Page 12 of Scorpio Dragon

“What’re you going to do?”

“The party this weekend. The whole school’s going to be there, right? Drinks, dancing, the moonlight…” He winked, and Brody and Zack laughed.

“Seriously? You think you can sleep with her? She hates you, dude.” Brody was laughing, but he looked a little worried despite himself.

“Look at me. No woman can resist this.” He grinned. This arrogant, cocksure persona might have been a mask, but he wore it so well… he could feel the power he held over the guys, the admiring way they watched him, wishing they could be him… “She’s only acting so stuck-up because she hates how much she wants me. You watch. This weekend, she’s going to be all mine.”

“We’d better get the security upgraded around here,” Brody said with a shake of his head, and Archer indulged him with a laugh, knowing how much his approval meant to the guys. Having a plan felt good. He found himself looking forward to the party a lot more than he had been, now that he’d decided on his course of action with Morgan. Honestly, it was weird that he hadn’t slept with anyone since he’d been here. It wasn’t that there hadn’t been any interest, it was just that he hadn’t really bothered following through with anyone. Well, Morgan could have the honor of being the first girl he slept with here at the university. She ought to be grateful.

Because she definitely,definitelywasn’t going to be the last.

The night of the full moon came up fast, and even though his thoughts were elsewhere, Archer was definitely not oblivious to how much buzz there was around the school. He’d hardly done any work getting the word out… it seemed that the success of the last one had done all the work for him. It was a little sad, really. This school was so starved for a social life that a bit of loud music and a copious supply of alcohol on the beach was enough to get them talking for weeks on end. Imagine what could happen if he was actually trying. The things he could do with the dining hall, for example… or even better, if they let him use the tower? Insane. But no—the beach was good for now, at least while the weather was still this warm. The dense midsummer heat was perfect for night swims, not to mention dancing with as few clothes on as possible. He remembered how Morgan had looked in that dress. He couldn’t stop remembering. Would she wear it again? Or maybe something shorter?

By nightfall, the beach was already crowded with students, faculty, and staff. Archer busied himself extending the perimeter of the party area, shaking his head with a mixture of amusement and derision. Brody had been working hard all month on curating the music, hopefully not to the detriment of his studies, but Archer wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d lost a few grade points with how often he’d heard thumping bass coming from the guy’s room. The weather was perfect… even hotter than last week, with the still air encouraging even more people down to the water’s edge to splash and play. The pressure would break eventually into one of the island’s famous tropical storms, of course, but that was a problem to worry about later. Right now, there was only the sand and the sky and the unmistakable buzz of a party in full swing.

But where was Morgan? As the evening passed, he found himself spending more and more time searching the crowds for her, not caring about the knowing glances his friends kept giving him whenever they saw him looking. Impatience and frustration were building in him, the kind that even alcohol wouldn’t cut through… not that he was drinking much. He needed a clear head when she turned up. He was an expert in the art of seduction, but even Archer had to admit that Morgan was one of his bigger challenges.

And then, through the crowds, he saw something that made his heart stop. Not Morgan, but a trio of women he recognized immediately as being her friends. She’d turned up with them that first night, and since then he’d seen her hanging out with them—they were her roommates, he was pretty sure. But she wasn’t with them. He scanned the crowd, desperately hopeful that she’d gone to grab them drinks or something… but she wasn’t there.

She’d skipped it, he realized numbly. She’d skipped the party. Why was he surprised? If anyone in this whole stupid school was going to skip a party, it would have been her. She was so dedicated to her studies, so profoundly disinterested in what other people thought of her… she didn’t give a crap about her reputation, about networking, about any of it. It was ridiculous. It was unimaginable. It was…

“You okay, dude?”

Zack’s voice pulled him out of the spiral, and he plastered an especially fake-feeling grin on his face as he nodded. But he couldn’t stay here. The music was too loud, the crowds were pressing in on him, and the only person he actually wanted to see wasn’t there. “I’m gonna take a swim,” he said.

“Oh, I’ll come with—”

But Archer was already gone, running down the beach towards the water’s edge, where he could see a few dozen dragons splashing and playing. The shift moved through him like wildfire and he let his momentum carry him straight up, wings spreading. There was no breeze to catch, but the burn in his wings felt good as he powered himself upwards at a punishing pace… up, up above the party until the music was a distant, dull thud. He’d intended to dive into the ocean from up here, but now that he’d gotten away from it, he couldn’t bring himself to go back down. And behind him, he could hear the peak of the volcano calling.

By the time he’d reached the peak, the music was barely audible on the still air—just a dull pulse like a heartbeat, barely noticeable. He flared his wings and came in for a landing, talons digging into the bald red rock. He’d been up here a few times, and he quickly found the narrow ledge he liked to sit on, shifting back into his human shape so he could fit. Above him, the stars were bright, though he could see the dense clouds rolling in and knew the storm couldn’t be far away. Where did they come from, he wondered? How was it that weather patterns seemed to roll out of the Fog fully formed? There was probably a class on it.

