“No,” Dakota says, and her shoulders shake as if she is about to cry. She presses a hand to her mouth. “Maybe we don’t talk about this in front of impressionable ears.”

“Oh, whatever, Mom.” Rabbit rolls her eyes.

“I was referring to Murr,” Dakota says. “And I expect stripper talk to come from Aggie and not you, Dottie.”

“I’m old. I ain’t dead.” Dottie snorts. “I’ve seen some shit.”

“Why am I getting roped into this?” Aggie asks. “I didn’t do anything! I’m just minding my own business.”

I frown as I listen to their banter. There is something I am missing. I have made great strides in picking up their language, but some things still elude me. “What is this ‘stripping’? Why is it bad?”

“It’s not bad,” Dottie says to me. “It’s very, very good⁠—”

“Enough,” Dakota says, interrupting. She frowns at Dottie. “Don’t you have something you could be doing?”

Dottie holds up her knitting. “Doing it.”

Dakota shakes her head and moves towards me. “I’m sure you have questions, but trust me, stripping is nothing to concern yourself over. It was something that happened in the Before, and no one does it anymore.”

“If you like, I can,” I offer.

Aggie snickers.

“Very sweet of you to offer, but no.” Dakota shoots Aggie a hard look over her shoulder. She puts her hands on my arms and frowns. “And you are cold. Let me get you a blanket.”

She is changing the subject and bustles inside the bookstore. I am suddenly frustrated that something else has happened and it is not being told to me. I look over at Rabbit, but she has gone silent, and her expression is impossible to read. Her lips are pursed in the way I have learned that means she is not happy. Perhaps she wants to know more about stripping and these convenient pants, too.

Rabbit hops to her feet. “I’m going to go check on the ferals in the other building. Make sure they’re warm. Murr, you want to come with me? They like you more than me.”

I nod. She has a good heart and wants to make sure all the cats are comfortable. “I go with you.”

She cups a hand to her mouth. “Mom, we’re going to check on the ferals! We’ll be back soon!”

“But Murr needs something warm to wear,” Dakota calls back, worried. I hear her footsteps racing as she moves to the doorway and she opens the door again to frown at us. “Just wait⁠—”

“He can go dragon and stay warm. Come on, Murr.” Rabbit sticks her hands in her pockets and heads across the parking lot, abandoning the campfire. I glance at Dakota. She does not seem upset at this new turn and shrugs. I follow after Rabbit, shifting to my battle-form the moment I am clear from the bookstore’s overhang.

It is much warmer in this form, the cold air unable to penetrate the hardened scales that cover my body. It would be easier to fly the short distance over to the other building, but Rabbit is walking, and so I follow after her, stepping over cars and trailing a few paces behind. She’s silent all the way over to the other side of the big flat area called a parking lot.

When we get to the other building, the one with the ferals and the hay inside, Rabbit opens the door and looks at me. “Change and get in here, Murr. You and I need to talk.”

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CHAPTER 53

MURR

I shift into my two-legged form and follow after Rabbit, curious. She says we need to talk, but I find this confusing, as she is already talking. “Do we talk same time?”

She turns and gives me a weird look. “What do you mean?”

“You say talk. You talk now. What different?”

Rabbit waves a hand. “It’s just me telling you that I want to talk with you in private. Away from Mom and Aggie and Dottie.”

Ah. “I away. Talk now.”

She steps deeper into the building, eyeing the mounds of trash and debris that are now covered in piles of hay. There are no cats to be seen but I can smell them underneath the scent of the cut grasses. “Are the cats in here?” she asks. “Can you tell?”

“Cats here,” I agree. Is this what we came to talk about? “Want…find?”

“No, I don’t want to scare them. I hope they’re all right. I worry about the cats, that’s all.” She crouches low and puts a hand in her pocket, pulling out a clear bag that is filled with dried meat chunks cut fine. She tosses them in front of her, and when one cat—a big fluffy gray—appears and hisses at us, Rabbit clicks her tongue. The cat growls a warning but moves forward enough to steal a few bites of food. Another cat emerges and sneaks towards the food as she tosses it. This makes Rabbit happy. She smiles at me over her shoulder. “Whew.”

I am still puzzled by all of this. What does this have to do with talking? “Cats here. We talk?”

“Oh. Yes.” She tosses another handful of chunks, and another cat emerges, covered in hay. She scoots back a bit to seem nonthreatening and casts a look behind her at me. “What’s going on with you and my mom?”

“Going…on?” These are familiar words, but I do not understand the context. “Explain.”

Rabbit finishes tossing the food and backs up carefully so as not to scare the cats. “I want to know how you feel about her. Do you like her?”

“I like.” I want her to be my mate, but I do not have the words for this. There is no human word they have taught me yet. “I like big yes.”

“Do you love her?”

“Explain.”

“Love is…big like. Big, big big big big like. All the like in the world.” She gestures, moving her arms in a giant circle as if to encompass everything. “Is she your favorite person ever?”

I nod. This is easy to answer. “I big like Dakota. All like is yes.” It seems we are thinking along the same lines, and I want to confess to someone my intentions. “I…want bite.”

“Bite?!” Her jaw drops.

“Good bite,” I say defensively, worried about her response. “Makes…dragon and human…” How do I explain mating bites to a human child? I lift my first fingers in the air and then bring them together, rubbing them. “This Dakota. This Murr. Kiss, kiss. Bite, bite…big happy⁠—”

“Whoa, okay, okay.” She grabs my hands before I can do more. “I get the picture. You want Mom to be your wife.”

“Wife. Yes. I want Dakota wife. I wife, too. Dakota Murr wife together.” Then, I sigh. “But no.”

“Wait, why no?”

I drop my hands. “Murr…broken.”

“Broken? What do you mean?”

“I no have words. Dragons no speak…” I indicate my mouth, then point at my temple. “Speak here. No sounds. Murr no have head speak. Murr broken.”

Rabbit’s eyes grow sad with understanding. “You lost your telepathy? Is that how all dragons speak?”

“All but Murr.” My shoulders droop with the shame and isolation of it all. “Murr no good wife.”

“Now that’s not true.” Rabbit gives me an affectionate slap on the upper arm. “You are the nicest dragon I have ever met.”

“Only dragon,” I correct, amused.

“That’s right. That’s because all the others eat humans and set everything around us on fire. That makes you the best and the nicest.” She beams up at me. “But I understand why you feel like you can’t be with her, if you feel like you’re less than. Have you tried telling Mom this?”

Tell her about my flaws? Bring them to the forefront? I shake my head slowly. “Easier to not talk, only kiss.”

She makes a strangled sound. “I haven’t seen you kiss Mom. You guys act super weird around each other. I wasn’t sure if you were together and just not saying anything or if there was something else going on. Are you guys having sex?”

I don’t catch a lot of that. “Kiss only. Kiss, sleep, kiss.”

“Oookay. I am going to take that as a no, no sex. Are you…shy or something?”