Page 33 of Scales of Time

She grinned. “I feel like a wind sock. Right, now I need a place to burn.”

Essan lifted her with one arm under her knees and another around her back. He looked back at the merchants. “We will return in a few minutes.”

He walked out with her and grinned. “Hang on.”

He launched skyward, and she leaned against his shoulder. “Where are we going?”

“To a quarry.”

“Oh. Nice. Good choice. You aren’t just a pretty face.”

He hissed in laughter, and they flew over the city and toward the mountains. He settled in an excavated area, putting her on her feet.

“Go ahead and heat up anything you see. I will stand at a safe distance. I can regenerate, but pain is still pain.”

“Well, since you are my ride, you can get your wings to a safe place while I do this.” She shooed him, and he walked fifty feet away. “Back up if it gets warm.”

“Of course, my lady.”

She shook out her arms and focused on her hands. She stared into them and raised them up with an orb of fire between them. The air around her heated, and she continued to build energy. Two of the fabric strips on her arms caught fire, and she went up slowly to what she considered defensive heat.

She had twelve samples to test, and six of them didn’t make it through a basic defense heat. When she passed that to go to attack heat, she lost three more samples. Three were holding strong.

Going white hot was only something she could do for a few seconds, but when that was over, she stood with her chest heaving and wearing strips across her breasts and hips and not a lot else. Her arms had heat-damaged strands on them, but she wasn’t naked. She looked at Essan, who was flying toward her. He must have gotten to safety.

“They made a good product.”

He nodded. “So I see. Not completely naked.”

“Nope. Now we can go and get some more fabric.” She turned and walked to him. “Overlord, would you please fly me back to the city?”

He chuckled. “Of course, my lady.”

She settled into his embrace as he cuddled her against him, and then, they were off, and he was leisurely flying back to the city where the eager merchants were waiting.

When he walked in, some of the merchants were excited while others groaned. Yorness had fabric over her arm and smiled. “Why don’t you remove those strips and put something else on? I know you don’t like being naked in public.”

Her original covering had been under the sashes and had been an early casualty. “You have a point, but since I am allowed to use my fire in my own defense here, it is less of a concern.”

Yorness’s eyes widened, and her serpentine eyes showed what Kris had never been able to articulate. As Yorness’s bodyguard, she had been contracted to protect her client but was unable to act in her own defense. Now, she had bodyguards for propriety, but Essan had declared she could defend herself under any circumstances. That was the kind of declaration from the government that she could get behind.

The merchants who had created the surviving samples showed the limited colour range they had been able to come up with with minimal warning.

Yorness stared at her shoulder. “Kris... are you... do you have scales?”

Kris snorted. “Yes. I didn’t, but now I do. They are coming in, and Essan is fucking delighted about it.”

Essan walked up to her and bent to kiss the freckling of scales along her shoulders. “Yes, I am. You will soon be impervious to our environment, and we can copulate outdoors on a regular basis.”

Yorness covered her mouth in amusement.

Kris was resigned. “Is your brain in your pants? Is that how you were designed?”

Essan ran a hand down her back and cupped her ass. “You would know better than any others here. You can examine how I was constructed anytime.”

Kris looked up at him. “I tried that, but you wanted to return the favour first.” That was true, but she had a spray of freckles across the base of her spine that had fascinated him. He had been fascinated until she was sure he had licked them all off.

“So many adorable peculiarities that I am recording for any future offspring. They deserve to know what you were and what you became.”

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