Desperate for a different topic, I leaned back on my knees like a child begging for another bedtime story. “How did you even know about Mount Emoria andThe Prisoner’s Chains? How did you know they were connected?”
He didn’t look at me as he chuckled. “I read them. All of them, your favorite books.”
“What? Why?”
Laken slouched back into the couch, keeping his gaze off me and tracing the stones of our walls. “I traveled a lot, and it gets lonely, you know. It gets hard, and I foundA Twisted Fateat a small local bookstore and just… started.” Still, his hands stayed on the edges of the book, fidgeting with its leather covers. “Felt like a bit of home.”
Laken read my favorite books to feel at home. All this time, all these crippling days of doubt, and he’d sat by himself in other kingdoms reading my favorite books so he didn’t feel alone.
I bit my lips to hold back my grin. “Does this mean you want to talk about your favorite fictional conspiracy theories?”
Laken locked eyes with me. A mischievous grin made me hope he thought the same things I did, and we talked for hours. Though his theories didn’t always match up with mine, it almost felt like, dare I say it… we were friends again.
An hour later, we finally made it out to check on our dragon.
The days came easier the more Laken came around. Phoebe and the goats had finally begun to accept my role as caretaker. Blaze remained attached to my hip most of the time, never taking to Laken at all for whatever reason. Probably his cologne. Archie… was a work in progress. I’d memorized most of Butters’s hand signals, but he didn’t respond to mine like he did Laken’s.Yet. Benedict and the hellblazers, on the other hand, continued to take joy in my suffering. Thetrickster raccoon played more tricks on me than anything, and the chickens were still… well, the chickens. Same ole bastards.
But as Laken had reminded me when I sank into the mud with pellets in my hair and soaking wet shoes, progress was progress.
Laken’s arm slammed into my stomach, nearly doubling me over it.What the fuck?Pulling my eyes off the ground and opening my mouth, I quickly shut it. Being so lost in thought, I hadn’t realized we’d made it all the way over the pasture. I hadn’t even realized what stood in front of us. On the edge of the bank, barely peeking out from the oak trees to drink from the lake, a white horned ash dragon kneeled. And my breath didn’t return.
The sun reflected off his white, ashy scales like opal. Two horns curled up from his head, sitting right above eyes as dark as the night sky. Truly born from the heavens, the world shook with each step he took. Massive and majestic, he wandered there as everything I knew him to be. Strong, terrifying, weird, but beautiful. It wasn’t every day we saw dragons, and I hadn’t seen Indo in so long it felt brand new, as if I were a child discovering magic for the first time. Little sparks ignited in my mind and flowed through my veins, bringing part of me back to life with them.
To think, this was the creature poachers had their eyes on the most. Fire breathing or not, a dragon was a dragon. His scales were worth a fortune. They could be used for a multitude of things. Armor. They could be melted down and used fornearly indestructible weapons. His claws, too. He was the kind of beauty people fought wars for, and we’d protect him as such.
At what point my hand wrapped around Laken’s arm, I wasn’t sure, but at his side I stood. Dragging my eyes to him for a moment, a wide and proud grin stretched across his features, showing his dimples. And he deserved it. Indo’s return happened because of him. It seemed working with Laken came with some benefits, I supposed.
“I guess that medicine worked,” I spoke softly, lifting my chin toward the dragon healer.
For the first time since stopping, he looked at me and smiled. His hand covered mine on his arm. “I guess so, McCarthen.”
His attention went back to Indo, but mine remained on him as he gazed. There is something special about watching magic in someone else’s eyes, watching the way the sun reflects in them, the way they reflect the world. “It truly is remarkable… beautiful,” he said.
My chest heaved. Words didn’t quite form on my tongue, but a gentle smile flashed in their place. I wished he wasn’t as beautiful as he was.
I took my arm off him and we walked back to the house in silence.
Shuffling through the door Laken held open, I scurried inside so our limbs weren’t within touching distance because if his skin even traced mine again, I’d melt like butter.
Like he did every time we finished feeding the animals, he walked to the kitchen to wash his hands over the sink. Turning the handle, the water ran out and he scrunched uphis sleeves—and maybe that kept them from getting wet, but it had the opposite effect on other things. I swallowed.
Begging myself to look away from his forearms, I couldn’t not focus on the way his veins snaked under his inked, sculpted skin. No matter how many times I told myself,Reece, pull yourself together. It’s just an arm! An arm!it wouldn’t work. The scent of strawberry soap and the current view… consider me out of commission. I was out of there, mentally living somewhere thick with sin.
Thankfully, after drying off with a towel, he pulled his sleeves back down. He did, however, turn around and lean back against the counter.For fuck’s sake…
“So I guess I’ll see you later for the evening round then?”
Right, yes.“Yeah,” I blurted out after a nod. “I’m ready to work.” I really couldn’t have made this worse.
Laken pinched his brows. “Okay…” He leaned forward off the cabinets, taking too many steps closer to me. “See you, then. If I don’t see you before, meet me here around sunset.”
“Got it, boss.” My voice rose too high and for whatever reason—I tipped my hat to him as if I even wore a hat.Gods help me, please.
Sidestepping around me, he made for the door with wide eyes and raised brows, undoubtedly eager to get away from me. My face turned into a tomato, my fists clenching by my sides. What had I—
“Reece?” He stopped, and as I whipped around to find him studying me, my stomach sank into my bowels. “You feeling alright?”
“Yeah,” I exaggerated a bit too much with the nod of my head. Obviously not; I literally tipped a hat I wasn’t wearing! “I’m good.”
