Rabbit shakes her hand, and the greetings continue. Dottie and Aggie reluctantly emerge from the building and eye Thess with skeptical looks. “Are you here to steal Dakota’s man?” Aggie asks point-blank.
“What? Oh no, I am not in heat.” Thess laughs as if the thought amuses her. “Murtades is simply an old friend. We were warriors together back home.”
“Hmph,” is all Dottie says.
I glance over at Murr. He’s being awful quiet, but perhaps he’s just in shock from his friend arriving again? It’s hard to tell. His eyes are swirling fast, usually a sign that he’s agitated, but he looks calm. I don’t know what to make of it.
“Do you want to come and sit near the fire?” I ask Thess. “Join us for some hot tea and wrap up in a blanket? The weather is cold today.”
“You are kind. I would love tea.” She beams at us, oblivious to Murr’s silence or the scowls Aggie is sending her way.
CHAPTER 57
DAKOTA
“I can’t believewe’re meeting another dragon,” my daughter says, squeezing my arm. “I’m freaking out.”
“Me too,” I whisper, but probably for different reasons.
Thess sits by the fire, wrapping a blanket modestly around her long, beautiful limbs. She takes the cup of tea handed to her and smiles sweetly at Dottie and Aggie, asking about Stella. She can scent her (and the blood from the birthing) from afar and wants to make sure she’s not in pain. They chat as Murr approaches our fire, and I automatically hand him his loin wrap. He pauses, giving it a thoughtful look before putting it on.
“Tell me more about how you arrived here,” Thess says to us as we gather around. “I am very curious.”
“We don’t have solar panels, if that’s what you’re asking,” Dottie says, a hint of aggressiveness in her tone.
Thess isn’t bothered. Her smile remains friendly. “I figured. No one does, and if they do, they have a lot more of a protective set-up than what you have here.”
Aggie waves a hand at the female dragon. “So now you can go back and tell the fort that they don’t need to come rob us. We’re just a bunch of old ladies and a kid.”
“Hey,” I protest. I’m not an old lady.
“And a dragon,” Aggie amends. “And a dog.”
My confidence withers a bit more. Bad enough that Thess is besties with Murr and knows him from before, but now I’m just another old lady?
“The fort checks out every report of ‘marauding’ nomads in the area, but that doesn’t mean it’s a problem. I’m going to report to them that you’re all healthy and harmless, and you have nothing of interest. Fort Dallas is very nice, even if it’s run by a Salorian.”
Murr makes a choked sound at that.
“What’s a Salorian?” Rabbit asks.
“Bad,” Murr says immediately, his eyes flashing so dark that it makes me hold my breath. I’ve learned that his moods follow his eyes and so when they turn jet black, I panic.
Thess holds up a hand before Murr goes any further. “They are, yes. Salorians were our enemies on the other side. There is one in Fort Dallas that lives with a human woman and she makes him behave. I was skeptical until I found out he was the one that managed to close the Rift. It’s what freed us all from insanity.”
“Wait, that had to do with the Rift?” I ask, surprised. “It was what made the dragons crazy?”
“We call ourselves ‘drakoni,’ and yes, it’s a long story.” Thess takes a sip of her tea and launches into a convoluted tale of drakoni warriors enslaved by evil Salorians on the other side of the Rift, and when they were pulled through to this side, their psychic abilities were corrupted. It made them wild and insane, with only a few drakoni taking human mates and reclaiming their sanity. The Salorian in Fort Dallas feared something worse was going to come through the Rift, so he closed it, trapping thedrakoni here on this side. Once he did, it also destroyed their ability to speak to one another. “We have all learned human words,” Thess says. “It has been a very interesting time.”
I look over at Murr, feeling all kinds of sympathy for him. He must have been so lonely to wake up on this side, alone and confused, and without anyone’s mind connected to his. No wonder he’s gathered every cat in the vicinity. He needs a family. My heart squeezes and I want to fling my arms around him.
“No…mind talk?” Murr asks slowly, his gaze locked on Thess. “No one?”
She shakes her head. “No one at all. It’s because the Rift closed with us on this side.”
His shoulders sag and he buries his face in his hands. All is quiet. I can’t stand to see him struggle. I reach out and touch his arm, rubbing it gently to remind him that I’m here, that he’s not alone.
He sits up after a moment, features composed but eyes whirling a wild kaleidoscope of shades. “Murr not…broken?”
