenty to keep my hands full. Very full, if the tented jeans on Radon were anything to go by. That guy–dragon? alien? Shit, my head was spinning again–was well endowed. Thick didn’t even begin to describe what that surly bastard was carrying around in his well-fitted denim. I wasn’t even sure I could wrap my hand all the way round that thing.
“Hold up, witches! Come on, Cadmium,” hollered Eden over her shoulder as she came clattering into my bar. “If Argon’s gonna sic you on me as my personal bodyguard–watch your eyebrows–then the least you can do is step up to the plate as my drinking proxy.”
The dangerous looking female biker, Cadmium I presumed, offered me a curt nod of acknowledgement while utterly failing to hide her put upon expression as they took up their own stools. Eden poured a generous glass of whiskey and handed it to the biker. After giving Eden a blank stare–who only stared back–Cadmium sighed, took the glass and downed her medicine.
“Thatta girl. We’ll make a bar hoe out of you yet.”
I bit my lip, fighting the crazy urge to laugh. At least I wasn’t the only one around here who the overbearing bikers–no,alien dragon shifters, fuck that little nugget was going to take some getting used to–had decided needed a babysitter.
The realization was strangely reassuring. Maybe I wasn’t being singled out just because the purple-skinned hotties couldn’t keep their eyes off me. Maybe this was just how the Stellar Misfits looked after their own on Earth.
“Sam,” I growled, the world starting to tilt again. “Out with it.”
“Okay,” Samantha sighed, getting out a pen and small notebook she had tucked away in her jean pocket. “The tale goes a little something like this.”
The librarian started doodling and for some reason I couldn’t tear my eyes away from whatever marks her pen was leaving on the page. Then I realized that the marks she was making were not staying confined to the page at all. Her hasty sketch of a dragon was lifting off the surface of the paper and floating in the air. My mouth popped open in shock.
“What is that?” I practically screeched.
“Magic.” My friend shrugged. “Seeing is believing, am I right?” She bent back to the page. “A long, long time ago…”
While Samantha sketched and I gaped, Cadmium drank. It didn’t take long for the bottle to get dangerously low but the tough-as-nails biker didn’t seem the worse for wear. My head was swimming from the impromptu magical history lesson so I gave my drinking buddy and her strange cheer squad the side-eye. “I hope you know you are paying for that. It’s my top shelf. I have to order it in special.”
With a nod, Cadmium dropped a couple of hundred dollar bills on the countertop. “Drinks are on me, human mate.”
“Um, nope,” I smirked, pocketing the cash. “I am not a mate, but I sure am a human who appreciates the kind contribution to her awesomely shitty Friday night.” I looked forlornly about the empty space, then at my great, great, great grandfather’s clock. Almost midnight. Usually Last Chance Bar would be pumping by now. It hurt to see it dry and empty.
“I can call in my people, if you like?” Cadmium offered. “They will all drink on my orders if it will ease your troubles.”
I laughed. “Good to know, Misfit. If shit goes downhill, I might just take you up on that. But I think I’m just going to drown my sorrows solo for tonight. Can’t remember the last time I took a Friday night off.” I took another sip of my drink, then sauntered over to the footstool to get down the next bottle, before cracking it and filling up both our glasses. “Plus, I don’t really want them back in here. The one with the kissable lips is getting on my nerves.”
“Yes, Quasar can be a lot to handle.”
“I was talking about Radon,” I muttered.
She shot me a raised eyebrow as though she couldn’t believe I’d described the moody prick as kissable. “Must be the magical sex-mojo.”
“Must be,” she sniffed.
I turned to Eden. “So, gonna tell us why you need a drinking proxy?”
My old classmate, who was looking forlornly at her glass of iced water, perked right up at the invitation. “Does that mean you are done being schooled by our scribe?”
I gave her a dry look, earning a soft chuckle from Raven and Quill and a snort of amusement from Cadmium. The lecturing scribe scoffed and waved away her magical creation. In truth, my addled brain couldn’t take much more of Samantha’s magical history lesson. I’d started tuning out when she’d drawn some sort of human-Drakon hybrid creature.
Believing in that sort of mumbo jumbo was a one-way ticket to crazy town.
I’d picked up the most salient points, the rest would have to wait.
Asteroid, Quasar and Radon thought I was their fated mate because some magical flying rock told them so. Apparently just being in their vicinity, being aware of their existence, meant the mating bond had started to form between us.
So this fledgling bond which had started to form of its own accord–could anyone say magical leash?–would demand completion over the coming days, building in its potency the longer I resisted its call. Oh, and that thing I’d felt on my neck? It was a fucking claiming mark, akin to a magical tattoo, which would take its permanent place on my skin once I gave in to this desire to mount my fated mates and accept their claim.
And the last and final doozy was that a completed bond came with magical perks. An otherworldly power up, if you will.
