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Damien
We are in so much shit.
“You are in so much trouble,” Master Loiner snapped, looking past him at Anna.
Behind her, Rokh’s eyes lit up at the sight of Damien in the room, promising much the same but without the verbal additive.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Damien grumbled, purposefully blocking the doorway, not allowing Loiner to get past him while he talked with Rokh. He’d had enough of the diminutive woman and her attempts to get Anna in trouble. He couldn’t squeeze the life from her spiteful little throat, but he could be an irritant.
“He’s here because I called for him to be here,” Loiner said.
Damien ignored her, looking over the witch’s head at the fire dragon. It surprised him to see Rokh working with the woman, instead of fighting one another. What had compelled him to do such a thing?
“You’ve put us all in danger,” Rokh growled, finally speaking when it became apparent Damien wasn’t going to acknowledge the witch Master. “Your actions could lead to us being thrown out of Winterspell, Damien.”
Ah. That was it then. Loiner had threatened Rokh with eviction of everyone else if he didn’t come control his ‘wild, wayward, threatening subordinate’, or something like that, he was sure. He could just imagine Loiner trying to find the worst ways to describe him, not realizing that she was probably insulting all dragons in the process. What an idiot.
Still, she’d been smart enough not to threaten Rokh directly, but the rest of the dragons, especially the young. These was the very ones Rokh would do anything to protect, even allying himself—however temporarily—with the hateful witch.
“You know that this is ridiculous, right?” Damien said, crossing his arms. “The way the two of you are treating us?”
“You were given specific orders not to—”
“I’m not talking to you!” Damien roared, finally looking down at the witch as he took a step closer to her. Lightning sparked across his skin and he let his eyes take on some of the yellow of his dragon, making him that much more threatening.
Loiner skittered backward, bumping off Rokh’s chest, the fire dragon grunting in irritation but otherwise not moving. The witch backed off slightly, forming a third side between the two dragons, but for once she seemed intimidated enough to remain silent. Damien doubted it would last, but he counted his blessings in the meantime.
“Damien,” Rokh snapped.
“No, I’m not finished,” the storm dragon rumbled. “You two are acting like we’re idiotic teenagers. Pretending you need to protect us from one another, that we can’t make our own decisions as adults. So, we’re attracted to one another? How is that bad?” he shouted at Rokh. “We’re living on this planet. We don’t have enough people to rebuild on our own. That’s just a fact. Maybe two hundred of us made it through, most of them male. If we want our species to continue, then we can’t cut ourselves off from the population of this planet!”
“You don’t even know if we’re compatible,” Rokh countered. “Just because we look alike doesn’t mean anything really.”
“And how will we know if we don’t try?” Damien said, not realizing he was using the same arguments Anna had with Circe that morning.
There was something between him and Anna. Something Damien had never felt before and didn’t truly understand. It was more than just a physical desire for the lushness of her body, but it was an attraction, a literal attraction that felt magnetic. He was called to her in a way his dragon had never spoken to him before. It was powerful, and it felt right. He just didn’t know how to explain that to everyone present without them calling him insane.
“Now is not the time for this,” Rokh growled, clearly irritated over being spoken to like this in public. But Damien was beyond caring.
“No, now is precisely the time for it. We need to be getting to know one another, becoming friends and integrating with each other, like allies. Instead, you two just want to yell at each other and act like you know better.”
“That’s enough of your insolence you inbred mongrel of a monster,” Master Loiner spat, her face red from anger at the disdain Damien was showing for her.
“If you talk to me like that one more time, I will melt your brain until it comes out your nose,” Damien said with icy calmness. Lightning sparked to life in his left hand in response to the threat.
Loiner backed up a step but a black wand appeared from nowhere and golden light sparked at the tip. “You wouldn’t live long enough to try,” she hissed.
“Damien, shut up. You’ve screwed up enough by this point.”
Before Damien could respond, Anna pushed up next to him. “How has he screwed up?” she exclaimed. “The only ones who’ve screwed up are you, the people who think you can rule our lives! We’re just trying to spend time together, without you all interfering. If you two would just get your heads out of your asses, there wouldn’t be an issue!”
Damien knew he should be trying to diffuse the situation, to calm everyone down, but in reality, he didn’t want to. Having Anna leap to his defense was the best thing he’d seen all day. It fired him up, made him more than willing to keep defending his position that the two should be allowed to see each other. To fight for her.
“You would do better to stay out of this,” Rokh said, directing his comments at Anna.
“You’re joking right? You do realize the irony of telling me to mind my own business, right? As if you could ever learn how to do the same thing.”
“Don’t talk to me like you know me,” Rokh growled. “Get back in your room.”
“She’s not a child,” Damien interjected. “Don’t speak to her like one. It doesn’t become you, Rokh.”
“She’s acting like one. Idiotic and without thinking.”
That was more than Damien could take. He was tired of everyone treating Anna as if she was too dumb to realize what she was doing. And he was really tired of them insulting her while doing it.
“Fuck you,” he spat at Rokh, and punched the fire dragon shifter square in the nose.
