“I’M not going to see Cai Wyvern ever again,” Ember told Bethany and Willow as she cracked the lobster shell with the pliers thingee and then ripped it apart with both hands.
Bethany and Ember watched her disembowel the crustacean, looked at each other, and nodded to her without saying a word. They were sitting on the couch in her apartment, while Ember sat in the chair. The take-out containers from the Dragon’s Den casino were stacked five-high on and around the coffee table. They’d already finished the first bottle of champagne.
Ember insisted, “I’m not going to. I’m through with him. I’m done. I am totally done with Mr. Run-Hot-and-Run-Cold. I am finished with Mr. Run-Away-and-Hide. I am all the way over Mr. Send-Gifts-and-Ghost. I can’t take this anymore. I won’t let him break my heart.”
Too late.
Ember pushed that thought aside.
A stupid wet drop splashed on the lobster, adding salt.
Bethany was on her feet and rushed to Ember’s side. “Honey—”
“Nope, I’m fine, don’t! Nope-I’m-fine-don’t!” Ember choked out as she pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes.
Willow watched them from where she sat on the couch, her eyes wide and horrified, and she flinched forward like she wasn’t sure whether she should jump up or not.
Bethany laid her hand on Ember’s shoulder, and Ember grabbed all her emotions and shoved them into a little ball. She’d hardly met Cai Wyvern. They’d had lunch and done sexy things but not The Deed. There was no reason for her to be broken up in the slightest about that damn dragon. She crammed the stupid-emotion ball down somewhere deep inside herself. “Bethany, I’m fine!”
Bethany patted Ember’s shoulder. “Yes, you are.”
Willow set her Styrofoam box on the coffee table and put her hands on her knees like she was about to stand up.
Ember sucked in a deep breath and then stuffed a chunk of buttery lobster in her mouth after it. She mumbled around the shellfish, “See? I’m eating. I’m fine. Don’t encourage my stupid display of emotion. Sit down.”
Bethany side-hugged her quickly and then went back and sat on the couch. She and Willow traded a long look, though.
Ember chomped her way through the lobster, stabbing her fork into it and pushing hunks of meat into her mouth. “I’m fine,” she said between bites. “I’m totally fine. Really, I’m mad at that jerk. If he called me, I wouldn’t pick up the damn phone right now. If he texted me, I would delete his conversation. I’m so stupid. I totally believed him when he said he liked me.”
Willow and Bethany exchanged another look. Willow asked, “How did he say he liked you?”
“We were just sitting there, and he said that he really liked me.”
Another look passed between the two of them.
Bethany asked, “He said he really liked you?”
Ember nodded and switched to the truffled salad. “Yeah, so?”
Willow muttered to Bethany, “That’s interesting.”
Ember scowled at them.
Bethany nodded to Willow. “Are you also seeing the shiny things that I’m seeing?”
Willow glanced at Ember, and light dawned in her light eyes. “Oh!”
“Yeah,” Bethany said. “And over on the side table.”
Willow glanced over to the table under the window, where three huge bouquets composed of everything but roses were standing in vases. “Uh-huh.”
Neither one of them looked particularly worried about Ember anymore.
Indeed, both Bethany and Willow both had their eyes wide open like they totally believed Ember and were trying not to laugh at her, and Ember didn’t care one damn bit. “What is wrong with the two of you?”
“You’re absolutely right,” Bethany said. “You’re doing the right thing.”
“Yes,” Willow said. “What she said. You’re totally in the right. He’s totally in the wrong. And you’re doing the right thing.”
Ember yelled at them, “Why are you two laughing at me?”
They both shook their heads with that stupid wide-eyed, too-much-innocence look on their faces.
“Tell me right now!” Ember insisted.
Willow bit her lip and stared at her lobster.
Bethany looked at Willow and then up at the ceiling.
“You two! Talk now!”
Bethany licked her lips and said, “Nice earrings.”
Ember touched the thick, gold hoops hanging from her earlobes. They were a little heavy in her lobes. “Yeah.”
Willow said, “And nice bracelets.”
Bangles of regular gold and white gold, some encrusted with diamonds and other precious stones, clinked on her wrists. “Um.”
Bethany leaned forward. “So, where’d you get those?”
