How to Date Your Dragon Read online

  How To Date Your Dragon

  Molly Harper

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  1. Jillian

  2. Jillian

  3. Bael

  4. Jillian

  5. Bael

  6. Jillian

  7. Jillian

  8. Bael

  9. Jillian

  10. Bael

  11. Jillian

  12. Jillian

  13. Bael

  14. Jillian

  15. Jillian

  16. Bael

  17. Jillian

  18. Bael

  Discover More by Molly Harper

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This ebook is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.

  This ebook may not be sold, shared, or given away.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  How to Date Your Dragon

  Copyright © 2018 by Molly Harper

  Ebook ISBN: 9781641970488

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This ebook is based on an Audible Original audiobook.

  No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  NYLA Publishing

  121 W 27th St., Suite 1201, New York, NY 10001

  http://www.nyliterary.com

  Acknowledgments

  I am so very grateful for the series of fortunate events that led to this project. My endless appreciation, as ever, to Natanya Wheeler, who created this opportunity from thin air. Thanks go to Rose Hilliard, she of the infinite enthusiasm and author of the gentlest editorial letters ever – who didn’t even flinch when I asked, “What if we use ALL the shifters … and some creatures people haven’t even heard of?” And thanks to author Jaye Wells, who helped me come up with a better name for the series than, “That Audio Series I Can’t Seem to Come Up With a Good Name For.” And thank you to Louisiana State University and Cajunradio.org, for the online resources they have provided regarding Cajun French phrases and pronunciations. And as always, thank you to my family, who support me through my writing benders with chocolate and bottomless cups of tea.

  1

  Jillian

  Jillian Ramsay, PhD, was driving a panel van without air-conditioning through an area known as the Devil’s Armpit.

  She wished that was an exaggeration, or a misprint on the map. But there it was, in bold print on the highway sign, “You are entering the Devil’s Armpit.”

  She supposed she should be thankful that her destination wasn’t the Devil’s Armpit, an unusually sulfurous section of southern Louisiana that smelled of rotten eggs and damnation, but a small town just beyond it—Mystic Bayou. She hoped the more attractive name also indicated a more appealing odor. Dr. Montes hadn’t left anything in his field notes about bringing air fresheners with him. But then again, she’d come to learn Dr. Montes’s methods were less polished than anyone hoped.

  Jillian fanned her face and dabbed at the perspiration dotting her upper lip. The air-conditioning had crapped out within fifteen minutes of her leaving the New Orleans airport, but after a flight from Chile involving two layovers and a lengthy argument with customs over her audio-video equipment, she just didn’t have any fight left in her.

  She rolled down the window, just a crack, hoping the muggy late May air would be cooler than the interior of the van. Almost immediately, her nostrils were flooded with the smell of what could only be described as Satan’s BO.

  “Mistake! Huge error in judgment!” she gasped.

  Jillian rolled up the window, her hands so sweaty that her fingers actually slipped off of the handle a few times before she sealed herself inside the van. Eager for some form of odor-free distraction, she used her hands-free dialer to call Sonja Fong at the League office. She grumbled as the call went to voicemail, again. But when the machine went beep, Jillian tried to make her tone more suited for a friend she was actually fond of, as opposed to a telemarketer.

  “Hey, Sonja, it’s me again. I’d really appreciate a call back, so maybe you could explain to me what’s really going on back there. The League keeps assuring me that everything’s just fine, as they turn my life completely upside down. But I keep getting the feeling I’m a heroine in one of those awful seventies horror movies, where the unwitting outsider ends up a human sacrifice. Cell phone reception is getting pretty spotty, so if you can, call back soon. Love you, bye.”

  Jillian pursed her lips. This was not a very auspicious beginning to her first real field assignment. She’d flown all the way to Santiago, only to get a call that her mentor and boss had been seriously injured on his assignment in northern England, and the International League for Interspecies Cooperation was sending her in his place to southern Louisiana. Her in-depth study of the mohana and their mating habits would just have to wait.

  All that background reading on malevolent sex-obsessed dolphin shapeshifters for nothing.

  Nearly an hour later, Jillian had sweated completely through her clothes and was beginning to worry that she was lost. The gnarled trees dripping with Spanish moss were all starting to look the same. She was pretty sure she’d passed a carnation-pink shack on stilts twice, and she’d realized those “logs” resting against the banks of the swamp, dangerously close to the road, had legs and very large jaws. She was beyond jet-lagged, couldn’t remember her last application of deodorant and was starting to think maybe the League could go jump into the murky, gator-filled water looming on either side of the highway.

  Just as Jillian started to search for a place to either do a three-point turn or sleep for the night, another sign came into view. It read, Welcome to Mystic Bayou, Home of the Fighting Marsh Dogs, over a caricature of a large rat with its fists raised a la the Fighting Irish.

  Jillian nodded. “OK, then.”

  Maybe it was better for her to stay lost.

