2. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Kes
“How long has it been since you slept indoors regularly?”
Mattias’ question came after a long silence had settled over us, in which we mostly stared at the man lying on the bed, wondering if he was going to open his eyes and talk to us today.
Raven, their High Priestess, said he needed rest to recover completely, but she’d given us no timetable for how long he’d be out, and it had left me twitchy and ill at ease.
Since I didn’t have a proper answer for him, I shrugged.
I hadn’t slept indoors even when we still lived in the village.
My room, if one could call it that, had been the double wide garage next to an old car that always smelled of leaky fluids and exhaust fumes.
Needless to say, I didn’t bother with the rickety old cot much and found a soft, leaf scented spot to bed down in outdoors, far away from that house and the people I despised.
“If there is something you dislike about the room…” He began and I cut him off, so he’d stop thinking the issue had anything to do with him.
“No, its fine, it’s all me.”
Me and the habits I’d developed since I was old enough to realize that there was nothing good about staying in that village, not even the food, considering all they fed us was the scraps from their table and only enough so we were capable of doing whatever tasks they assigned us.
Like Upalo and Canyon, I’d balked when they’d tried to force us to work in those dark mines, my dragon screaming rebellion and spitting ice at anyone who dared to put their hands on us.
Upalo had attacked them with flames and rock while Canyon had used the winds to wreak havoc upon the whole operation, even after the first of our leeches had been forcibly attached.
I tried not to think about what I’d lost that day, but my hand had a mind of its own, it seemed, and reached for the eyepatch, stroking along the edge of it, as if to make certain it fully covered the atrocities that had been inflicted upon me.
Upalo and Canyon carried their own scars from that night, though mercifully, those were easily hidden beneath their clothes.
I’d endured taunting about being a pretty boy while they expressed their joy at getting to ruin that.
“I see.”
He didn’t, but I hoped he’d just leave it alone.
“I will not be upset if there is something you desire,” he said.
Of course he wouldn’t let it drop. For the first time in my recent memories, someone actually cared about my comfort, and I was having a really damned difficult time accepting that when we might be on the verge of losing everything, including our lives.
It hardly seemed fair and yet was entirely predictable and fit with the path my life had taken for as long as I could remember.
“You caught me sneaking out,” I said, if only to get the truth out in the open, because I sensed that was where this line of questions had stemmed from.
“Every night.”
“I kind of figured that when there was suddenly a blanket and a pillow on your deck chair.”
“It’s your deck chair now,” he replied. “In time I hope you’ll grow comfortable enough to sleep with me through the night.”
“It seriously isn’t you,” I explained. “I’ve just grown used to falling asleep beneath the stars.
No matter how low the temperature dips, I never feel it, but the blankets are way more comfortable than the wood.
Thank you. Snuggling up in them is like being tucked into a fluffy sleeping bag.
I always wished we were camping out for fun, instead of because we had nowhere else to go. ”
“You belong here with me now,” he replied. “Both of you do. This is your home, you never have to look for another place to go.”
“Just like that?”
“What more does there need to be?”
Shrugging, I squirmed, trying to get comfortable in a chair I’d been sitting in for too long.
“Nothing, I guess, but there are moments when this feels surreal and I expect to wake up in a cave with Upalo burning breakfast and Canyon snoring loud enough to rain dust on our heads, which, in hindsight, might have helped breakfast not catch on fire, completely. He never sleeps in human form, no matter how tight the accommodations are. I have literally slept squished between his scales and a cave wall, and let me tell you, it gets very hard to breathe when he decides to roll over.”
He chuckled and the ghost of a smile curved his lips upward.
Damn. He was beautiful, and not just in appearance, but the whole way he’d embraced the sudden arrival of messed up mates who probably weren’t what he’d expected, left me both puzzled and relieved.
He didn’t look away when he looked at me either, I did, because having him watch me made me all kinds of self-conscious and I suddenly found myself thinking up a reason to flee the room again.
Drinks.
I could grab us iced tea or something.
