Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 89222 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89222 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
To my surprise, he mumbles his acknowledgement. “No, you are not.”
“Why do I have your dragon tattooed on my wrist—which gives a whole new meaning to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo—and how the hell did it get there?”
“The Goddess of Fate is to thank for that.” The fabric smoothly touches the ground as he adds, “Or curse if you choose not to accept me.”
“Accept you as what?”
Ptur places the second pillow on the edge of the blanket prior to ushering a hand for me to sit.
Once I do, he positions himself on the other and threads his fingers together in his lap. “You sure you wanna discuss this on an empty stomach?”
“My stomach’s not empty.”
“You haven’t eaten since you had that ham, egg, pepperjack cheese, and avocado breakfast sandwich at 6:37 this morning. Yes, you had a couple sips of coffee—black with two sugars, no cream—at 7:20 and 7:22, but we both know the tastes of liquid fuel do not truly count towards a sufficient amount of caloric intake for the day.”
There isn’t even time to think about speaking.
“And before you exhaust those vocal cords that I would rather you use to say my name, yell my name, or—if The Great Ones so allow it—scream my name, there’s no point in denying it, Pint-Size. I can literally smell that information. One of our many incredible capabilities as dragon shifters is our overly heightened sense of smell.”
“What other capabilities do you have?”
“In our Awaker form—the one you’re seeing now that you typically refer to as human—we possess extraordinary strength, bullet-resistance skin, impressive speed, and heightened senses—though smell is the strongest of them. And being an Ancient Elemental-”
“Platinum.”
He grows a bashful grin while nodding.
“Gonna guess Auran is gold and Zilveren is silver.”
“And how exactly did you deduce that?”
“The symbol for gold is Au and Zilveren sort of sounds like silver, so I simply took a Grayson worthy guess.”
“And who is Grayson?”
“Like Dick Grayson.”
His expression remains unchanged.
“Nightwing.” Ptur stares on for so long in cluelessness that I’m forced to add, “Don’t worry about it right now. We’ll discuss my obsession with comic books on our next date.”
“Our next date?” Excitement and eagerness struggle not to be seen in his stoic expression. “You’re considering this meal a date?”
“Well, it’s not, not a date.”
The cute reference to an earlier moment causes him to cheerfully chuckle, a sound that’s so deep and captivating and heartwarming that I suppress my own to hear it echo around the room.
God, I don’t think I’ve ever loved another person’s laugh this much.
Creature.
Right. Thanks for the correction.
“Because me and my brothers are Ancient Elementals,” Ptur smoothly proceeds, “it also means we produce the liquid element from inside ourselves. It literally runs through our blood.”
“Giving you an endless supply to the element.”
“Yes.”
“Something that could be considered quite handy when creating a jewelry empire.”
“Which is where the common Sleeper phrase about shit being built on ‘blood, sweat, and tears’ actually originates from.”
“There’s that fucking term again.” My finger point is thoughtless and aggressive. “Explain it.”
Ptur prepares to reply when an unexpected voice from behind me sighs in exasperation, “Master Draak, must you eat on the floor?” Gene’s approaching draws my attention up to where he’s hovering with a wicker basket in each hand. “And on unwashed linen?” Panic in his voice ensues, prompting me to suppress a smirk. “Have I upset you? Are you punishing me for a mistake I do not recall making? Is having me provide properly prepared items yet uncooked not enough torture for one evening?”
Unfathomable confusion jumps onto my complexion. “Wait, not cooking for us is torture?”
“To my kind it is, Lady Pennington,” Gene politely replies at the same time he places the item filled baskets between us. “Pure…unimaginable…agony.”
“You’re milkin’ it,” Ptur scolds, although the smile he’s bearing inspires the two of us to snigger.
“And what exactly is your kind, Gene?”
“I am a Genie.”
“Like-”
“It’s best not to compare him to any of the well-known Sleeper—um nonmagical world –characters. He finds it rather upsetting.”
“Only because they make such a mockery of us.”
“You hate all on screen genies? Even Kazaam? He seemed like a great creature and that movie was so cute! Albeit a little corny, but still pretty adorable.”
The floating entity presents me with a disgruntled gaze. “I would rather not ruin your evening by expressing my distaste over the depicted fashion among other displayed monstrosities in the aforementioned film, Lady Pennington.”
Being slightly tickled by his response has me snickering once more, “Very well then. Should I call you Gene the Genie or just Gene?”
“Gene is quite acceptable, Lady Pennington; however, Genie Gene—which is what the bonded mates have taken to calling me—is acceptable as well.”
“He loves that nickname,” my picnic partner points out prior to pulling over one of the baskets to him. “His manners and overly refined behavior would never allow him to verbally admit it, but he fucking adores the term of endearment.” The opening of the lid occurs between sentences. “It’s easy to assess by his body language and facial reactions when they use it.”