Page 13 of The Dragon's Mate Proposal

“Food,” he said. “I’m hungry. Then we’ll get you a bag of clothes.”

I stared as a tall, lithe woman walked by, her soft, supple garment swishing in the wind. It was quite the getup, with layers falling down both her front and back. They were linked together with two bands, one across her breasts, the other around her waist. I noted they were actually sewn into the garment on one side while simply looped around her body on the other. The vibrant pink fabric clung to her skin like it was wet yet flowed lightly in the air.

“What is that?” I asked.

Cade grunted. “A glani. It’s traditional female dragon wear.”

“Do I wear one of those?” I asked, thoroughly uncomfortable at the notion. She was showing a lot of skin. But that woman could pull it off. Me?

“Not yet,” Cade said firmly. “Maybe someday. We’ll see.”

“Gotcha,” I said, following him into the streets. “Food. Clothing. Then what, back to your place, I guess?”

“Yeah,” he said with a hint of unease, looking away so I couldn’t see the reaction on his face. “Something like that.”

Chapter Seven

Samantha

I hiked the bag with my clothes in it back up over my shoulder, gripping the strap a little tighter as we walked through the streets of the dragon town.

“Is it just me?” I asked, noting no reaction from Cade as we turned down a side street, “or is this section of town not as nice as the rest?”

Cade shrugged, but he didn’t deny it. How could he? The flags there fluttered limply, less wind making it through the narrower pathways between buildings. The stone architecture wasn’t dirty, precisely, but it certainly didn’t have that pristine nature like the stones in the market where we’d landed.

Here and there, little chunks of stone were missing. Windows were covered with plainer cloth, and the doors lacked the ornate, intricate carvings that had been a hallmark of every store and house in the center of town. Garbage didn’t pile up in the corners because dragons seemed utterly against the concept of littering, but if they weren’t, that was certainly the section of town to witness it.

“I’m certain of it,” I muttered mostly to myself. Even the garb of the dragons we passed—which were fewer in number as well and less polite, though not outright rude—was more worn.

“It’s the old town,” Cade said as if that explained everything. “The original. These are the oldest buildings.”

It showed.

“Right,” I said. “But come on, you can’t tell me it doesn’t look worn down. Less welcoming.”

He shrugged once more.

“Does it get worse?” I asked, avoiding asking just why he was taking me there. My choices on what to do and where to go consisted exclusively of “Follow Cade” at that point.

“No,” he said, stopping suddenly at a door that had once been red but now was more faded into a rust-like mixture of colors. “As a society, we work to ensure nobody stays on the streets if they have nowhere else to go. That doesn’t mean everything is high class either, but we don’t let our people live in poverty, unlike you.”

“I see,” I said as he pulled the door open, revealing an unlit entryway. The pale beige stone was anything but inviting, reminding me far too much of places I shouldn’t be visiting, according to human society. “Sorry, I didn’t realize I touched a nerve there.”

“Huh?”

“About poor people,” I said. “I didn’t know you dragons were so high and mighty about it comparatively. Such perfect citizens of a perfect nation.”

Cade turned an angry eye in my direction as he brushed past to open a door leading to a stairwell.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I said. “At least ‘we humans’ don’t pretend like we don’t run the spectrum from good to bad. We acknowledge it. You ignore it, standing around, patting yourselves on the back for not letting people live on the street. Which is infinitely easier, given your smaller population size, of course, but we won’t acknowledge that.”

“We—”

“No, I’m not done,” I said, shaking my head, venting frustrations while also seeking a confirmation of something the government had never been able to nail down. “I’m also sure you treat foreigners exceptionally well. I mean, it isn’t like you to just, oh, I don’t know, up and ‘disappear’ intruders, right? People who accidentally stray into your territory.”

“What are you talking about?” Cade asked stiffly as we went up to the third story of the building.

“Ohhh, I don’t know,” I drawled. “It’s like you guys are super protective of your territory. An area that may have roughly three equal sides. In the middle of the Atlantic. Not too far, in fact, from a human island. Why, if there was a mystery about this area, I bet you people would name it after the shape and the island. Don’t you think? Seems natural that way.”

---