Maybe he can just lie there after all. I sit down next to him on the broken asphalt, petting his arm. Did…did he mean what he said when he told me he wanted me to be his wife? It feels like we’re skipping a few steps of the courtship phases. We’re going straight from kissing and cuddling to…forever. Which is fine, really. It’s just a big leap.

I don’t want him to regret that leap or feel like he’s made a hasty decision.

Something wet splats on my face. A moment later, big, fat drops of rain pour down from the skies, each one feeling like it has a grudge against me. Yikes. I jump to my feet and try to rouse Murr again. “Come on! You can’t sleep through a storm. You’ll drown like a turkey!”

He’s still out. How long is this supposed to last, exactly?

I move to his arms and tug on them again, frantically, fervently hoping that he’s somehow become two hundred pounds lighter in the last few minutes. No dice. I keep trying, because I refuse to be helpless. I just need the right leverage⁠—

“Mom? Are you still out here?”

Shit. I stand in the rain like a guilty weirdo as my teenage daughter arrives, pulling the hood of her jacket over her head. She sprints across the wet parking lot towards us, then skids to a halt at the sight of Murr prone and naked on the ground. “What happened?”

“Um.” What do I tell my daughter? She’s too old for ‘adult stuff’ to work as an answer. “He passed out and I can’t wake him up.”

“He passed out?” Rabbit’s voice raises an octave, and she moves to his side, kneeling. She checks his pulse. “What happened? What were you guys doing?”

“Nothing,” I say defensively.

She eyes him and then turns her face up, giving me a suspicious look. “Why is he naked if you weren’t doing anything?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I blurt out, moving to Murr’s head. “Grab one of his arms and help me pull him inside.”

“We can’t just drag him across the concrete! He’ll get all torn up!”

“Then get a blanket and we’ll roll him onto it and drag him inside.”

Twenty minutes later, we’ve dragged my dragon husband, face down, under an awning. His golden butt stares up at us almost as accusingly as my daughter’s face. Rabbit waits for me to speak, and when I don’t, she puts her hands on her hips. “So.”

“Should we turn him over?” I ask, bending over him and fussing with his hair. It’s fluffy when it’s dry and windblown. Wet hair is so much longer and drapes all over his face, which has to bother him on some level, right?

“Absolutely not, and this view is bad enough,” Rabbit says. “Did you kill him, Mom?”

“What? No!” I jerk back to my full height. “Why would you think that?”

“Because you’ve got a big nasty bite on your neck? Do we need to hide the body? Because I know Aggie will be down.” My daughter leans in conspiratorially. “Dottie might need a bit more convincing.”

I put my hand over the incriminating bite. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it?”

Oh god. Not the conversation I wanted to have with my daughter right now. I manage a weak smile. “When a man and woman love each other very, very much⁠—”

“Nope!” Her hands go up in the air. “I’ve heard enough!”

Rabbit turns and walks inside.

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CHAPTER 64

MURR

I wake up with my face in a damp blanket. I am in my two-legged form, but there is no Dakota in my arms. Mentally, I reach out for her, hoping against hope that I’ll feel the brush of her mind to mine. That we’ll have the link that all mates do. But there is nothing, and I feel a vague sense of disappointment, even though this was expected.

As I sit up, I realize I’m no longer in the parking lot. Not in the same spot. I’ve been moved from the spot where I had Dakota seated atop the rusting car. I’m in front of the bookstore now, near the doors and safely under the overhang. The fire is out and rain pours down in rivulets that spatter onto the ground a short distance away. I don’t see Dakota, and yet her scent is everywhere.

There’s a crash around the side of the building, and Dakota comes rushing over. She’s wearing a strange black plastic sack over her body with a hole cut out for her face, and she rustles as she moves to my side. “You’re awake! Oh, thank goodness.”

Did…did she sense that I was awake?

She kneels down next to me, and her scent is layered and complex and wondrous—she smells like a more vivid version of herself. It’s mine mixed with hers, and it feels so right that I pull her into my arms. I nuzzle at her throat, seeking the bite I left there earlier and am pleased to find that it remains closed, the heat of it throbbing against my tongue.

Dakota squeals as I tug her into my lap and rip the plastic monstrosity off of her. “Murr! Are you all right? I didn’t know how long you’d be out.”

“Good,” I tell her, rubbing my nose against the spot just below her ear that has been revealed. “Murr good good.”

She laughs, her hands sliding over my damp shoulders. Her mouth finds mine and she kisses me, and then kisses me again, as if she can’t resist. “I can tell.”

“Dakota…feel Murr wake?” I brush a finger over her temple. “Here?” I doubt there is a connection between us—I can hear nothing, no matter how much I strain to sense her—but there is no denying that she came around the building at the right moment.

My new, lovely mate pauses. “I…don’t know. I bet I heard something. I’ve been listening for you all day.”

I grunt. Perhaps that is so. I am disappointed again, but it is hard to remain disappointed when my arms are full of a sweetly scented mate. I kiss her jaw, moving along to her ear. It is the tiniest thing and I did not get a chance to nibble on it before. “Finish kiss now.” I grin against her soft skin. “Murr kiss all.”

Dakota pulls away from me with a grimace. “Absolutely not.”

“…no?” I am astonished. Did we not share my fires? “No kiss all?”

She groans in frustration and cups my face, kissing me again. “I want to do that, but not right now. My daughter is here and she knows all about us and she’s freaked out. Aggie and Dottie are staring at us through the windows. If we’re going to do more, we need privacy. We need alone time.”

Alone. She is obsessed with kissing me away from others, my mate. But if it is true and Rabbit is upset, I understand. She is a mother first. Reluctantly, I agree, but not before pressing a few more kisses to her jaw. “When privacy?”

“Tonight,” Dakota says. “Until then, let’s go inside. It’s cold and wet out here, and I want to check on a few things.” She taps my cheek with light fingers. “And you can see the puppies.”

I am rather fascinated by the newborn creatures. Not nearly as fascinated with them as I am with my mate’s scent, but I know she’s trying to distract me. I pull her in closer so I can hold her for a moment and drink in her new smell. Her arms go around me, and she pulls my face in towards her breasts (covered again, because of course). I want to hold her like this, always. To think that I have been lucky enough to find a family once more…

And then I pause, because they rely on me. “Need meat? Should I hunt?”

She cups my face again, kissing me once more. “We have meat, and you are very sweet. Thank you. Just relax until later.”

Relax. I am not sure what that is, but something tells me it is not nearly as fun as undressing my mate again.

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