Zina laughed. “Okay. Well. Maybe I can do most of the talking.”
She left Trent in the car as she got out, her bag with Dusty inside it balanced carefully on her shoulder. As risky as it was to take him with her, she didn’t think it was fair to leave Trent alone withtwopotentially problematic baby dragons.
The door jingled as she opened it, stepping into a somewhat shabby lobby. Despite how old and worn it looked, again, Zina could tell that once upon a time, this place had been quite fancy.
“Don’t have any vacancies, love.”
Zina jumped at the sound of the voice from her left – she couldn’t see anyone sitting at the checkout counter, until she realized they were sittingwayback in a recliner chair, a women’s gossip magazine obscuring their face.
“Uh. I see,” she said. “Are there any other hotels in town we could try?”
“Nah. Just us, love. Sorry about that. There’s a boarding house along the road if you wanna take your chances with that lot, though.”
Zina wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that, but if they didn’t have any other choices then she guessed it’d have to do.
“Do they take couples?” she asked. “Me and my – um, my – husband, are –”
At once, the person behind the counter erupted up from behind their magazine. Zina wasn’t sure she’d ever seen someone with such a deep tan before – combined with such a brassy yellow dye job.
It’s even yellower than Trent’s!
“Oh – you here on a romantic getaway then, love?” The woman blinked at her, a knowing smile on her fuchsia-pink lips.
“Oh, I guess you could say that,” Zina said, trying to return her smile. A little white lie wouldn’t hurt, she thought – and anyway, this trip definitelyhadturned out to be more romantic than she’d been bargaining for!
“Well, that changes things then,” the woman said, nodding. “Wedohave just one room free: the honeymoon suite. People don’t usually want it, especially not people on their own. But if you’re here with your main squeeze, then you can take it.”
“That’s completely fine,” Zina said, approaching the counter. “All we really need is a room. But the honeymoon suite sounds great.”
“Wait ’til you see it, love,” the woman said, winking at her. “It’s saved more than one marriage in its time. Something about the atmosphere in there – makes you remember why you first fell in love.”
Zina forced herself to laugh along with the blonde woman as she threw her head back with a huge guffaw. Involuntarily, memories of the evening before played through her head – shivering slightly as a warm sensation passed over her, Zina wasprettysure she didn’t need any reminders just yet of exactly what was good about Trent.
“Pay when you leave,” the woman said, before she turned, grabbing a huge key from a hook on a board behind her. “You never know, you might end up wanting to stay longer.”
“Maybe so,” Zina started to say, smiling – just as at exactly that moment, a littlegrowlemanated from the depths of her bag.
The woman raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, um. Gosh, I must be hungrier than I thought,” Zina said, clutching at her stomach theatrically and raising her voice. “My stomach isreallygrumbling.”
The lady behind the counter didnotlook particularly convinced, but just as she seemed to be opening her mouth to express her disbelief, Zina heard the bell on the hotel door jingling as it opened, and saw the woman’s face turn from skeptical to lasciviously appreciative in the space of half a second.
“Oh – that one yours is it, love?”
Zina turned to see Trent coming through the door, loaded down with the bags from the car, and his hat – thankfully – still on his head. Though Zina wondered if the woman behind the counter could see the way it was, very slightly, moving around.
“Uh, yeah, that one’s mine all right,” Zina said, trying to play along, hoping it might distract the woman long enough that she’d forget about her growling bag and Trent’s moving hat.
As she said it, however, Zina was surprised by the force of the emotion saying those words out loud brought up in her.He’s mine. Forever. Always mine.
Maybe it was her shifter side coming back, she thought, biting her lip. She wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Sure, it’d be better for her to have her shifter instincts back, but if her antelope was here, then it’d make her much more trackable by the Bloodhound.
Just a little while longer,she thought.After tomorrow, when we’ve given Dusty, Goldie, and the other egg to Tahnee for safekeeping, then it’ll be all right.
“I just came to check everything was okay,” Trent said, as his hat did a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree revolution on his head.
“Oh, everything’s fine!” Zina said quickly. “Just… just checking in!” She – only slightly manically – held up the key the lady had given her, jiggling it on its chain.
