Текст книги "The Dragon's Favorite Strays"
Автор книги: Ruby Dixon
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CHAPTER 77
MURR
I love returning home to my mate. Even before I can see the building the females have claimed as their own, I can smell Dakota’s light, perfect scent on the breeze. It fills me with joy, and when I fly overhead, the females are seated by the fire, waving up to me. My cats emerge, crying and ready to be fed.
Was ever any male drakoni so loved by his clan? My heart is full.
Tossing down the dead deer, I tear the carcass apart with my claws, shredding it so it is easier for my cats to eat. The cats mew and clamber toward their meal, pausing to rub up against my haunches as they move past in a show of affection. I shift quickly to my two-legged form, eager to hug my mate.
She appears with a wrap for my loins, but when I try to hug her, Dakota squeals and skitters away. “You’re covered in blood!”
I glance down at my arms. She is right—I am splattered in gore up to my arm-spikes. When I had no company other than my cats, it was easy not to think about being messy. It didn’t matter, but Dakota covers herself in layers and they will smell of blood if I touch her. I nod, shaking my arms as if that will clean them. “I wash.”
“I’ll help you,” she says, and indicates I should follow her inside.
When we get to the back of the building, she turns a knob set in the wall and water pours out. She’s shown me this once before, and I could manage it on my own. But when Dakota picks up a towel and wets it, then moves towards me, I realize she wishes to bathe me herself. The warmth in my chest grows and grows.
I hold an arm out for her, and she takes my wrist carefully. Dakota glances up at me as she wipes my skin. “The others made a room for us so we can sleep together.”
It’s impossible for me to tell how I am supposed to respond.”…yes? Is good?”
“Oh, it’s good.” She chuckles. “It just surprised me is all. We don’t have to escape every time we want to touch each other, just be a little quieter.”
Her touch is gentle, and she wipes my skin clean with tender, thorough motions. It makes me feel like I am her prized possession, and I like the feeling. “Murr quiet,” I murmur, thinking of last night. “Dakota not.”
She chuckles, smacking me lightly with the wet cloth. “I can be quiet.” Her gaze flicks up to my face and she hesitates. “Do you have any regrets?”
Regrets? Over what? I must be misunderstanding something. “Explain.”
Dakota hesitates, then begins to speak. “You and I being together. Taking me as your mate. I just don’t want you to have regrets after last night.”
“Why regret Dakota?” I still feel as if I am missing something in this conversation. “Murr wife Dakota.”
“Yes, but as Aggie pointed out, I’m a bit of a mess. I’m anxious and I worry over everything. And I have a daughter. And I guess two old ladies, too. I just don’t want you to feel like you’ve become trapped into a situation.”
“No trap.” Everything she has mentioned, she acts as if they are bad things instead of things that bring me joy. “Murr know Rabbit. Know Aggie and Dottie. Know Stella.”
She laughs again, her expression rueful. “Stella is actually the least problematic of the three.”
I take the wet towel from her hands, and this time, I pull her into my arms. She doesn’t resist, tucking her head against my chest. “Murr happy,” I tell her, stroking her mane. “Happy yesterday, big happy today.”
“Happier,” she corrects. “And I’m glad. I love you. I just wanted to make sure.”
“Tonight, Murr show,” I tell her, tipping her chin up with a shorn claw so I can see her strange pale face I’ve come to appreciate so much. “Murr kiss everywhere. Murr hold wife. Big happier.”
“You know what? Your English is close enough.” She smiles up at me and tilts her head ever so slightly, in the way that tells me she wants a kiss. “I’m glad you picked me, even if I don’t understand it sometimes.”
“Murr always pick Dakota,” I reassure her. She has been alone for so long it will take her time to realize I am not going anywhere. I lean in and brush my lips over hers, and her mouth is as sweet as it was hours ago. Sweeter, even.
She smiles up at me between kisses. “I’m going to hold you to that. Also, how do you feel about shorts?”
…shorts?
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CHAPTER 78
MURR
Shorts are terrible.
They are apparently a thing that human males wear, and Rabbit has retrieved several pairs from a nearby building for me to try on. Dakota has given them to me, and again, I am baffled by the amount of discomfort these humans endure just to cover their bodies from one another. Shorts are two tubes of material sewn together, and one is to put a leg into each hole and wear them like so. But on most of the shorts, the leg holes are far too tight and end up ripping. The third pair goes over my hips and does not cinch my thighs like a tourniquet, but the seam that goes between my thighs rubs and chafes against my cock as I try to walk, and traps everything. I have to stop every few steps to adjust where I am being pinched.