It was on the tip of my tongue to suggest I go down and get some, when words came tumbling out that I didn’t remember approving yet.
“How’d you know what deck chair we were sleeping in?”
Oh. It was my dragon’s question, and he clearly wasn’t willing to wait for me to collect myself in the kitchen before he asked it.
“I watched you from the window until you fell back to sleep,” Mattias admitted.
“Sometimes I lingered to be certain you weren’t going to get up and wander farther, and because I enjoyed the sight of you laying in the moonlight and at times wonder what you’re dreaming about.
Forgive me if that seems creepy or as humans would put it, stalkerish, it was not my intention for it to be taken that way. ”
Again, I shrugged, because unlike my dragon, I was tongue tied and having trouble with my grasp of the only language I spoke fluently, though I was passable in others we’d picked up on our journeys.
Running my fingers through my hair helped me sort out the emotions that accompanied his words, the first being anger that he didn’t deserve because he had no way of knowing that I hated to have people look at me and hated it more when they stared.
The second was softer, warmer, with enough gooeyness that my heart felt like it was turning into a molten pool of caramel, my be all end all favorite candy. He liked watching me sleep in the moonlight. The whole thing felt… romantic.
“It um…” I couldn’t lie. I didn’t like it.
Did I? Shit. My dragon did. He was preening.
I hadn’t felt such joy coming from him in, well, ever, but sometimes the eye-patch shifted in my sleep.
I hated sleeping with it on, but I’d been doing it since I’d moved in with him and it was one of the other reasons I’d started going outside.
So I could take it off for a few hours, only I hadn’t yet, because I’d been too afraid of him happening upon me asleep that way.
“If it truly bothers you, I will stop,” he said when I failed to finish my sentence.
“It’s not that I’d get up and leave if you were out there with me,” I blurted, trying to explain what I was feeling in a way that, hopefully wouldn’t hurt his feelings, “I’d probably just curl up in your arms.”
I didn’t say that I probably wouldn’t go back to sleep, though I knew I wouldn’t. He’d held me in his bed, and I’d lay there on the verge of drifting off when all the intrusive thoughts would hit and I’d seek refuge outdoors to escape them for a while.
“You probably need bigger deck chairs for that though,” I rambled, in part to keep from thinking any harder about what he’d said to me.
Don’t poets write long, sweeping masterpieces about staring at someone in the moonlight and wondering what they were dreaming about?
Didn’t they compare their lovers to celestial bodies and speak of the way the tides carried waves of different emotions over the course of the relationship?
He was the whole damned ocean, and I was one insignificant mess of a dragon who was apparently still gullible enough to try to convince himself that fairytale endings existed.
Not that my dragon was any better. Fucker. Stop preening. He won’t want to watch us sleep after he sees what we look like with the patch off so cut it out already! All your skipping around and spinning is giving me a headache.
Dragons do not skip and we certainly do not spin.
Fine, then quit with the fuckin’ pirouettes already! It’s not gonna last and you know it. Look at him! Look at both of them! Then look in the fucking mirror the next time we walk in front of one and tell me why either of them would want us!
Dragons do not pirouette either.
“I’m sure my carpenter can craft something wider to replace the ones out there,” he said, interrupting the argument my dragon and I were still engaged in. “If you truly don’t mind me joining you beneath the stars.”
“Maybe…order ones…big enough…for three,” the man on the bed rasped, startling us both and immediately drawing my attention to where he lay there blinking aquamarine eyes at me. It looked like he was having a hard time focusing and groaned as he scrubbed his hand over his face.
“You’re awake,” Mattias said, coming around the bed to stand beside me.
When had I stood up?
Huh, guess my dragon had stopped me on the way to the kitchen, but that was a good thing now. Maybe he’d finally be able to tell us where he’d come from and what had happened to him.
And his name so I could stop running through all the ones I knew, playing guessing games with myself.
“Yes, it comes as a bit of a shock to me as well. I thought I was a goner this time.”
