Page 26 of Dragon's Code

She stands there idly picking up delicates and putting some in her shopping tote and putting others back. I can’t stop thinking about how truly amazing she is and how much I admire her. She’s been through a lot. Getting kidnapped, assaulted, tortured, and escaping all on her own is certainly not the extent of her trauma.

I follow her around while she fills up her basket with all sorts of underwear, pajamas, bras, and even some lingerie. I get this sick feeling in my stomach when I think about her wearing any of these for a man.

“What’s with the lingerie?”

She shrugs. “I haven’t bought any in a while and I like the way I feel in it. Don’t worry, Kashton, I never buy lingerie for anyone but myself.” There’s this sense of finality in her voice.

“Please tell me that you’re not going to let his ex-stalking-you-thing be the beginning of giving up on love or whatever,” I say as we head toward the register.

“I’m not, but you have to admit, my record is shockingly bad.”

“There may be a reason for that,” I mutter.

She glances back at me but doesn’t respond. She’s polite and friendly with the clerk as she checks out her clothing. Before she can pull out her wallet, I’m handing the clerk my credit card.

“Kash,” she scolds.

“I’m not afraid of you. Let me buy you some clothes.”

“You could’ve waited until we hit a clothing store. You literally just bought me underwear and lingerie.”

“There was a proper pajama set in there. I expect to see it when we watch a movie together and pig out on room service while we’re here together.”

The clerk smiles at us. I can tell she thinks we’re a couple or something. It’s not the first time we’ve been mistaken for one. Right now, I like the assumption. I like that I purchased everything that’s going to be touching her skin intimately.

We head to another store, where Krystana appears like she’s got me magically low jacked. She grins at me when she sees that I’m not alone, and drags Athena into the racks of body-hugging dresses, giggling like they’re old friends and I’m just the third wheel crashing their party.

As much as I’m glad to see my sister having fun, interacting with a woman close to her own age, someone who doesn’t have the weight of a tiara, of a clan legacy on her shoulders, I’m a little irritated that it didn’t take long for her to find us.

At least she waited until we were out of the lingerie store.

After we spend the morning shopping, I drag them into a restaurant for lunch with a plethora of bags from several high-end boutiques. Krystana is beaming from ear to ear, and as the two women talk about activities going on in Vegas this weekend, I can’t help but hope that maybe the two of them can keep each other company, to keep each other safe, while I’m in interminable meetings with the dragon contingent.

And Krys doesn’t like Jasmine any more than I do, so I’m sure she’ll keep the Lapis spy at bay too.

By the time we get back to our rooms, it’s late in the afternoon.

“Don’t you have work to do?” she asks me.

“I do. It really starts tonight. I want to explain everything to you before I go though.”

She frowns and stops going through all her stuff. “I’m going to need to buy luggage before I head back to New York.”

“We’ll get you some.”

She glares at me. “Stop spending your money on me. It’s bad enough you’ve thwarted my ability every time.”

I wave her off. “You mind sitting down with me?”

She holds my eye contact for a long moment and then drops her bag and heads over to me. We sit down on the bed together and I realize I need to be facing her. I grab a chair and sit down in front of her.

“I’m nervous. Is it going to be bad?”

“I don’t know. I guess it’ll depend on how you feel about everything I’m about to tell you.”

“Fair enough. Just pull the band-aid off. Get it over with. I hate surprises.”

I take a deep breath and launch into it. “You know how the guy shifted into a dragon on the morning show a while back?”

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