Mating Rituals

PART ONE

It was a guitar.

That's what woke me. There was the insistent strumming that matched the beat of my heart. Or was my heart the beat for the guitar?

I couldn't tell. But whoever was strumming needed to knock it off. I don't care how beautiful or magical it seemed. I needed my rest dammit.

When I tried to sit up my forehead smacked against the underside of something.

"Fuck!"

"It's too early to be invoking power words, Poofs." A masculine voice that was probably sexy to other females grated in my brain. "Even though you did fall asleep under the table."

"Well gee Butters," I growled back. "A good roommate would have been nice enough to move me out from under it!"

"A better roommate would stop passing out under it." He countered.

"Then move out if you don't like it here."

"I just don't like you here."

"There really is a girl under your table Infamy!" A woman's voice interrupted our banter.

I finally managed to crawl out from under the hardwood table. The five empty chairs around it and the sixth one seating asshole with long legs on it made it almost impossible. I have a tendency of being cranky the morning after a raging change.

But when I peeked out from underneath the table and saw the woman in one of my robes I was furious.

I stood up as naked as the day I was born. I glanced over to the head of the table where Infamy sat.

He was handsome. But then I never met a bloodsucker who wasn't. He had dark hair and cool grey eyes. He was unusually tan for a vampire but I guess that was the benefit of being an Ancient. He was tall and built like a swimmer. Wide shoulders, slim waist, long legs. His chest had sprinkle of black hair. The tattoos on his body swirled in the dips of abs.

I sighed like I always did when I noticed he was good looking. It was just a damn shame he was an asshole.

"I have rules here Infamy." I said trying my hardest to smile. By tilt of his eye brow, I guess I failed.

"What is wrong with your face?"

Yup. Failure.

"Infamy," The woman said. "Who is this naked girl?"

I think it was the girl part that angered me to the point of no return. I felt my ears expand from the side of my head and bones cracking in my lower spine.

"Heather," Infamy moved with that inhuman predatorily grace that made him lethal. "Be a dear and leave. Remember how I told you my roommate has deadly temper tantrums?"

"Yes." Heather the blonde wasn't that stupid at least. She was staring nervously at my ears. Then I twitched and her eyes darted around me in panic.

"She's about to have one now, so you might want to leave."

She stayed still for a second before she fainted to the floor.

"Oh crap, Flame." Infamy picked up the girl easily. "Between me and you what are we going to say this time?"

I shrugged and headed towards the bathroom for a hot shower to rid me of my anger and grogginess.

"Your ears are sticking out again!" He called from the living room. "And watch your tail!"

I flicked my tail at his door as I walked past it to get to the bathroom. I the spikes in it knocked a ragged hole through it. I shut the bathroom door with a grin on my face as his swear words followed me through the door.

*****

Ok you're probably wondering several things. Like, what does this narrator look like? She seems like such a pleasant individual! She must certainly be a beautiful young maiden of awesomeness.

And I won't disappoint. As the vampire said, my name is Flame Bard. Ok. Not my real name. And NO. You don't get to make fun of my name. Ever. Or I will LITERALLY eat you.

I am one of the few remaining female dragons left in the world. Unfortunately, because we live on Earth we have evolved into shape shifters, adapting a human form. It's not a glamour like many others of the Folklore use. We, like our cousins the werewolves, actually use two forms. We look, feel, smell, taste, and sound like humans or a dragon. So I guess you could categorize me as a Shifter.

A long time ago, about three hundred years ago, the Last World was overrun by demons. Big, ugly, red skinned, black horned, big teeth, soul sucking demons. The Rulers managed to reopen a door to Earth and send many of their people here. It was an intense joint effort thing.

Now humans had no idea what to do when a bunch of inhuman looking creatures dropped into the middle of a densely populated area. And it's not like we could actually return to where we came from. So in a bold act, a fairy queen begged for the help of the humans.

It was insane for about fifty years. Intense prejudice and extreme violence. Apparently, humanity didn't like us and had heard stories about us. Made me wonder if there were ancestors here or if the Rulers had been sneaking off to mess around with the humans. Or who knows what else.

But facts were facts, the humans had knowledge of us. We had no clue about them.

But the first fifty years, humans discovered that they couldn't kill us easily. If at all. They realized that even though they out numbered us, they could never eradicate us. So they tried population control, registration camps, registration acts, assassination attempts, betrayal, pacification. Violence was their favorite response.