Rabbit looks so happy that I am wearing her gift that I say none of this, however.
I endure the pinching and misery as we sit around the fire. The fresh meat is cooked up, and the females discuss fresh vegetables. There are none, but they are hoping for greens to come up from Dakota’s little pots. “I’ve been craving tomatoes,” my mate says, a blissful look on her face.
Hmm. Perhaps I can help her find them somehow. I must remember to ask what a “tomatoes” is.
The talk drifts on, and Aggie barks out questions, trying to get answers to her “cross words.” Dottie rubs her sticks together to make patterns in her threads, and then Dakota pulls out a book and reads something called a “fairy tale” aloud to the others. It is about a little man with a long name that makes a woman spin straw into gold. I only half listen, as I am more fascinated by watching my mate’s expressions as she reads aloud. Her eyes gleam in the firelight and her mouth moves as she speaks, and I pet the nearby cats that have joined us, watch my mate, and feel utter contentment.
It does not matter that the Rift is not open, or that I have lost my people. As long as I have Dakota, I do not care.
As if she can sense my thoughts, she looks up from her book and smiles at me. I send her a wave of affection, knowing she won’t be able to feel it, but wanting it anyhow.
“That’s all for me,” Dakota says, closing the book as she finishes the story. She yawns dramatically, setting off a series of yawns in the cats around us. Rabbit has one in her lap and a kitten held up against the crook of her neck. “We should all head to bed. If the weather’s good, maybe we can go forage for some greens. There might be dandelions left in the area and I could go for a salad.”
Rabbit closes her eyes and makes a happy face. “I would kill for a salad.”
Is this something I can get for them? Is it a bird of some kind? They are less easy to pick off than the deer or cattle, but I don’t mind a challenge. “Murr hunt salad?”
The females all chuckle.
“It’s not something you hunt!” Rabbit declares.
“I’ll tell you about it tomorrow,” Dakota says, and gets to her feet. “For now, bedtime.” And she looks at me with expectation on her face, asking me to join her.
I rise, displacing the cats that have piled themselves against me to share in my warmth, and the shorts pinch against my cock again. With a wince, I hobble forward and follow my mate.
The humans all sing out choruses of “good night” and “don’t let the bed bugs bite,” and Aggie calls out something nonsensical about riding and champion bulls and makes Dakota emit a strangled sound. She still smells happy, though, so I take her hand and let her lead me into the darkness of the building, where our quarters are now set up.
When we’re in our quarters, Dakota draws a stiff, rustling curtain across. “Shower curtain, but it acts as a door,” she says, and seems pleased by it. “Are you all right? You’ve been making some weird faces tonight.”
“Shorts,” is all I say, and adjust myself with a grimace.
Dakota huffs with amusement, and her hands go to the waistband of the hated clothing. “Maybe more kilts are best for you. I bet I can make you some better ones. You don’t have to wear the shorts.”
Now that is a relief. I pull them off with a vicious rip, enjoying the sound of the fabric tearing.
“We’ll go shopping tomorrow,” she tells me, her arms sliding around my waist. “We’ll look for food, and some plain fabric, and maybe more towels.”
“Towels?” I echo. “Explain?”
She moves in, pulling me down so that she can nibble on my jaw. “To put underneath us during sex. So we don’t ruin the blankets.”
Aha. “Clever mate.”
“Indeed.” Her tiny teeth scrape against my skin, sending a shiver along my spine. Oh, I like it when she bites me.
I pick her up by the hips and carry her the two quick steps to the bedding and set her down on the pile of blankets. “Now Dakota quiet?” I whisper, sliding my hand under her shirt to caress her breast. “Be good.”
“I can be quiet,” she promises.
In the end, we learn that she is quietest when my mouth is on her.
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CHAPTER 79
DAKOTA
It’s never occurred to me that I can just fly off with my husband for scavenging. For some reason, when I’d pictured us heading out, I thought we’d be trekking on foot. I put on my most comfortable hiking boots, stuffed my traveling backpack with supplies for the day, and checked in with Rabbit to make sure she’d be okay staying behind.
“Can I come on the next trip?” Rabbit asks, using two forks to shred a pan of leftover meat for a bevy of howling cats. “I want to see what it’s like to fly.”
“Fly…?” I echo.
