Chapter Eleven #2
“You smell like an amphibian,” I argued between stolen breaths.
Before I knew it, he’d flipped me around and tossed me over his shoulder. Nothing more than a sack of potatoes. The world tilted, and he picked up the bucket, holding it almost directly below my face.
“How do I smell now?”
I pounded his back. “Laken, if you don’t put me down, I’m going to gouge out your eyes and… and cut your hair!”
He laughed under my weight. “My hair?”
“Yes! Your precious little golden locks.” My body bounced against his strong bones as he continued. His grip around my legs tightened. “And get your hands off my ass!”
He scooted his hands down. “Yes, milady.”
“Good,” I grunted. “You don’t deserve to touch my ass.”
“Then stop looking at mine back there.”
“I’m not.” Disgust coated my words, ashamed and embarrassed. Blood must have been rushing to my head because I definitely was looking at his ass. I mean, he held my face right above it. What’s a girl to do? Instead, I kicked and pounded some more. “Put me down, Laken Christopher!”
Laken obeyed, plopping me abruptly in front of him and steadying me with his hands around my arms. “Christopher? Pulling out middle names now, are we?”
Yes. We were. I said nothing, offering but a snide little snicker before realizing we stood in Benedict’s enclosure.
He lowered me, straightening my shirt as I swatted his hands away and sorted my hair.
Whatever boiled in the tension between us, it burned.
However, Laken took the bucket farther in instead of handing it to me like before.
“The trick with Benedict is that he likes to play games.”
At the sound of Laken’s voice, the vicious raccoon showed himself. He sat up on his back feet, his tiny hands rubbing against each other. If I weren’t mistaken, I’d think he looked happy to see Laken. I didn’t blame him.
Laken lifted his shirt, wiping sweat from his face and exposing a chest I couldn’t recognize. I mean, he’d always been fit, but this… this was different. New. As was the brutal and jagged white scar across his ribs. “Laken, what the fuck is that?”
Closing the distance between us, my fingers grazed over the scarred skin, goose bumps lighting up across his chest. “It’s a scar.” His voice cracked.
“Yeah, obviously.” I looked up at him. “From what?”
Dropping his shirt, he took a step away from me. His eyes darkened. “I got in a bar fight a year or two back.”
He must’ve thought I was na?ve. “A bar fight? Seriously? Laken, what—”
“Look,” he interrupted me, “it was just a bar fight. I was drunk. It was reckless, nothing to be concerned about.” As though it were no big deal, he spun around and returned to our lesson.
“Since you won’t touch it, I’ll feed him today,” he said.
“He’s mischievous and wants to be entertained.
” He tossed different foods in several different places, waving some in an attempt to trick the trickster.
I didn’t know why Laken was being weird about it, but I decided it’d be best not to push anyway. “Like playing fetch with a dog?” I called from the gate where I leaned and observed.
“Yeah, I guess so. That works.” He threw the last pieces, and Benedict raced between the ones left on the ground.
Making his way back to me, he turned his face toward the field.
I wouldn’t necessarily say he purposely avoided looking at me, but I wouldn’t not say that, either.
I could tell by the way he rubbed his lips together.
Archie next.
“Alright,” Laken started once again, and I began to grow tired of hearing these tricks. “The trick with Archie is like the goats, speak his language, but with him it’s to let him know where you are and where you’re going.”
I leaned against the fence to his enclosure. “You mean, like squawk?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
Because my feet were tired and I wanted my coffee, I did it without arguing. And as expected, it worked. Of course, because Laken was always right. That fact actually started to annoy me.
Butters came last on the list of creatures needing to be fed in specific ways.
It didn’t come as a shock when Laken told me to bear crawl across his enclosure.
Dirt and grass covered my hands, feet, and the stitched edges of my boots.
I didn’t even protest when Butters rose from his bed, and Laken told me to growl to communicate.
Lastly, save for the indoor ones, would be Indomitus. As Laken and I trotted along, I caught him up on Indo not eating. His face alone told me enough. We passed the boulder with the last several servings of meat still on it, now swarmed with bugs.
“That’s not normal for him, he doesn’t have any tricks or games. You leave food and he eats it. Something must be wrong.”
I shook my head, feeling a guilty nausea. “I didn’t know, I figured he’d come around and if not, I planned to look into it…”
“No, it’s not your fault,” he interjected, “and dragons can go days between meals. But he usually doesn’t.”
My brows pressed together, but when Laken pushed farther into our woods, I followed.
Briars stuck into my pants until I pulled past. Raising my legs over the vines and twigs and stumps, I started wishing they were longer.
High-kneeing it through the thicket wasn’t for me, not my cup of tea, as I panted for breath trying to keep up.
We didn’t find Indomitus, but we did find a dug-out area large enough to sleep a dragon.
The trees around were broken and splintered, rubbed raw from claws and wings.
I thought he’d burned the grounds, but as he couldn’t conjure fire, Laken said it was singed from being under his body heat alone.
Without Indo, we couldn’t check on him, but a foul smell polluted the air, and as I gagged, Laken found the cause.
Dragon bowel movements. Not good ones.
“Your dragon has some kind of upset belly.” He rested his hands on his hips. “The vet’s office keeps a stash of medicines. We’ll go after we’re done. It’s an easy fix.”
