some preparations today, and we can keep walking tomorrow morning with a good supply of food and the healing paste.”
I’m not really listening. Her soft breasts jiggle hypnotically when she talks.
I walk into the woods without a word.
9
- Jennifer -
Caronerax has this way of leaving me alone, and each time I get really jumpy.
It is of course totally irrational — a dragon should make me more afraid of him than of any other creature in this forest. When he walks away, that should make me lower my shoulders and breathe a sigh of relief. But that bubble-sphere of menace-slash-safety is pretty addictive.
He is pretty addictive. When have I ever met a guy this certain of himself? Or this completely masterful about his surroundings? Caronerax is the undisputed king of every place he goes, and all the creatures here can sense it.
I sure can. Oh my dancing dactyls, that kiss drew every thought out of my head and replaced it with pure sensation like nothing I have ever experienced. Even like this, even having barely survived a dactyl attack and then hypothermia, every care in the world was gone, and the surge of heat in my pelvic region was quite insane. That could get most addictive of all.
I guess I had bottled up a lot of stuff that I could release when I heard he had not killed Heidi. A lot of attraction and tension, and showing myself naked to him didn’t exactly put a damper on that. Heck, the guy has saved my life how many times now? It’s a lot, anyway. He even changed to dragon form to get me out of the claws of that dactyl, and I know that must have cost him. He couldn’t stay like that for more than a handful of seconds.
One after the other, the not-sheep wake up, glance at me, and briefly consider fainting again, then find me more silly than scary, and flee into the woods on their short legs.
Putting the not-sheep fur aside, I quickly build a fire and light it with the now perfectly dry matches. I hang my dress on a branch right next to the flames so it will dry out.
I think I’m safer with Caronerax than I’ve ever been before on Xren, and when he returns and I eat some grilled not-sheep and have made some soft furs, then who knows what can happen. I hate the term ‘alpha male’, but now that I have met a super alpha to the thousandth degree, I’m starting to see the attraction. He’s unusual and weird and rough, but I think he has a very un-dragon-like heart under those scales.
And that’s kind of my thing. The unusual guys, those with personality. The unconventional ones. The balding guy with a passion for Transformers and playing the recorder. The scrawny one who’s deep into old cars and fancy Chinese teas. The jacked wrestler who can’t shut up about Emily Dickinson. The guys with the courage to be themselves.
This guy is like that. He’s totally dragon, no doubt about it. And yet there’s more there, not all menace and threats. I’m not quite sure what it is yet. But I have a feeling I’ll find out.
I’ve put my dried out dress back on and hung some slices of not-sheep meat over the fire when he returns.
He saunters over to the water, ignoring me. His yellow stripes shine in the sun, looking like bolts of lightning across the blue sky of his skin.
“I’ll eat now,” I call to him, making sure not to phrase anything as questions. “If you want some grilled meat, this is the time.”
There’s no reply. He keeps staring out at the lake, his broad back to me, his perfect shape and vivid colors completely out of place in this gray and dark green forest.
I’m inside his bubble again, totally at his mercy. But he is the only possible threat inside that bubble. Nothing else can get to me. And I’m not sure how much of a threat he is to me right now.
I know dragons don’t need to eat, of course. They only need hoards. And yet, some part of me wants to nourish him.
“Get a grip, girl,” I admonish myself under my breath, then bite into the first piece of not-sheep. Without any salt or seasoning it’s kind of bland, but it contains a lot of energy. If I get nothing else to eat, the meat from this not-sheep alone should keep me going for another week. I