They’d quickly grabbed some of Liana’s things from her apartment. The fire dragons hadn’t shown, but even so Timothy didn’t want to take any chances. He didn’t take his eyes off Liana even for a second, and fifteen minutes later, they left her apartment with a bag full of her clothes and her laptop.
“My boss won’t mind,” she said. “We’re pretty relaxed about people working from home—at least for us coders. I think it’s because none of our bosses get what we’re doing anyway. I swear, my boss thinks writing code is like doing magic spells, but it’s just boring work most of the time. Anyway, I’ll send him a note that I caught a cold and will log into work from home for a few days. Wait—you’ve got Wi-Fi in your magical town, don’t you? No, don’t worry, I’ve got a data plan on my phone that’ll cover me—”
“It’s all right,” Timothy interrupted, laughing at the way she got completely carried away whenever she talked about her work. “The town’s not all that magical. We’ve got high speed internet. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do any work myself, you know.”
Liana snapped her fingers. “Of course! I forgot, you’re Mr. High Stakes Investment Billionaire.”
“I guess,” Timothy said, still laughing. “If that’s what you want to call it. It’s a dragon thing, though. We love treasure. And I figured I better get a good handle on the 21st century way of hoarding treasure. Don’t want to leave it all to you humans.”
“So does that mean you’ve got a cave full of gold in Switzerland? The Caymans?”
Timothy shook his head. “The cave’s nearby. I’d love to show it to you one day. But the hoard in Switzerland and the Caymans is just numbers, bank accounts. Oh, and the latest big thing—cryptocurrency.” He chuckled. “This is going to sound arrogant, but I like to play the game of the bankers and then funnel the money into the things they like to destroy. Environmental causes, mostly—my element is the water, so I support a lot of charities that work for clean oceans and rivers. It’s a cause that’s very close to my heart.”
“Too good to be true,” Liana muttered darkly, but the look she gave him was warm.
“So are dragons,” he murmured, “and you know what you’ve learned about those.”
“That they’re a lot more violent and bent on destruction than my game would make you think?” she shot back.
Timothy laughed. “That they’re real. And that some—most of them, really—want to live in peace with humans and shifters.”
Liana made a thoughtful sound, although her eyes were still warm as she looked at him.
He’d win her over yet. It just wouldn’t be his charm that did it.
It seemed that Liana actually wanted to know more about the real him. The person he hid behind his tales of flirting with supermodels and spending his nights in clubs.
The part of him that felt actual pain at the sight of a polluted river. The part who’d worked for years in the background, supporting causes and charities that helped the oceans and the humans who lived from it.
It was a bit scary to imagine stripping away this entire facade he’d built for years, and to let her look beneath. But if that was what it took to make her stay, it would be worth it...
“Anyway, shouldn’t we get started on that journey? How will your fire dragon make it?” she asked.
Timothy nodded at the distant silhouette of the Dragon Tower. “We’ll pick him up back home.”
***
They made the drive back to the Dragon Tower in record time. Braeden was looking annoyed, although Timothy didn’t think he had any reason to complain. After all, he wasn’t getting locked into his suite this time.
“Everyone ready?”
Liana nodded. They were standing on the roof of the building, wind pulling at their hair.
Timothy grinned at Liana, a part of him excited at being able to show off again.
Then he shifted. Energy rushed through his body. A second later, he spread his wings, the dragon within him exhilarated at the chance to finally visit the ocean again.
Liana was staring at him open-mouthed. Then she broke into a grin, slowly shaking her head.
“My Ocean Dragon,” she murmured. “I still can’t believe you’re real.”
Gallantly, Timothy went to his knees, lowering one of his wings so that she could comfortably climb onto his back. He kept still while she settled into place, securing her gym bag with her clothes around her body so that it wouldn’t fall off.
Then Braeden came closer, reaching out for his wing to crawl up himself—only for Timothy to lift his wing just in time. He snaked his head around to smirk at Braeden, who glared at him in silent outrage.
Then Timothy lifted off. Liana gasped in shock, holding on tight to the ridges at his neck, while beneath him, Braeden sputtered.
“If you leave me here, I’m going to run up your pay-per-view bill by renting porn movies, and I’ll tell everyone that it was you,” Braeden called out in annoyance.
With a smirk on his face, Timothy dove down again. Then he snatched up Braeden with his claws, carrying him up into the sky in his hand.
“Asshole,” Braeden muttered, although he stopped struggling against his grip almost immediately.
With the dragonsbane and obsidian bracelets blocking his powers, falling out of the sky wasn’t a good idea.
Letting Braeden fall was at very tempting idea for Timothy, on the other hand—but he didn’t enjoy the idea of the chimera scolding him for his rashness.
Still, he might have promised to watch over the fire dragon, but no one had said that he deserved a comfortable journey.