Chapter Seventeen
The day after Maggie left, I ran through the field with two goats scuttling along at my sides as rain spilled from above.
Dark clouds rolled in, and the smell of rain was strong.
The air, muggy and humid, made me feel disgusting.
My hair clung to my skin. My shirt clung to my body.
And I clung to hope as Laken gathered the hellblazers.
Trotting forward one muddy step at a time, my boot got stuck.
My foot slipped out and my sock grew soggy as I wobbled.
Stumbling over, I caught myself just before splattering face-first into the ground.
As mud rose between my fingers, I cursed the Gods.
Moaning and groaning, I stood. I wiped my filthy hands on what might well have been ruined pants. Grabbing my boot, I hobbled forward in the rain. Come on, Reece. It’s just rain. Well, if so, it sure did rattle my nerves. My first storm as the new keeper and I hadn’t a clue on how to handle it.
Finneas and Finnigan knew where to go as we reached the porch and they sprinted for their enclosure, covered and safe from the weather.
Basically diving for the concrete, I bent over my knees and panted, still breathless as Laken approached.
My heart pounded, my teeth ground against each other. This sucked.
“Got ’em?” He watched me struggle.
I nodded. “Got the chickens?”
He gave a quick, “Mm-hmm. And Phoebe. And Archie.”
Standing up, I scowled. Right, right, because Laken worked three times as fast as me.
He should, too, especially with his muscles and stamina.
He tried not to laugh. Pissing me off more, he looked good soaking wet.
His white tunic became see-through, and his pants appeared as fine fitting as always.
Meanwhile, I looked like a rag doll dragged through the muck.
“Anyway,” I cautioned, “just Indo left?” The dragon had received his medicine and we needed to check to see if it worked. I hated putting it off any longer; the anticipation ate away at my patience. But the weather had other plans.
Setting his stare over the field, Laken hesitated. “Indo loves this weather; he’s probably rolling in the mud and cooling off his stomach.” He turned toward me, his eyes flickering over my body. A light blush covered his cheeks. “Let’s get you inside.”
Thank the Gods.
Cutting my eyes, I stormed inside ahead of him.
Blaze and Gordon waited for us on the counter, one hiding in his little cage.
But I moved past, grabbing towels from the kitchen so Laken and I could at least dry off somewhat.
I wrung my hair and dabbed my skirt; he ruffled his hair then shook it into place.
No point in changing clothes when we’d be trotting back out over soggy fields to find Indo in a bit.
Raindrops poured over the porch, creating a moat on the ground. The storm had dragged in a small cold front, and I wrapped myself in a blanket as Laken and I stood at the window wall.
“I need some overalls.” I realized how filthy my clothes were. “You know? I have to stop ruining my clothes.” Laken cut his eyes at me. “Like the farmer ones—I think I could pull them off.”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, I’m sure you could.”
“I didn’t know it was supposed to rain today,” I said. It came out of nowhere, and we weren’t prepared in the slightest. And we paid for it—or I did, at least. I’d have to scrub the mud from my boots to keep them from ruin.
Laken crossed his arms. “Yeah, it’d be nice if we had a way to predict that.”
I didn’t know how much time passed while we stood and watched.
Lightning erupted across the clouds, flashing a purple haze over the sky.
Thunder echoed in the distance, but I barely registered it.
I couldn’t take my gaze off him. Laken watched the storm with a longing in his eyes, a glimmer showing that it meant something different to him.
He must’ve felt my stare. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he shifted on his feet and cleared his throat. “I used to watch the storms a lot while I was away,” he admitted.
His jaw clenched and I panicked. “Oh, no. You don’t have to tell me—”
The corner of his lip curled. “It’s fine, Reece. I don’t mind. I just think it’s peaceful is all.”
We didn’t talk much more after that. If the rain brought Laken peace, I wasn’t going to ruin it, no matter how bad I wanted to talk.