Ember said, “Cai is trying to bribe me to forgive him. He keeps sending over jewelry and desserts and flowers. It’s not going to work. I’m wearing them tonight for fun because I’m going to give them all back to him tomorrow.”
“But, they’re from Cai?” Willow asked.
“Of course. I don’t have the moolah to buy jewelry like this. But I’m giving them back to him tomorrow. I’m not keeping them.”
“Right,” Bethany said. “Giving you jewelry. Check.” She turned on the couch. “Willow, what else?”
“Have you met his dragon?” Willow asked Ember.
“Yeah, Wyvern is a sweetie. I think I like Wyvern better than Cai.”
“And did you ride his dragon?” Willow asked.
“I told you I wanted to, but he keeps jumping out of the bed and running away.”
“No, I mean literally. Did you ride on the back of his literal, lizardy dragon while it was flying with its wings? I think they all fly.”
Ember flapped her hands around. “Well, there was this wild air elemental that needed to be released far out in the desert. It was pretty dangerous and had to be done right away—”
Bethany nodded wisely. “So, that’s a yes?”
“Yes, I literally rode on his flying dragon, and that’s all.”
“Yes,” Bethany said. “So, he’s draping her in his hoard, and she’s riding on the dragon. What else, Willow?”
Willow stirred the creamy potatoes in a Styrofoam container. “Does he drop appointments for you? Like, if he sees you, does everything else take second place, like he can’t really think about anything else?”
Cai had turned off his phone and missed meetings. Even the first time they’d met, he’d missed meetings to hang out with her. “I guess so.”
“And does he find something about you really cute, even enchanting?”
Ember ducked her head. “My magic.”
“Your magic?” Bethany asked her. She added quickly, “Not that there’s anything wrong with your magic.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s weird that he’s been okay with it so fast,” Ember agreed. “Some people aren’t so open-minded.”
Willow said, “You know we’re cool with it, right?”
Ember nodded hard. “You guys have always been great. It was weird those first few years, though, huh?”
Bethany laughed. “I beat up Todd Winslow in fifth grade for talking smack about you.”
“That was you?” Ember laughed at her. “He would never say, and you never said anything.”
“I warned him twice to shut up. After that, I sent a scrubbing apparitional orangutan with steel wool after him. I’m surprised he had a nose left after she was done with him. And, of course I did, silly. I’ll always stand up for you.”
Willow wiggled around a little, grinning. “Remember when Mrs. Jorkens was being a dork to you about stuff, and then she was absent? I slipped a potion in her Diet Coke that turned her skin bright blue for a week. I mean, even the whites of her eyes and her tongue were cobalt blue. And I told her that next time, it would be permanent if she didn’t cut it out.”
“You guys!” Ember teared up. “You didn’t tell me you committed magical violence for me! But, an’ it harm none,” Ember said, reciting the magical dictum that they’d all grown up with.
“We were making sure you didn’t get harmed,” Bethany said, pressing her lips together primly. “Coven before lovin’, am I right?”
Willow nodded. “Witches before hitches.”
Bethany continued, “Everything else was details. Now, do you want us to hunt down Cai Wyvern and make him sprout feathers? Because Willow has a potion for that.”
Willow snorted. “Or if you want us to infest his house with legendary-class apparitions until he dates you properly, Bethany can conjure those up. Maybe some fire-breathing basilisk roaches, this time?”
Bethany grinned and shrugged.
“I guess that would work,” Ember said, nearly considering their sarcasm. “You could threaten him until I get a proper date out of him.”
“Why are you even into this guy, anyway?” Willow asked, flipping her fork nonchalantly, though she was watching Ember with deep intensity in her eyes. “He’s nothing special. I know a couple dozen dragon-shifter dudes who would love to meet you. They’re all hot.”
Ember snorted. “Hot. Like dragonfire.”
They all laughed.
Ember shook her head while she poked through her salad. “Cai is hot, literally. It’s like you can feel the dragonfire burning in him.”
Bethany frowned for a second. “That’s kind of weird. Math is warm, but he’s not that physically hot. Not since—”
Ember went on, “And his eyes are gorgeous, of course. I’ve seen guys with green eyes before, but not fiery and glittering like his.”
Willow dropped her fork. “What did you say?”
“What?” Ember asked, shoving lettuce into her mouth.
Bethany and Willow were staring at each other, and then they turned and looked at Ember.
