Read an Excerpt
Copyright © Caitlin Ricci 2016. All Rights Reserved, Totally Entwined Group Limited, T/A Pride Publishing.
My parents and the elders in my dragon clan had decided that I had to go to the Faeted Matchmaking Agency. Their decision bothered me, because it meant that I had failed in my own attempts to find a bond with someone. I’d tried, repeatedly, but connecting with someone else was hard. Finding someone to have sex with? That was the easy part. Liking him the next day, or the next week, was damn near impossible for me. I just didn’t work like that. Everyone I’d ever been with had been annoying in some way shortly after the sex was over. I hated that I couldn’t just find someone to settle down and share my life with like everyone else I knew had already done. They’d made it look so freaking easy.
I was feeling like my life had somehow been screwed up from the start and I was scared out of my mind that I would be alone for the most important part in my dragon life—where I would change from a young man into an adult. I’d be expected to start having a lasting relationship soon. And if I liked the company of women, I would have been told to have children in no time—and a house, too—a big one, because, of course, a dragon couldn’t be caught dead in something unsuitably small. But before all that, I had to find someone to have adventures with, someone I could be safe with, who would help me go through this transitioning period in my life and let me live and be free. And he’d have to do all that while still making sure I was okay when it was time to grow up and be an adult.
That led me to the Faeted Matchmaking Agency. I didn’t want to be there, but the play on the words ‘fae’ and ‘fate’ in the name of the agency did make me smile—only a little, though. I was still very much annoyed at the situation as a whole when I walked through their glass doors with frail, wooden handles. There could be no iron around the fae, since many of them had trouble tolerating it. Myself, and those like me… We liked to play with it—to see it melt down and become liquid under the heat of our breath. We had even taken entire classes for it as children. We’d won trophies and little ribbons. I had a whole pile of awards on my desk in my parents’ house. As soon as we could make fire, we were playing with metal and often getting in trouble for burning or melting things we that shouldn’t.
But reliving my adventures was for another time, because right then I needed to introduce myself to the nymph sitting at the desk in front of me. Her feet were resting in a large basin of water. She had pale blue skin and slightly pointed ears. Her hair was pulled back so I could see the greenish scales hidden on the side of her head and trailing down her neck. I hadn’t seen many water nymphs before, since they generally didn’t like to be out of the shallow waters they called home. As far as I knew, there was no way a basin of water would cut it for a nymph for long. They loved the water like I loved the sky. I wouldn’t have been able to stay on land for anything. She must love her job.
The nymph raised her sea-blue gaze to me and said, “Hello, and welcome to Faeted, where we help all your dreams come true. Do you have an appointment?”
I doubted that she—or anyone else at this agency—could do much to help me, but as far as a crazy idea went, this one wasn’t too far out there. I’d had some really crazy ideas in my time. Getting a Faeted match wasn’t even that weird. It had almost become the latest thing. ‘Love life screwed up? Go be matched. Boyfriend dumped you? Go to Faeted.’ It seemed like everyone I knew was either getting matched up or they knew someone who was. And I did need some serious help if I was going to end up with someone I could halfway stand during the coming change in my life. “I do. My name is Joshua Landeskog. I’m here to see…” It was on the tip of my tongue but, suddenly, the man’s name had escaped me.
She looked down at a notebook that had neat, delicate handwriting scrawled across each tiny line, and she seemed to read the words there for a few seconds before looking back up at me with a bright smile. I was surprised she didn’t use a tablet or a computer, or, hell, even her phone, to check appointments. Maybe it was a fae thing. Dragons loved technology. We often melted it when we were angry—or by accident—but we loved our gadgets and our phones all the same. “Ah, here it is. Mr. Dyslander Elderwald. He’s one of our best. You’ll be in great hands. Please, have a seat anywhere here in this lobby. There’s tea to your left, along with some cookies if you’re hungry.”
“Thank you.” I stepped away from the desk and found a comfortable-looking chair to sit in. There wasn’t anyone else in the waiting area at the time, so that was nice. I wasn’t a tea drinker and I didn’t really like cookies, either. I like alcohol and orange juice. I waited as quietly as I could and tried not to feel completely hopeless as I thought of how absolutely useless this agency would likely be in finding me someone before my twentieth birthday that was approaching in only two months. It would take a miracle, and I definitely didn’t have any of those lying around.
I needed Faeted to find me a match because I did not want the elders—or my parents—finding someone for me that they thought was appropriate. They meant well, but they didn’t know my tastes when it came to other people. But really, how could they, when I didn’t even know them myself? What I did know, though, was that I liked men and I liked them close to my age. I wanted a guy who could fly, or, at the very least, wasn’t afraid of heights. He would need to look good and enjoy sex. I wanted him to be nice, but not overly so. Like, I didn’t want him to kiss everyone’s ass—just mine—and only if I was bottoming. I sighed and wanted to bang my head against the wall. Other than that, I was out of ideas for how to describe my perfect guy.
It took ten minutes for Mr. Elderwald to come out of his office and fetch me from the lobby. I was happy to leave the room, which was still empty, aside from myself and the water nymph. But taking the next step of going to his office meant being one move closer to him telling me there was no one out there that he knew of who would ever be interested in someone like me. We dragons simply weren’t all that loveable—not with the burning of places, the plucking cows out of the fields and eating them midflight, or the fact that we tended to be fairly possessive and territorial of our stuff, our homes and the people we were interested in.
Finding someone to be with outside the other dragons wasn’t exactly frowned upon, but it was likely doomed to failure in the eyes of everyone I knew. Only, I didn’t want to share my life with another dragon. I’d grown up around dragons. Most everyone I knew very well was a dragon. Everyone I’d ever had sex with was a dragon. I knew what dragons were like. I knew what they wanted and I knew how they acted. After a while, they all got to be the same. I wanted to meet someone different and new, to see how they lived and what they did for fun, even if it didn’t involve destroying anything or lighting it on fire with a single burning breath. I could handle doing something new with someone, as long as they weren’t a vegetarian or didn’t like to fly. And they couldn’t be afraid of fire, either. That just wouldn’t work. I liked starting fires. Dragons were awesome to go camping with because we always had the campfire ready within a few minutes of arriving, then we could go grab a cow for steaks.
“Joshua, please take a seat. And you may call me Dyslander, if you’re comfortable with that,” he said. He waved to the chair across the desk from him.
I nodded, then sat. The chair squeaked, but it was comfortable enough. “Okay.”
“What brings you in today?” He pulled his own notebook that had far less legible scribbles closer to him, then held a pen above the page as if he were waiting to take notes when I spoke. I stared at him for a few seconds while I tried to collect my own scattered thoughts from out of the depths of my worry.
