Page 57 of Training my Human

Maddox gaveme a toe-curling kiss before taking a blanket and pillow to sleep in the barn. Me, I sat upstairs watching television with Abaddon—who happily ate my share of the popcorn that Maddox brought. Along with the microwavable kernels, fresh from the store, Mads also supplied dinner from a local rib joint that included stuffed baked potatoes, coleslaw, a six-pack of beer, and a two-liter bottle of Fresca for Abaddon. Call it being overly cautious, but it wouldn’t hurt to eat things we knew hadn’t been tampered with.

Eleven came and barely even a yawn. At midnight, I went to bed and lay staring at the slanted ceiling. Eventually, I fell asleep to my first restless night. I kept waking up, frantic, until I felt Abaddon’s solid weight draped across me.

I roused well before dawn and was on my second coffee when Maddox joined us.

He took one look at me and said, “Looks like we both slept like shit.”

“Ya think?” I drawled, sipping my chest-hair-strength coffee.

“Should you be drinking that? I thought we were avoiding stuff in the barn in case it’s been contaminated.” He indicated my mug of java.

“At this point, I’d welcome a nap. More seriously, though, I don’t think it’s the food putting us to sleep. While tossing and turning, it occurred to me that we never eat the same thing every night. Not to mention, Abaddon sometimes eats a gazillion times his body weight, so how could someone put a sleeping agent in our food without causing harm?”

Maddox pursed his lips. “Good point.”

“How did your night watch go?” I asked as I turned to the coffee maker to get him a cup.

“As far as I can tell, no one entered the barn.” He’d laid a noisy trap across the doors, cans that would have rattled if knocked over. “Have you checked the outside footage?”

I nodded as I handed him a steaming mug. “No time skips.”

To which Abaddon replied, “They must be aware that we’re wise to their tricks.”

“How?”

Before my paranoid dragon could reply, Maddox had a theory. “If they can tap into the camera feed to turn it off, then they could have seen me.”

Not exactly a reassuring answer, which caused me to grimace. “Meaning your stakeout last night might have been a waste of time.”

“Not really. We’ll just have to be wilier the next time.”

“Wilier how?”

Maddox had some ideas, and we implemented them over the next few days. He took an Uber to the ranch after dark and walked from the gate to the barn so his truck wouldn’t be seen and no one would know he’d come. We continued to only eat food freshly purchased from a restaurant or store. The door to the loft gained its own set of noisy dishes that would fall over the moment someone tried to swing open the door. We even disconnected the cameras one night so no one could spy at all.

To no avail.

No one visited and Abaddon didn’t incur any new injuries, and all of our noisy traps remained untouched—except for the night Princess knocked over the stack in the barn, startling Maddox awake.

After a week, I finally had to tell Abaddon, “I think we might have overreacted.”

“You would ignore the evidence?”

“What evidence? An injury that could have been because of your molting?” I stated as I put our dinner cutlery in the dishwasher.

“And the video that stops?” Little Fella reminded.

“I happened to mention it to Leo today, and he informed me that the cameras recently underwent maintenance and went offline to update some software.”

My dragon didn’t seem convinced. “My enemies are lulling you into a false sense of security.”

I slammed the dishwasher shut and started the cycle. “Or you’re letting your fear of capture color your perception.”

Not a reply he appreciated. “I’m going to practice flying in the barn.” He went to the computer desk and used his claws to tap a few keys, no longer needing me to turn off cameras or open doors. My growing dragon learned new skills at an insane rate.

I slumped on a kitchen stool, tired after a stressful week of waiting for something to happen. Maddox wouldn’t be swinging by tonight as he had an early shipment in the morning. You’d think I’d be happy to have some alone time, given he’d been around every single day.

Nope. I missed him terribly.

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