Bethany asked, “You mean his eyes have some glitter in them, right? Just some sparks, maybe? Just a few?”
“No,” Ember said, setting the salad aside to go after the potatoes. “His eyes are like flowing, green fire. They’re—”
“Striking,” Bethany finished her sentence.
“Distinctive,” Willow supplied.
Ember watched the two of them because they had both set their supper aside and were staring at her. “What’s up?”
“When did his eyes change?” Willow asked her.
“They didn’t change. They’ve always been like that,” Ember said, cutting the layered potatoes with the side of her fork.
“They can’t have been,” Willow said.
“The very first time I met him in the human resources office—”
Bethany snorted. “That squid shifter is hilarious.”
“—his eyes were like that,” Ember said. “I thought all dragon shifters’ eyes looked like that.”
“No, they aren’t,” Willow said, studying her. “Dragons shifters’ eyes look like that, like they’re full of fire and glitter rushing toward the middle—”
“Yeah,” Ember said, “just like that.”
“—only when they’re in mating fever,” Willow said.
“Oh, yeah,” Ember said, forking a piece of her lobster’s tail. “Cai mentioned something about mating fever.”
“Wait,” Bethany said. “Cai Wyvern told you that he has mating fever?”
“Yeah.” She stuffed the lobster into her mouth. Mmmm, buttery.
“What was he doing at the time?” Willow interrogated her.
“Proposing,” Ember told them. “He was down on one knee, proposing, because he’s insane.”
Bethany and Willow both fell backward on the couch like they’d been shoved over.
“What!” Ember said. “He’s nuts. I told you he was nuts. He runs off, then wants to get together. Then he runs off, and then he proposes. He’s frickin’ nuts.”
Willow covered her face with her hands.
Bethany groaned.
“What!”
Bethany said to Willow, “You can’t tell her. It’s not fair.”
“Oh, you two had better tell me everything, right now,” Ember demanded.
Willow leaned forward and clasped her hands between her knees. “Mating fever is a serious thing for dragons.”
Bethany practically jumped at Willow, but she did grab her arm and shake her. “You can’t. Seriously.”
Willow said, “I’m not. Get off of me.” She turned back. “Okay, Ember, there are some things you should know.”
Bethany held her hand out, hovering, like she was getting ready to clap it over Willow’s mouth. Willow tossed her a dirty look with narrowed eyes.
Ember said, “You will tell me absolutely everything, and you will do it right now.”
Willow continued, “So, when a dragon shifter is in love with you and everything else is right, too—and evidently there’s a bunch of stuff that has to line up, like stars and they have to be all simpatico with their dragon and not have smelled anyone else whom they think they could mate with already—and if all that is kosher, they go into mating fever. Some specific things happen, but the most obvious one is that their eyes fill with dragonfire.”
“But he’s not in love with me,” Ember said. “His eyes were like that when he met me.”
“It sounds like his eyes turned the second he met you,” Willow clarified. “It happens like that sometimes, like love at first sight. It didn’t happen that way for me and Arawn. We had to force the issue.”
Bethany had lowered her hand from where she had been ready to slap Willow or something. “It took Math a couple of weeks to convert. He said that’s the normal way, but he mentioned that some dragons fall instantly into mating fever.”
Willow nodded. “Arawn said his dad fell into mating fever like that, instantly.”
“Maybe Cai is in mating fever for someone else.” Ember shrugged. “Maybe that’s why he keeps ditching me.”
“Jewelry,” Bethany said, her rotating finger taking in Ember’s new earrings and bangles.
Willow pointed at the hydrangea, tulip, and orchid bouquets.“Flowers. Has he been sending you sweets?”
“Maybe a chocolate cake or two, and two dozen of those hideously expensive macarons.” Ember scowled. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Yes, it does. It means a lot. In the back of his lizard mind, he’s showering you with his dragon hoard of gold and jewels because he wants to add you to it.” Willow sucked in a deep breath.
Bethany elbowed her in the ribs.
“Ow! Okay, look. For a dragon shifter, being in mating fever is a big deal. If you were wondering whether Cai loves you, I can tell you right now: Yes, he does. He loves you desperately. He loves you with his heart and his soul and his honor and his name.”
Ember’s jaw dropped. “No, he doesn’t.”
“Yeah, he does,” Bethany said. “I don’t know why he’s been running away from you, but we all have baggage, right?”