And then I feel stupid. Of course we’d fly. Murr has wings. With him flying us, we’d be able to scout from above and look for stores that are more out of the way and less picked-over. I can look for plant nurseries in the hopes of finding some wild sprouts. We can cover so much more ground.
I just hope I’m not afraid of heights. Riding a rollercoaster as a kid is one thing, being held in a dragon’s claws as he flies hundreds of feet into the air is another entirely. Surely I can be brave about this, though? I smile at my daughter, even though my thoughts are spiraling. “Next time.”
Then I go and hug her tightly. Just in case I don’t get another chance.
“You’ll be fine, Mom,” she tells me with a laugh.
“I know. Murr won’t let me fall.” I hesitate to let her go, then whisper in her ear. “Keep an eye on Dottie, okay? I’m worried she’s not feeling well and hiding it.”
She nods, eyes wide.
I hug her again, and then I head off to find my new husband. He’s not inside, so I open the door to the store and head back out near the fire again. It’s not unusual for Murr to be out and about in the morning. I’m not much of a morning person myself. I drag myself from bed to make a fire and boil old coffee grounds in the hopes of squeezing a bit more flavor from them. Once I’ve had the saddest, palest cup of coffee in creation, I start to feel human. Murr is very much a morning sort of dragon, however. He is up at dawn, hunting or digging furrows for the garden I might have offhandedly mentioned the day before. He checks on all his cats constantly, making sure they’re fed and that the little ones are taken care of.
When I find him this morning, he’s got two piled into his lap and he’s cradling a third like a baby. The cats give me sleepy looks, unmoving, but Murr beams at me. “Hello, wife.”
I get all warm and mushy at his greeting. “Hello, husband. Still want to go scavenging today?”
He nuzzles the cat in his arms and sets it down, then displaces the others carefully from his lap. He’s wearing one of his kilts today, I notice. No more shorts for him. He bounds to his feet with a nod. “We go.”
I smile wider, adjusting the straps of the pack over my shoulders. “How do we want to do this? If you shift into your other form, how do we communicate? How am I going to stay on your back?”
Murr takes my hand in his. “No stay on back. Murr hold like this.”
And he makes a grasping motion, his big fingers encircling my forefinger. I guess I’m the forefinger in this scenario? Yikes. “So you’re going to just…hold me around the waist?”
Why does that make me feel faint? I don’t like the idea of my legs dangling as we fly through the air, but he’s the expert here.
The dragon-man nods and taps my hand with a quick double-tap. “Hand talk.”
“Okay.” I can do that. I rack my brain, trying to communicate what we’re looking for specifically. Normally when we scavenge, we dig through whatever we run across in the hopes of finding something useful. If we can fly, however, it opens up new worlds of possibility. I don’t want to be greedy, but there are certain stores we haven’t run across that I’m dying to find. We’ll start there. “We’re looking for buildings with plants. Big green signs. I want seeds and plant nutrients, or if we can find entirely whole plants, that would be amazing. We’re also looking for camping or sporting goods stores, since they’ll most likely have food supplies that survive long term instead of a grocery store. We want signs with a fish on them.”
He absorbs all this, blinking at me. “Fish store. Plant store.”
“Yes, perfect.”
“Explain…store?” He gestures at the bookstore that we’ve made our home. “Is not store?”
Oh, oops. I guess I took for granted that he’d follow everything. Of course he doesn’t really grasp what a store is and what it’s for. “No, this is a store, too. It’s a big building like this, but we want a different one.”
The door to the store opens just as I gesture at it, and Aggie steps out. She brightens at the sight of the two of us standing in the parking lot. “Good, you’re still here. I need a favor.”
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CHAPTER 80
DAKOTA
Aggie walks out to us with slow, measured steps. She’s by herself, and as she approaches, she looks around furtively. “Is anyone else out here?”
“Just me and Murr,” I tell her, curious. “We were about to go scavenging. What’s going on?”
She moves in closer and puts a hand to her mouth, as if sharing a secret. “I need a favor. Dottie’s eightieth birthday is coming up and I want to give her a party. Cake, hats, presents, the works.”
I’m torn. Part of me loves the idea, but I’d be willing to bet we can’t find most of those things. I need to set proper expectations with Aggie so she isn’t disappointed if we come back empty-handed. “We can look, sure, but I don’t know how we’d find flour or make cake at this point—”
She waves off my concerns. “You’ve got a dragon. You’ll figure something out. Get what you can. I want to make her feel special. She’s my best friend, you know.”
