Is Captain Six Pack – I can see the damn thing through his white tank top – actually flirting with me?
And if so, how wrong is it for me to…like it?
We’re talking on a scale of one to you should Silence of The Lambs lock me up, where does flirting with a magical criminal land?
A.D. clears his throat prior to offering me the bottle. “Mates first.” Panic immediately pierces his shimmering gaze. “Uh…Um…Ladies. I meant…ladies first.”
Teasing him is done in tandem with taking the bottle. “Did you though?”
Grumbles that sound as equally frightening as they do panty melting are the only sounds presented.
“Bottoms up, peanut butter.” The bottle that’s lighter than expected is pressed to the edge of my lips. Ice cold liquid rapidly invades the space and rushes to baptize my throat in delectable flavors I’ve never experienced. I only gulp down around a shot glass worth but cannot deny the gut feeling that such a little amount is probably more than enough to get a good buzz going. “Whoa.”
A.D. smugly smirks while transferring the booze back into his grip. “Too much?”
“Nah.” I toss him an arrogant grin in return. “I can do another.”
He slowly shakes his head, has a swig, and offers me a mesmerized gaze. “You know most beings I meet can’t even handle a splash of it in their martinis.”
“What can I say?” My slender, tank top-bearing shoulders innocently bounce. “I’m not like most beings.”
A hungry groan helplessly seeps past his gritted teeth. It takes everything in me to press both my lips and thighs closed to prevent A.D. from knowing just how turned on the sound makes me.
And he doesn’t need to know that.
Because I really shouldn’t be getting all hot and bothered by the big blond, murdery dragon.
Fuck me, what a weird sentence.
Needing something to distract myself from the emotions I know I have no business feeling, I grab a handful of M&M’s and push for the earlier conversation to resume. “Becoming tethered to this realm. Explain.”
A.D.’s smoldering stare shifts to one of unease. “It varies. Some Sleepers become tied to this side of The Fog by making deals with witches and demons, which is always, a thousand percent of the time a terrible fucking decision.”
Chewing begins as I continue to listen on.
“Some get shackled to this realm by using certain drugs, but they don’t typically live that long. Sleeper drugs on their own do harsh shit to your bodies, but once you start mixing them with shit like vamp blood, it’s too ugly for fucking words, Tiny Toes.”
“Tiny toes?”
He nonchalantly shrugs. “You call me peanut butter.”
“Because you think you’re smooth.”
“And your toes are bite-sized.”
“They are not!”
“They are so!”
“They are not!” The last of the handful enters my mouth. “They’re a completely normal size for a person!”
“Nope. I’ve slept with my fair share of Sleepers – both men and women – and those cute things are the tiniest I’ve ever seen.”
“You think my feet are cute?”
A.D. grumbles over his mindless admission behind another chug from the bottle.
Happy to have the upper hand once more, I ask, “What are the other ways to become tethered because I don’t do drugs – alcohol aside – and I know that I damn sure didn’t make any backroom deals because I would so ask for my beautician’s license to be put to better use than just a job as a shampoo girl.”
“Well…Sometimes…sometimes it’s through your um…your…,” he struggles to form the next word and relies on another swig of liquid courage to say it, “mate. There are Fated Mates and personally chosen ones.”
“I’m gonna guess this marking on my arm means I’m the former not the latter.”
There’s a grunt followed by a nod and more chugging.
“What exactly does it mean to be a Fated Mate?” Additional guzzling occurs and continues until I remove the bottle from his clutches altogether. “Look, Lucky Charms, I’m sure this bottle is magically delicious for you in comparison to this conversation but pause your selfish prick shit for just a moment and imagine how I fucking feel. Imagine if there was this whole other world you found out existed on a random fucking Tuesday night after spending eight hours sweeping up other people’s hair and listening to customers complain about tipping their hairdresser who fucking struggles to make enough money some days to make up for the money her deadbeat ex isn’t providing to help take care of their child. Imagine how fucking weird that would be and, more importantly, how terrified you would fucking feel not knowing a bunch of shit you probably should.”
Guilt glosses over his gaze.
“So please find it in your goes-great-with-jelly heart to give me the answers I need.”
A faint grin is given prior to a heavy sigh. “The short tail of it is this. Shifters of every kind are Fate Mated. This means that the Goddess of Fate – one of The Great Ones – pre-ties a shifter to one creature. This one creature is the only creature a shifter can produce offspring with. They’re the only one they can ever and will ever love. And in cases like this, where one mate is a…Sleeper,” his chin tips to me, “the shifter – me – becomes your tether to the magical side of shit. That’s why you’re on this side of the fog. That’s why you’re an Awaker now. Because we found each other. Because Fate was finally ready for our paths to cross – in spite of what I believe to be shitty timing. You have a choice in all this. You can reject our mating and go back into The Fog. You can go back to being a Sleeper who can grow old with whatever individual she chooses to spend the rest of her life with and even have kids with them if you want. That mark on your wrist disappears. You’ll have no memory whatsoever of me or this side of existence. Everything you learn or know about it will just feel like bits and pieces of a dream you can’t quite remember.”
There’s a small twitch of my brow. “What happens to you?”
A.D.’s grim expression tells me everything I need to know before his mouth moves. “My lifespan becomes significantly shorter, while my dragon, which lies within me but is still very much so part of me, grows an agonizing ache that never stops. And no amount of vegetables, Leprechaun’s Breath, or M&M’s will help soothe it.”
“Fuck…”
The faintest amount of mirth appears in his tone. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”