11. Jalen
JALEN
Iwear a line into my clean floor waiting for her. A sneeze catches me mid-lap, and I wave the smoke away without breaking stride.
“What the hell is this?” I ask my empty room.
No answer arrives. Every restless inch of me is aimed at the door, too busy waiting on a woman to care about a nose.
Footsteps reach me from the hall, and I stop pacing. The door pushes open, and her scent comes in ahead of her, burnt caramel with the chemical blank washed all the way off.
“Hi,” I say, and it comes out younger than I’ve sounded in years.
“Hi,” she says back from the doorway.
She’s changed out of her ruined work clothes. She’s in slippers, a long nightgown, a silk robe over it, and Jules’s handiwork soft on her face. She’s holding a shopping bag of clothes, and I hurry over and take it from her with hands that have interviewed alphas without one nerve.
“Brandy and Jules are very nice,” she says.
“They’re the best of us.” I carry the bag to my dresser and start making room, which means pulling my own shirts out by the armload and stacking them on top of whatever’s closest.
She sits down on my bed and laughs out loud at me wrecking the room I just cleaned. I’d wreck it nightly for that sound.
I fold her new things into the empty drawers.
“I didn’t thank you,” she says. “For saving my life earlier.”
“Well.” I square the last folded stack. “I’m not about to spend my days without my fated mate. Specially not after just finding you. I’d rather die first.”
Her scent goes warm and sweet through the whole room, and I grin at the drawer.
The sun is dropping behind the far ridge, so I cross the room and turn on the lamps. “You hungry?”
She shakes her head and touches her sore cheek. “I don’t want to eat anything right now. Just rest. It’s been a very overwhelming day.”
I nod. She turns toward the bed, and I stand there biting my lip.
The nightgown rides up when she leans over the covers, and the robe does nothing to help either of us.
There’s silk under silk and the sweet brown curve of her ass.
Lord. I want to climb up that bed and put my face right there.
My dragon has bigger plans. His heat rolls up my back, older than this mountain. He wants her carrying dragons.
She straightens, unties the robe, and drops it over my footboard. Then she pulls the covers back, climbs in, and pulls my quilt up to her chin.
I stand there being very respectful about it. Then I go turn down the lamps I just turned on.
She takes her time getting comfortable. She scoots down into my pillows and builds herself a nest in the center of my bed. I lean against my dresser and enjoy the show.
“So where are you going to sleep?” she asks.
“I can sleep on the floor.” I say it quick and gesture at my rug, which no one has ever slept on.
She laughs and pats the empty side of the mattress. “Get over here.”
I cross my own bedroom like a dog who’s been waiting all night for the command. I slide in beside her, and my dragon’s heat leans her way. Then my nose lights up again.
I turn away from her and sneeze into my fist. Smoke rolls out over my quilt and drifts right back across both of us. I could bite a hole in my own headboard.
She sits up on one elbow. “Is there anything I can do?”
I fan the smoke away from her face with both hands. “I don’t think so. But this shit is driving me nuts.”
She giggles at me. “I can tell. You look miserable.”
I look at her and quit minding my nose. She lies back down, and I stretch out facing her. Her caramel is already sunk deep into my pillows.
She tucks one hand under her cheek. “What’s life like here in Shadow Wolf Creek?”
“Peaceful.” I fold my arm under my head. “I’ve spent most of my life here. My clan was one of the pioneers that built this land.”
“Ohhh,” she says, dragging the sound out long. “And it’s just you?”
I nod. “The clan I was born to was slaughtered by humans, many years back. Malachi took me and Dorian, and we flew until we found this land. Malachi found Brandy first. Then Dorian found Jules.” I hold her eyes. “And now I’ve found you.”
She sighs and stares at me across the dark. “I never would have thought I was fated to a dragon.”
“Is it a problem?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Don’t get me wrong. The luxury? A girl isn’t complaining about that. Trust me.”
I prop my head up on my hand. “But?”
She rolls onto her back and talks to my ceiling instead of me. “I don’t know. I just... I want to find my place in the world. I don’t want my whole identity to be that I’m fated to a supernatural.”
“I know it doesn’t seem like it,” I tell her, “but I understand more than you think.”
She turns back onto her side and looks at me. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been trying to find my own way for a long time,” I admit. “Not just be another dragon known for hoarding riches.”
She nods.
I shrug. “That’s why I hoard information. And, well, the town doesn’t like me all that much, because of how I deliver it.”
She grins at me. “Let me guess. You’re messy.”
“In the flesh,” I say.
She sighs again and studies me a while. “I guess we’re both finding our way.”
I smile at her. “But now we aren’t doing it alone.”
“After our visit to the medical center, I’d like to take you around the town,” I tell her. “If you don’t mind.”
She smiles at me. “I’d love that.”
I quit playing it cool and stare at her. She’s beautiful. She’s so damn beautiful I could write the whole front page about her face.
Then another sneeze hits, and I whip my face into the crook of my arm. Smoke curls up off my lips, and a low, miserable sound rolls out of my chest with it. I growl into my elbow, “You have got to be kidding me.”
She giggles at me again. Then she reaches over and strokes my cheek. I hold real still so she won’t stop.
“I feel this strange pull to you,” she says, “and I don’t understand it.”
I lean into her hand. “I’ve felt it since the first time I caught your scent. I’m just glad it’s finally catching up to you.”
She starts to pull her hand back, but I catch it and press a kiss to the back of it. She doesn’t pull away. I turn her loose and settle back against my pillow.
“You got any family you’d like to contact?” I ask.
“My mom.” She waves that away. “I’m not too worried about it. I’ve been a loner most of my life. I am gonna call Renee tomorrow, though. Let her know I’m okay.”
I smile up at my ceiling. Then I get to work. “You like flowers?”
She giggles at the question. “Yes. Peonies, if you’re taking notes.”
“Every word,” I tell her. “Favorite color?”
“Yellow,” she says. “Next question.”
I ask what she cooks when it rains and what she sings in her car. She answers every one. Other dragons hoard gold and land. I lie there in the low light and add peonies, yellow, and rainy-day gumbo to my hoard, right next to the sound of her laugh.
Somewhere between her favorite season and the name of her first pet, she yawns big enough to crack her jaw.
I tuck the quilt up over her shoulder. “Sleep. My questions will keep.”
She doesn’t argue. She closes her eyes, and her scent slows down soon after. Her breathing goes deep and even. She’s out.
I watch her sleep. My dragon finally goes quiet, heat banked low for the night. That cold ache I carried home from her street is nowhere in me now. She’s right here in my bed, under my mountain. There’s someone else breathing in my room tonight.
I’d already quit hoping for a mate of my own. I was too busy, I said, whenever anyone asked. Then I caught burnt caramel in Millbrook, and everything I’d ever stacked up re-appraised down to dust.
Whatever it takes to keep her, I’ll do it.
I close my eyes. For once I’m not listening for anything. I fall asleep warm.