58. Aurora
AURORA
We were both pretty tired the next day—Ryse had helped me multiple times until I was sore between my legs. At last the effects of the sweet grass began to fade, and we were able to sleep but we only got a few hours before we had to be up and getting to classes.
Neither of us said anything about what had happened the night before, but as we were about to walk out the door of the room, Ryse caught me by the shoulders and turned me to face him.
“Auri, I have to know,” he said, looking down at me seriously. “Do you regret last night? Are you upset with me for helping you?”
“Upset with you?” I looked up at him, frowning. “Why would I be upset? I mean, I’m a little embarrassed…” I couldn’t help remembering how shameless I’d been the night before—how I’d begged him to touch me and make me come over and over again. But I didn’t regret anything.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” Ryse told me. Leaning down, he captured my mouth with his own for a long, breathless kiss.
I stood on my tiptoes, wound my arms around his neck, and kissed him back, loving the feeling of his mouth on mine and the taste of his lips.
When the kiss broke at last, he looked into my eyes.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed about last night,” he repeated. “You were fucking perfect, little one.”
Then he kissed me again and we went to breakfast.
When I went to check on L’eesha, later that morning, she was up and alert and eating a sheep.
“How do you feel today, sweetheart?” I asked, stroking her golden hide as she chewed messily.
“hungry!” she told me, as she continued to dig into the sheep. “that sweet grass stuff made me feel better but this morning i’m so hungry!”
“Well, keep eating,” I told her. “I just wanted to be sure you were all right.”
“feeling much better. thank you, my Auri.” She stopped chewing for a moment and looked up at me. “Can I go flying with you and Ryse and M’alex today? They finally finished my saddle, so you won’t’ fall off.”
“Let me see what the Master of the Caverns says,” I told her. “He might not want you flying so soon after you had such bad growing pains and took all that sweet grass.”
L’eesha pouted, but she was clearly too hungry to throw a full-on fit. I scratched behind her eye-ridges and left her still chewing to go find the Cavern Master.
“Oh, she’s fine to fly,” he told me, when I asked. “She’s plenty strong enough to carry a rider now and the sweet grass should be all out of her system by now.”
I wondered if it was all out of my system, but I didn’t dare to ask about it—I was too embarrassed.
The Cavern Master seemed to guess what I was thinking though, because he gave me a knowing look.
“If you’re wondering, once a dragon starts having growing pains, it’s seldom a one-time thing,” he told me.
“I’ll be checking on her every night from now on and if she’s feeling even a little peaky, I’ll give her a little sweet grass to help her relax.
It’s easier to treat the pain before it gets too strong. ”
“Every night?” I asked helplessly. “But…for how long?”
He shrugged.
“A few weeks maybe. The growing pains don’t usually last more than a month at a time. But your golden lady is growing so fast it’s hard to predict anything about her. We haven’t had a Golden Queen here in the Caverns in my lifetime.”
“Do you know anything about them? The Golden Queens, I mean?” I asked, curiously. “Ryse and I have been trying to do some research but L’eesha seems to be one of a kind.”
“Oh she is that!” he exclaimed, laughing. “I don’t know much except my Grand-da, who was the Cavern Master when I was a lad, always said they grew to be the biggest of all dragons. Even bigger than a Midnight Gold-wing,” he added.
I tried to imagine L’eesha getting bigger than M’alex and couldn’t quite manage it. He was the most enormous dragon I’d ever seen—I couldn’t picture my dainty golden beauty getting even larger than him.
“Don’t you worry—we’ll get her through these growing pains,” the Cavern Master said, pounding me on the shoulder in a genial way. “In the meantime, you can start flying together. The exercise will be good for her wings.”
“All right—thank you,” I said faintly.
I was still trying to absorb what he’d told me—that L’eesha might get bigger than any other dragon at the Academy and that she had to be on sweet grass at least for another few weeks.
What was I going to do?