Laken pointed at my father’s desk. Or what used to be my father’s and had become mine? Right? It felt weird to call it mine. Laken studied the desk, not belonging to anyone specific.
“Is that The Prisoner’s Chains?”
I peeked over my shoulder where he pointed to the book I’d left there. “Yes. How’d you know?”
Laken picked it up. “I’d recognize it any day.
You read it a thousand times.” He flipped through the pages in search of something.
Gesturing to the couch, I followed him. Sitting so close our legs touched, I almost didn’t notice as I became distracted by his enthusiasm.
Almost. He pointed a finger to the mountain on the map.
“You see this? I visited the real mountain the story is based on.”
Every bone in my body ran hot with energy as I sat up on my knees, halfway leaning over his legs. “You went to Mount Emoria?”
“Well, I saw it. I didn’t visit.”
Dropping my shoulders, I thought he’d have to be out of his mind not to visit. “Why not?” I couldn’t imagine passing it up if I’d the chance.
Laken’s mouth parted, but he hesitated. “It… it was always your thing. It’s your favorite book and visiting it without you just… well, it felt wrong.”
Something in him admitting that clicked my mind into place. “Wait—you were in Gorzon?” Gorzon, an island kingdom across the ocean, known for being riddled with crime and war, pirates and assassins.
He nodded, and his eyes darkened, almost growing distant.
“You travel a lot for your work?” I asked, but before he could answer, I added, “Where have you been staying all this time?”
Laken shifted uncomfortably on the cushions.
“We do stay traveling the majority of the time, yes, but we have a headquarters on the coast. It’s where we train when first joining, too.
Took me a while to be able to go on assignments alone.
” He answered me easily enough, but nothing in his tone sounded as such.
Desperate for a different topic, I leaned back on my knees like a child begging for another bedtime story. “How did you even know about Mount Emoria and The Prisoner’s Chains? How did you know they were connected?”
He didn’t look at me as he chuckled. “I read them. All of them, your favorite books.”
“What? Why?”
Laken slouched back into the couch, keeping his gaze off me and tracing the stones of our walls.
“I traveled a lot, and it gets lonely, you know. It gets hard, and I found A Twisted Fate at a small local bookstore and just… started.” Still, his hands stayed on the edges of the book, fidgeting with its leather covers. “Felt like a bit of home.”
Laken read my favorite books to feel at home. All this time, all these crippling days of doubt, and he’d sat by himself in other kingdoms reading my favorite books so he didn’t feel alone.
I bit my lips to hold back my grin. “Does this mean you want to talk about your favorite fictional conspiracy theories?”
Laken locked eyes with me. A mischievous grin made me hope he thought the same things I did, and we talked for hours. Though his theories didn’t always match up with mine, it almost felt like, dare I say it… we were friends again.
An hour later, we finally made it out to check on our dragon.
The days came easier the more Laken came around.
Phoebe and the goats had finally begun to accept my role as caretaker.
Blaze remained attached to my hip most of the time, never taking to Laken at all for whatever reason.
Probably his cologne. Archie… was a work in progress.
I’d memorized most of Butters’s hand signals, but he didn’t respond to mine like he did Laken’s.
Yet. Benedict and the hellblazers, on the other hand, continued to take joy in my suffering.
The trickster raccoon played more tricks on me than anything, and the chickens were still… well, the chickens. Same ole bastards.
But as Laken had reminded me when I sank into the mud with pellets in my hair and soaking wet shoes, progress was progress.
Laken’s arm slammed into my stomach, nearly doubling me over it.
What the fuck? Pulling my eyes off the ground and opening my mouth, I quickly shut it.
Being so lost in thought, I hadn’t realized we’d made it all the way over the pasture.
I hadn’t even realized what stood in front of us.
On the edge of the bank, barely peeking out from the oak trees to drink from the lake, a white horned ash dragon kneeled. And my breath didn’t return.
