She squeezed her eyes shut, prepared for the jolt and explosive pain of her head cracking against the tiles, but it didn’t come. Instead, she let out anoomphwhen her head landed on his tail, which had swung around to cushion her fall. She thought it was a small miracle she hadn’t hurt herself on one of its spikes, until she glanced backward to find he’d tipped it to the side.
Startled, she pressed a hand to the floor and made to lever herself up again, but was stopped by the dragon laying his head flat on her middle, his chin touching her collar bones and the weight of him pressed down on her breasts and stomach. His breath huffed loudly beneath her chin and stirred her hair.
Very aware that she was now in an exquisitely vulnerable position not unlike when he had her pinned by the trough and seemed seconds away fromroasting her alive,Alashiya gasped, “What are youdoing?”
The dragon let out a deep, thrumming sound. She hadn’t the slightest clue what it meant, but he didn’t seem like he had any immediate plans to attack her.
Good gods,she thought, watching those massive eyes close,he really is using me as a mattress.
“You know,” she muttered, “if you wanted a pillow so bad, I could’ve gotten you one. And I’m only giving you five minutes like this. We’renotdoing a repeat of when you got here. You’re not keeping me on the kitchen floor all night, okay? My back can’t take it.”
The dragon cracked an eye open. It looked a little glazed, but she thought she spied some acquiescence there, too.
Bit by bit, she relaxed beneath him. The dragon seemed to only be seeking some comfort, so she tried not to let worry consume her as the minutes passed. It certainly wasn’t the most comfortable position to be in, but she didn’t mind it so much when she passed the time gently tracing the fascinating shapes of his face with the tips of her fingers. She probably shouldn’t have, seeing as he was a person and not an animal to be petted, but he didn’t seem to have any complaints.
A content rumble filled the kitchen, and for reasons she didn’t want to examine too closely, Alashiya lingered there beneath him long after the five minute limit passed.
Eventually the discomfort won out, though, forcing her to nudge him until he reluctantly lifted his head off her chest. Feeling shy, she said nothing as she worked some blood back into her sleeping limbs by hobbling out of the kitchen. She still couldn’t quite look at him when she returned with the things he said he didn’t need: a few plush pillows and a blanket.
Whatever he meant about not needing blankets before didn’t seem to apply anymore. Almost as soon as she laid the pillows down, he pressed his snout into them and closed his eyes.
Feeling that familiar tightening in her chest, she draped the blanket over as much of him as she could reach before tiptoeing out of the kitchen.
Considering how she’d spent the last half hour on the kitchen floor with him, Alashiya felt silly for closing the door into the hallway, but hewasstill a stranger. One good, oddly tender evening didn’t mean she wanted to sleep with her door open and wake up to find him watching her or something.
Alashiya could hear his breathing as she settled into her slightly depleted mound of blankets, pillows, and mattresses by the hearth. It was too warm for a fire, so she stared past the iron grate and strained to listen to the beast in the other room. There was the distinct sound of his tailswush-swushingacross the tile before the dragon let out a long, gusty sigh.
She listened to the air whooshingin and out of those massive lungs for a while before the sound lulled her to sleep.
Chapter Eleven
The followingdays moved at an almost identical rhythm. Alashiya got a little bolder. It was nice having someone to talk to, even if they couldn’t talk back, and she didn’t mind taking her meals on the floor or even how heavy his head was when he pushed it into her lap.
When they had their one-sided conversations, she said nothing of importance but chatted with him in the way she would with Debbie down at the general store or the less terrifying rangers. She spoke of how nice the weather was, how happy the plants were with the summer storms, and speculated about whether they’d get any tornadoes this year.
“One nearly took the barn last summer,” she told him, “and a few years back, a big chunk of the house’s roof was torn off. Luckily it was the side I don’t use.”
That was one of the rare times she caught the dragon looking anywhere but her. He’d stared at the pans hung up on the kitchen wall for nearly ten minutes, a deep, terrifying growl rumbling from his chest. His tail rattled violently, too, which was always a little unsettling, since one swipe of those spikes would see her needing more than a few stitches.
When he turned his attention back to her, she reassured him, “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’d survive a tornado, and I have a storm cellar, so I’d probably be okay.”
She hoped it’d make him feel better — if she was reading his body language correctly — but it might’ve done the opposite, because he looked at her like she’d lost her mind for a while after that.
Alashiya didn’t like to talk while she worked, since she was so used to silence, but during her minimal breaks, she enjoyed asking him yes or no questions. That was how she discovered he was over a century old, that he enjoyed sweets, and that he liked his job.
She avoided tougher subjects that would require more explanation, like how he ended up in her barn, what danger he was in, or what his name was. Truthfully, she didn’t need or want to know those things. His trouble wasn’t hers. She’d done her part, and she didn’t think the gods would find fault in her treatment of her guest, considering the circumstances.
Every hour saw his wounds healing faster than hers ever would. While she still sported a cut on her brow, his deepest wounds were already scabs. Perched on one of the pillows she’d lent him, Alashiya carefully cut away his stitches after only three days.
She knelt before him on the kitchen floor and gathered up the old, bloody thread. “That’s done, then,” she announced, trying to sound pleased. “No more stitches. Unless you’ve got other issues I can’t see, I think you should be good to go. Do you think you’ll be able to shift soon?”
The dragon nodded once. A pang of loss struck her, but it was there and gone in an instant. It was nice having another being around. Really nice. She knew that she’d been lonely, but she hadn’t quite realized how much until an injured dragon burst into her life, demanding her attention.
That didn’t mean she wanted the dragon to stay, especially when he was for all intents and purposes stuck in her kitchen, but she didn’t exactly want him to leave, either.
Climbing to her feet, she moved to dispose of the oldbandages and thread in the trash. “You know, I think I’ll get a cat when you leave,” she announced. “A big tomcat who likes to walk with me in the garden and sleep by the fire.”
Padding to the sink, she soaped up the soiled bowl. Speaking with no small amount of false cheer, she continued, “I can walk you into town when you’re ready. It’s not too far. Only about an hour away. There’s a ranger station, a library, and a general store. You can use the phone or computer at the library to contact your people. We can also walk to the Thompsons’ farm, but they just have a phone, so that limits your options?—”
