Page 17 of Mating Her Dragon

4

Garrett had not slept worth a damn.

Sydney assumed he had– assumed the steady weight of his arm around her and the even sound of his breathing meant he'd drifted off sometime after they'd climbed into bed, same as her. He'd let her believe it. In reality, he'd lain there most of the night listening to every sound outside the Airstream– wind against aluminum, some small desert creature moving through the brush, the distant hum of a highway two miles off. He cataloged each one against a mental map of threat he couldn't quite convince himself to stand down from.

Mostly, though, he'd lain there replaying a single image. A black Magical thread, suspended in midair, turning toward him like it had a name for him and intended to use it.

Normal vacation activity, all things considered.

The old Garrett would have been on the phone with Carrick before the sun cleared the horizon. Mapping the threat. Requesting reinforcements. Quite possibly dismantling the campground Ward post by post to make absolutely certain nothing else was hiding in its threads.

Instead, Sydney stretched awake beside him, blinked at the gray pre-dawn light coming through the blinds, and asked, "How long have you been awake?"

"Not long," Garrett said.

"Garrett." She didn’t believe him.

"Three hours," Han supplied, entirely too helpfully, from somewhere in the back of the Bond.

"Han."

"I love him," Sydney said, delighted.

"As do I," Kara agreed.

Garrett stared at the ceiling of the Airstream and reflected, not for the first time, that he had officially lost control of his own Dragon household. The smile on Sydney’s face said she knew he had, and wasn’t the least bit worried.

They were drinking coffee outside a little while later, the desert still cool and blue before the sun fully committed to the day, when Sydney said, "I want to look at the Ward again before we go."

Every instinct in Garrett's body said no. Loudly. Repeatedly. With supporting documentation.

"All right," he said.

Sydney glanced sideways at him, an eyebrow raised. "That hurt, didn't it?"

"Immensely."

He went with her. He didn't hover. He didn't stand at her shoulder cataloging every flicker of her expression the way every fiber of him wanted to. He stood a respectful distance back, with his arms crossed, and watched her study the old fence line in the growing daylight.

Now that she knew what she was looking for, she seemed to see it more clearly. He watched her gaze move slowly along the weathered posts, tracking something he couldn't perceive at all, her lips moving silently as she cataloged it.

"Protection," she murmured. "Warning. Concealment." A pause, her head tilting slightly. "And... pest deterrence, I think? Something tiny is woven in near the office that feels almost domestic. I think it’s a comfort Charm… maybe."

She didn't touch any of it. Didn't so much as raise a hand. She simply looked, and looked, and Garrett watched something shift across her face. It wasn’t alarm, not this time. It was a kind of dawning, careful wonder.

"It's like reading," she said finally.

"Reading what?"

She struggled for the words. "Instructions nobody wrote down. Each thread does something specific. This one holds.” She held up her index finger. “This one warns.” She held up the index finger of her other hand. “This one closes the whole thing off from the next Spell over, so they don't interfere with each other." She shook her head slowly. "It's not just Magic sitting there. It's built. There's grammar to it."

Garrett watched her work through it, watched the shape of something enormous settle behind her eyes, and felt his own chest tighten with something that wasn't fear at all. It was pure wonder.

"Could you change it?" he asked. "If you wanted to."

Sydney studied the Ward another long moment.

"Probably," she said.