Sanguine (Kreuzberg Dragonshifters Book 2)

Sanguine Part 1

The scent of cooked meat and the greasy scent of fried onions and potatoes wafted around Paul as he made his way into Comic World; the aroma mingled oddly with the scent of paper that always greeted him when entering the store he owned with Flake. The store itself felt cool against his skin, body overheated from the summer sun of outside; a headache tugged at the backs of his eyes from where he'd screwed them up against the brightness. He cursed himself silently and his own inability to remember his sunglasses; whilst his body now remained inured to extremes of heat, his eyes were more sensitive to both sunlight and to darkness since his change.

Paul found himself smiling, as thoughts of Richard wandered warmly through his mind. Since meeting Richard, a lot had happened; Paul had found himself a new lover, a sea of tranquility in the otherwise previously dry desert of his love-life, through quite literally running the other man over, after a particularly ironic and heinously bad blind date. Richard had then moved into Paul's flat, became his life-partner and also, as it turned out, was a dragonshifter who'd chosen Paul for his soul-bonded mate, complete with a synesthesia-based emotional link. That Paul had allowed Richard to bite him, which therefore caused Paul's own transformation into a dragonshifter and even welcomed the change, still came as a source of both surprise and amusement to Paul, yet still he was yet to feel any kind of regret or guilt over his transformation. Secretly, he enjoyed the fact that he was different to everyone else, that he harboured a secret that no one else knew or could even guess at. Not even Flake, co-owner of Comic World and who had, until recently, been Paul's flat-mate, didn't know what Paul, and Richard by proxy, really were. Paul wasn't sure when he'd tell Flake the news, or if he even would; Paul thought that Flake should only know if he needed to know, and he hadn't needed to know yet.

Thoughts of Flake brought his wandering thoughts back to the present again, and Paul hurried his way down to the counter at the back of the store, bag of greasy food still blissfully hot. It was lunchtime, and to make a change from baguettes and soft pretzels, Paul had left the store in order to buy burgers and chips, and paper cups of sweet, syrupy cola. On the way to the burger stand, he'd dropped in on Richard, where he worked at the luthier's a few doors down from the comic store. They'd chatted for a while, and Paul had left only when Till, the owner of the luthiers, had started making warmly joking admonishments about how Paul was in danger of monopolising his staff. Paul had hurried away with many a kiss bestowed upon Richard's smilingly soft mouth, and many more silver-gold dragon kisses, to leave reluctantly and to continue on his way to buy the lunch for himself and for Flake.

"I've bought burgers with all the trimmings, two portions of chips and two large colas," Paul sang out as he slapped the greasy, crinkling paper sack of food down upon the counter in front of Flake.

The other man barely looked up, too busily invested in what looked to be an A4 flyer for a bar or restaurant splayed out in front of him; Paul had missed that flyer with the corner of the greasy sack by millimetres, a fact that Flake soon predictably complained about.

"Don't mess up my poster, Paul," Flake said, as Paul opened the employee's gate to shimmy behind the counter.

"I missed it, didn't I?" Paul huffed good-naturedly at him. "What even is it, anyway? An ad for a restaurant?"

"Yeah, sort of. Gastro-pub, actually," Flake said, with evident interest. "It opened in Charlottenberg a few weeks ago; the assistant manager dropped in and asked if I could display advertising flyers on our notice-board."

He gestured towards the board in question, populated by similar flyers for local businesses, and more than a few out of date posters for old punk concerts that Paul couldn't bring himself to throw out. Once again, he made the promise to himself to frame the posters, and to hang them on the wall properly.