When Russ stepped into the Winking Wizard, he knew he’d found his home away from home. The place was a good deal larger than the Token Tap, but it had the exact same vibe. It was packed, but it was packed with the right kind of people. T-shirts and jeans were the uniform of choice here, and loud laughter almost drowned out the tunes coming from the jukebox in the far corner. To the left stood two pool tables, already being used for a rowdy tournament. Past the pool table were a couple of dartboards, also being put to good use. And to the right was another game Russ had never seen before, but it seemed to be a favorite with the wizards. Magic rings constantly glinted as the wizards who were crowded around the mystery game waved their hands back and forth excitedly. The game seemed to involve several small balls, but Russ had a hard time seeing what was going on with such a large crowd blocking his view. He made a mental note to ask Jake about the game later.

Russ walked further into the bar, looking around for any sign of Jake. He scanned the faces sitting around the numerous wooden tables, but didn’t see any familiar ones. He did see several more magic rings, and he had to remind himself that the wizards here were all good wizards. The majority of Russ’s experience with wizards had come from the dark wizards in Saul’s army, and the sight of magic rings still made him cringe involuntarily. He had been glad that Mandy took care to hide her magic ring for most of the trip from Chicago to Torch Lake. He knew she hadn’t been doing so for his benefit—she’d been keeping it out of view any time they were in an area where full humans were around, because the wizards had strict rules about hiding magic and magical tools from humans. Still, it had been nice to not have to face the reality that he was traveling around with a wizard. Here in Torch Lake, there was no ignoring the presence of wizards. Russ was gradually adjusting to the sight of wizard rings, and to the knowledge that the wizards here were all friendly, good people.

Less jarring to Russ, but still strange, was the phenomenon of being constantly surrounded by shifters. Like all shifters, Russ possessed a keen sense of smell, and was able to tell by scent whenever another shifter was nearby. He knew there were other shifters in Chicago, but in all his years of living there, he could count on one hand the number of times he’d smelled another shifter. The city was overwhelmingly human. Here in Torch Lake, however, he was constantly bombarded with the smell of shifters of all types. Bears and wolves seemed to be the most common, but there were also panthers, lions, and, of course, a few dragons.

Russ breathed in deeply now, trying to catch the scent of dragon. It would probably be easier to find Jake by smell than by sight. Russ peered across the crowded bar top as he sniffed the air, but he couldn’t catch any whiff of dragon. Perhaps Jake hadn’t made it out yet. In that case, he’d just find himself a spot at the bar and grab a beer. It looked like the options on tap were plentiful, and Russ was eager to try out some local brews.

As Russ made his way to the bar, though, he felt a hand on his shoulder, stopping him from behind. He turned around to find Jake, who pulled him into an unexpected bear hug.

“Come on, Russ. We’ve got our usual corner table.”

Russ smiled and followed Jake. The thought of getting to sit at a “usual” table made him happy, even if he wasn’t a regular. He felt a little less out of place as he walked toward the table, which was actually fairly close to the front door, but difficult to see because it was behind the strange bar game the wizards were playing. Russ must have missed the table when he walked through because he’d been too focused on the game.

At the table, two other men were already sitting with giant mugs of beer. Russ knew by their smell that they were dragons, and he raised an eyebrow as he sat down.

“Fresh meat, eh Jake?” one of the men said, then reached across the table to shake Russ’s hand. “I’m Leif.”

“Clint,” the other man said, shaking Russ’s hand as well.

“I thought there was a shortage of dragons in Torch Lake,” Russ said as he sat down.

“A shortage of young dragons,” Jake said as he sat down. “These guys are it for the dragons in Torch Lake, unless you want to count the old dragons that sit on the High Council. The old dragons don’t go out dark monster hunting, or even out for beers on Friday night. It’s easy to forget they’re even here sometimes.”

Jake signaled over a waitress and ordered two “Dragon’s Breath” lagers, one for him and one for Russ. “Trust me, you’ll love this beer,” he said. Russ nodded. He’d caught a brief glimpse of the beers on offer, and almost none of them looked familiar, so he was happy to take a recommendation.