“Want to tell me how many other times you’ve nearly gotten yourself killed?” Mattias asked, and damn, there was a growl to accompany his words that filled the room and lingered in a rumbling echo.
I couldn’t tell if it was concern or anger. Both? Maybe? They sort of went together.
“Not really.”
Mattias’ tone shifted again, into one that left no confusion about whether it was a question or an order. He expected answers, as in right, fuckin’ now.
“I’m afraid I must insist.”
No remorse and absolutely no room for exceptions or excuses.
Note to self, do not accidentally mention any of the various times me, or one of my traveling companions, nearly wound up dead.
That was clearly a trigger that riled him and his dragon up and I didn’t see how we were going to get either of them settled back again until our mate provided answers.
“Can I insist upon water and maybe… something to eat first,” He muttered.
“And a shower. There is sand in places it was never meant to be. My apologies…for my ill-timed attempts at levity…it seems to have brought out someone’s grumpy side.
” I wanted to tell him to stop talking, gasping for breaths between sentences was frightening, but there was much about him and his journey we needed to know.
“Yes, of course, my apologies as well,” Mattias said, whirling and striding from the room.
It wouldn’t shock me if he dented another piece of drywall on his way to the kitchen and this time, it wouldn’t be his dragon’s fault.
“Hi,” I said after he’d left the room. “I’m Kes.”
“I know.”
“H-how?”
“I was…the dragon you saw rise out of the moon…in Norway. My journey took too long…you were gone before I got back. Hard to track you. Once you strayed away from the sea.”
“Why?”
“You know…why…it’s why you’ve both been waiting for me to wake up. Mates. I did not…know there would be a third.”
“Neither did I until after I met Mattias and still felt like I was missing a piece of my soul.”
“Here now.”
“What’s your name?”
“C…”
His cough sounded dry and painful. I should have waited to try to talk to him, but standing there in the silence would have made the time unbearably awkward.
“Caspian,” he rasped.
“We can talk more later, when it’s easier for you,” I offered.
“Don’t leave.”
“I won’t.”
His eyes darted to the chair I’d been sitting in earlier. I didn’t want to, but I got the hint and parked my ass in it.
“Your dragon has been trying to wake mine…for the last few hours, but I kept fading in and out…heard a little of your story about the cave and your friend’s snores. Bet they weren’t as loud as your dragon is in my head.”
“Sorry, he acts like a rhino in a teacup factory sometimes. No home training, I swear, can’t take him anywhere and I can’t leave him behind, either, so what’s a guy to do?”
He giggled. It was hoarse and scratchy sounding, and I really wished he’d wait to finish this conversation, but it felt good to have made him laugh.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d prefer something thin or richer, so I heated two kinds of soup.
I always make too much and am forced to freeze it,” Mattias explained as he carried over a tray with tea, ice water, and juice positioned behind two steaming bowls of soup.
“One is chicken and dumpling, and the other is clear broth with slivers of green onion and mushrooms.”
“Hungry enough to eat both,” he grumbled as he propped himself up on one arm, paused, sucked in a ragged breath, and finished dragging himself into an upright position, waving me off when I reached out to help him.
I’d have reacted the same way, and had, so I let him finish getting situated on his own. That was hard to do given the pain marring his handsome face.
“Thank you,” he said when Mattias settled the tray across his lap.
He reached for the water first, downed it, then picked up the steaming bowl of broth and mushrooms and drank it like it was his morning caffeine fix.
“Goddess that was good,” he said, burped, and chugged the juice beside it.
Needless to say, the chicken and dumplings didn’t stand a chance, but he did have to slow down enough to use a spoon and chew with that one.
“Now, will you please tell me whether or not you make a habit of almost getting yourself killed?” Mattias asked as soon as Caspian sat his empty teacup down, the meal decimated in less than five minutes, he’d been that hungry.
I knew what that felt like and hated that he’d had to experience it just to get to me.
Caspian peered up at him, looking sheepish and adorable all at the same time, with his tousled hair falling in waves all around his face.
“Only accidentally.”