Page 39 of That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Human
He took a deep breath. “Dante, my beautiful disaster of a friend, if you had called me earlier I might have been able to help you. As it stands, this dynamic is too twisted to continue. She’s scared, and she’s backed into a corner. Give her to Usha for a while and back off. Your wife will most likely find comfort in another human woman, and there’s no woman alive more fearless than the captain. Then, if she wants, Usha can take her home.”
“She doesn’t seem afraid of me,” I argued.
Felix shook his head solemnly. “She is going to say and do whatever it takes to not be crushed or eaten. At this point, it’s basically a hostage situation.”
“Dammit,” I sighed. As much as I was loath to admit it, Felix was making sense. Cherry wouldn’t even tell me where she lived. Nor did I know her last name. Those weren’t the actions of a woman unafraid of the man she was with.
Every instinct in me screamed to lock her away and never let her go. The last of my magic churned the clouds above the city. Ready to strike lightning down on anything that could take her away from me. Which was exactly what she was terrified of. I closed my eyes, steadied my breathing, and forced the clouds to stop churning.
“Fine,” I said, meeting Felix’s gaze. “I’ll bring her to you and leave. But if anything happens to her while I’m gone—”
“You have my word, she’ll be safe here,” Fallon cut in.
Felix let out a breath and smiled. “It’s not forever,” he amended. “She’s your fated mate after all. When the time comes, I have no doubt she’ll seek you out.”
Fallon scoffed. “He’s already bitten her. That much is a given.”
I nodded, bid them farewell and cut the connection. When the mirror’s image faded, I sagged into my seat. “It’s not forever,” I told myself. As a dragon, I had nothing but endless time. Centuries had come and gone without Cherry at my side. Yet now the years all faded into nothingness. When I thought about spending a day away from her, time seemed like an awful thing.
A hurried knock at the door pulled me out of my ruminations. The red orc I had tasked before stood on the steps with a stack of boxes in his hands. He set them down on the steps and lowered his head. “Here are the shoes you wanted, my Lord,” he stammered.
“You’ve done me a great service.” I reached into my pocket, pulled out a handful of gold coins and set them in his large hand. It had been a while since I had done any shopping myself, but the astonishment in his eyes told me the payment was sufficient.
“Holy shit!” he shouted, then hurriedly stuffed the coins in his pocket. “Is there anything else you need?”
“No, that will be all,” I said. With that, I gathered the boxes and returned inside. Far too exhausted to unbox them, I deposited them by Cherry’s door and lay down on the couch.
Without a sound, a kobold set a mug of coffee on the center table and scurried off. I heard the portal open once more before it fizzled with each kobold that passed through, then fell silent. I breathed a sigh of relief and finally allowed my eyes to close. When all else failed, at least I could rely on them.
The door to my wife’s bedroom creaked open. I turned to see a disheveled Cherry emerge. Her pigtails were half unraveled and bunched up around her neck. Her round face scrunched in irritation, then held a hand up to shield her eyes from the sunlight filtering through the window. She took a step forward and tried to brace herself against the door frame, missed, and fell flat on her face.
I held back a laugh as she whipped around to growl at the frame as if it was at fault for not anticipating her needs. Her scowl looked as if it had crawled its way out of the depths of the underworld to curse the door frame until it rued the day it had slithered its wretched little soul in front of her path.
In that moment I felt I could see into every facet of my wife’s mind. If she had the ability, and if door frames had complex enough lives to warrant a family who would love and miss them in the event of their demise, she would send pieces of its body back to them in a methodical pattern. Then make wine from their tears. Instead of ever entertaining the notion that she may have just not looked where she was going. I was both in awe of and in deep fear of her.
If this wasn’t love, it was damn close.
She gave the innocent wood a little kick and dragged herself toward me. Then her eyes zeroed in on the mug of coffee and she pounced.
“Good morning,” I said.
Her gaze flicked to me. “I will under no circumstances speak to anyone until I have finished this coffee.”
I had no desire to be added to her list of victims, so I remained quiet as she sipped. She let out a long, satisfied breath and sat down next to me. When the last drop of coffee slipped past her lips, she set down the mug and snuggled her small body against mine. Her sweet scent eased my frazzled senses. I put an arm around her waist and pulled her closer against me. When she didn’t pull away, the magic bond between us thrummed with satisfaction. “You’re rather affectionate this morning,” I remarked.
“Your stupid dragon slut magic demands physical touch. It’s been getting worse by the day,” she grumbled, lacing her fingers with mine. “Did you not sleep?” she asked. “You look like you’re held together by two strings and a ball of stress.”
“Accurate,” I admitted.
“Where are we?” she asked. “This doesn’t look like your castle.”
I stroked my thumb along her knuckles, relishing the small touch. “We’re in Kirkwall. I found us a house to rest in after you collapsed. The kobolds had just finished furnishing it before you woke up.”
“You bought a house?” Cherry’s brow furrowed as she looked up at me. “How in the world did you buy a house that quick? There’s no way I’ve been out for that long.”
“Bring enough gold to a bank and they’ll do anything with haste.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Why didn’t you just get us a room at an inn? I imagine that would be much cheaper.”