“So how did you two end up in Torch Lake,” Russ asked, motioning toward Leif and Clint.

“Same as you, I suspect,” Clint said. “We were both hiding out in different human towns after the war, trying to recover from the trauma of being captured by Saul. Dragon recovery experts from Torch Lake came and offered us about a million reasons to come learn to hunt dark monsters.”

“How long have you been here?” Russ asked, just as his Dragon’s Breath lager arrived. He took a long sip of it right away, and smiled. Jake had been right. This stuff was good.

“I’ve been here about nine months, and Leif’s been here slightly longer, I think,” Clint said, looking at Leif for confirmation.

Leif nodded. “I’m coming up on a year and half of dark monster hunting. Cheers to that.” He raised his glass, and all four men clinked their mugs together. Russ was surprised that the men had been around so long. He knew Jake had been here since the inception of Torch Lake after the Dark War, but he’d thought that all the other dragons would have left after their initial job terms were done. He didn’t want to admit to anyone that he was planning to leave just as soon as he could, but he was also curious why these men had remained in Torch Lake. He tried to ask them nonchalantly, after a long sip of beer.

“So, how long are you boys planning on staying in Torch Lake?”

The way they all narrowed their eyes at him told him they knew he was planning to take his money and run the day his job was done. He shifted in his seat and took another long sip of beer to hide his discomfort.

“Look, Russ,” Jake said. “We know you’re only planning to stay until your initial term is done. Pretty much everyone starts out that way. You’re the fifth dragon I’ve trained now. Two of the first four left as soon as they could, and the other two are sitting right in front of you. It’s no secret to us that all of the dragons who come here through the recovery program have plans to leave as soon as possible. We’re not going to pressure you into staying, although if you decide not to, I think you’re missing out. Torch Lake is a pretty great place.”

Russ couldn’t keep himself from snorting at Jake’s last sentence.

“It’s true, man,” Leif said. “Look around at this bar. You’ve got wizards, dragons, bears, wolves…all kinds of different people with all kinds of different secrets. And they all get along great. They can all come together on a Friday night and have a good time. This right here is how evil is held back. When you have a lot of good people who know each other and live close together, those people watch out for each other. They’re ready to fight for and defend each other, and that’s what makes this community strong.”

Russ thought Leif’s words were a bit exaggerated. Just hanging out at a bar didn’t mean people stood ready to go to war together if necessary. But he looked around the room anyway, to humor the man. He had to admit that it was impressive to see so many wizards and shifters in one place. And there was something freeing about not having to constantly worry that someone was going to discover that you were a shifter. Still, Russ didn’t want to live in this world. He had spent most of his life around humans, and he could handle hiding his dragon side. Wizards and shifters liked to talk about how they lived in peace and cared about their clans, but wars of some sort or another were always breaking out in the wizard-shifter world. Russ’s brief brush with war during the Great Dark Magic War had been enough for him. He wanted no part with any of this. No offense to the guys sitting around the table with him—they seemed like great dragons—but Russ didn’t see things their way. He was going to leave as soon as he could.

As Russ swept his eyes across the room, he saw the heavy front door swinging open, and a familiar face drew his attention. His stomach twisted into a nervous knot when he saw Mandy walking into the room, surrounded by a small group of about six men who must have been her coworkers. All of them were wearing the official uniforms from the Dragon Recovery Division. No matter how many times Russ had told himself that he and Mandy were completely finished, he couldn’t change the way his body reacted to her presence. His heart rate sped up, and his breathing grew rapid. He clenched his fist around the handle of his beer mug, telling himself to look away but unable to do so. No matter how angry he was at her for trying to trick him into falling for her, he couldn’t seem to keep his heart from yearning for her whenever she was standing in the same room as him.

Apparently, Jake noticed where his eyes had gone, because he let out a long chuckle.

“Ah, the infamous Mandy.”

Everyone at the table looked at Jake.

“What do you mean?” Leif asked. “Who’s Mandy?”

“No one,” Russ said sharply, but Jake ignored him.

