Page 11 of Under the Dragon's Spell
"It's fine. It wasn't your fault."
"No, it's… Man, I really wanted this for you." She sniffed. For some reasons, all of this had her more upset than me.
"Are you crying?"
"No, I'm…" She exhaled. "Damn it. I didn't want to tell you like this, but I'm pregnant again. I'm having another child."
"You…"What?"That's… that's great, Luca!" But even as I said the words and I wanted to be happy for my friend, everything drew tight beneath my ribcage. Suddenly I felt the urge to throw the phone against the wall and see it smash open.
"It'll happen for you, too, Addi. I know it will."
I swallowed down the lump in my throat. "Yeah. Yeah, sure. Mara's going to love being a big sister."
"Oh, I hope. We really hadn't planned this quite yet, but…" She laughed awkwardly.
"Don't feel bad for me. I'll be fine. You be happy about your little miracle. How far along are you?"
"Only about eight weeks, the doctor says."
We continued the rest of the phone call like that. Both of us trying to pretend that I hadn't majorly messed up today and that everything was going to be fine. I managed to believe that lie for about as long as the phone call. But once I hung up, I fell into my bed and pulled my pillow over my head. And as soon as I closed my eyes, Tyrel's image rose to the forefront of my mind.
You fascinate me, he'd said.
But what did that mean?
5
TYREL
I had three more interviews that day after Adrian, but I couldn't quite get the strange little guy out of my head. I used to think all humans were the same—easily crushed by our magic and ready to bend to our will. When I'd tried to get him to tell me about his past lover, I hadn't even really thought about forcing him. The pure act of it had become second nature to me in dealing with weaker minded species.
But then he'd surprised me by not answering.
I hadn't known that was an option for him. It shouldn't have been.
That was when I'd started truly paying attention. I'd had to try again, and he'd resisted me again.
Fascinating.
He hadn't been completely impervious. Oh no. I'd had him. But he'd been aware of it. I'd scared him, I could tell.
Normally, mere humans didn't notice when I was using magic on them. Adrian had known—he'd tried to shake me off. I could have overpowered him. Not easily, but with a little more effort, yes, I could have done it. I could have made him kiss me, and a number of other things as well. Things I'd very much wanted right then.
But where was the fun in that?
Humans bored me, exactly because theywereso easy. Mindless critters, all of them.
My mother told me I needed an attitude adjustment. I told her where she could stick that opinion.
I suspected that was part of the reason she wanted me to take a human mate so much.
Breed with a human mate, darling. Or you won't get your inheritance.
I kept her words in mind even as I went on to the rest of my scheduled interviews. I hadn't even looked at the applications myself. Mother had picked who I was going to see. Then she'd given me the pictures so I would recognize them, and I went off to go through the motions.
After Adrian, the next three interviews reconfirmed my suspicions about humans. I asked the second guy to run around the table three times while barking like a dog and he never thought twice about it. There were a lot of things people were willing to do for my family's money, but this idiot wasn't doing it for the money. He did it because I asked him to. That was fun, but only up to a point. I thought about asking him to suck me off in a bathroom stall for some more fun before I left, but sadly, that was one of the things that would get me in trouble with the elders if they found out. Humans were mindless dolls, but apparently, we couldn't pull their strings too much. The rules were clear about enforcing sexual contact. It wasn't done. Even what I'd tried on Adrian earlier, telling him to kiss me, had been pushing that line. But he hadn't followed through anyway, so no harm done.
When I got back to the vacation home where I was staying with my mother and some of our staff, I was immediately met with questions.
