My stomach chooses to growl as I pull a set of bedsheets out of some plastic wrapping.
Warm hands wrap around my waist, and Kael comes up to me from behind, newly changed into his human form. His fingers slide under my shirt, brushing over my stomach in a caress that makes my senses leap. My mate is hungry.
Hungry, I agree. And tired and dirty.
I really am starving…but I’m super filthy, too, and I’m trying to decide which one is more annoying. I look at the grime streaking my arms. Most of the stores we’d gone into today (and we’d gone into quite a few) had a heavy layer of dust over everything, and picking through debris to find stuff that wasn’t destroyed meant digging to find less-damaged items at the bottom of heaps. I’m pleased with what I got, but I’m also sweaty and exhausted. Kael, however, seems to be full of endless amounts of energy, always ready to do more at the snap of my fingers.
My ‘apartment’ is coming together, but there’s no tub here. It’s the only thing I’m missing. Maybe we can find a claw-footed one tomorrow, but for today, enough is enough. “I wish we knew of someplace that we could get a nice hot bath. Or a shower. I’d take either.” I’d even nabbed soap and shampoo in preparation for that. A sink bath will just have to do.
You wish to clean? I know of a place.
I turn in his arms, excited. “You do?”
I do. It will please you to go there?
“Very much.” I smile up at him. “I’m filthy and disgusting.”
You are lovely. Other dragons would be jealous to see my mate. His eyes whirl brilliantly, and he brushes his knuckles over my cheek.
Flattering words, but they also make me nervous. I don’t want to think of other dragons. If everything falls as it normally does, there’s supposed to be a red dragon attack over Fort Dallas later today. But we’re not close, and Kael’s big enough to defend me. “Is it safe?”
Always safe with me. I would let nothing harm you. One claw traces my lips, as if he’s fascinated by them.
I shiver, but it’s a good shiver. Even the big claws don’t scare me much anymore. I know he won’t use them against me. “Let me get my things, then.” I slide out of his arms and gather my new soaps and shampoos into a backpack, and then shrug it onto my shoulders. “Ready when you are.”
He leans in and kisses me fiercely one last time before transforming to his dragon form. We’re so domestic, I muse as I lift my arms so he can grasp me by the waist and haul me into his claws. Shopping, decorating, and now getting cleaned up before dinner. He launches his big draconic form off the side of the building, and then we’re in the air.
We’re going to have to talk about a better way of travel, I think, as I push my flying hair out of my face. Dangling in his grip grows more nerve-wracking each time we do it. I know he won’t drop me, but I don’t feel as secure with clothes on, because his grip is less secure with a layer of slippery clothing. It’s either ditch the clothes (which I’m not keen on), or find a better way to fly.
Whatever makes you happy, he tells me, his thoughts affectionate.
I pat his claw, feeling a little pleased at that, too. Maybe we can come up with a harness of some kind, I tell him, and I like the idea. I’m feeling good at the moment. Retail therapy has done a lot for my mood, and so has the thought of an upcoming bath. Actually, what helped the most was this morning’s sexy play…and the fact that he won’t have to bite me every time he wants to mate. Things are looking up.
I’m so lost in thought that when Kael turns and swoops, mid-air, I give a startled yelp and cling to his scales, desperate for traction.
I have you, he soothes. I would never let you fall.
That doesn’t mean I won’t let me fall, though! But I relax a little when his free hand comes around to cradle my legs. Below us, a massive lake spreads out, the water crystalline and lovely. Is…is this where we’re going? I ask him. I don’t know what I’d imagined, but a lake isn’t it. I giggle to myself, because what was I expecting? A carwash? A dragon-sized bathtub? A swimming pool? I’ve seen a swimming pool or two in the After. With no one to balance the chemicals, they’ve turned into murky, mosquito-infested swamps. But this water is crisp and pretty and ripples ever so nicely as we glide in lower. It’s a hot day, and a dip in the lake sounds amazing.
You wish to be dipped? He descends sharply, and my feet skim the water, Kael’s massive shadow blotting out the light of the setting sun.
I shriek, drawing my legs up as high as I can. “No dipping! No dipping!”
A rumble starts low in his chest, and I realize with wonder that he’s laughing. Suddenly, I’m laughing, too, because my dragon has a playful sense of humor, after all.
My dragon?
Where did that thought come from? I squash it instantly and feel a little guilty. Just because I’m content with Kael today doesn’t mean this is going to work out. I have to save Amy. “How about you take us down nice and easy on the shore?”
If you wish, Kael tells me, and there’s definitely amusement in his tone. It makes me feel warm to hear it. The longer I’m with him, the more his personality seems to surface. Is this how he was before the madness crept over him? Confident and amused, as well as fierce and possessive? I wonder what he must have been like back then. I know being here in my world has changed him.
What…what if he went back? Why does that fill me with a gnawing sort of dismay?
Do not worry. I would not go back now, Kael tells me. You are here. I will stay in this place with my mate.
I didn’t know I was thinking so ‘loudly.’ “But you hate it here,” I remind him as we circle back to the sandy shore and begin to descend. “You said it smells awful and it makes your mind crazy.”
My mind is no longer wild now that I have you. And my nostrils are filled with your sweet scent. My mate is here. I have all that I need.
That’s…sweet. I can’t help but feel flattered and pleased to hear it. But what if I’m not always here? What if something happens to me?
Kael’s claws tighten around me.
I squeak in alarm as his thoughts grow fierce, and flashes of madness seep through into my mind. Nothing will happen to my mate. You are mine, Claudia!
“Okay, okay. It was just a rhetorical question.” I stroke a hand over his scales to calm him. “Don’t squeeze me to death.”
His thoughts calm, but mine remain troubled. What will he do if something does happen to me? I’m going to retrieve Amy—it’s not an ‘if,’ it’s a ‘when’—and I worry as to how he’ll react when I do. I can’t stay with a dragon forever…can I? Do I even want to? I’m full of questions and conflicting feelings.