Page 38 of Knotted by the Mountain Man Dragon

He’s at the shop. He texts me approximately every forty-five minutes to ask if I need something, and every single time, whatever I mention appears within the hour. Last week I said I missed good Thai food and two days later he drove to Seattle and came back with an entire cooler of takeout from a restaurant I’d mentioned once in passing.

Once. In passing. Three weeks prior.

The man has a filing system in his brain and every drawer is labeled MARA.

Me: I’m good. Maybe more blueberries?

Cage: Already bought four cartons

Me: Four??

Cage: You eat a lot of blueberries

I set the phone down and laugh. The mark on my neck tingles, the way it does when he’s thinking about me. Which is, as far as I can tell, constantly.

The scar is beautiful. A crescent of raised skin at the curve of my shoulder, silver-pink and smooth. I touch it sometimes without thinking, and when I do, I feel him. Not his thoughts. Just the shape of him, warm and steady and certain, like a hand on my back that never lifts.

I don’t miss my old life.

That surprised me at first. I thought I would. I thought I’d mourn the freedom, the spontaneity, the not-being-permanently-bonded-to-a-ninety-three-year-old-dragon-who-hoards-blankets part. But the truth is, my old life was motion without direction. I was moving because I didn’t have a reason to stop.

Now I have a reason.

He’s six-five, he can’t smile without looking like it physically pains him, and he bought me a new car last month because mine “made a sound he didn’t like.”

I kept it.

I complained first. Obviously. But I kept it.

My phone buzzes again.

Cage: Beck says dinner at the tavern tonight

Me: Sounds good. Is Silas coming?

Cage: Silas doesn’t “do” dinner

Me: He came last time

Cage: He came last time because you told him you’d bring him a book you thought he’d like and he was too polite to refuse

Me: See? I’m growing on him

Cage: You’re growing on everyone

Cage: That was not a compliment

Cage: My dragon doesn’t like sharing you

Me: Your dragon can share me for two hours at dinner

Me: Then he can have me back

Cage: He wants that in writing

I grin at my phone. Three months in and he still makes my stomach flip. The bond hasn’t dulled one bit. If anything, it’s made everything sharper. I feel him when he walks through the door before I hear him. I know when he’s happy because my chest goes warm. I know when someone at the shop annoyed him because the mark prickles and I suddenly want to bite something.

Dragon side effects. Nobody warns you about those.