I stand on my tiptoes and pull him down for a kiss. “You’re too good to be true.”

“Explain?”

“Just me saying that I’m happy you’re my husband.”

He kisses me, his hands moving to my waist. “Ready fly?”

Goosebumps prickle over my skin. Am I ready? I suspect if I think about it for a while I’m just going to make myself more anxious. “Let’s do it. I’ll tap your arm if I need to get your attention.”

Murr cups my face again, kissing me one more time before stepping away. A moment later, his dragon form explodes into view, the massive, scaled body erupting from seemingly nowhere. It’s always a startling transition, and I don’t know how he shifts from an oversized golden human to an oversized dragon the size of a city bus (never mind the wings), but I’m guessing it’s magic of some kind. I wouldn’t have believed in magic ten years ago, but I now live in a world with a tear in the sky and dragons everywhere, so there’s a lot I’m willing to handwave aside.

His dragon form is beautiful, though. So beautiful. His neck is long and graceful, his head a massive triangular shape that manages to look elegant and weighty at the same time. Spikes trail over his brows and down his spine, and when he unfurls his wings, it takes my breath away.

With one foreleg, he reaches out and gently enfolds me in his grip, his shorn claws more evident than ever. When he holds me in his “hand,” I’m covered from breast to hip. My backpack shoves up my shoulders a bit higher than comfortable, but I ignore it. I’d rather lose the pack than Murr lose me.

He pulls me in and nuzzles me with his long snout like I’m one of his cats, and I can’t help but chuckle. “I know,” I say. “I know you’ve got me. I trust you. Just take off gently so I don’t freak out, and let’s see what we can see from above, hmm?”

And because I’m a big ninny, I squeeze my eyes shut. On an airplane, take-offs and landings were the worst. Surely it’s the same for dragon flight.

Murr nudges me with his nose one more time. I feel a tremendous heave, as if all his muscles are bunching up, and then he surges into the air. My body jerks, but the draconic hand gripping me about my waist remains tight and reassuring.

But then my feet leave the ground and my hair whips about, and I have to swallow hard to keep my coffee down.

Open your eyes, I tell myself. You can’t tell him where to go if you don’t keep your eyes open. Open your damn eyes, Dakota.

I squeeze one eye open. The wind makes it difficult to see, but we’re rising into the air. Down below, I see a figure waving up at us from the parking lot. Rabbit.

Even though it’s terrifying to lift my hand, I manage a wave back, because I don’t want her to be scared of flying. This is fine. This is totally fine.

Murr catches a breeze and his wings cease pumping for altitude. High above the broken, ramshackle buildings down below, we circle, and I know he’s waiting for me to provide direction. Squinting against the wind, I peer below and try to make sense of where we are.

“That way,” I say, picking an old street overgrown with greenery.

The dragon tilts his wings and body, veering in that direction, and my coffee nearly comes up again.

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER 81

DAKOTA

I was right about flying changing the game when it comes to scavenging. We’re able to head far away from our normal hunting grounds and land at a few places and quickly decide if they’re worth investigating or not. We do find a plant store, but it’s grown over to the point that I can’t make heads or tails of what’s left behind. I do manage to find several veggie seed packets that have rotted and glued themselves together. I take the whole chunk of them in the hopes that something will grow. We also find a sporting goods store, but it looks as if it burned to the ground a long time ago and nothing is left. Murr picks me up again, and we head off in yet another direction.

I point out a big box store that’s a few streets over from the burnt-out sporting goods place, and we head in that direction. In my experience, most of the bigger stores have been raided and picked clean. It’s the smaller places that tend to have stuff left behind—the corner stores, the smaller stores that specialize in one specific thing. Heck, I actually prefer checking office buildings because people kept shelf-stable snacks in desks and break rooms, and I’ve found a lot of coffee that way. The area I’ve selected for us to fly in seems to be old restaurants and strip malls, and I know from experience that the restaurants won’t have diddly.

Before we can land at the big box store, I see a sign for antiques. I think about Dottie’s love of old china and I tap on Murr’s scales before he lands. I point. “Let’s go there instead!”

My sweet dragon-man veers again, heading in the new direction, and gently sets me down directly in front of the antique store. “If we can’t find the ingredients to make a cake, maybe we can at least get her a pretty cup,” I tell him. “Hopefully that’ll be something. You’re probably wondering what this store is. It’s called an antique mall…”

I trail off, because as I speak, Murr isn’t looking at me. He’s scanning the skies, his nostrils flaring as he picks up a scent. He hasn’t shifted back into his human form, which tells me that he senses something that might be danger. I clutch my pack, unzipping it in search of a hand weapon. “What is it? What’s going on?”

As I ask, another shadow glides overhead, blotting out the sun for a brief moment.

Another dragon.

Oh fuck, what now?

I watch, anxious, as the dragon floats lazily overhead, circling over our spot. They’re not flaming or trumpeting a call of greeting. It lands with a delicate folding of wings, and I notice that the scales are closer to red than to Murr’s vibrant gold. A female, then.

Murr wraps his claws around me and pulls me in close against his chest. I don’t sense anxiety from him, just watchfulness. Wariness. Like he’s not afraid of this dragon, but he also doesn’t know what they’re doing here.

Well, that makes two of us.

The dragon watches us for a moment and then shifts forms to a woman crouching in the empty parking lot. Thess tosses her thick hair back and straightens, beaming a smile at us. “My friends! It’s good to see you again!” Her gaze focuses on Murr. “I mean you and your mate no harm, Murtades.”

“How did you know we’re mated?” I ask as she approaches.

“Your scent is different,” Thess says, as if that explains everything. She’s all smiles, her naked body practically gleaming in the sunlight. “I smelled it on the breeze earlier today and followed you. I wanted to wish you both well. I’m glad for you that you have found love and happiness.”

“Thank you,” I say, guarded. Murr still hasn’t shifted to his human form, and I don’t know what that means. His claws remain around me, caging me against him, and I decide to keep the conversation casual. If she wants something, she’s going to bring it up sooner or later. “Are you hunting? We’re scavenging for a birthday present for a friend. She likes antiques.”

Her head tilts, and for a moment, she reminds me of Stella. “Antiques? I am not familiar with this word.”

“Antiques are very old things. Humans like to collect pretty things owned by our ancestors.” I wave a hand at the antique mall ahead of us. “This is a whole store full of them.”

She seems intrigued. “May I join you? I would like to look at these things with you.”

“It’s up to Murr. If he wants it to be just the two of us, I’ll have to ask you to leave.” I stroke his scales, letting him know that I’m with him.