Page 16 of The Dragon’s Accidental Manny

I’d gotten what I wanted and what my client needed, but as I savored my success, a scent wafted in on the breeze. It’d become as familiar as my kids’ scents, one I’d recognize even if we were parted for decades.

Cam! He was behind me.

How had I not sensed him approaching? Between the smoke and hot-metal stench, I’d missed my mate’s scent that had snuck in and hid in a corner before it surrounded me.

You wanted to show him who you were, but this is an oops, my dragon mused. You need to fix this.

Quiet!

I turned, with fire still on my breath. Instinct had me recalling the last of the fire into my chest. Not that it would help. Cam had already witnessed the flame trailing from my lips. I could take the fire back but not the look on his face.

He was inside the bay door, holding my phone, and his mouth was shaped into a word that might have been “What?” There was no pretending he hadn’t seen the glow in my eyes, the last of the smoke curling past my face, or the scales on my chest. There was no version of this that I could make out as something else.

The blue-sky piece hung forgotten on the pipe, the glow already dying, as I let it drop. I no longer gave a damn about it as Cam’s face drained of color. His eyes were huge and fixed on my mouth. He didn’t need to speak because in his mind, I was a monster, whereas before he’d arrived, I was his boss.

“Cam.” My hands trembled, and tears streamed down my face and over my lips, the same lips that moments ago had spat out fire. “Cam. It’s me. I’m still me.”

He stumbled back and bumped into the frame of the open door.

“Stay there.” He pointed at me as his nostrils flared and his body shook with silent sobs. “Don’t come any closer.”

“Let me explain.” I fell to my knees because my legs could no longer support my weight. “I’m not that different to you.”

Oh gods, that was a lie. I had an animal inside me, one humans believed was an ancient myth.

I pounded my chest and pleaded with him to stay, because if he ran, I might never see him again. But he was gone, flinging the phone on the concrete floor and breaking the screen as he raced to his car. I followed his progress, and each step wasn’t just taking him away from the studio, but as he pounded over the ground, his footsteps echoed a heartbeat that I’d never hear again.

Cam manually locked the four car doors which was the only way to do it in his ancient vehicle, and he made three attempts to start the car. His eyes, filled with terror, were fixed on me over the steering wheel as I bowed my head. If I couldn’t see the look of horror on his face and how rigid his body was, I might’ve been able to pretend he didn’t loathe the real me. But there was no mistaking his car tossing up a spray of gravel as he wrenched it around and drove off.

Beyond me, the blue-sky glass lay in pieces, shattered and worthless, mimicking how I felt.

Stop him, my dragon ordered. Please. You can’t let him leave.

And do what? Chase a terrified man down the road and corner him?

I’d have to collect the children later and explain that our latest manny was gone. They didn’t need to tell me they liked Cam and how their lives were different now that he was in it. I heard in their voices, how they included him in activities, and how he comforted them.

And now they’d have to endure yet another loss.

NINE

CAM

I got as far as the gas station before my hands quit working.

I didn’t remember how I got here. One minute I was watching a man breathe fire, and the next I was parked crooked across two spaces with the engine idling and my body shaking. Perhaps I was going into shock, and I reached into the back seat for the blanket I’d used when the car was my office and home.

The man I cared about—my mind wouldn’t describe in detail how I felt about him, it couldn’t, not now—had the ability to breathe fire. In that first instant, I thought Price had a part-time job as a carnival fire breather. I’d seen one at a fair once. That guy had a mouthful of fuel that he’d sprayed over a torch held at arm’s length, resulting in a plume of fire.

But the heat, the strength of the flame, and how it dribbled from Price’s lips when he spied me, that was no act. And the flames were not just reflected in his eyes, the fire in his gaze was paired with what appeared on his lips. And there was the scaly appearance of his forearms and chest. That man wasn’t human, or if he was, he needed a ton of moisturizer.

The ability to produce fire coupled with scales led my mind to fairy tales or myths, but they weren’t real, so I pressed my forehead to the wheel and tried to shut the world out. It didn’t work. I flung myself back in the seat and pummeled the wheel. “What world?” Mine had been shattered, and I no longer knew which way was up. I peered outside as people drove in to get gas. If any of those breathed fire here, we’d be blown to bits.

I wanted out, out of what though, I wasn’t sure. Maybe if I could rewind time to this morning, I’d ignore Price’s phone and remain ignorant of his special abilities.

But the phone rang and jolted me out of my misery and confusion. It wasn’t his number, thank gods, but the kids’ school. I couldn’t take it. Price would have received a call. Why were they phoning me? But I picked it up in case the kids had left their homework or an assignment at home.

“We can’t reach their dad,” a frantic voice informed me. “You’re listed as the second contact.”