Chapter 9 #2
“Fortunately this ice house always has enough snow, since Nomi can come up and fill it every year just from what’s on the mountain,” Zan explains.
“But she can’t supply the town with it without jeopardizing the safety of the sanctuary.
It’s why she had some extra ice cream, though—she had a method of getting extra ice without paying for it. ”
“We need extra ice to make ice cream now though, don’t we?” I ask. “Now that the snow around here has melted, what’s here has to last until next winter, right? Am I understanding correctly?”
“Yes. We could replenish the ice from another source—”
“But our sources are other people in Crystal Hollow, who are all strangers to me that would have to for some reason be willing to risk their food security to help satisfy my sweet tooth, or outside the island, which might invite questions about why the sudden need and where the money is coming from.”
Zan looks at me thoughtfully as he nods—surprised again by the speed I can put things together, possibly.
“There is another option,” he says slowly.
He heads for the exit of the ice house, and I follow him curiously.
When he stops in the field and looks at me expectantly, I admit it takes me a minute to catch up, which is especially annoying given my prior thoughts.
In my defense, it’s hard to see the snow-capped mountain when you’re on the mountain.
Zan is suggesting we go get the ice ourselves.
And given how tall that peak is...
I’m pretty sure he’s suggesting flying to get to the ice.
I’m not entirely sure he’s actually suggesting flying with me, but the idea is so exhilarating that it takes a second for my starry eyes to calm down and my brain to start thinking again.
“Won’t you have to hibernate if you shift, though?” I ask.
“I’ll be fine.”
That’s not a no, but it’s also not a real answer. “Look, your secrets are your own, I respect that, but I know enough about dragons to know you can’t possibly transform again this soon without repercussions. Don’t put yourself in a vulnerable position because I want ice cream!”
“Then also respect that I know my own limits and can make my own decisions for whatever reasons I want,” Zan retorts. “And that I know more about what influences our transformation than you do.”
Which he’s not going to tell me.
I take a breath.
Let’s try talking first before punching this time.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly, my fists clenching. “I don’t know how to do this. You’re not telling me everything and obviously you don’t have to, but I’m worried you’re putting yourself in danger for me again and I don’t want that. Especially when it really isn’t necessary.”
Zan closes the distance between us and takes my hands in his, warmth spreading between us and says gently, “You don’t get to decide when I put myself in danger, or what I think is necessary. I don’t get to decide that for you, either.”
I nod slowly. “That’s true. But if you’re doing it for me, then it is my business. So if it affects your decisions, I would much rather have you here with me than be alone with a full ice house. If you don’t want to stay, obviously that’s different, but—”
“I do,” Zan interrupts.
His gaze, so close, is clear. And sure.
I search it with my own. “And you’ll really be okay?”
“I have more power now than I did with the Quiet up,” Zan says. “Your waking up has made transformation safer for me. And I’m enjoying being able to change forms.”
He told me a little more, but... that still wasn’t a straightforward yes.
He must have reasons for not telling me, but—
Do I trust him or don’t I?
If I put it like that, the answer is simple.
“Then I’m coming with you,” I say.
Zan’s eyes widen. “You’re sure? Being held in my claws isn’t comfortable, from what I understand.”
Ha! That wasn’t a no, either. “Why can’t I ride on your back? Is that rude or something?”
He blinks. “Not exactly, but—how would you stay on?”
My mind is already whirling with the katas I can do, and I smile. “Trust me to handle that.”
Now it’s Zan’s turn to search my gaze before settling on my smile and then saying, “Then let’s do it.”
“Yes!!” I pump my fist in the sky in victory.
His lips quirk. “Under-selling how much you wanted this, huh.”
“It’s flying, Zan. You can’t tell me even after centuries you don’t get a rush every time you get to fly in the damn sky.”
Zan smiles. “No. I can’t tell you that. Frankly it’s the fucking best.”
“And as someone extremely acquainted with wrath, breathing fire sounds pretty awesome too.”
He nods. “Yep. Absolutely is.”
“Zan, you’re going to help me fly. I’m not going to be normal about this.”
He steps in close and presses a kiss to my forehead.
I freeze completely.
“You are welcome, Yora,” Zan tells me.
And before I can reply he steps back and walks away.
Meanwhile I stand there dumbfounded and overwhelmed with too many impulses and feelings.
Some of them fade when Zan transforms—he wasn’t leaving me, he just physically needed more space in order to literally fit—while others blossom, because I didn’t really get a chance to properly appreciate his dragon form before, but he is majestic like this.
A miracle in both his forms.
I approach him tentatively as his icy eyes watch me. “Can I touch you?” Eek that came out wrong. “Your scales. I mean your scales.”
His face has changed, but the amusement that shines through his gaze is the same. ?Yes. You’re going to have to, if you mean to ride me.?
No stopping my flush now.
Or the growing warmth between my legs at the thought of riding him.
Okay, he worded his reply suggestively on purpose.
But as the color of his eyes darkens to a deeper blue, I wonder if he really knew what door he was opening there.
And also I wonder if he can smell my arousal, because if so, the movements of his hands on me this morning were definitely also not as innocent as I thought they were.
But—it doesn’t seem to bother him.
The opposite, if anything.
So maybe that is something we can explore without breaking this friendship between us?
A terrifying possibility that I yearn for even more than ice cream.
I touch his glimmering white scales. They’re sharp at the ends, but running my hands along the grain so, so smooth—and warm.
Zan closes his eyes.
His scales in general can’t be that sensitive—they’re armor to take damage.
But I wonder if any particular spots are.
I wonder what it feels like to him, to have me stroking him like this.
?Are you going to get on??
His mental voice sounds a little strained, and I smile.
“Mount you, you mean?”
One eye opens to glare at me. ?Yora.?
“Turnabout, Zan,” I say cheerfully.
But he’s right.
I don’t know what to do about what’s between us, how to nurture it and not explode it.
But flying... I have no complicated feelings about flying.
That said, even if Zan lay down, I don’t think I could climb onto his back.
“Will the impact hurt if I land on you?” I ask him.
Zan snorts. ?Hardly. I’ll barely feel it.?
He’d barely seemed to feel my weight in human form, too—I wonder if this is why.
Regretfully, I stop touching him and back up a few steps—but only so I can get a running start.
I run toward him and flip into the air to land on his back.
Easy.
“I’m ready,” I tell him.
A beat. ?You’re not going to sit down? Hold on??
Straddle him, in this form? I’m flexible, but I wouldn’t have great leverage doing the splits over his broad back. Maybe if I clamped my legs around his neck and held onto his ears while he—
Nope, not thinking about straddling right now.
“I don’t need to hold still,” I tell him. “I need to move.”
With a dragon the wings beneath me.
Zan is silent a beat, and I realize belatedly that also sounded full of innuendo, but this time I didn’t mean it that way even if it may also be true.
But then I realize Zan is taking me at my word—trusting me.
As with a powerful flap of his wings, we lift off into the air.