Page 14 of Purring for Her Lion
“How does it work, then?”
I pull onto the road, considering. “Dragons form bonds. Complex ones. It’s not like a duckling imprinting on the first thing it sees.”
“So I’m not going to have a giant fire-breathing lizard following me around calling me ‘mama’?”
Despite myself, I snort. “No.”
“Weirdly disappointed about that,” she mutters. I can’t tell if she’s joking.
As we drive to her property, I plan. Calculate. Prepare for a situation I never expected in this quiet corner of the world.
I should contact the authorities. I should follow protocol. I should keep my distance.
Instead, I’m driving toward a dragon egg with a woman I barely know, already committed to seeing this through.
CHAPTER 5
LIANA
The truck joltsover a rut and I clutch the dashboard, heart pounding, mind spinning faster than the tires on gravel.
A dragon egg. A real one. On my property. The truth hasn’t sunk in yet—it’s like hearing the worst news of your life, except this is the kind that could set your whole world on fire. Literally.
I glance at Roarke, sunlight streaking through the windshield, catching in his golden fur. He’s all serious lines and focus, hands steady on the wheel. How the hell is he so calm? We’re driving toward a magical, possibly fire-breathing disaster, and he looks like he’s just running errands.
“So,” I say, voice a little too loud in the silence, “on a scale of ‘baby lizard’ to ‘call the National Guard,’ how worried should I be about this dragon situation?”
Roarke’s ear flicks. His version of an eye roll, I’m learning. “Dragons aren’t lizards.”
Of course that’s what he latches onto.
“Noted,” I say, fingers drumming against my thighs, nerves crackling. “But seriously. How much should I be freaking out right now?”
“Freaking out solves nothing.” His eyes never leave the road.
“Easy for you to say. You’re, what, seven feet of muscle and claws? I’m five-seven and mostly made of bad decisions and bread flour.”
His mouth twitches. Not a smile, but close.
We hit my property line, truck bouncing over the uneven dirt. My stomach lurches with every jolt. Part rough terrain, part the realization that my life is about to get even weirder. As if failing at chicken husbandry wasn’t enough.
I lead Roarke toward the back field, the treeline where I found the egg. The morning dew is gone but the grass is soft, cool underfoot. I glance back to make sure he’s following. I don’t need to. He’s impossible to miss, solid and silent behind me.
“It’s just through here,” I say, pushing past a tangle of overgrown brush. The clearing is unchanged—the egg still nestled in its hollow, the blanket I left fluttering in the breeze.
Roarke moves past me, fluid and sure. He kneels, peels the blanket away with careful hands. In the full daylight, the egg is even more magnificent. Dark green, speckled and gleaming, the surface iridescent, shifting as the sun plays over it.
“Beautiful,” I murmur.
Roarke nods, just once. He digs into his field kit, pulling out a thermometer and other tools I don’t recognize.
“Don’t touch it yet,” he says without looking up.
I freeze, arms half-raised. “I wasn’t going to…okay, I totally was.”
He gives me a look. Then turns back to the egg, hands precise as he checks temperature, texture, something that makes one of his instruments glow blue.
“Is it healthy?” I ask, suddenly anxious. I shouldn’t care about a dragon egg, but I do.