When we showed no signs of breaking, they adapted to fit us. They accepted the good and the bad in after about a hundred years or so, no human existed that remembered what it was like not to have a brownie as a maid or an elf as a teacher. We were called Mystics, separated into either Folklore who needed human glamour or Shifters, who could assume human form.

Either way, the humans accepted us. Just how I personally got stuck with the Ancient Asswipe...well...I own the one story four bedroom house we live in and he's got scads of money. I'm like his day time guardian so long as he keeps the fridge full.

That's the deal. It takes a lot of money to feed a dragon. What? You don't believe me? Then I guess you're not that stupid.

*****

The hot water felt so good as it sluiced down my body. My metabolism is pretty fast so I have a nice figure. I'm decently tall and slender. But my ass is huge. I don't know why, it just is. Infamy likes to tease that it's because my tail is really long so my human counter part responds with a big butt. Except when my tail pops out in human form (like it is now) it pops out right above the crack of my bubbly butt. So what now?

I have tan skin, just like all dragons do for some reason. I have never met a pale or black skinned human dragon. We are all just a light brown.

I have long dark brown hair that shines red in the sun. It curls down my back prettily when it's not wet and plastered all over me. My eyes are a light brownish red too. I don't actually consider myself pretty but when I bother to make myself sexy I get double takes every now and then.

I finished up in the shower and stepped out. After drying I hung up my towel and walked naked from the shared bathroom to my bedroom.

There were two other bedrooms but this was the only bathroom. I had the biggest room on the left side, away from the others. Infamy took the one on the right of the bathroom.

The layout was the reason I like the house. The living room, the kitchen, and the dining room were all one giant open room that we separated with using markers such as the kitchen counter, the giant wooden table, and the couches and pillows that were sprawled in front of a giant flat screen television. There were no walls at all between these rooms. But there was a doorway that led from the dining area to the hallway.

Infamy's door was smack lined up with that door. The other two empty bedrooms were to the right, hidden by the hallway wall and mine was to the left, after the bathroom. I liked that someone would easily walk into his room before they walked near mine.

Vampires are fiercely territorial against strangers. They are extremely vulnerable to attack in the daytime -when I'm usually at work- but at night they are awake and alert to protect their area.

I was lucky Infamy's territory consisted of more than my home. It was nearly the whole block. No other bloodsucker would come near me while I slept. He also proved to be extremely 'MINE is MINE' with me too.

Once when another vamp just looked at me hungrily Infamy partially decapitated him. The blade he used wasn't sharp enough for the task and then he stopped only because I pulled him off. In dragon form.

I shut my door and studied my room.

There were shelves all along the top of the wall where herbal candles lit themselves at my command one by one. My bed was in the center of the room. It wasn't really a bed. I can't sleep on those. It was a bunch of giant gold pet pillows that I had made into a circle because I don't just roll around, I do flips and stuff apparently. I had no carpet on the floor, just cold hard concrete because I was sick of burning the rugs when I couldn't sleep. So the scorch marks were all on the floor. Along with claw and horn scratches.

I didn't have any wooden furniture in my room. A lot of the things were made of stone or metal. It was a lot of grey on silver on black. Nothing white or wood lasted very long here.

My drawers were specially designed by dwarves. I took a bunch my jewels and metals to them and had them craft this piece of art. It looked like a drawer but it sparkled and shimmered. There were shots of gold and silver that veined through the glittery jewels that also blended together. The surface was cool and smooth to the touch and every time I saw it I smiled.

I picked out my usual clothes. Dark jeans and a light colored tank top to go with. Humans are ingenious at clothing designs. Even if other things are none too good in my home.

When I walked into the living room barefoot, I could still hear the damn guitar.

The vampire walked back into the house from the front door. Apparently it was either early morning or late evening for him to be able to go escort his guest out.

Then I smelled the charred flesh.

"Aw great," I groaned with agitation. "I just changed!"

He laughed. "She gifted me with her blood, don't worry about it."

"As in she put it in a cup for you?"

He walked towards the kitchen counter where a ceramic black mug was. He held it up to me in a salute.

"That's just gross." I remarked.

"Says the being who eats raw meat." he countered before sipping thoughtfully. "Our new neighbor. And he's not human."

"Really?" I asked. I was genuinely curious. "Well what is he?"

"Male." Infamy's voice took on a hard edge as he tossed back the rest of the blood. "A shifter I'm sure."

