Page 76 of Foundling

“Happy to be alive,” he confirmed.

The water was especially refreshing and sweet, washing away the days of sickness and drudgery. Although his mind and body were still exhausted, a new vitality was growing inside him, a thankfulness to be sitting there at all. In his life before, he’d never have imagined sitting happily in a woodland stream, ass in the mud and rocks, but right then, it was exactly where he wanted to be.

Thalia endured him splashing around like a foal, as she put it, for a while longer before he did indeed make her fish him out.

I already have a troublesome foal—I don’t need a second, she grumbled as she nudged him along back up the slope to the cave.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what’s happened while you’ve been away.”

I don’t suppose I would. That’s for Leita to tell you. Besides, I don’t reward misbehaving foals. It sets a bad precedent.

Attalus snorted as he rooted around in the supplies for a proper meal. His stomach clenched and languished, wanting to scarf down anything he could get his claws on, but he knew that was a good way to throw it all back up. Instead, he took a modest handful of dried meat, fruit, and nuts, taking it with him outside to sit in the sun and dry.

Slinky joined him, and they wiled away the afternoon enjoying the growing heat. Thalia retreated into the shade of the trees and eventually the cave, growing crankier as the afternoon warmed.

Perhaps you should go sit in the stream, Attalus suggested cheekily.

Oh, yes, you’re feeling just fine. He received a nip to his head as she walked past. Don’t do anything lecherous while I’m gone.

He’d be a liar to say he’d thought nothing of the sort, because of course he had with his beautiful mate lying within reach, but his body had other pressing needs.

As the sun began to set, Attalus moseyed back into the cave. Stomach full and scales dry, he settled down with his mate in the nest again, pulling her into his arms. Slinky curled up on his hip, whiskers twitching happily as she nuzzled the blankets.

It was a sentiment Attalus shared. He might not care for the…amenities of the outdoors, but right then, this was paradise.

Attalus woke again the next morning feeling even better than yesterday—and with his mate blinking back at him. Her dark sapphire eyes widened, and Leita sat up in their nest with a gasp.

“You’re awake!” she exclaimed, running her hands down his face and over his shoulders.

“So are you,” he crooned, more than happy to lay back as she satisfied herself looking him over. He almost purred as she did just that, although her touch held a franticness to it as she searched him, running her fingers over his chest and then up to gently probe his throat.

“This is all healing well,” she muttered, as though she didn’t quite believe it.

“Dragons heal quickly—when there’s nothing interfering with us, that is.”

Leita nodded, although her attention didn’t really seem to be on him but rather his body. And not in the titillating way, either. She assessed him with the worried calmness of a healer checking on their patient.

Attalus shifted in the nest, not quite liking that dynamic. He was grateful to her, whatever she did, but he didn’t want to be seen as a burden. Not more so than he already was. He wanted to be a mate to her, a partner, not the likes of a heavy, cumbersome trunk.

When she peeled back the blanket to reveal his once-wounded side, she exposed far more.

He had to bite back his grin when she nearly choked.

“You’re naked.”

“That I am.”

Leita finally looked up, a lovely flush of plum coloring her cheeks as she gazed about the cave. She saw the new nest and opened food stores but didn’t find his soiled clothes or the remains of Slinky’s kills.

“You’ve been up already,” she concluded.

“I have indeed. Thalia helped me bathe. Although, I could stand to go again if you wanted to…”

Leita threw herself up into standing without her hands even pushing off the ground. Turning on her heel, she strode quickly for the food stores. “Hungry—you must be hungry.”

“Yes…” Attalus sat up in the nest, yawning as he watched her aimlessly fuss with her back to him. “But I ate yesterday, so don’t rush.” He reached out a hand, beckoning her back. “Come sit with me a while, I want to see you.”

But Leita shook her head, refusing to look at him. “Later. I should see to…” She never finished that thought, instead seeing Thalia there and hurrying over to her.