Page 5 of Sapphire Seas

Again, I shrugged, because unlike my dragon, I was tongue tied and having trouble with my grasp of the only language I spoke fluently, though I was passable in others we’d picked up on our journeys. Running my fingers through my hair helped me sort out the emotions that accompanied his words, the first being anger that he didn’t deserve because he had no way of knowing that I hated to have people look at me and hated it more when they stared.

The second was softer, warmer, with enough gooeyness that my heart felt like it was turning into a molten pool of caramel, my be all end all favorite candy. He liked watching me sleep in the moonlight. The whole thing felt… romantic.

“It um…” I couldn’t lie. I didn’t like it. Did I? Shit. My dragon did. He was preening. I hadn’t felt such joy coming from him in, well, ever, but sometimes the eye-patch shifted in my sleep. I hated sleeping with it on, but I’d been doing it since I’d moved in with him and it was one of the other reasons I’d started going outside. So I could take it off for a few hours, only I hadn’t yet, because I’d been too afraid of him happening upon me asleep that way.

“If it truly bothers you, I will stop,” he said when I failed to finish my sentence.

“It’s not that I’d get up and leave if you were out there with me,” I blurted, trying to explain what I was feeling in a way that, hopefully wouldn’t hurt his feelings, “I’d probably just curl up in your arms.”

I didn’t say that I probably wouldn’t go back to sleep, though I knew I wouldn’t. He’d held me in his bed, and I’d lay there on the verge of drifting off when all the intrusive thoughts would hit and I’d seek refuge outdoors to escape them for a while.

“You probably need bigger deck chairs for that though,” I rambled, in part to keep from thinking any harder about what he’d said to me.

Don’t poets write long, sweeping masterpieces about staring at someone in the moonlight and wondering what they were dreaming about? Didn’t they compare their lovers to celestial bodies and speak of the way the tides carried waves of different emotions over the course of the relationship? He was the whole damned ocean, and I was one insignificant mess of a dragon who was apparently still gullible enough to try to convince himself that fairytale endings existed.

Not that my dragon was any better. Fucker. Stop preening. He won’t want to watch us sleep after he sees what we look like with the patch off so cut it out already! All your skipping around and spinning is giving me a headache.

Dragons do not skip and we certainly do not spin.

Fine, then quit with the fuckin’ pirouettes already! It’s not gonna last and you know it. Look at him! Look at both of them! Then look in the fucking mirror the next time we walk in front of one and tell me why either of them would want us!

Dragons do not pirouette either.

“I’m sure my carpenter can craft something wider to replace the ones out there,” he said, interrupting the argument my dragon and I were still engaged in. “If you truly don’t mind me joining you beneath the stars.”

“Maybe…order ones…big enough…for three,” the man on the bed rasped, startling us both and immediately drawing my attention to where he lay there blinking aquamarine eyes at me. It looked like he was having a hard time focusing and groaned as he scrubbed his hand over his face.

“You’re awake,” Mattias said, coming around the bed to stand beside me.

When had I stood up?

Huh, guess my dragon had stopped me on the way to the kitchen, but that was a good thing now. Maybe he’d finally be able to tell us where he’d come from and what had happened to him.

And his name so I could stop running through all the ones I knew, playing guessing games with myself.

“Yes, it comes as a bit of a shock to me as well. I thought I was a goner this time.”

“Want to tell me how many other times you’ve nearly gotten yourself killed?” Mattias asked, and damn, there was a growl to accompany his words that filled the room and lingered in a rumbling echo.

I couldn’t tell if it was concern or anger. Both? Maybe? They sort of went together.

“Not really.”

Mattias’ tone shifted again, into one that left no confusion about whether it was a question or an order. He expected answers, as in right, fuckin’ now.

“I’m afraid I must insist.”

No remorse and absolutely no room for exceptions or excuses. Note to self, do not accidentally mention any of the various times me, or one of my traveling companions, nearly wound up dead. That was clearly a trigger that riled him and his dragon up and I didn’t see how we were going to get either of them settled back again until our mate provided answers.

“Can I insist upon water and maybe… something to eat first,” He muttered. “And a shower. There is sand in places it was never meant to be. My apologies…for my ill-timed attempts at levity…it seems to have brought out someone’s grumpy side.” I wanted to tell him to stop talking, gasping for breaths between sentences was frightening, but there was much about him and his journey we needed to know.

“Yes, of course, my apologies as well,” Mattias said, whirling and striding from the room.

It wouldn’t shock me if he dented another piece of drywall on his way to the kitchen and this time, it wouldn’t be his dragon’s fault.

“Hi,” I said after he’d left the room. “I’m Kes.”

“I know.”