The sun reflected off his white, ashy scales like opal.
Two horns curled up from his head, sitting right above eyes as dark as the night sky.
Truly born from the heavens, the world shook with each step he took.
Massive and majestic, he wandered there as everything I knew him to be.
Strong, terrifying, weird, but beautiful.
It wasn’t every day we saw dragons, and I hadn’t seen Indo in so long it felt brand new, as if I were a child discovering magic for the first time.
Little sparks ignited in my mind and flowed through my veins, bringing part of me back to life with them.
To think, this was the creature poachers had their eyes on the most. Fire breathing or not, a dragon was a dragon.
His scales were worth a fortune. They could be used for a multitude of things.
Armor. They could be melted down and used for nearly indestructible weapons.
His claws, too. He was the kind of beauty people fought wars for, and we’d protect him as such.
At what point my hand wrapped around Laken’s arm, I wasn’t sure, but at his side I stood.
Dragging my eyes to him for a moment, a wide and proud grin stretched across his features, showing his dimples.
And he deserved it. Indo’s return happened because of him.
It seemed working with Laken came with some benefits, I supposed.
“I guess that medicine worked,” I spoke softly, lifting my chin toward the dragon healer.
For the first time since stopping, he looked at me and smiled. His hand covered mine on his arm. “I guess so, McCarthen.”
His attention went back to Indo, but mine remained on him as he gazed. There is something special about watching magic in someone else’s eyes, watching the way the sun reflects in them, the way they reflect the world. “It truly is remarkable… beautiful,” he said.
My chest heaved. Words didn’t quite form on my tongue, but a gentle smile flashed in their place. I wished he wasn’t as beautiful as he was.
I took my arm off him and we walked back to the house in silence.
Shuffling through the door Laken held open, I scurried inside so our limbs weren’t within touching distance because if his skin even traced mine again, I’d melt like butter.
Like he did every time we finished feeding the animals, he walked to the kitchen to wash his hands over the sink. Turning the handle, the water ran out and he scrunched up his sleeves—and maybe that kept them from getting wet, but it had the opposite effect on other things. I swallowed.
Begging myself to look away from his forearms, I couldn’t not focus on the way his veins snaked under his inked, sculpted skin.
No matter how many times I told myself, Reece, pull yourself together.
It’s just an arm! An arm! it wouldn’t work.
The scent of strawberry soap and the current view…
consider me out of commission. I was out of there, mentally living somewhere thick with sin.
Thankfully, after drying off with a towel, he pulled his sleeves back down. He did, however, turn around and lean back against the counter. For fuck’s sake…
“So I guess I’ll see you later for the evening round then?”
Right, yes. “Yeah,” I blurted out after a nod. “I’m ready to work.” I really couldn’t have made this worse.
Laken pinched his brows. “Okay…” He leaned forward off the cabinets, taking too many steps closer to me. “See you, then. If I don’t see you before, meet me here around sunset.”
“Got it, boss.” My voice rose too high and for whatever reason—I tipped my hat to him as if I even wore a hat. Gods help me, please.
Sidestepping around me, he made for the door with wide eyes and raised brows, undoubtedly eager to get away from me. My face turned into a tomato, my fists clenching by my sides. What had I—
“Reece?” He stopped, and as I whipped around to find him studying me, my stomach sank into my bowels. “You feeling alright?”
“Yeah,” I exaggerated a bit too much with the nod of my head. Obviously not; I literally tipped a hat I wasn’t wearing! “I’m good.”
Hesitantly, he accepted my answer. Opening the door, he stopped again, and I’d shit myself if one more thing got said. “Bye, Reece.”
“Bye, bud.”
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck me.
Laken paused, looking at the ground. With a slight shake of his head and faint grin, he closed the door behind him, and I literally thanked the Gods.
Collapsing onto the floor, I questioned my entire existence. Turns out, I’d been wrong. Things had gotten weird. I needed to scream into a pillow.