Page 53 of Training my Human

To my surprise, after the second overnight visit, Princess stopped hissing at and stalking Abaddon. It might have had to do with the fact my dragon shared some of his treats. Apparently, Princess liked the smelly sardines Abaddon couldn’t get enough of. The turning point came when I emerged from the shower—with Maddox who’d joined me in the spacious stall—and found the cat splayed in front of Abaddon, getting her belly scratched by his claws.

I just about fell over in shock whereas Maddox snorted. “Well, would you look at that?”

When Princess heard her owner, she scrambled fast as her furry legs could move, trying to pretend she’d not been caught. Whereas Little Fella gave us an aloof toss of his head. “It is said that one should keep their enemies close.”

No one broke it to the dragon that he and Princess, despite their rough start, weren’t enemies. Let them keep pretending. At least I no longer worried as much about him eating the cat.

The only time we scrambled and hid Abaddon was when Leo would pop by for visits. Given the open plan of the apartment, soon as we heard a knock, Abaddon would scoot into the bedroom where he’d nestle in the walk-in closet with the tablet Maddox bought him.

As one week turned into two, I almost managed to forget what happened at my trailer. Even met with the guy selling the prebuilt home.

I almost let down my guard.

But all my worry came screaming back when Abaddon woke one morning and complained of a sore spot.

ChapterSeventeen

“Show me where it hurts,”I asked Abaddon, who kept turning in circles as if that would allow him to see the spot that bothered him.

He’d recently entered another molting stage, but, unlike the previous two, he barely ran a fever and remained alert. Then again, he’d been getting great sleep.

We both had.

Every night without fail, around eleven o’clock, my eyes would get too heavy and I’d barely manage to crawl into bed before passing out, sleeping right through until morning. Weird, because usually I only slept that deep after a big spliff and a few drinks. Then again, I’d never had such a comfortable bed to sleep in, and climate control. How nice to not wake up shivering because of an overnight frost or sweating because my trailer did nothing to stop heat or humidity.

Abaddon came to stand in front of me, a sturdy dragon who still fit in my lap, but I didn’t figure we had more than a few more months left before he got too big.

“Where is the ouchy spot?” I asked, eyeing his patchy scales. Part of his skin had flaked and showed his new layer of dark scales.

“It’s above my tail.”

I crouched down for a peek and noticed a small wound. “Looks like you scraped off a chunk of flesh when you were scrubbing your loose skin,” I remarked.

“I most certainly did not,” was his indignant reply.

“Your booboo says otherwise.”

“And how would I have done that when I can’t reach?” he argued.

“I don’t know.” I leaned closer and frowned at the missing section that formed a perfect circle.

“I was attacked in my sleep,” he announced. “Call my protector. Tell him he is to relocate here permanently to guard my rest.”

“Whoa, there, you can’t just tell Maddox he’s moving in.”

“Why not? He spends most nights here,” Abaddon reminded me.

True, still... “For one, you can’t order him to vacate his home because you hurt yourself. Two, he has a business to run. And third, we haven’t been dating long enough for us to be shacking up permanently.” I’ll admit, the third had more to do with me balking. I’d never lived with a guy before. This thing with Maddox where we spent every day at least partially together was the closest I’d ever gotten.

“Someone cut me in my sleep,” Abaddon insisted.

“Pretty sure you would have woken up if someone took a knife to you.”

“Not if I were drugged. Ever since we moved into this place, I’ve slumbered deeply and without interruption.”

“Sounds like a good thing,” I said even as I began to wonder about the fact that we both became comatose every night.

“Are you not listening? Someone attacked me. Perhaps it was that miscreant with the cage.”

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