  Jillian opened the van window again, hoping that maybe the air in Mystic Bayou was more palatable. She took a tentative breath. She could almost taste the sweetness on the air, redolent with honeysuckle and dried grass and earth. She took several gulps of it, lifting her mass of honey blond hair off her sweaty neck. She balked at the reflection in the rearview mirror, wondering who let that pale, sweaty woman with the under-eye luggage into the driver’s seat.

  She was due to meet her community liaison in just a few minutes and she was a mess. Maybe she could duck into the back of the van to freshen up before she met Mayor Berend? That was something legitimate scientists did, right? Change their clothes in vans?

  The town quickly came into view in that “suddenly there are buildings and if you blink you will miss them all” way unique to tiny rural towns. Main Street was pretty much the only street from what Jillian could see, with the occasional short side street branching out into clusters of two to three small homes. Dr. Montes had written that few families lived in town, preferring to keep almost clannish compounds in the outlying areas of the county and only venturing into town limits for errands.

  Main Street led to a town square centered on a gazebo, and, behind that, a large white-washed building topped with a golden shape she couldn’t quite make out. The street boasted a freshly painted collection of businesses with flower baskets hanging from every surface, giving the town a cheerful, neatly kept air. Aside from the inordinate number of them that seemed to involve tax
idermy, there was a bank, a boat dealership, a grocery, an “apothecary,” a beauty salon, a book shop, a newspaper called the Mystic Messenger, and finally, Bathtilda’s Pie Shop, which boasted the world's best chocolate rhubarb pie. Jillian had never heard of chocolate rhubarb pie, but frankly it sounded a bit gross. Each business had a little addition under the shop name stating, “Owned and Operated by Bonner Boone” or “Owned and Operated by Branwyn Boone,” or in the sweet shop’s case, “Bathtilda Boone.” Was every business in town owned by a Boone?

  Dr. Montes’s instructions were to go to City Hall, which appeared to be the tall, white building at the end of the street. With a gold spire rising from a bell tower-like structure on the roof, it was the tallest building in town. As she drove closer, she spotted a gold-and-green SUV marked “Sheriff” parked out front, next to a rather large Harley Davidson with custom-painted claw marks raking down the body.

  She parked the cursed van in an empty spot, near the fountain that stood across from Mystic Bayou City Hall’s door. She glanced down the street at the sweet shop and wondered if she could duck in unnoticed and change clothes in the restroom. It would probably cause a bit of a stir. She couldn’t imagine a town like this got a lot of tourists hauling luggage into public restrooms with them. But it would be better than—

  Jillian shrieked. “What the hell!”

  A huge man in an extremely tight black t-shirt and even tighter jeans was staring at her through her driver side window. He stood several inches taller than the van, and his hands were the size of picnic hams. He had thick, wildly curling black hair tied back in a ponytail and a matching beard that spread across his barrel chest. His smoke gray eyes seemed to penetrate through the window glass, making her shiver despite the muggy heat.

  He raised a hand, and it was all she could do not to flinch. “Hi, there.”

  A friendly grin spread across his face, warming his features as he waggled a massive hand.

  Should she roll down the window? Was it safe? At this point, it would be rude not to, but she’d always read that a woman traveling alone should ignore their instincts to be polite and err on the side of not letting an enormous man pull her through a van window and onto the human trafficking market.

  OK, yes, this was becoming terribly awkward. She rolled down the window. “Can I help you?”

  “Dr. Ramsay?” his voice boomed, practically shaking her van windows. “I saw you from the sweet shop window, thought I should come over and introduce myself proper.”

  Jillian sagged against her seat in relief. “Oh, thank you, but I’m just here to meet the mayor. Mayor Zed Berend?”

  “Yeah, you right!” The man grinned again, showing perfectly white, razor-sharp canines. “You must be the League doctor. Bienvenue!”

  Without an invitation, he yanked the van door open and pulled Jillian to her feet. He gripped her much smaller fingers in his very warm, very rough hand. Jillian stared up at him, mouth slightly agape. This was the mayor of Mystic Bayou? He looked more likely to be driving a long-haul truck route or forging lightning bolts on Mount Olympus. Who had dared challenge him for the position? Did he chew all of the ballots in half to remove his opponent from the election?

  “Everybody’s been waitin’ for you to show up,” he told her. “Well, they were waitin’ for Dr. Montes, but they’ll be just as happy with you. I can’t say the whole town is gonna be thrilled that you’re here, but like my maman always said, learnin’ never hurt nobody. The guy at the League office said I have to sign a buncha papers before you can get started? Didn’t I already sign enough? Y’all tryin’ to steal my house and my firstborn?”

  Jillian laughed at the rapid-fire questions. “No, but with Dr. Montes being replaced so quickly, the League just wanted to make sure the paperwork reflected the appropriate names, in case issues came up later.”

  Like the “issues” that came up with the cave troll study in the Reykjavik sewers. No one liked to talk about the incident that led to a League scientist being mailed back to headquarters in a shoebox, not even for training purposes. Jillian shuddered.

