The Black Dragon Warrior

9. Dragon's Horns

When an egg was cracked on the pan with hot oil, its loud sizzling broke Akira's deep slumber, who squirmed around on the couch before moving down so that his head was lying on the arm rest and pulled the blanket towards himself, cuddling under the soft fabric.

Aurora glanced over her shoulder after hearing the rustling but went back to cooking breakfast with a smile on her face. She poured some milk in the pan and quickly stirred around the eggs before she took them out on a plate and threw in two pieces of bread on the same pan after spreading cold butter on them. It will melt in the pan anyway.

She picked out the 'good' plates from the lower drawer and placed two toast topped with the scrambled eggs on each plate. To fill the plate better, she pulled out the strawberries in her fridge and washed them before separating it's stem and placing four on each plate.

"Akira?" She called from the kitchen, pouring coffee in two cups. But she earned nothing but a small grunt. Shaking her head in disappointment, she walked over to the dragon on her couch and shook him gently.

"Hey, wake up, have something to eat first!"

Akira stretched his arms over his head before opening his eyes and looking at a very put-together Aurora, quite opposite to his messed up hair and barely hanging on clothes.

"I prepared breakfast for you!" Aurora announced with a smile before grabbing Akira's hand and pulling him to sit on the couch.

"How have you not thrown me out yet.." Akira mumbled, rubbing his eyes to clear his vision.

Aurora smiled, pulling out a chair for Akira to sit on. "Maybe because if you weren't there to save me, I would've died.."

Akira plopped on the chair, eyes still half-closed and completely unaware of his appearance. "If I wasn't there, you wouldn't be in trouble in the first place,"

Aurora's smiled flattened, even though Akira was neither looking at her nor had any kind of expression on his face while he searched around for the coffee mug in his sleepy state. She could tell that somewhere, deep down, he blamed himself for the incident.

"It's not your fault.." Aurora reasoned as Akira let out a scoff of laugh.

"Don't lie." He smirked, looking down at the beautifully made plate of breakfast presented in front of him. "You know it too. If you weren't seen with me, they wouldn't have attacked you."

Aurora didn't say anything to him because she knew what he said was true. Those creatures want Akira and will do whatever it takes to get to him.

"Then, will you isolate yourself, huh? So that no one gets in trouble?" It was meant as sarcasm. Aurora didn't mean it as a suggestion.

"That's exactly what I've been doing all this time." But clearly, our Akira's scales are way too thick to understand slight sarcasm.

Aurora had a great urge to go over to Akira's side and slam his head down on the table, but somehow, she subsided the urge by stabbing the strawberry with her for

"Do you think isolating yourself will help? Instead of going alone, you should ask for help from your friends -"

"I don't have friends."

"What about Jace, your sister, Lyra, and Eric? What are they? Potatoes?" God's- or ex-gods - were supposed to be smart. Aurora thought, but apparently, this one wasn't.

"I won't put them in trouble."

"Come on, Akira," Aurora let out a frustrated sigh, "I don't know about Eros, but I can tell that the others care about you. They are willing to help, but you aren't willing to accept it. And that's stupid as fuck."