Ember frowned. “There was something about his dad. His mom ran off, and then his dad died.”
Bethany said, “If you do the mating thing with him, he will always love you. No matter what happens between you, he will always deeply, sincerely, thoroughly love you. He’ll love you until his dying breath. He’ll love you more than anything else in the world. You will be his whole world, right up to the point where it’s almost creepy and not one inch more.”
Willow nodded. “Yeah, it doesn’t quite get stalkery or weird-possessive. Not quite.”
Bethany gestured with a hunk of lobster topping her fork. “Yeah, I mean, it’s midnight, and I got out of bed and told Math that I was going out to eat revenge lobster with girlfriends. He told me to have fun and bring him leftovers. Ladies of Magic, those dragons are always hungry. But when I get home later, I know it’ll be another hour or two before he lets me go to sleep.”
Willow snickered. “Yeah, they really like it when you come home to them.”
Ember stabbed her lobster some more. “Then why did he walk out on me three times?”
“He probably thought it was best for you somehow.”
She stopped stabbing the shellfish. “He said that.”
Bethany asked, “He did?”
Ember blinked, her eyelashes closing over the bright red lobster in its container on her lap and then opening again. “He said that it would be better for me if we waited for a while.”
“He meant it,” Bethany said. “He really will do what he thinks is best for you, every time.”
“Then why did he run out the first time?” Ember demanded of them.
Bethany said, “You’ll have to ask him.”
Willow asked her, “What were you doing at the time?”
Ember ducked her head. “Um.”
Willow nodded. “So you were getting hot and heavy. What happened?”
“He rolled over on his back and saw the mirror above the bed.” Ember glared at them, waiting for raunchy comments.
The other two girls stared right back at her. Their faces didn’t move, and they didn’t say anything snarky.
Willow said, “Go on.”
Ember bobbled her head. “And he stared at the mirror, and then he freaked and ran.”
Willow asked, “Did he stare at himself? At his face?”
Ember thought about it. “Yeah, I think so.”
Willow nodded. “Maybe he hadn’t known he was in mating fever until he saw his eyes had changed.”
Ember remembered the shock on Cai’s face and the way he’d run away from her. “That fits.”
“Okay,” Bethany said, scooching forward on the couch. “So, do you love him?”
Tears welled in Ember’s eyes, turning her apartment floor to water, and dripped down her face. “Yeah.”
Ember set her supper on the coffee table and wiped her eyes on her shirt. When she opened her eyes again, Willow and Bethany were crouched beside her chair.
Willow asked her, gently, “Are you sure?”
Ember nodded and tried to stop crying. “I’ve just been so mad at him, and it hurt so much when he walked out. I hated him for it. I hated him for hurting me like that. But when I solved the problem with the sea serpents’ stinky farting in the fountain out front—”
Bethany exclaimed, “You did?”
“—I called him first to come and see. I called him before I called you girls, even though you have more of a vested interest in it. I wanted him to see. I wanted to share it with him. And he dropped everything and came. And he protected me when the Pleiades got rambunctious. And his dragon looked so sad when I hugged his nose.”
“Oh,” Willow said. She wasn’t smiling at all.
“So, what should I do about this mating fever thing?” Ember asked them. “It doesn’t change anything, does it?”
“Yeah,” Bethany said, “it does. You do love him, but he’s been weird and running away from you. There’s probably a reason for it, every time. You should ask him at some point. But take it from two witches who have recently mated with dragon shifters”—she gestured to herself and Willow, who was nodding vehemently—“if you love him and want to be with him for the rest of your lives, you should give him a chance to explain about dragonmating and being a dragonmate and why he ran off. For your sake and his, you should give him a chance to explain.”
Ember’s heart creaked with pain. “I don’t want to be with a guy who’s going to run off. You girls know how much that messed with my mom, when my dad left. I want a man I can trust, so it doesn’t matter how I feel about him if I can’t trust him.”
Bethany kneeled in front of Ember and looked straight into her eyes. “If you mate with Cai Wyvern, he will never, ever pull baloney like that again. You will be able to trust him completely.”
“You can’t know that,” Ember said.