  “What happened to Dr. Montes anyway?” Zed asked. “He was plenty keen to hit the ground runnin’ and then he just stopped callin.’”

  Jillian chewed her lip and tried to compose an appropriate answer. Currently Dr. Montes was in a League-funded ICU, ten stories below the surface of London, recovering from a unicorn impalement to the gut. Jillian couldn’t imagine what he could have done to provoke that response from a unicorn. Hector Montes was a senior member of the paranormal anthropological staff. He wrote an actual book on approaching and interacting with sapient creatures. How had Dr. Montes underestimated the will (or the ticklishness) of a creature as old as a unicorn? Had he become too arrogant to consider his subject’s feelings? Or had his clammy hands, combined with breath that smelled of old coffee and gingivitis, pushed the unicorn into a panic?

  Zed was staring at her, waiting for an answer.

  “Oh, um, he ran into some medical problems and couldn’t travel,” Jillian said, smiling through the awkward lie. “It happens sometimes. But I assure you, Dr. Montes trained me in field work. I’m fully qualified to handle this.”

  He jerked his shoulders. “Oh, I’m sure y’are, cher. No worries. You’ve probably taken dozens of these research trips, right?”

  Jillian cleared her throat. “Well, not exactly.”

  Zed paused and tilted his enormous head toward her. “How many have you taken?”

  Jillian pursed her lips and admitted, “One.”

  Zed asked, “One before Mystic Bayou?”

  Jillian shook her head. “No, just this one.”

  Zed’s cheerful demeanor faded. “You’ve never done this before?

  “I was heading out on my first assignment in South America before the League called me back in and redirected me here,” she told him. “I know what I’m doing. I’ve studied the process over and over. I’ve collected and interpreted other researchers’ data… This is just the first time I’ve done it on my own.”

  Zed practically deflated, leaning against her van with a dumbfounded expression. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I just don’t know about this, Doc. It was hard enough to talk my neighbors into participatin’ when they knew that they were gonna be dealing with an expert. I just don’t know how people are gonna react to someone your age, without any real experience.”

  “Well, we don’t exactly have to include that information when I introduce myself. I’m not planning on handing out copies of my CV to random citizens,” she protested.

  Zed’s cheerful demeanor returned full force. “Good point, smart lady. If I’ve learned anything since takin’ office, it’s that less is more when it comes to information and your public image. It’s why I deleted my Facebook. Nothin’ good can come from your constituents knowin’ you unfriended them.”

  The radiating heat of his hand on her elbow as he led her into the building had her sweating even more. She cast a mournful look over her shoulder, to the van, where fresh clothes and her trusty dry shampoo were waiting in her bag.

  Zed shrugged. “We’ll just have to see how things play out. I’magine you’re pretty tired after all that flyin’. The sheriff says there’s nothing like it, but I never took to it. Prefer to keep my paws on the ground, if ya know what I mean.”

  Zed flung the heavy wooden door open so fast Jillian didn’t get a chance to study its carved details. He led her into an open office, divided into sections with lines on the floor. One corner was marked “Revenue” with gold lines. Another was marked “Public Works” with green lines. “Schools and Social Services” was marked in red and “Everything Else” was marked with blue.

  “The whole parish government operates from this one room?” she marveled.

  Zed seemed very pleased with himself as he pointed to the various departments. “Well, I get my own office over there and the sheriff gets his own office on the opposite side. But it works just fine. We don’t have much room here a
nd it keeps things simple if we can just holler at each other from across a room instead of callin’ and leavin’ messages and cursin’ the voicemail and gettin’ so stirred up you can’t remember why you called in the first place. End-of-work was a little while ago, but usually this place is a beehive. Theresa Anastas keeps us all lined up and running without smacking into each other. She runs the Everything Else department. Gigi Grandent—she’s a seventy-seven-year-old human and more terrifying than I could ever be—runs Public Works with an iron fist. Mr. Chiron retired as superintendent, but he’s good at keepin’ the schools running. And Betchel Boone may be a bit of couillon but no one can keep the books balanced like he can.”

  “Boone? As in the family that seems to own all of the businesses in town?” She gestured toward the street.

  Zed grinned. “Caught that, did ya? Nice enough folks, the Boones, I suppose. They’re used to gettin’ their way and get plenty fired up if they don’t. We let ‘em throw their money around because it makes them happy and keeps the town in clover. And then we mostly get things done when they’re not around.”

  A sharp voice interrupted him, “Not all of us are like that, Zed.”

  Zed’s cheeks went a little pink under his beard, when another man, lean and tall with almost preternaturally sharp cheek bones appeared in the doorway marked, “Sheriff’s Department. Check all firearms with the mayor before knocking.” The man’s light hair was shorn close, which only emphasized his large, amber-colored eyes and sharp features. He was wearing a tan police uniform and a gun belt that seemed to have a lot of “extras,” but Jillian wasn’t super-familiar with law enforcement gear… And she was staring at his narrow waist, which he had noticed. Awkward.