In a Dragon’s Dream by Riley Storm Page 0,18

body. Thankfully his face had escaped any serious injuries, and the swelling of his busted lip had gone down fast.

Bless you, dragon healing.

Rakell wandered back through the open-concept house to the kitchen, sitting down at the island and staring at Laura’s delightfully plump rear end as she worked.

She was an incredible woman, and he detested not being entirely truthful with her.

Was there a way that he could keep the secrets of his people, without feeling guilty of not telling the truth?

If there was, it wasn’t coming to him.

Chapter Eleven

Laura

“Something wrong?”

She jerked, looking over at Rakell where he sat in the passenger seat.

The huge man—dragon-shifter, she reminded herself, though he still wasn’t admitting to it a day later—looked positively hilarious and uncomfortable. Her tiny car wasn’t meant to accommodate someone of his size, but she’d insisted on driving herself to work.

He might be her bodyguard, but Rakell was most definitely not her chauffeur, or any other sort of hired help.

“Um,” she said by way of reply, staring out the windshield at the alley behind her work.

The car was stopped, and in park. She’d not shut the engine off, which she did now. Getting out of the car was another battle. Laura had been fighting it for several minutes now apparently, which must have been what prompted Rakell to speak up.

“This is where it happened,” she said at last, nodding her head at the alleyway.

The alley where she’d been nearly kidnapped. Only a fortuitously timed arrival by Blede had prevented her from coming to any further sort of harm. Even the bump on her head had mostly faded by now. There was a faint bruise, but with the dark color of her hair, it was only visible to any who looked closely. It was barely even tender anymore.

Another day or two, and any visible signs of her experience would be gone.

The mental ones remained however, and the more she tried to go about her life normally, the more Laura realized that it was going to be harder than she’d expected. The confident, almost arrogant Laura that had told Rakell to go away that night at the urgent-care center was long gone.

In its place was a wary, uncertain version of herself, one who was beginning to wonder if her life would ever be the same.

How can I go back to what I once was? Will I ever feel that same sense of security and normality that I once had?

Laura mourned briefly for a shattering of innocence that she’d never realized she had.

“I’m here with you,” Rakell said. “You are safe with me.”

She smiled. “I know that, believe me, I do. But you can’t always be there Rakell. You won’t be. You have a life you have to go back to at some point. The life you had before me. Don’t you understand? I need to find my own confidence, my ability to live without you.”

Something crossed through Rakell’s eyes, but he didn’t react otherwise. Had he even realized it? Perhaps it was a thought so deep his conscious hadn’t separated it out yet. Still, she’d seen it. What was it though?

“I’m sure it will get easier,” Rakell offered.

“True,” she admitted, accepting his olive branch. “This is the first time since it happened that I’ve been back, after all. It only makes sense I’d be a little hesitant. Like a jockey who fell off their horse, or a race car driver who had a bad crash. The first time back is always going to be a little scary.”

Rakell watched her silently, waiting until she was done before he spoke once more.

“I will secure the area,” he said. It wasn’t an offer or a question. It was a statement.

He exited the car carefully, unwinding himself from the seat as he stood up to full height. Laura imagined she could hear his joints and tendons creaking. He really was large. To her he was friendly, a welcome presence, but to those who ended up on his bad side, Laura knew they would find him fearsome.

She watched in silence as he inspected the alley, peering behind dumpsters and around corners of buildings into all the nooks and crannies. Once he was certain, he came back to the car, to her side.

“I will inspect inside if you have a key,” he said as she rolled down the window a smidgeon.

Laura nodded, fumbling the key from her pocket. “6524,” she said as she handed it through the crack in the window. “It’s the alarm code. It’s on the left