“That girl over there,” Jake said, pointing. “She’s one of the dragon recovery specialists. I don’t know her well, but I see her around sometimes when I have meetings. Apparently she gave Russ the impression that the High Council ordered her to flirt with him and bring him in by tricking him into falling in love with her.”

There was a moment of stunned silence at the table, followed by an outburst of loud laughter. Russ wasn’t laughing, though.

“I don’t think she was making things up,” Russ said. He was angry that they seemed to think he’d been duped, and he also felt strangely defensive of Mandy. “After the first night we met, when she did flirt quite a bit with me, she apologized for trying to do things that way. She seemed really upset that she’d had to work that way, and I don’t think she would have gone to all the trouble to admit her flirting wasn’t real if the whole thing hadn’t actually been ordered by the High Council.” Russ left out the part about kissing Mandy. He didn’t want to give his new friends more fuel with which to make fun of him.

Leif stopped laughing long enough to shake his head, frowning. “Russ, our High Council takes a strong stance against trickery or coercion of any type. There’s no way they would have ordered someone to use a pretend romance as a way to bring a dragon back to Torch Lake.”

Russ was growing angry. Why didn’t anyone believe him? “Dude, I’m telling you. The High Council gave her orders. She was really torn up about it. I don’t think it was fake.”

Leif shrugged and took another sip of his beer, a signal that he still didn’t believe Russ but was willing to let the matter drop. Clint followed suit, but Jake now had a frown on his face.

“Huh,” Jake said, looking over in Mandy’s direction. But then he too took a sip of his beer and seemed ready to let the matter drop. Frustrated, Russ turned his attention to the bar game the wizards were playing, and tried to get his thoughts off of Mandy and the High Council.

His plan to stop thinking about Mandy proved wildly unsuccessful, however, because moments later, she and her friends approached the wizards who were playing. They seemed to have issued a challenge of some sort, because all of a sudden the whole group burst out laughing and then a new game began. The game was played on a long flat table that looked similar to a pool table, except smaller. And, instead of balls, the table was filled with an assortment of small figures, each about half the size of Russ’s fist. The figures were of wizards of many different shapes, wearing robes of all different styles that had been painted in every color imaginable. There was one ball on the table, and it had been painted to resemble a magic ball. It was a round purple sphere with yellow “stars” glowing on it. The wooden wizards and ball moved wildly around the table. But Russ couldn’t see from his vantage point how they were being moved. There were no “pool sticks” of any kind. The wizards were all gesturing wildly, their hands moving so quickly that Russ could hardly see what they were doing. He could see, however, that they did not appear to be touching the figures. Were they using magic to move things around? Russ admittedly didn’t know much about how magic worked, but it seemed feasible that spells would exist that could move small wooden figures across a pool table. However the game was played, and whatever its object, Mandy seemed to be doing better than anyone else. She frequently threw her head back laughing in triumph, while the other wizards around her groaned in defeated tones.

Russ couldn’t stand to watch, and yet he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Mandy didn’t notice him, which was unsurprising since she was engrossed in the game, and the corner table where he sat was inconspicuous. He hadn’t had a chance to observe her without her noticing since that first night at the bar, and, although he hated to admit to himself that he cared enough to want to watch her, his eyes tracked her every move.

Her uniform accentuated her curves better than even the skimpy dress she’d worn at the Token Tap in Chicago. He could see the complete outline of her body against the backdrop of the bar lights, and every time she moved his heart flip-flopped. The way her body twisted and turned, giving him a fresh view of her from every angle imaginable, was causing a faint stiffening to begin between his legs. He knew he shouldn’t let himself continue to watch, but how could he look away from such beauty, such perfection? Her brown hair had been in a tight, professional bun when she first walked in, but now she had loosened it and let it fall around her shoulders. The soft waves shone in the bar lights, and the desire to run up and run his fingers through that gorgeous hair nearly overcame Russ. He coughed a few times, trying to cover the surge of emotions that rushed through him. Jake, who was jabbering with Leif and Clint about some town gossip, turned to look at Russ.

