17. Zuri
ZURI
Dorian sets a grilled cheese cut into triangles in front of me, with a bowl of creamy tomato soup on the side. It’s the best version of that meal I’ve ever put in my mouth. The bread is soft enough for my sore cheek, and the soup tastes homemade all the way down.
I clean the whole bowl. I catch myself running the last triangle around the bottom of it like no one’s watching.
Across the kitchen, Dorian leans on the counter with his arms folded and grins at my empty bowl.
I can’t remember the last time someone cooked for me and then stood there happy about it. My mom fed me fine until I could feed myself. After that, kitchens were rooms I microwaved in.
The kitchen is warm from the stove, but I catch myself rubbing my arms anyway. Jalen runs hot, and my body has already learned to lean toward it. Right now the whole room reads empty of him.
He said he had to leave, but he didn’t say where, and it’s been longer than he promised. I keep glancing at the dark outside the window.
Dorian clears my empty dishes without a word. Then, instead of washing up, he pulls a cutting board over and starts halving lemons. I watch his big hands work them over a pitcher, patient with every squeeze. He stirs honey in after and pours me a glass with the pulp still swirling.
I didn’t ask for it. You sit down hungry, and things appear.
The lemonade is cold and sweet, and it goes down easy on my sore mouth.
“That was the best meal I’ve had in a long time,” I tell him. “Thank you.”
He beams.
“What’s the big deal about feeding me, anyway?” I ask.
“I am the family cook,” he says. “I wanted to prove to you that I could be trusted.”
I look at the proud grin on his face, and all I can manage is, “Ohhh.”
Then I catch slow footsteps, and I turn my head as Jules comes wobbling down the hall into the kitchen, one hand under her belly.
Dorian rounds the island and pulls a chair out for her. He leans down and steals a kiss off her lips, his hand spreading over her swollen belly.
Dorian looks at his wife, and worship is the only word for what’s on his face. He lifts her into the chair and eases her in. He steals another kiss before he rounds the counter again.
He pulls down a fresh plate and bowl and serves her the same dinner he made me, soup and triangles.
“I can cook you something else,” he says.
Jules holds both hands up. “This is fine, baby.”
Jules digs in. Between bites, Dorian watches her from his side of the counter. I know that look. Jalen aims it at me.
“How are you today?” Jules asks me.
“Better than yesterday,” I say. I nod toward the stove. “Your mate is a wonderful cook.”
That’s when I notice the mark on the side of Jules’s neck, a crescent of scar with a faint gold sheen to it, like something bit her once and left treasure behind.
Jules catches me staring. She lifts her hand and rubs it.
“It’s my claim mark,” she says.
I put my hand to my own neck. “Claim mark?”
“Think of it like a shifter wedding ring,” Jules says. “It happens during the mating process.”
I keep my mouth shut about the rest of it. A ring comes off, though. Teeth are forever. Other people’s choices have left marks on me.
Dorian’s chin lifts, and I remember too late that my feelings are public record in this house.
“It is sacred between mated couples,” he says. “You will feel the urge to claim my brother when the time is right.” He tugs his collar aside and shows me his neck. There’s a matching crescent, gold sheen and all. “And the world will know he belongs to you.”
I hadn’t thought about it running in both directions. I would get to mark him right back.
Jules smiles at me as she chews.
“Seeing the way these men—“ I stop and correct myself. “These dragons. Seeing the way these dragons love you. It’s beautiful.”
“Now you have a dragon of your own,” Jules says.
I set my glass down. “Can I ask you something?”
Jules sets her spoon down. “Of course.”
“So I get special healing abilities by completing the mate bond?” I ask.
Jules nods. “Also a longer lifespan. Dragon shifters live as long as four hundred years before passing on. You’ll live as long as your mate. Possibly longer.”
“Ohhh,” I say.
Four hundred years, and I’ve never planned further ahead than a lease.
Dorian gets to talking about the grilled cheese, which cheeses he blended and which bread he baked for it. Jules asks the right questions in the right places, and the two of them trade the conversation back and forth without ever bumping into each other.
I watch them. Could Jalen and I fit like that? These two match each other in the small talk and in the quiet both. It puts a longing in me I thought I’d never feel.
I hop down off my chair. “I’m gonna get ready for bed. Thank you for dinner.”
