Page 40 of Kidnapped By The Messy Dragon

She kissed me first this afternoon, and I thought that made my whole year. This beats it.

“Good,” I say. “That was never the plan.”

She smirks at me. “You’re so quick-witted it makes me nervous.”

“I might be quick-witted,” I tell her, “but I’ll always bend when it comes to you.”

She gives me a look. I don’t need my nose to read this one.

I narrow my eyes at her. “Try me.”

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll think of something.”

Her stomach growls again, louder this time. If I don’t get her fed soon, my dragon will handle it for me. Losing my grip on him means she wakes up tomorrow next to a fried elk in this bed. I shudder a little just thinking about it. She would not like that.

My dragon takes offense at my attitude. He considers a fried elk a perfectly respectable courting gift.

I have a better idea for a courting gift than fried game.

I scoot off the bed with her still in my lap and stand up with her. Her legs wrap around me, and she kicks her feet a little. The kick undoes me worse than the pout did.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Oh, nothing,” I say. “Just living out my biggest fantasy. Carrying my mate down to dinner after the most incredible makeout session of my life.”

“You’re making me feel like I’m in a dream,” she says.

“Great. Let’s keep it that way.” She has no idea how long this one was mine.

I carry her out of my room and down the stairs. The kitchen smells like Dorian working, butter and something slow-cooked going soft. He comes around the island and pulls out a chair without being asked, and I set my mate down in it.

“Can you keep my princess company for a little while?” I ask him. “I have a surprise I’m working up for her.”

Zuri starts to say something. I lean down and kiss her quick. “I’ll be right back. Thirty minutes, tops.”

Though as I run for the side door, I already know it’s going to take longer than that.

I pass the garage without slowing. What I need, my own hands can carry, and flying is faster anyway. My wings push out through the slits in my shirt. The night air catches them, and I’m gone.

I fly out over Shadow Wolf Creek with the mountains dropping away under me. The dusk burns out somewhere over Main Street, and by full dark I’m circling down exactly where I planned to land: the shopping center.

My bare feet hit the asphalt. I left my shoes by my own bed, because apparently that’s the kind of courting fool I am now.

The parking lot is emptying out, the last few shoppers loading their trunks and heading home. Here’s one thing I love about this town. A dragon drops out of the night sky with hiswings folding down his back, and it’s a regular night for everyone here. No one screams. A couple of the shoppers wave at me before they go.

Right on time, sundown has turned Soren loose. The door of Stanley’s swings open, and he ducks his head under the frame to fit himself through. He steps out and stretches his wings the width of the storefront.

I break into a grin and jog over to him.

Soren clocks me halfway there. His wings fold down flat behind his back, and he frowns at me the whole rest of the way over. I’m never living down the day I announced him to this town. It was good journalism and better civics, and he has hated me for it every night since. It was for the best, though. Right?

“Hey, man,” I call out, opening my arms like we’re old friends. We are, whether he admits it or not.

“Jalen,” he says, and he looks down at me from all seven feet of his disapproval.

I roll my eyes. He refuses to give me the two letters, and he knows exactly what it does to me. I would bet the clan vault he keeps a list of my reactions.

“It’s Jay,” I tell him, same as every night.