Page 21 of Her Dragon Outlaw

She laughs. “That seems logical enough. You are a dragon shifter, after all.”

I lead her out of the car and lock it after she grabs her bag from the backseat. Even though I tried not to cast any judgment, the sight of her tattered suitcase plucks at my heartstrings. I caught the look on her face when she realized what I must have thought of her apartment, even though she kept her gaze down.

She deserves better than what she is given, including a better job that pays more than minimum wage and an apartment she is proud to live in. The world has been so unkind to her and, well, as an officer of the law it is my duty to take care of my citizens.

I want to give that to her. The feeling hits me like a ton of bricks. I want to be the one to provide for her.

Where is this coming from? What could possess me to think of this? It is not as though I am… I cannot even think the words. The last woman I was with tore my heart out of my chest with her claws—figuratively. Given half a chance, I feel as though she would have done it literally as well. And the one before that… I shudder just at the thought of all the heartbreak I have been through. Countless times of putting myself on the line only to be told that they think my job comes first rather than them.

And somehow, it always has.

But now? I do not know.

I stand back from Lori and the car and drop to a crouch. I close my eyes and picture him, the dragon inside of me waiting to be unleashed, his oil-black scales glistening in the light, his wings unfurling until he is free. When I open my eyes I am he—he is me—we are one. I am no longer the human PEACE agent; I am the rabid beast. I am the fire.

I catch Lori’s impressed gaze, her eyes opening wide and shining in the streetlamps. “Woah. Sweet ride.”

I lower myself until she can climb up to my shoulders and, once she holds on tightly, we take to the skies. That is my favorite phrase: take to the skies. The skies taking me. Us taking each other, hand in hand, towards our union. And here Lori sits safely on my back, between the sky and me.

“This is so much fun!” she calls, her voice echoing into the night. My keen hearing picks it up despite how the wind throws it backwards. “This is the most killer thing I’ve ever done in my life!”

I have never been this excited before. It is as if all my dreams are coming true: sharing the sky with someone I trust and… no, I should not ruin it by contemplating more. It is enough that we are in this moment together.

We soar through the sky as the moon moves higher in its path, coating us in a dusky glow. This is freedom; this, now, is what life is about. I can barely contain my excitement. I dip downwards and soar across the tops of the trees, my dangling feet brushing against the treetops. Lori holds on tighter but her laughter reaches my ears easily. Her joy matches my own. In this, we are the same.

It seems unreal that only today we decided to work together. Just a few short hours ago, she stole documents from a lab in an undercover mission. Now we are headed towards my favorite place in the world where we can shield ourselves from the nightmares and boogeymen who want to harm her.

I promised I would keep her safe and I mean to. We have the foreseeable future to protect each other and keep each other company. I have not noticed my own loneliness all day and, running on the adrenaline of the heist we pulled, it was easy to forget. But… maybe it was Lori more than anything else.

The lakehouse comes into view across the tops of the trees, surrounded by placid water. Here it is. My home.

19

LORI

Five days.

I can't believe how much has changed in so little time. I understood, on an intellectual level that things could happen fast, but has it really only been five days since Julie spilled a latte on my uniform and in scrambling desperation, I signed up for a drug trial?

And now I'm flying on the back of a fucking dragon. I'm old enough to remember the world before the Veil fell and growing up this was something I used to read about in fantasy books. At the time, I and most of the world thought it was an impossibility. But here I am, up among the clouds, straddling a dragon.

"Do you do this a lot?" I yell my question because I'm sitting between his shoulder blades and there's a lot of neck between me and his ears and I'm not sure if he can hear me over the sound of the wind.

"You don't need to shout. I can hear you just fine," he says in a voice that is surprisingly deep.

I gasp involuntarily, not so much shocked by the way his voice has changed in dragon form, but more by the fact I can feel it reverberate through his body. Or more accurately, where in my body I can feel it—right against my clit. It's not a powerful enough vibration for me to achieve orgasm—at least not if I'm starting from zero in a situation that is more stressful than sexy—but it's enough to definitely notice.

"Are you okay back there?" he asks.

"Yeah. I'm fine," I say, hoping that he can't see me blushing.

Am I though?

Four days.

It's been four days since my first injection. So far nothing has happened to me. My body didn't react negatively like some of the others did. It also didn't react positively. My body just didn't do anything with the injections as far as I can tell.

From what I understand of how some others reacted to it, I consider myself lucky if the worst I've experienced is a little soreness at the injection site.

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