"Well let's go say hi." I said walking slowly to the door. But I saw the look in his eyes. His pupils were starting to bleed into his iris, making that light blue a dark black. "You just fed off of the blonde. So-Son of a bitch!"

He did that flash forward attack and bit my shoulder. Dragon's aren't known for speed. Oh, yeah, we're faster than humans, but put us in a ring with a vampire and you'll think we weren't moving. We're strong. One of the strongest Mystic's. But even we couldn't pull a feeding vampire off of its victim.

Which unfortunately, I seemed to be.

You see, it's always a bad idea to let a vampire feed straight from your body. Why? Because vampires will release a venom that's more like a drug. Eventually you could wean someone off of it...that takes decades, which I don't have because of my work. The side affects of not taking the bite include, grogginess, lack of appetite, lack of energy, and just a plain coma like state.

So I suffer his bite and his territorial behavior because I don't want to be asleep for twenty years or so and once he's done he'll pass out for at least two days. Dragon blood is not just spicy, Infamy told me. It's a sleep aid.

I never understood how anyone thought that a vampire bite was sexy. His claws were roughly digging into the back of my head and my hip as he pulled me closer to him. I could hear him swallowing and slurping at my shoulder. It was painful and it was gross.

I hated it every time he did it.

When he was done, he collapsed and I followed him.

We stayed slumped for awhile before a knock on the door prompted me to make the effort to push the ass off of me. I wanted to kick him but I settled for picking him up and tossing him through his bedroom door, completely ripping it off it's hinges.

I rubbed my shoulder and tsked at the blood that was drying on my shirt. It wasn't a lot but it wasn't a couple of drops either. I was wearing a sports bra so I didn't mind taking the shirt and tossing it to the garbage.

My shoulder didn't have any wound, just two tiny pin pricks where Infamy's teeth pierced and that would be gone within a few hours. The blood loss was making me hungry and the crankiness returned with a vengeance.

I walked to the door anyway and answered.

"What?" I was looking straight...glaring at an impressive mass of chest beneath a white wife beater.

I looked up to the male at the doorway who was smiling and opened his mouth before stopping to give me a puzzled look. He leaned down and sniffed at my hair once before taking a step back with that look of confusion.

Which allowed me to admire the beauty of him.

He was taller than me, I figured around six feet or so since I was average anyway at nearly five and a half feet. He had golden hair that fell in messy waves to his shoulders, shining brightly in the early morning light. I took a moment to reflect that was probably why Infamy had passed out so quickly. His eyes were dazzling jade green that caught my breath. A lot of his handsomeness was detracted by the beard on his face that was long and bushy, but I could still see that the male had rugged features. Hard planes on his face and an aristocratic edge that refined him

His body was big and muscular. Not like Infamy, wiry. But a male built for strength and battle. His scent was teasing my nostrils. Something pleasant, familiar, alluring...and repelling both at the same time. He had broad shoulders, muscled arms, chiseled chest and eight pack abs. His hips were fine and I longed to sink my claws into them, have those hips brush with my own. His legs were toned and finely made.

The male never said a word but my superb hearing picked up his increasing heart rate. His blood started to heat in his veins and it called something primal within me. I could hear myself purring, the sound vibrating from my chest up through my throat and escaping between my moist lips and nostrils.

"You're a female." He said shocked. "And you're in heat."

"Mmm." Was my response. It was getting hot in here wasn't it?

His jade eyes flashed golden for a second and that caused me to moan for some reason.

"Lady," He said thickly. His voice was a pleasant timbre, accented very slightly in a casual way. "Please. Stop to think clearly."

There was something in the way he said please that made me sniff him again. That deliciously...obnoxious odor...that teased my senses and aroused me to the point of pain.

I rubbed my thighs together as I felt moisture pool between my legs. My breasts grew heavy and my nipples tightened beneath my sports bra. Suddenly, my skin was too tight and I was burning up with the need to be touched.

"Lady," He said again, he bowed his head. "I beseech you."

It was something in the way he said "Lady" that made me reach out to him. When I touched one muscular pec he fell to his knees and looked me in the eye.

That was when I saw him for the first time. The beautiful jade eyed dragon. His pale skin, blonde hair, and light colored eyes had confused me. But I knew the scent of a male dragon very well.

They were the reason I was allowing a vampire to feed from me daily. I refused to be a broodmare for my species. The anger inside of me drowned out my lust and I slammed the door in his face.

*****