Bethany and Willow glanced at each other. “Mating is a magical bond. It’s for life, and it’s serious. You guys will be able to go on business trips or girl vacays, and you can go to work every day. That’s not what I mean. It’s not a stalker or freaky-possessive thing. But Cai will not leave you. Mathonwy and Arawn can give him a talking to about how he handled this if you want, but he won’t ever want to leave you again.”
Ember slipped her phone out of her purse’s side pocket. “Maybe I should call him.”
Willow rolled her eyes. “Yeah, a drunk phone call to an ex is always a good idea. You could wait until morning.”
“Okay,” Ember said. “Then, maybe we’ll just spy on him a little.”
She walked over to a bookcase lined with bottles. She didn’t need to read the labels on the shelves below each bottle. She could feel the elementals sequestered within. By hovering her fingers over the vials, she wandered past until she tasted silicon and electricity.
There, she was.
Ember uncorked the vial. “Hey, Elsi. Want to have some fun?”
The shimmering silver smoke spiraled in excitement.
She held out her phone with Cai’s contact listing open. “Go see this guy, and tell me what’s going on.”
Elsi swirled out of her bottle and dived into the phone, jarring it as she passed into the ether between worlds.
Bethany and Willow were shaking their heads.
Bethany said, “I didn’t mean you should spy on him.”
“Hey, I just want to know if there’s any reason that I should call him.”
The rare electric-silicon elemental popped back out of Ember’s phone and floated in the air in front of Ember’s nose. She shook the bubble and smoke that kind of was her head, saying, “Not good. Human is sick. Glows with hot.”
“Sick?” Ember thanked the elemental, who leaped back into her bottle and settled down. She turned back to Bethany and Willow. “If Cai is sick, I should call him, right?”
Willow said, “I don’t think you should drunk-dial a dude.”
Bethany backhanded Willow on her arm. “Yes, you should call Cai right now, even though we are a little tipsy. Ask him exactly why he kept running away, and tell him you want the whole truth. But listen to him.”
Ember tapped her phone with her thumb, and it rang. She held it up to her head because she didn’t want to do speakerphone in front of her two friends. She was kind of afraid that Cai would give her some kind of baloney answer, and she’d go find him, anyway.
“Hello?” His deep voice was hoarse and breathless. “Hello, Ember? Hello?”
“Cai?” she asked. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” he said, but he coughed.
“Are you sick?”
Willow and Bethany shifted, suddenly nervous.
“No,” he said, but the puffs of breath after Cai spoke sounded like he was panting.
Terror washed through Ember. The destitution of absolute loss hovered over her, if something happened to him. She didn’t care about why he’d run off. She didn’t care about anything except making sure that he was okay.
“Something is wrong with you.” Ember rose to her feet. Bethany and Willow stood, too. “Cai, I need you to tell me where you are.”
“Penthouse.” His gravelly whisper scared her more. “But don’t come. You shouldn’t see me like this.”
“I’ll be right there,” she told that jerk and hung up. Her chest quavered. Her hands shook. She told Willow and Bethany, “He’s really sick.”
The two girls didn’t look surprised, just grim. Bethany said, “Yeah. That happens sometimes.”
“How sick is he going to get?”
Willow and Bethany looked at each other.
“Tell me!”
“Look,” Bethany said. “You can’t base your life decisions on this. But yeah, if a dragon shifter falls into mating fever for a person and they don’t mate with them, they can get pretty sick for a while.”
“Why didn’t you tell me!”
Willow’s voice was tight. “Because it’s emotional blackmail, and you need to make this decision without that in the equation.”
“I don’t want him to be sick!” Ember told them. “I love him, and I don’t want him to be sick. He’s everything to me. I was mad because he kept being stupid, but I don’t want him to be sick! I just want him to want me!”
Bethany leaned over and grabbed her purse. “Oh, he does want you. He is enthralled with you, even if he won’t admit it for some stupid reason. Okay, you do love him, so this is okay. Come on, Willow. Let’s make sure she gets there okay.”
Willow was already tapping on her phone. “The rideshare will be here in less than one minute. Let’s go.”
Ember waved her hands. “Oh, you girls don’t need to—”
Bethan snorted. “Like we would let you go alone. We’ll just get you to the penthouse door and throw you inside, unless you want us to come in. However,” she pulled a plastic credit-card-looking thingee from out of her wallet, “I can get you inside the penthouse, whether Cai wants to let you in or not. Math gave me a skeleton keycard for the whole hotel. Let’s go.”