Page 39 of Knotted by the Mountain Man Dragon

I close my laptop and look around the kitchen. My coffee mug next to his in the sink. My boots by the door, next to his, comically smaller. A shelf he built last weekend for my books, because I mentioned wanting somewhere to keep them, and Cage’s response to a casual comment is apparently custom carpentry.

There’s a basket on the counter I didn’t notice this morning. I pull back the cloth on top.

Blueberry muffins. A dozen. From Jess’s coffee shop.

There’s a note tucked under the cloth in handwriting so precise it looks like an architect’s.

You mentioned liking them. - C

I mentioned liking them six weeks ago.

I press the note against my chest and stand in the kitchen and feel my mark tingle and my eyes sting and I think: this is what it feels like. This is what all those omegas at those terrible mixers were waiting for. This is what my body knew before my brain caught up, on a rainy highway in October when I almost drove off the road because a dragon I’d never met was calling me home.

I pick up a muffin.

It’s perfect.

Epilogue Two

Mara

That same evening

“You did WHAT?”

My best friend’s voice is loud enough through the phone that Cage glances over from the stove, where he’s making me a pre-dinner snack because apparently the muffins weren’t enough and I mentioned being “kind of hungry” twenty minutes ago, which in Cage’s brain translates to a five-alarm emergency.

“I might have suggested you for a job,” I say.

“What job? Where? Mara, I swear to God…”

“Okay, so you know how I told you about the dragons?”

“You told me you’re mated to a dragon. You told me he set your bed on fire. You told me he bought you a car. I am still processing all of this.”

“Right. So there’s another dragon. Silas. He lives in this enormous lodge up on the mountain, way more secluded than Cage’s place, and he needs a property manager. His last one quit.”

Silence.

“Why did the last one quit, Mara?”

“That’s… he’s a little difficult.”

“Define difficult.”

Cage snorts from the kitchen.

“He’s very private,” I say carefully. “And particular. And he has rules.”

“What kind of rules?”

“I don’t know all of them. Something about not going upstairs.”

“Why can’t you go upstairs?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“You didn’t ask?”