Page 86 of Dragon Chaos Around

Satisfaction did not begin to cover it.

She circulated. The penthouse was Chaos’s—the midnight fabrics, the curated art, the floor-to-ceiling windows that framed the city like a dragon’s vertical territory—but Alani’s influence had crept in at every edge. Color where there had been monochrome. Warmth where there had been austerity. A workshop-quality sewing table in the guest room that Crystal had photographed and texted to Gerri with the caption: She’s nesting. In villain fabrics. It’s beautiful and also slightly terrifying. The penthouse had become what the best homes became when two stubborn people merged their lives: a negotiation made physical. His archive below. Her costumes above. The city spread around them like a shared inheritance.

Ozara Stone found her first. Of course, she did—Ozara had a sixth sense for Gerri’s location at any gathering, honed across years of Book Club membership and the specific gratitude of a mother whose son had been the inaugural match. She carried a champagne flute and the glow of a woman who had grandchildren on the horizon and was already planning the nursery.

“Gerri.” Ozara’s embrace was brief, warm, scented with the emerald-and-jasmine perfume she’d been wearing since her son’s mating. “The penthouse is stunning. Lumi would lose her mind—the art collection alone. She’s in Tokyo for an exhibition but she sends her love. And Zeir sends—” She paused. “Zeir sends a nod. You know how wolves are.”

“I do.” Gerri squeezed her arm. “All that intensity, packaged in a nod.”

She moved on. Past the champagne station where Colette Keiser and Suki Saito stood side by side—the two mothers whose sons had mated, a feat of matchmaking that Gerri counted among her finest accomplishments. Colette’s blazer was new. Suki’s earrings were new.

“The desserts are criminal,” Colette announced. “The Maleficent tarts have a black sesame ganache that should be classified as a controlled substance.”

“Alani’s influence,” Gerri said. “The woman treats catering the way she treats cosplay—as an art form with a budget.”

“Nari says hello,” Suki added. “From Seoul. She and Dojin are producing a new series. Something about villain voice acting. She said you’d understand.”

“I understand perfectly.” Bears. Creative collaboration was their love language. Gerri had known it the moment she’d seen the match crystallize.

Past the dessert table—where Vivienne Coleman was selecting her third Darth Vader macaron with the focused delight of someone who had earned every calorie through the stress of raising a daughter whose comic empire now spanned three continents. Vivienne’s vineyard in Napa had produced its first vintage. She had sent Gerri a case. It was excellent.

“The cake,” Vivienne murmured, gesturing with her macaron toward the three-tiered villain centerpiece. “Is that a fondant Magneto on the second tier?”

“Magneto, Doctor Doom, and a very detailed Loki.” Gerri examined the craftsmanship. “Alani commissioned it from a baker who specializes in fandom cakes. The fondant work took three days.”

“Lark would approve. Lark approves of everything here.” Vivienne’s smile carried the specific pride of a mother whose daughter had gone from single and stubborn to mated, thriving, and running a fashion empire from the arms of a lion king. “She and Rune are on their way. Traffic.”

Past Astrid Sterling, who stood near the windows with her phone pressed to her ear, conducting what appeared to be a real estate negotiation that she paused long enough to nod at Gerri with the brisk efficiency of someone who never fully stopped working. Astrid’s son’s mating had been the most recent before Alani’s—the lion match, theatrical and political and exactly the kind of challenge Gerri savored. Astrid had handled the revelation that her son was dating a woman who ran a pop-up villain fashion brand with the composure of a Sterling: initial shock, rapid adjustment, total support.

“Rune is parking,” Astrid said, covering the phone. “Lark is correcting his parking. It’s a whole situation.”

“Lions and parking.” Gerri shook her head. “All that composure, defeated by a parking garage.”

She took a dragon cookie from the refreshed tray. Bit the head off. Delicious. The pastry chef had refined the recipe since the last book club meeting—the royal icing was smoother, the butter richer, the individual toe beans slightly more defined. Gerri approved of evolution in all its forms.

The penthouse terrace doors opened and Marisol Nores entered.

She wore gold tonight. Not the restrained gold of their first meeting—bolder, brighter, the gold of a mother whose daughter had mated a dragon and who wore the triumph like a second skin. Her dark hair was swept into an elegant twist. Her jewelry was Filipino-crafted—sampaguita motifs in yellow gold that Daniel had commissioned for their anniversary and that she wore to every event that mattered.

“Gerri.” Marisol’s embrace carried the scent of jasmine and the intensity of a mother who had watched her daughter survive a dragon abduction, dismantle a CEO, and fall in love with an immortal predator, and who had processed all three events with the same gracious steel she applied to everything. “The view from this terrace. I understand why dragons need height.”

“Territory,” Gerri said. “Vertical territory. Wolves claim ground. Bears claim ranges. Lions claim display space. Dragons claim skylines.”

“Alani claims everything.” Marisol’s eyes sparkled—the irrepressible mischief that Alani had inherited wholesale. “The convention. The penthouse. The dragon. She texted me this morning—do you know what she said?”

“Tell me.”

“‘Mama, he let me reorganize the archive’s indexing system. Level Two. I changed the manga wing from chronological to thematic.’” Marisol pressed her hand to her chest. “The man has been guarding that archive for seven hundred years and he let my daughter rearrange the shelves. That, Gerri, is love.”

Gerri laughed. The sound drew glances—she was not a frequent laugher, preferring the strategic deployment of amusement to its open expression. But Marisol Nores had earned it. The image of Alani Nores—convention director, cosplayer, dragon’s mate—standing in a climate-controlled vault beneath Manhattan reorganizing a manga collection because the chronological arrangement offended her curatorial instincts was, Gerri decided, the finest evidence of a successful match she had ever received.

The terrace doors opened again.

Lady Emberlaine Silverscale entered. Silver hair pulled back from a face that time had carved into an instrument of precision and restraint.

But the restraint was different tonight. Gerri saw it immediately—the way a matchmaker saw the aftermath of her own work, the subtle shifts that love produced in the people adjacent to it. Emberlaine’s jaw was softer. The silver eyes carried a depth that the dragon matriarch usually armored against. She looked, for the first time in Gerri’s memory, like a mother whose son was happy.

“The penthouse suits her,” Emberlaine said. No greeting. No preamble. The conversational efficiency of a being who had been alive long enough to dispense with pleasantries. She surveyed the living room—the villain throw pillows, the cosplay mannequin, the sewing table visible through the guest room door. “She has not diminished his space. She has colored it.”