Page 32 of Primal Dragon

“Here is my brilliant plan,” Syrena said.

* * *

“Q,man, you’ve been pretty quiet over there. How are you feeling about all of this?” Henrik asked.

Q was leaning against the wall, his back to the front door, as if he wanted to be close to the exit. “Is all that truly possible?”

Syrena beamed at him. “It is. And I have a gift for you too.”

“For me?”

“A protection spell. Henrik is worried about you if a fight happens. He can’t afford the distraction, and neither can you. This won’t protect you from everything, but it’ll protect you from the important things.” Syrena approached him. She leaned in and whispered something to him that Henrik couldn’t hear. Q’s eyes widened and then he looked down between them for a moment. “All right. Let’s get this show on the road. First things first, let’s sync our magical clocks.”

Ten minutes later, they were on the road.

Henrik drove his car this time. Q didn’t put up an argument.

“This is a nice a car. ’69?”

“Yeah. You like cars?”

“I do. My uncle restored old classics. I have one in my garage. James and I used to spend time restoring her together. He likes the classics too.” Q ran his fingertips over the dash. “Was this your car in the sixties or something?”

Henrik chuckled. “No. I got this a year ago. I had a friend who had a car like this, and I was always envious of it. When we left Brazil, I needed a car and I wanted to get something I liked. My older brother just orders town-cars wherever he is. He prefers to fly, but a dragon flying around Miami…”

“Wait…was that video the real thing? James wouldn’t exactly answer my question when I showed it to him.”

“Yeah, that fucking video. It took us months to get it to stop popping up. That was my brother and another clan prince fighting on the beach. We don’t even know how they got it. We thought for sure we were covered by the concealment spell on the club since both dragons had shifted inside the club. Really weird. Why would James keep something like that from you?”

“I don’t think he really wants me to be a part of his world. He’s always trying to protect me. He wants me to be a normal human.”

“I can see that. I would want that for someone I cared about too.”

Q scoffed, “Then you’re an idiot too.”

“Why’s that?”

“Why would you want to stand alone when you can stand with someone?”

“I don’t want that someone to die because she’s standing next to me and more vulnerable than I am.”

“She?” Q asked.

Henrik sighed. “Yeah, she…”

The GPS spoke and Henrik followed her direction.

“You have a girl? She’s not a dragon?”

“She’s not. She’s human, like you. I would never forgive myself if something happened to her.”

“I don’t think I can forgive James for going in alone and letting something happen to him. If he had someone with him, maybe he’d be fine.”

Henrik glanced over at Q once he stopped at the red light. “Yeah, I guess I’d be pretty pissed if I were in your shoes too. But what if it got you both killed?”

“Then we die. You can’t live forever. And you certainly can’t live forever happily if you don’t have anyone by your side. Friend, lover, family, whoever it is that gets your through the crappy days and celebrates with you during the good days. Everyone needs that in your life. And the fact of the matter is you can’t control the circumstances of any situation. You can always die, but you don’t always live.”

“Well…fuck. How am I supposed to argue with that?”

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