But the clouds couldn’t distract him from the burning, twisting feeling in his gut. He’d hoped the pressure would ease once he got away from the crowd and the music, but the opposite was true. Up here, he could actually hear himself think, and he didn’t like what he was hearing. He’d let himself take refuge in anger to disguise how he really felt about how he’d treated Morgan. It had been working pretty well, all things considered… but the problem with anger was that it eventually burned out. And the shame it left in its place was a lot harder to handle.

What could he do? It was too late to apologize. Too late to start over with her, to try to be less of a jerk. That day in the library felt like a thousand years ago already. And had he really believed he was going to succeed at seducing her tonight? She’d seen through him in ten seconds when they’d first met. She was far too smart, far too calculating to fall for any of his tricks. And the truth was, he wouldn’t have wanted her to. The idea of manipulating a woman like that into bed with him… it just felt wrong on a level he couldn’t even put into words.

He was just going to have to face it. He’d screwed this up, badly. It was an unfamiliar feeling, knowing that a relationship was out of his control. Or was it? He thought of his father, thought of the way disappointment flickered across his face whenever they talked, no matter how hard Archer tried, no matter what he did…

But he was pulled out of those reflections by a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye, by the glint of moonlight on scales. He frowned as he turned his head to see a dragon winging its steady way up towards the mountain’s peak. Had Brody or one of his friends come to check on him? Surely they wouldn’t have left the party like that… but something told him this dragon wasn’t any of his friends. Still, there was a purposeful attitude to every beat of its wings. Whoever it was, they were coming up here with an intention in mind. It made no sense, but he couldn’t stop himself hoping that it was her.

Despite that hope, he still couldn’t believe his eyes when the dragon landed on the peak above him, then shifted, sliding down to land on the ledge in front of him in a shower of loose rocks and dirt. She straightened, those familiar green eyes bright and sharp in the moonlight. Archer’s heart felt like it was going to beat right out of his chest, and for once in his life he didn’t have a witty comment at his disposal to break the tense silence between them.

She’d found him. Morgan had flown all the way up here… and the exhilaration of seeing her quickly gave way to fear of what she might be here to say.

Chapter 11 - Morgan

She’d wanted to skip the party, really. They were two months into the semester, and the work was really beginning to ramp up, with major assessments due for most of her classes as well as the early rumblings of exam preparation on the horizon. There’d be other parties to go to, anyway. Parties, she hoped, with less problematic hosts. She’d said as much to her roommates earlier that week, who’d been supportive… in part, she suspected, because they knew how frustrated she was with the way Archer had been treating her. That being said, she hadn’t seen much of him since she’d actually stuck up for herself that day. Somehow, though, that didn’t feel like a triumph anymore. She kept thinking of the look on his face when he’d pushed past her… and as stupid as it was, she wished she’d gone after him.

And now she was sitting alone in her room on a weekend night, when most of her peers were out having a good time. She struggled gamely through her readings, but she could tell her heart wasn’t in it. She’d been trying to be more in tune with her feelings lately, ever since her magic teacher had goaded her into unloading about Archer. She still wasn’t sure that this was the intended lesson, but she’d certainly noticed a habit of paying a lot more attention to other people’s feelings than her own.

And right now, she felt… bad. Taking a long, hot shower usually helped, but tonight it only made her feel sweaty and unpleasant. She shut her eyes for a moment, trying to tune into herself, to touch base with what she actually needed, not what her analytical mind told her she wanted. She felt her dragon stir drowsily in her chest, felt the flick of its wings and the flash of its eyes… and a grin spread across her face. A quick lap of the mountain peak by air, that wasexactlywhat she felt like.

The desire only intensified once she was outside and dragon-shaped, the delicious stretch of her wings carrying her higher and higher. She tuned in more and more to that intuitive buzz, surprised to find that it was guiding her towards the very peak of the volcano. Somehow, this felt stronger than the natural draconic urge to perch and surveil. The buzzing in her body told her she was going somewhere important, somewhere she needed to be right now… and for some reason, she wasn’t surprised at all when she reached the peak to find that she wasn’t the only dragon who’d had this idea.

Archer. Of course he was here. She shifted back into her two-legged form so she’d fit on the narrow ledge he was standing on, and it wasn’t until she saw the confusion in his eyes that her analytical mind actually caught up with her body. For a moment, she blanched. What was he doing up here? More to the point, what was she doing up here? He was bound to ask, and what was she going to say? That her dragon had dragged her up here like a curious child?

“Morgan, I’m so sorry.”

His voice was quieter than she’d ever heard it. She’d been so primed for questions about what she was doing up here that what he’d actually said didn’t register for a moment. She blinked, thrown a little, waiting for the punchline… but it didn’t come.

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