The Dragon King’s Hunter Mate

BELLA

Another shift at the restaurant. Another evening spent smiling at strangers while balancing plates on my arms and pretending my feet aren’t absolutely killing me.

I glance at the clock above the bar for what has to be the hundredth time tonight.

10:17 p.m.

Forty-three minutes. I can survive forty-three more minutes.

Probably.

“If you stare at that clock any harder, Bella. I swear you’re going to make the hands move backwards.”

I turn my head toward Maya. She’s standing behind the bar with a tray pressed against her hip, her dark hair pulled into a messy ponytail that looked considerably better four hours ago. There’s an amused little smile playing around her mouth, the kind that tells me she’s been watching me longer than I realized.

“I was checking the time.”

“For the sixth time in ten minutes.” She gives me a pointed look before reaching for two glasses beneath the counter. “We close at eleven. It’s still going to be eleven whether you glare at the clock or not.”

“Easy for you to say. You’ve been standing behind that bar in sneakers for half the night.” I shift my weight from one aching foot to the other and grimace. “I’ve been walking around in these shoes for six hours, and I’m pretty sure I’ve permanently lost feeling in three of my toes.”

“Perfect.”

Maya’s gaze drops pointedly toward my shoes before returning to my face, one corner of her mouth already curling upward.

I narrow my eyes at her. “I’m sorry, perfect? I just told you I can no longer feel three of my toes.”

“Exactly.” She shrugs, completely unbothered as she reaches for another glass. “If you can’t feel them, they can’t hurt anymore. Honestly, Bella. I don’t understand why you’re looking at me like that. I just solved your problem.”

I stare at her for a long second. “Sometimes I genuinely wonder why you’re my best friend.”

“Because I’m pretty, funny, and you couldn’t afford this apartment without me.” She flashes me an overly sweet smile.

“Mostly the last one.”

Her mouth drops open. She presses a hand dramatically against her chest as though I’ve just mortally wounded her.

“Wow. After everything we’ve been through. All these years of friendship reduced to half the rent.”

I bite back a smile as I reach for the empty glasses on table twelve. “Don’t forget utilities.”

Tonight isn’t even particularly bad. It’s Friday, so the restaurant is busy, but I’ve worked worse shifts. No one has screamed at me. No one has sent their food back three times because apparently medium means something entirely different to them than it does to the chef.

And most importantly, no drunk man has grabbed my ass.

Yet.

The night is young.

“Waitress!”

I turn at the sound. A woman at table seven lifts her hand apologetically, immediately offering me a friendly smile when our eyes meet.

“Could we get another bottle of water?”

“Of course. I’ll bring one right over.”

My smile appears automatically. It’s real, mostly.

That’s one thing I’ve never hated about this job.

People.

I like them. Not all of them, obviously. Some people make me understand why prison exists. But I like the elderly couples who come in every Sunday and always order the same thing. I like the families whose children leave half their fries untouched. I like watching nervous first dates slowly become less nervous.

Normal things. Human things.

I grab a cold bottle from behind the bar and carry it to the table, placing it beside the woman’s glass.

“Here you go. Do you need anything else while I’m here?”

“No, thank you, sweetheart. We’re fine.”

“All right. Just let me know if you change your mind.”

I collect two empty glasses from the next table before heading back toward the bar.

Normal.

Sometimes I think that’s why I’ve stayed at this job for as long as I have. Because everything about it is painfully, beautifully normal.

Customers don’t know what I do when I’m not carrying plates. My manager doesn’t know why I occasionally call in sick with bruises covering half my ribs. The old couple at table three certainly doesn’t know that the sweet waitress who remembers they don’t like ice in their drinks keeps a silver-edged blade beneath her bed.

Well. Several blades.

But that’s beside the point.

I work in a restaurant. I pay rent. I argue with Maya about whose turn it is to buy toilet paper. I forget laundry in the washing machine. I go grocery shopping. I complain when my alarm goes off.

And sometimes, when the sun goes down, I hunt dragons.

My fingers tighten slightly around the glasses as I place them onto the bar.

Dragons.

Even thinking the word changes something inside me. My shoulders tense, and the warmth of the restaurant suddenly feels a little too close against my skin.

Twenty-two years old, and somehow my life can be divided into two very simple categories.

Before them.

And after them.

I was young when a dragon killed my parents. Young enough that there are pieces of their faces I have to fight to remember now, and that terrifies me more than I’d ever admit.

Sometimes I can hear my mother’s laugh perfectly but can’t remember the exact shape of her smile. Sometimes I remember my father’s hands more clearly than his voice.

And sometimes I remember fire.

That memory never fades.