“Dakota,” I reply. “My name is Dakota, remember?”

“Do-tah,” he agrees, brightening. He picks up the food, carefully nudging away another cat, and then holds it out to me again. “Do-tah.”

“Mom, that’s you⁠—”

“I know! Thank you, Rabbit!” I’m very aware of the eager look on his face. I just…don’t know what to do with it. Eight years of absolute hell has taught me that dragons are monsters. They’ll stop at nothing to raze the earth and destroy everything in their path. They can’t be reasoned with. They just destroy. Things calmed down a year or so ago, but that doesn’t mean the dragons are gone. I don’t trust the silence, the less frequent fires. It just means they’re planning something.

But this one is trying to feed us when he could kill us without a second thought…and that makes me pause. He could have destroyed us a dozen times over in the last few minutes. My crossbow won’t do shit against a dragon. The fact that he’s seemingly friendly is a blessing…but friendly for how long?

A kitten with dirty white fur wanders forward and mews plaintively up at him. He picks it up and nuzzles it, bringing the filthy, flea-covered (yet adorable) creature to his face and cuddling it.

It’s his gentleness with the kitten that makes some of the fear in me ebb. I thought he was attacking us before but…he’d just come and snatched his kitten back. Was that all he wanted then? It wasn’t him trying to chase us off?

I rub my mouth, wondering if I’m going to regret the next few words that come out of my mouth. “Okay. We’ll try and be friends. Just be on guard, Rab. Okay?”

“On guard,” my daughter replies. “Also, I don’t mean to be rude, but do…do you think we can make him put on pants?”

“I think we’re a few conversations away from that,” I admit, my face heating up. “Just pretend like it’s nothing you haven’t seen before, all right?”

My daughter giggles like the fourteen-year-old she is. “It’s flopping around in the wind, Mom. Gonna be hard to ignore.”

“Try!” I paste a smile on my face as the dragon-man turns his gaze to me with curiosity. I know how Rabbit feels, because it’s taking everything I have not to stare at the massive hanging dick that’s incredibly prominent while he squats. I’m not here to ogle, though. If he doesn’t understand the concept of pants, well, as long as his dick remains a limp noodle, I can ignore it.

Mostly.

I touch my chest again and give him another smile. “Dakota.” I put a hand out toward him. “Murr?”

“Murr,” he agrees, scratching the kitten’s ears. He studies my face for a moment and then bares his teeth at me in what has to be a mimic of my smile. It looks incredibly unnatural and shows his fangs, but I remind myself that if he doesn’t know what pants are, it’s a safe bet he doesn’t know other human customs, like smiling.

“Hello again, Murr,” I manage, nervous. I slowly ease my pack off my shoulder and set it on the ground. “Thank you for inviting us to dinner. Okay if we cook it?”

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER 8

MURR

The two human females are such curious creatures. I observe them as they move about. The older female keeps watching me with nervous flicking glances, even as she murmurs sounds to the younger female. She touches the young one frequently, caressing her head or touching the arm, more signs that this is her young and she is feeling protective.

I understand protectiveness. Have I not kept my cats safe from harm for many sleeps now? They are my new family since my world and my people are lost to me. The older female gives me another wary look, and I sit down where I am, trying to make myself seem as harmless as I can. Not an easy task for a drakoni warrior, but I slouch on the hard, strange ground and pet the cats that crawl over me, and she relaxes a bit.

Humans. Such odd people. They look like the drakoni do in many ways, but they never switch to battle-form. They live in their two-legged forms at all times, which seems strange to me. They do not seem to have the protective spikes on their limbs that a drakoni does, nor a tough hide. Their colors are not universal. The older human—Do-tah—has a strangely dark mane and pale eyes that remain the same color even when she is agitated. Her daughter also has a dark mane and little dots on her skin instead of scales. I see no mate around them, which means they are on their own.

Like me.

It’s strange to have people nearby after avoiding others for so long. I don’t know what I was like when I was lost in myself, when I was mindless with anger and fury. All I knew then was that time was passing, and I was unable to control myself. I was a creature of instinct for a very long time. Months? Years? Longer?

Now my mind has returned to itself, and I am stranded in this strange world that reeks of char and humans. My ability to connect and communicate with my people is gone. I can feel no one when I reach out with my mind. There’s no pleasant hum of the presence of others, even when I see a dragon fly past in the distance. There’s nothing at all.

Something has happened to me. Something has broken me inside, and so I avoid others of my kind. I don’t know if they went wild like I did or if it was a personal failing. I don’t know if they can still speak to each other through mental speech and I am the one shunned. I live in exile with my cats, because I don’t know what else to do with myself with no way home and no one to speak to.

Which makes these humans far more interesting than they should be, perhaps.

I pet one of the smallest cats as it rubs against me, watching Do-tah as she burbles words at the younger one and begins to break dried sticks and set them in a pile. She adds some dried leaves and a heavier chunk of wood underneath, making a strange little pyramid. Is she communicating with me in some way? Trying to tell me something? Does this pile of brush mean anything? I watch, trying to decipher all of this as she pulls out an oblong yellow stick and clicks it, and a tiny flame appears. She holds the flame to a twig and then tries to add the twig to the pile. Do-tah’s face screws up in frustration when the wind blows the twig out, and she flicks the yellow thing again, making the tiny flame reappear.

Is she making fire?

This is adorable. It’s so difficult for her. I watch in fascination as she tries another stick and makes more mouth noises at her daughter. The younger female offers another handful of dried leaves to her mother, who adds them to the pile. The tiny flame goes out again, and both females make frustrated noises.

Do they not realize that drakoni are beings of fire? Helpfully, I pick up a large stick, blow on the end of it with my fire-breath, and hold it out to them.

They both stare at me, eyes wide.

“Owmigoh,” the older one breathes.

“Owmigoh,” I agree. I wish I knew what it meant. Does it mean fire? I shake the burning stick at her. “Owmigoh?”

Do-tah blinks and then shakes her head. She takes the stick from me when I continue to hold it out and adds it to her brush pile. The female leans in to blow on it, making the fire grow larger, and after a few long breaths, the flames catch. In fascination, I watch as they pull metal sticks out of one of their packs and make a spit for the fire. Do-tah reaches for the meat, her wary gaze on me. They are so frightened of me. I deliberately make an effort not to move so as not to scare them further, yawning and making myself as unobtrusive as possible.

The females pull chunks off the haunch of meat, spit them on the metal rod, and then sit and wait, their stomachs growling furiously.