I should tell her that there’s no way we’ll find everything on her wish list. But there’s something about the look in her eyes and my worry over Dottie that makes me pause. “We’ll check some party stores and I’ll look for a grocery that hasn’t been destroyed. I can’t promise anything, though.”
“I know you’ll do what you can.” She pats my arm.
“What does she want as a present?” Maybe that will be something simpler that I can satisfy if nothing else. “Clothes? A pillow?”
Aggie is slow to answer. “She never says she wants anything, but I think she likes cups.”
“Cups?” I echo. “Like for coffee?”
“Not exactly. Coffee is best in a mug. She likes a teacup. Them fancy little things you see English ladies using with their pinkies out.”
Oh. Like porcelain china teacups. Good god, she’s better off asking for a cake. I haven’t seen a lot of fine porcelain that’s survived the After. “I’ll see what we can do.”
I glance over at Murr, but he’s just waiting patiently for me to explain to him what it is we’re after, and probably what the heck a fancy teacup is. If anyone can find it, though, it’s the two of us together.
Okay then, birthday party stuff. Hats. Ingredients for a cake. Wrapping paper.
Porcelain china.
And me with a backpack and a dragon.
No problem at all.
Aggie heads off, pleased with herself, and I’m left alone with my new husband. “A few more things to get,” I explain to him apologetically. “This might be an all-day trip.”
“Day with Dakota, good day,” he says, and I get the warm fuzzies.
I stand on my tiptoes and pull him down for a kiss. “You’re too good to be true.”
“Explain?”
“Just me saying that I’m happy you’re my husband.”
He kisses me, his hands moving to my waist. “Ready fly?”
Goosebumps prickle over my skin. Am I ready? I suspect if I think about it for a while I’m just going to make myself more anxious. “Let’s do it. I’ll tap your arm if I need to get your attention.”
Murr cups my face again, kissing me one more time before stepping away. A moment later, his dragon form explodes into view, the massive, scaled body erupting from seemingly nowhere. It’s always a startling transition, and I don’t know how he shifts from an oversized golden human to an oversized dragon the size of a city bus (never mind the wings), but I’m guessing it’s magic of some kind. I wouldn’t have believed in magic ten years ago, but I now live in a world with a tear in the sky and dragons everywhere, so there’s a lot I’m willing to handwave aside.
His dragon form is beautiful, though. So beautiful. His neck is long and graceful, his head a massive triangular shape that manages to look elegant and weighty at the same time. Spikes trail over his brows and down his spine, and when he unfurls his wings, it takes my breath away.
With one foreleg, he reaches out and gently enfolds me in his grip, his shorn claws more evident than ever. When he holds me in his “hand,” I’m covered from breast to hip. My backpack shoves up my shoulders a bit higher than comfortable, but I ignore it. I’d rather lose the pack than Murr lose me.
He pulls me in and nuzzles me with his long snout like I’m one of his cats, and I can’t help but chuckle. “I know,” I say. “I know you’ve got me. I trust you. Just take off gently so I don’t freak out, and let’s see what we can see from above, hmm?”
And because I’m a big ninny, I squeeze my eyes shut. On an airplane, take-offs and landings were the worst. Surely it’s the same for dragon flight.
Murr nudges me with his nose one more time. I feel a tremendous heave, as if all his muscles are bunching up, and then he surges into the air. My body jerks, but the draconic hand gripping me about my waist remains tight and reassuring.
But then my feet leave the ground and my hair whips about, and I have to swallow hard to keep my coffee down.
Open your eyes, I tell myself. You can’t tell him where to go if you don’t keep your eyes open. Open your damn eyes, Dakota.
I squeeze one eye open. The wind makes it difficult to see, but we’re rising into the air. Down below, I see a figure waving up at us from the parking lot. Rabbit.
Even though it’s terrifying to lift my hand, I manage a wave back, because I don’t want her to be scared of flying. This is fine. This is totally fine.
Murr catches a breeze and his wings cease pumping for altitude. High above the broken, ramshackle buildings down below, we circle, and I know he’s waiting for me to provide direction. Squinting against the wind, I peer below and try to make sense of where we are.
“That way,” I say, picking an old street overgrown with greenery.
The dragon tilts his wings and body, veering in that direction, and my coffee nearly comes up again.
