“No, I’m serious!” He was still holding them in his fist.
“Uh-huh. I’ll believe it when I see it,” she said, and then blanched. “Oh, Saints… that came out wrong. I didn’t mean I’d see anything. I don’twantto see anything.”
Not that Aevrin Riveker wasn't the most ruggedly handsome cowherd she'd ever laid eyes on, with his flawless bronze skin, his broad shoulders and his square jaw, and those full lips that looked awfully soft compared to the rock-hard rest of him… but she had no business whatsoever picturing him stripped down to his underpants. None. Especially not underpants likethose. No matter how muscular his backside doubtlessly was.
“Miss Cassia, did you ask to help just so you could make fun of me?” Aevrin asked her dryly. He clipped the offending scrap of fabric up with a single pin, where it flapped in the wind.
She quickly shook her head, dispersing the thought of what tall, muscular Aevrin might look like stripped down.
“Of course not!”
From across the burnt field, a gray dragon galloped towards them, wings pinned. She paused for a moment, worried despite herself, and glanced at Aevrin. She didn't know enough about dragons to read their body language. The rancher didn’t seem concerned, so she made herself relax.
“You must’ve been really bored if you wanted to hang laundry.” He pulled out another tunic and moved down the line to hang it up.
“Well, laundry’s not so bad.” Cassia clipped a single white stocking to the line. Aevrin frowned at her as he ducked to dig out a jacket from the basket.
“You kidding? It’s like the worst chore. And that’s saying something.”
A cool breeze cut through the air, rippling through the clothes they’d already hung. Aevrin ducked out of the way of a flapping shirtsleeve. The dragon reached them from the other side of the line and shoved his bulky head between the legs of a pair of wet, hanging trousers to stare at Aevrin. The legs of the trousers fell like flopping ears on either side of the drake’s face.
“Hey. No messing with the laundry,” Aevrin barked. He put a hand on the dragon’s muzzle and gently pushed back. The drake snorted and pulled away.
“He’s pretty friendly,” she observed with a laugh.
“Only once in a red moon,” Aevrin muttered, but she didn’t miss him pulling something from his pocket and reaching under the clothes with a treat in his palm. Aevrin was pretty friendly too, no matter how grim his tone could be.
The dragon grabbed it, turned, and raced back away. Cassia smiled to herself as Aevrin wiped his palm on his trousers. The rancher clearly had a soft spot a mile wide.
“He’s yours?”
“Yup.”
“I thought riders and dragons were heart-twins. Inseparable.”
“Supposed to be,” Aevrin muttered. “The way Kazeic acts most days is proof dragon’sdon’tchoose who to bond, like some people think. No way he’d have picked me if he didn’t have to.”
“He seemed happy enough to see you just now.”
“Yeah, well.” Aevrin fidgeted, looked embarrassed. “He probably just smelled the treat. I keep hearing some bonds just take a while, but I dunno.”
She frowned, and watched from the corner of her eye as Aevrin tilted his head slightly to get a view over the clothes-line of the gray dragon skimming low over the ground on his way back towards the cattle fields. She hadn’t seen much of them together, but it didn’t look like dislike to her on either end. Maybe they both just acted too grumpy to see the softness in each other. Not that she knew the first thing about dragons.
In any case, it seemed like a sore spot for him, not something she should keep prodding.
“Well. I’m sorry you got stuck with laundry, if you hate it so much,” Cassia said briskly. She shook out a buttoned shirt.
“S’fine. We take turns. Just like with cooking, and all the other boring stuff.” He dug into the woven basket for another piece of laundry. One of the cockatrices threw back her head and crowed loudly, making them both startle.
“Cooking isn't boring.” Cassia frowned at him and planted a hand on her hip.
“It’s alright, I guess,” Aevrin said dismissively. “I mean, I like that you get to eat at the end.” He quickly pinned up a pair of stockings, one-two, and bent back to the basket.
“I’m a cook. I work in kitchens.”
“Really?” His eyes jerked up to her. He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t trying to insult your job.”
“It’s fine. You’re allowed to be wrong.” She pulled out a buttoned jerkin and hung it up.
