In a Dragon’s Dream by Riley Storm Page 0,45

and slipping her hand free to put the journals away.

“After that, can I see your dragon?” she asked, no longer able to keep her excitement contained.

“No.”

She blinked. “What?”

That wasn’t the answered she’d been expecting.

“It’ll have to wait till later tonight. After the sun is down and it’s dark enough to prevent anyone from seeing.” Rakell took her hand and gave it a squeeze, setting her heart aflutter. “Then I’ll take you out to the rooftop and show you my dragon. You’ll have a front row seat.”

Laura bit her lip. This was it. Just a few hours to go!

She’d waited nearly two decades. What was another few hours?

Chapter Twenty-Five

Rakell

The night was dark by the time Rakell finally led Laura out onto the flat rooftop, the huge circular raised platform designed with dragons in mind. From the air it was outlined in infra-red bulbs, so that approaching dragons knew exactly where they were.

He could have brought her up there earlier, in the dusk hours. They were high in the mountains, and Five Peaks was far enough away that they weren’t even visible to the town, though from high up on the mountain it was easy to see the settlement nestled in the valley below, with or without all the lights.

The truth was, Rakell was stalling.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Laura said as they stood in the middle of the circle, several inches between them.

Rakell wanted nothing more than to reach out and put his arm around her, holding Laura close while they gazed down at the valley floor below and the little town she called home. There was just something picturesque about it, beautiful and serene, that called to be watched for a time.

The thing was, Laura was up here for his dragon. She wanted little more than to see what he was really all about. Her eagerness and blunt approach to it had left Rakell feeling like little more than a circus animal. Caged up and shown off for the benefit of the crowd.

Is this it? Is this all that my purpose is? The morose thoughts had been entering his mind more and more often of late. Rakell was old for an unmated dragon, and he longed to fulfill a different purpose. The Teres Strike Team had been his home for over two decades, and he was good at hit. Numerous times he’d dealt with Cado action, though nothing like what was happening recently. Despite his skills at that however, he wanted more than to just be a combat warrior.

He wanted to be a mate. Maybe even a father, if that option was still open to him. Something other than just a fighter.

Which meant that he was walking on eggshells around Laura, because he didn’t want to screw it up. Rakell still had no real definition of what ‘it’ was, though his dragon seemed to think it had all the answers, but he wanted to find out. To keep it going.

And if I disappoint her now, that would just destroy any hope I have of making things work.

Of a future.

“I’m just admiring the view,” he said lamely.

They both knew it was a lie. Laura didn’t call him on it, but neither did she accept it as an answer. All he got was a very noncommittal ‘mmm’, and they returned to looking down at the lights of Five Peaks in silence.

He wondered what sort of image Laura had built up in her head and how it would compare with reality. What was she expecting his dragon to be like? Bigger? Smaller? More or less fearsome? What color did she think his scales were?

So many questions and more were racing through his head. This was why he was having second thoughts. Maybe it was better to keep it as a mystery, so that she could keep her imagination, ensuring years of fantasy weren’t ruined by reality.

Disappointing Laura would destroy Rakell. He knew she was already a little disappointed in him over the way the fight with Blede had broken out. That would likely fade as she came to understand the tumultuous relationship the two of them had, and how things like this weren’t anything new between the two, but for now, she likely wasn’t judging him overly kindly.

He just wanted her to approve. To like what she saw.

Rakell stiffened as his thoughts came into clarity at that. He wanted her to like him, he realized abruptly. It wasn’t dragons in general, it was his dragon that he wanted her approval of. He wanted Laura to