Page 44 of Kidnapped By The Messy Dragon

I hadn’t thought about it running in both directions. I would get to mark him right back.

Jules smiles at me as she chews.

“Seeing the way these men—“ I stop and correct myself. “These dragons. Seeing the way these dragons love you. It’s beautiful.”

“Now you have a dragon of your own,” Jules says.

I set my glass down. “Can I ask you something?”

Jules sets her spoon down. “Of course.”

“So I get special healing abilities by completing the mate bond?” I ask.

Jules nods. “Also a longer lifespan. Dragon shifters live as long as four hundred years before passing on. You’ll live as long as your mate. Possibly longer.”

“Ohhh,” I say.

Four hundred years, and I’ve never planned further ahead than a lease.

Dorian gets to talking about the grilled cheese, which cheeses he blended and which bread he baked for it. Jules asks the right questions in the right places, and the two of them trade the conversation back and forth without ever bumping into each other.

I watch them. Could Jalen and I fit like that? These two match each other in the small talk and in the quiet both. It puts a longing in me I thought I’d never feel.

I hop down off my chair. “I’m gonna get ready for bed. Thank you for dinner.”

Dorian bows his head to me. Then he turns the whole of his attention back to his wife, who’s already onto the nursery and which wall gets the mural.

I head upstairs. The bedroom is exactly how we left it, and there’s still no Jalen in it.

I keep my hands busy. I dig through my drawers for fresh underwear and the other nightgown, then take myself into the bathroom. I brush my teeth careful around the sore spots. The shower runs hot, and I stand under it until the day runs off me. I lotion up, taking my time, and pull the nightgown over my head.

When I step out of the bathroom, wings are crossing the sky toward the balcony.

The closer they come, the more of him I can make out, until the shape turns into Jalen.

I throw my clothes and towel in the hamper and run for the sliding door.

I press both hands to the glass. The moon sits big over the valley, and the town is nothing but porch lights way down below us. Jalen comes down out of the dark with his wings spread wider than the sliding door.

Every beat of them reaches me through the glass, a deep thump I can feel in my palms.

He swings his feet forward and flares his wings full open to catch himself. The wind off them rolls across the balcony, and he drops the last stretch and lands on his bare feet with hardly a sound.

The moonlight runs off his wings in a long shine, deep brown edged in black.

People leave me. All my life, that’s been the direction they go. No one has ever crossed a night sky to come back to me. I stand there with my heart beating in my ears and watch him, and I know I’m already gone for him.

I slide the door open and step out into the night. The air is cool through my nightgown after the hot shower, and the balcony tile is cold under my bare feet.

Then I see what he’s holding. It’s a bouquet of peonies, pink and heavy-headed, wrapped in brown paper.

I stare up at him. “You left me just to grab these?”

He holds them out to me. “Well, I also stopped at the shopping center to make sure the gargoyles took on some extra watch for Delilah’s ghouls. But I didn’t want to come back home empty-handed.”

I pull them from his hand, bring them up to my nose, and close my eyes. The scent is soft and sweet, and I stand there in the dark breathing it in.

The whole truth of these last days finds me at once. I’ve been fed and doctored and guarded, and never asked to earn any of it. I’ve rested. I’ve been cared for, protected, and most of all... I’ve been loved. These days with him, I’ve felt like a whole woman.