“You alright?” he asked, and Russ felt like the man’s eyes were drilling into him, seeing past his careful exterior to the desire for Mandy that swirled beneath the surface. Russ could not—would not—allow Jake to know that he was still fighting a deep attraction to the woman he’d insisted had tried to trick him into falling in love. Russ quickly tried to blame his fascination with the wizard table on the game.

“I’m fine. Just choked on my beer. I was watching this game the wizards all play and trying to figure out the rules. I’ve never seen anything like it. And none of the shifters seem to play it.”

Jake grinned. “That’s because you need to be able to do magic to play. Watch closely. The wizards are using energy from their magic rings to move the figures around the table. Each player is assigned a color, and they move only the figures of that color. They try to push figures from the other teams down the holes, much like pool players try to sink balls into the holes. They also try to get their king wizard figure to touch the purple magic ball. Any time they touch the ball, they get twenty extra points. I’ve obviously never played, but I’m told it takes a lot of skill to defend your own figures from falling down the holes, while pushing your opponents’ players down the holes, while also trying to get your king to the magic ball but still preventing the other kings from reaching the ball. Each game lasts fifteen minutes, and at the end of that time you get ten points for each of your figures that hasn’t been pushed down the hole, plus, of course, points for each time you managed to touch the magic ball. Whoever has the most points wins.”

“My head hurts,” Russ said, trying to comprehend everything Jake was telling him.

Leif laughed. “Tell me about it. The game doesn’t make much sense to me, but the wizards love it.”

“What’s the game called?” Russ asked.

“Magic swivel ball,” Leif said. “Oh, look. Looks like the fifteen minutes are up.”

Cheers went up from the swivel ball table as Leif spoke. Mandy had won, if her whooping cheers were any indication. The other wizards started calling for a rematch, and Mandy was saying something about not playing again until someone bought her a beer for her victory. More laughter filled the air, and Russ felt a pang of frustration and jealously as one of the other wizards went to get Mandy a beer.

Russ wanted to be the one buying Mandy a beer, but he hated himself for wanting that. She had tricked him, after all. How could he ever trust her after that? And besides, she had built a happy life for herself in Torch Lake. He knew she wasn’t interested in leaving, but he sure as hell wasn’t interested in staying. He was out of here as soon as he finished his job. Even if he wanted to look past the fact that she had tricked him, there was no feasible way for them to build a future together. He had to get these ridiculous feelings of attraction under control.

“You’re staring at her.”

Jake’s words cut through Russ’s troubled thoughts, and Russ did his best to smooth his face into a neutral expression as he swung to look at Jake.

“I’m just interested in the game.”

Jake raised an eyebrow at him, and in that eyebrow were a dozen unspoken accusations. Leif and Clint were engrossed in their own conversation at the moment, arguing about a local broomstick flying team and whether the team had what it took to take the national title. They hadn’t noticed Russ’s obsession with Mandy, but Jake had. Russ frowned, and stood. He still had a good quarter-glass of his beer left, but he had to get away from this table for a minute. He needed to catch his breath and get his desire for Mandy under control.

“I’m gonna go take a leak.”

“Alright, man,” Jake said in a voice that said he knew Russ wasn’t leaving the table because he actually had to pee.

Russ didn’t care, he walked off quickly, careful to avoid looking in the direction of the swivel ball table for fear of accidentally catching Mandy’s eye. He felt like a magnet was drawing him toward her. He’d never experienced anything like this feeling before, and he hated that Jake seemed to have noticed the way Mandy affected him. Russ was beginning to think that coming out to the Winking Wizard tonight was a mistake. Sure, he was going to be in Torch Lake for a while, but that didn’t mean he had to make friends. After all, any friends he made he was only going to have to leave behind. And he didn’t want the guy who was training him to have fuel for teasing him about a love interest.

Russ bit his lip as he walked into the bathroom, heading into a stall and closing the door firmly behind him. He leaned against the door and tried to catch his breath. Had he just labeled Mandy in his head as his love interest? How had he fallen so hard in such a short amount of a time, and for a girl he could never have, no less?

Russ banged his head gently against the wall a couple times. It was going to be a long three months.