How easy would getting medicine to a dragon you couldn’t find be? I didn’t ask; I couldn’t.
“Mm-hmm.” I swallowed whatever tried to rise in my throat. Turning around and speed walking out, I yelled back, “Sounds good.” No more words were coming from me until we were far enough from those woods. We nearly raced for the door to be able to breathe again.
The door shut behind us, Laken closed in inches from me.
I walked right to Blaze’s little home and dragged out his bowls.
Filling one with water as Laken made himself at home in the kitchen, I took care of the little baxlin and Gordon, who thankfully swam in his bowl.
I slid their food back against the wall; Gordon’s fish food stayed in a saltshaker and Blaze’s in a tin jar.
“Ah,” Laken sighed. “Well, that was fun.”
I scoffed, pouring in food for the baxlin. “That was fun for you?”
He leaned back against the counter, crossing his boots while sipping his coffee. “More than I’d like to admit. I’ve missed toying with you.”
My eyes darted up at him from under my brows. A mischievous tone danced on his tongue, telling me something was up. I slid the bowls back into Blaze’s home. “Toying with me?” I pried. “You weren’t toying with me, you were teaching me.”
Laken set his coffee down. “Well, yes, of course I was.”
Staring at him for another brief moment, I made my way around the counter and into the kitchen with him. He watched me with an amused gaze and my gut twirled in a bad way. I opened my mouth to speak but didn’t get the chance.
“I mean, for the most part I was teaching.”
“For the most part?”
A sly little “Mm-hmm.”
Feet away, I raised my brows and crossed my arms. “And the other parts?”
Laken grimaced. “The other parts I may have exaggerated a bit…” His voice trailed off, and he awaited my reaction like a child waiting to be yelled at.
My insides boiled. My own heartbeat thundered in my ears, waiting for the right time to explode. “And by exaggerated you mean… what exactly?”
The smothered laugh that came from his lips should’ve been shameful. But it wasn’t. “Benedict’s tricks were true, Phoebe, too. And Indo.”
I’d kill him. I’d kill Laken Augustus for this. “And the others?” I asked, knowing what his answer would be but needing confirmation before I blew a fuse. Before I turned into a hellblazer.
His answer came in the form of bursting laughter. Confirmation enough.
I stood with my hands on my hips as he bellowed with his satisfied entertainment. He tried to stop and failed. I didn’t move. “Let me get this straight: I squatted, bobbed, and walked like a chicken, baaed like a goat, squawked like a bird, and crawled like a bear… for your pure enjoyment?”
Laken calmed down, leaning back once again. “Not just my enjoyment.” He nodded outside. “I think they enjoyed it, too.”
My face burned. “You really think this is funny, don’t you?” I faked a laugh, already plotting my revenge. I’d been wrong about Benedict; he wasn’t a walking trash can.
Laken Augustus was.
Grinding my teeth with a clenched jaw, nodding, I bounced my foot. Even my fingers tapped my arms where they crossed. I became vaguely aware of the words he uttered, the excuses he gave. Because watching him grin and snicker and mock, I saw only red.
As I pushed closer and closer to him, an alarm went off in my mind saying, You are about to enter uncharted territory. The pulsing of my heart pounded so hard it bounced like a jackrabbit ricocheting off my ribs.
“It was funny,” he insisted, but his words drifted. He studied my every move like he could unravel my every mystery by observing each line and sharp breath. “I…” he whispered, then swallowed. “I only meant to give you a hard time.”
The air between us buzzed with a fiery magic, hot and dangerous.
I felt his hands twiddling by my hips, struggling to stay put, struggling not to touch me.
Leaning in as much as possible, our bodies hovered miserably close yet refused to cross that line.
The muscles in his throat faltered. His heated breath brushed my mouth.
I glared at him with everything in me, and whispered, “Fuck you, Laken Augustus,” against his lips.
Laken did not yield, and I thought the fire between us might cause the world around to implode into nothing, ceasing to exist until a fish flopped onto the floor.
And still, he remained, staring at me with a ruinous loathing. “You going to get that?” His voice sounded hard, sharp like a blade aimed to wound and eager to draw blood.
The damned fish.
“Fucking Gordon.” I groaned, shuffling away from a recovering Laken. Rushing to the fish dying on the floor, I gagged. I’ve always hated fish.
“Is there a net or something?” I turned to Laken, who finally stood straight. Ignoring the depth of his dark eyes, I waited for his answer, frantically raising my brows and waving my arms. A fish lay dying at my feet.
As if he were stuck in a trance, he shook his head and blinked. He didn’t say anything but walked around and picked Gordon up with his… bare hands. I’d rather skin my palms than touch a fish with my bare hands.
Grossed out, I relaxed my downturned lips and opened my mouth to speak.
“We should probably get going,” Laken started before I could.
He took a step back, and in that moment, something changed in his features.
He’d erased something, moved past it, or shoved it behind to somewhere I couldn’t see.
Behind a mask. “We need to get to the market, get Indo’s medicine, and”—he glanced down at my boots—“get you some new shoes.”
“Then get to it.”
He moved past me, walking toward the door. Not saying another word. Closing my eyes, I breathed.
“Coming?”
Erasing the thoughts from my mind, I grabbed Blaze, placing him on my shoulder. Snatching my bag of coin from the counter, I followed him out as if nothing happened. Because nothing did.
Nothing happened.