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CHAPTER 81
DAKOTA
I was right about flying changing the game when it comes to scavenging. We’re able to head far away from our normal hunting grounds and land at a few places and quickly decide if they’re worth investigating or not. We do find a plant store, but it’s grown over to the point that I can’t make heads or tails of what’s left behind. I do manage to find several veggie seed packets that have rotted and glued themselves together. I take the whole chunk of them in the hopes that something will grow. We also find a sporting goods store, but it looks as if it burned to the ground a long time ago and nothing is left. Murr picks me up again, and we head off in yet another direction.
I point out a big box store that’s a few streets over from the burnt-out sporting goods place, and we head in that direction. In my experience, most of the bigger stores have been raided and picked clean. It’s the smaller places that tend to have stuff left behind—the corner stores, the smaller stores that specialize in one specific thing. Heck, I actually prefer checking office buildings because people kept shelf-stable snacks in desks and break rooms, and I’ve found a lot of coffee that way. The area I’ve selected for us to fly in seems to be old restaurants and strip malls, and I know from experience that the restaurants won’t have diddly.
Before we can land at the big box store, I see a sign for antiques. I think about Dottie’s love of old china and I tap on Murr’s scales before he lands. I point. “Let’s go there instead!”
My sweet dragon-man veers again, heading in the new direction, and gently sets me down directly in front of the antique store. “If we can’t find the ingredients to make a cake, maybe we can at least get her a pretty cup,” I tell him. “Hopefully that’ll be something. You’re probably wondering what this store is. It’s called an antique mall…”
I trail off, because as I speak, Murr isn’t looking at me. He’s scanning the skies, his nostrils flaring as he picks up a scent. He hasn’t shifted back into his human form, which tells me that he senses something that might be danger. I clutch my pack, unzipping it in search of a hand weapon. “What is it? What’s going on?”
As I ask, another shadow glides overhead, blotting out the sun for a brief moment.
Another dragon.
Oh fuck, what now?
I watch, anxious, as the dragon floats lazily overhead, circling over our spot. They’re not flaming or trumpeting a call of greeting. It lands with a delicate folding of wings, and I notice that the scales are closer to red than to Murr’s vibrant gold. A female, then.
Murr wraps his claws around me and pulls me in close against his chest. I don’t sense anxiety from him, just watchfulness. Wariness. Like he’s not afraid of this dragon, but he also doesn’t know what they’re doing here.
Well, that makes two of us.
The dragon watches us for a moment and then shifts forms to a woman crouching in the empty parking lot. Thess tosses her thick hair back and straightens, beaming a smile at us. “My friends! It’s good to see you again!” Her gaze focuses on Murr. “I mean you and your mate no harm, Murtades.”
“How did you know we’re mated?” I ask as she approaches.
“Your scent is different,” Thess says, as if that explains everything. She’s all smiles, her naked body practically gleaming in the sunlight. “I smelled it on the breeze earlier today and followed you. I wanted to wish you both well. I’m glad for you that you have found love and happiness.”
“Thank you,” I say, guarded. Murr still hasn’t shifted to his human form, and I don’t know what that means. His claws remain around me, caging me against him, and I decide to keep the conversation casual. If she wants something, she’s going to bring it up sooner or later. “Are you hunting? We’re scavenging for a birthday present for a friend. She likes antiques.”
Her head tilts, and for a moment, she reminds me of Stella. “Antiques? I am not familiar with this word.”
“Antiques are very old things. Humans like to collect pretty things owned by our ancestors.” I wave a hand at the antique mall ahead of us. “This is a whole store full of them.”
She seems intrigued. “May I join you? I would like to look at these things with you.”
“It’s up to Murr. If he wants it to be just the two of us, I’ll have to ask you to leave.” I stroke his scales, letting him know that I’m with him.
Thess doesn’t seem surprised by this. “Of course. I understand that Murtades does not trust my appearance at the moment, but I hope he will scent the truth in my words. I need to speak to both of you. I have a request from the fort and wish to discuss it with friends.”
Why am I not surprised that there’s an ulterior motive to Thess’s magical appearance? “I don’t trust forts.”
“I understand this.” She turns her face towards Murr. “I have vowed to keep you secret so you may have your privacy, and I have kept this vow. You will not scent dishonesty upon me. I speak the truth when I say I am your friend, and I want to keep you as my friends as well.”
I glance up at Murr, waiting for him to decide.
After a long, tense moment, Murr shifts forms. He moves to stand right beside me and puts his arm around my waist, drawing me in close yet again. “Speak.”
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