Page 59 of Kidnapped By The Messy Dragon

Zuri digs out fresh clothes while I stretch out on the bed to watch. She checks the tag on the shirt and grits her teeth at whatever it says. She checks the leggings and does it all over again. I might keep buying her expensive clothes just for that frown.

She sits down at the dresser and starts fussing with her hair.

“I wish I could straighten this mess,” she says.

“There’s a full salon on the third floor. Brandy and Jules share it.” I fold my arms behind my head. “But I can build you one for your floor.”

She turns on the seat and frowns at me.

I chuckle.

The sun has come down behind the ridge while she was dressing, and the room has gone over to lamplight. She works a dab of gel along her edges and smooths everything back with both palms. Then she pins it up neat. She crosses to the nightstand and picks up her phone.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“What do you think I’m doing?” She wakes the screen without bothering to look at me. “I’m calling Renee.”

I smile and climb up off the bed. “Speaking of Renee, there’s something I want to show you.”

She waves me off and puts the phone to her ear.

I can hear it from across the room. It doesn’t even ring. Renee’s voice comes on bright and recorded, telling the world she’ll hit them back.

Zuri lowers the phone and stares at the screen. Her burnt caramel curdles sharp at the edges, panic climbing through it fast.

So I go to the sliding door and step out into the evening air. My wings come out of my back, and I stretch them until the tips reach past both ends of the railing.

The sharp edge cooks off her scent behind me.

“What are you doing?” she asks from the nightstand.

Then she looks down at the tiles by my bare feet. The peonies are lying there, dried out right where they fell the night I brought them home to her. Her thumb goes still on the phone, and sadness drifts into her caramel right under where the panic was.

I hold my hand out to her. “Come here. My dragon wants to show you something.”

She smiles at that. Then she looks back down at the screen. “Renee.”

I keep my hand right where it is. “Trust me, baby.”

She reaches out and puts her hand in mine. I fold my fingers around hers and pull her out onto the balcony with me. Neither of us has shoes on, and the tiles still hold a little of the day’s warmth under our feet.

My wings beat down hard and take us up off the tiles. Her phone slips out of her hand and claps down behind us, and she gasps and locks both arms around my neck, holding on with everything she has.

I press the words into her hair. “I got you, baby.”

I dip us off the mountainside, and Shadow Wolf Creek opens up below.

The moon is out big and bright tonight, and the whole valley glows under it, porch lights and streetlamps strung gold through the dark. She turns her face out over all of it and watches, and excitement rolls off her skin and mixes into the night air. I drink every bit of it. My dragon stands up tall inside me, so damn happy his heat steadies my wings. I’ll be remembering the beauty of this moment for the rest of my life.

I take her down Main Street at rooftop height. The square lamps burn below us, and the shop windows sit dark behind their gates, the craft store display still lit and the market awnings folded down for the night. We swing wide over the shopping center, where the empty lot shines under one flickering pole light.

Then we pass over Stanley’s Diner, neon spilling pink and blue across its parking lot, and her classic giggle spills out, loud enough to scatter across the rooftops.

I fly us right on past it. She tips her head back against my shoulder.

“Where are we going?” she asks.

“It’s my gift to you, my love,” I tell her.