Dorian bows his head to me. Then he turns the whole of his attention back to his wife, who’s already onto the nursery and which wall gets the mural.
I head upstairs. The bedroom is exactly how we left it, and there’s still no Jalen in it.
I keep my hands busy. I dig through my drawers for fresh underwear and the other nightgown, then take myself into the bathroom.
I brush my teeth careful around the sore spots.
The shower runs hot, and I stand under it until the day runs off me.
I lotion up, taking my time, and pull the nightgown over my head.
When I step out of the bathroom, wings are crossing the sky toward the balcony.
The closer they come, the more of him I can make out, until the shape turns into Jalen.
I throw my clothes and towel in the hamper and run for the sliding door.
I press both hands to the glass. The moon sits big over the valley, and the town is nothing but porch lights way down below us. Jalen comes down out of the dark with his wings spread wider than the sliding door.
Every beat of them reaches me through the glass, a deep thump I can feel in my palms.
He swings his feet forward and flares his wings full open to catch himself. The wind off them rolls across the balcony, and he drops the last stretch and lands on his bare feet with hardly a sound.
The moonlight runs off his wings in a long shine, deep brown edged in black.
People leave me. All my life, that’s been the direction they go. No one has ever crossed a night sky to come back to me. I stand there with my heart beating in my ears and watch him, and I know I’m already gone for him.
I slide the door open and step out into the night. The air is cool through my nightgown after the hot shower, and the balcony tile is cold under my bare feet.
Then I see what he’s holding. It’s a bouquet of peonies, pink and heavy-headed, wrapped in brown paper.
I stare up at him. “You left me just to grab these?”
He holds them out to me. “Well, I also stopped at the shopping center to make sure the gargoyles took on some extra watch for Delilah’s ghouls. But I didn’t want to come back home empty-handed.”
I pull them from his hand, bring them up to my nose, and close my eyes. The scent is soft and sweet, and I stand there in the dark breathing it in.
The whole truth of these last days finds me at once. I’ve been fed and doctored and guarded, and never asked to earn any of it. I’ve rested. I’ve been cared for, protected, and most of all... I’ve been loved. These days with him, I’ve felt like a whole woman.
My eyes well up, and I suck in a breath.
I look up at him. He’s standing in the moonlight with his big wings, pointed ears, bright green eyes, and sharp teeth, and he’s beautiful, every strange inch of him.
My tears spill over.
His wings slide into his back, and he steps toward me with a hand out. “Are they the wrong flowers? I thought you said you liked them. I can go back—“
I drop the flowers and throw myself into his arms.
He holds me. Then he takes my face in both hands and wipes my tears away with his thumbs.
“Your scent is confusing,” he says. “Are you in pain? Do you—“
I put my hands over his. “I want you to make love to me, Jalen.”
I have never been more sure of anything in my life. And still I stand there staring into his eyes, waiting for the no, because a no is the answer I trained for my whole life.
His mouth crashes down on mine.
He picks me up, my legs go around him, and he carries me through the door. The peonies stay where they fell.
He crosses the room and puts my back against the wall. My feet dangle off the floor. The wall is cool through my nightgown, and he’s burning hot everywhere in front of me, and I hang there between the two, held up by his hands, his hips, and nothing else.
The kiss is nothing like this afternoon. This one is starved. He kisses me deep and keeps losing his own rhythm, wanting the next kiss while he’s still in the middle of this one. Even starved, he’s careful with me, angling away from my sore side without being asked.
The sounds he makes come from somewhere low and rough, and I feel every one of them in my chest where we’re pressed together. He smells like smoke and honey gone warm, and I breathe him in until I’m dizzy with it.
Days of him holding back, and this is what was underneath the whole time. No one has ever wanted me like this. My eyes sting again, and this time neither of us mistakes it for pain.
He peels me off the wall and carries me to the bed. He lays me down in the middle of it and stands back up to his full height.
Then he reaches back over his shoulder and pulls his shirt off in one motion.
The moonlight through the open door falls on all of him. He’s deep brown skin over long, hard muscle, and his heat reaches me all the way from where he stands. Dragons heal clean. He took bullets for me in that alley, and his body kept no record of it.
He looks down at me, and I reach up for him.
Dragons hoard what they treasure. Tonight, that’s me.