Page 6 of Mating Her Dragon

"Not a clue."

"Sydney. That's not a plan."

"Sure, it is." She grinned. "It's just a plan with options."

"I find this plan entirely acceptable," Kara announced.

“As do I,” Han, the Dragon King with whom Garrett shared his soul rumbled through the Mating Bond.

"Kara and Han approve," Sydney reported.

"Kara and Han don't get a vote," Garrett said again, but there was no heat in it. His eyes drifted back to the Airstream, lingering there in a way that told Sydney the argument was already lost. He just hadn't said so yet.

"Anywhere," she pressed, softer now. "If we did this. Truly, actually, we could go anywhere. Where would you want to go first?"

He was quiet long enough that she thought maybe she'd pushed too far, asked for something he genuinely didn't have to give. Then, so quietly she almost missed it under the sound of a truck rumbling past, he said, "I've never seen the Pacific Ocean."

Something in Sydney's chest went warm and soft and entirely too full, because that wasn't okay, fine, let's buy the ridiculous camper. That was Garrett– centuries-old, duty-bound, hundred-years-stolen Garrett– admitting, out loud, for the first time since she'd known him, that there was somewhere in this new, strange, too-fast world he actually wanted to see.

"Then let's start there," Sydney said.

They didn't buy the Airstream that morning. There were logistics and paperwork, and Garrett insisted on at least three separate conversations about towing capacity that Sydney tuned out almost entirely. He could figure all that out, and he had. So, by the time they turned back toward Two Wolves, something had settled into place that felt suspiciously like the shape of a plan.

Garrett reached for her hand as they walked, and Sydney let their fingers lace together. She let herself lean into the solid, familiar warmth of him. And that was when it happened again.

Not pain. Not the cold, oily wrongness of Leviathan stirring somewhere inside him, the way she'd learned to brace for over the last several months. Something else. Something that slid through her the instant her palm met his– quick, electric, gone almost before she registered it.

For one fraction of a second, touching Garrett, she felt something on the other side of him. It was far away. So much so that it shouldn't have been possible to feel it at all.

It was watching… Or waiting, maybe. She couldn't have said which.

“Kara?” she thought, going very still. “What was that?”

The Dragon Queen didn't answer right away, and when she did, there was none of her usual dry humor in it at all. "I do not know.”

The pause that followed was longer than a second, but not as long as two. Sydney’s heart beat loud enough that she heard it as though it was outside her body, and her palms got instantly sweaty.

"But whatever it was, my girl– it knew you were there."

2

Garrett Acheson had survived war. Torture. A century in Leviathan's grip, wearing his own face like a mask he couldn't tear off. He’d also survived an Ancient Elven Sorceress with a grudge and entirely too much free time on her hands, and a Demon Lord with serious boundary issues.

None of that could have prepared him for his next mission. Family vacation– or, more to the point, RVs. Recreational vehicles were ridiculous.

He had nine tabs open on the tablet, and he was fairly sure he needed at least four more before he could make an informed decision. There were Class As. Class Bs. Class Cs. Fifth wheels. Travel trailers. Diesel pushers. There were toy haulers, which sounded like something built for a very specific and slightly concerning hobby. And for reasons nobody had adequately explained anywhere on the internet, a Super C was, apparently, not simply a larger Class C.

He had a spreadsheet. It was the only way he could keep track of all the details. Thank the Heavens Syd had shown him how to use them.

There were tow ratings in one column, and tank capacities in another. Generator output came next, with solar capability in the fourth, in case the grid failed.

Garrett had not survived a hundred years of captivity by assuming the grid would hold. He also had tire load indexes. Then he cross-referenced those against the weight of two adults, added one Dragon Queen, who insisted she took up no additional space and was, in Garrett's professional opinion, lying, plus the weight of his Dragon King, Han, who was of the same mind as Kara, and whatever gear a reasonable person packed for an open-ended journey across a continent.

Sydney cracked one eye open somewhere around two in the morning.

"Are you shopping?"

"No."