Garen chuckled a little bit, shaking his head and then nodding as if he didn’t exactly know either. “I’m stronger,” he said then simply. “It’s hard to explain. I have more energy, more resistance, more stamina…”
“I don’t have much experience, but it sounds like you’re describing a D&D character.”
He made a face. “Well. Think about what one of those Ds stands for.”
I smiled at him. “And I turned you into that?”
He nodded. “You continue to,” he replied. “Every time we make love, every time we spend time together, doing things that make us both happy. We have a bond, Tatyana. You might not be able to feel it yet, but I certainly do.”
I thought about it. “Whenever you’re not around, I feel this emptiness that I can’t explain,” I confessed. “And whenever you’re with me, I feel almost carefree. Except when I definitely need to care about things, obviously. But when you’re around, I don’t feel so… lost.”
Garen smirked one of his patented sexy smirks. “That’s what I’m talking about. Exactly.”
I cuddled against him, petting his thick, dark chest hair and feeling a sense of yearning for him that I couldn’t hope to put into words. At least not at that moment. “I don’t know what I’d do if someone killed you,” I said.
“Now you know how I feel about you,” he said back.
God. He always has a response ready. I smiled at him a little. There was another word for what I felt when I was with him, in spite of everything that had come to pass.
I felt safe with him.
Chapter 10: Uncertainty
Even though Garen and Brock swore up and down that it wasn’t necessary, I finally convinced them to both see a doctor about their wounds from the fight with Sam and his goons. I knew that they were big, tough dragon men, but I thought that even big, tough dragon men could get infected, or any other horrible type of illness from not treating gashes and scratches. If a cat scratch could kill a person, who knew what a dragon scratch might be able to do?
Garen ended up proving his Black Dragon Strength™ to me by coming home with a completely clean bill of health. “I told you that you make me stronger,” he said, giving me a snarky sort of smirk. I knew that he was being playful, but I was a little bit annoyed at how cocky he could be, especially because he wouldn’t be that way were it not for me.
“I’m glad that you’re okay,” I said to him sincerely. “But I still think you should take it easy and try not to stir up any trouble when you’re back at work.”
Now that I knew his ‘work’ mainly involved dragon fights such as that one, I knew that I’d be worried about him all the friggin’ time. As if I wasn’t already always pining for him to return safely home each work day. I didn’t know how I was supposed to live like that long term. It still felt like too much for one person to take.
Brock, on the other hand, needed a bit of extra care from the doctor. It turned out that I was correct in my prediction that one of them might become infected. “The doctor just wants to keep him overnight,” Garen informed me after boasting about himself. “You were right to worry, though. The doctor said basically the same thing you said.”
Now it was my turn to smile smugly, even though I felt like crap about poor Brock. He hadn’t even done anything, and those assholes had attacked him. “I think that whatever you pay him and Ash, you need to double it,” I said. “I know they may refuse it, but you’ve got to make them take it. They are literally working themselves to near death all of the time.”
Garen didn’t argue with me, which made me feel proud. For once, I got to boss him around. That was one of the powers that I wielded, and I decided that I was going to wield it more often now that I’d witnessed more of the way that dragons behaved and dealt with their enemies. I didn’t mean to nag, but I wanted everyone to be safe and smart.
That was one reason that I couldn’t turn my back on these guys now, even if sometimes I really did still want to. I had no business being with them. I didn’t know what I was doing, and the whole not-being-safe business was driving me crazy.
Garen and I ended up spending the rest of the week inside his cold stone mansion watching movies on the large TV in the den. As soon as Brock was well enough, he went on a minor shopping excursion in order to bring us back some replacements for the clothing we’d lost. I was most excited about the soft, snuggly pajamas. It wasn’t as cold in Chicago as it was in Whitefish, but it could get super cold in that cavernous mansion, especially when I didn’t have my dragon boyfriend there to warm me up.
I wasn’t happy about it, but Garen had to go back to work at the end of the vacation—or staycation—week. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do without you here with me,” I opined to him while he got dressed for the office at the crack of dawn. Normally, I stayed prostrate in bed while he prepared to leave, but today was not one of those days. I wished that I could prevail upon him that staying with me was the best way for him to keep me safe, but he made the equally persuasive argument that his going to work meant that he kept more of the bad dragons away from me entirely.
“They can’t come after you if I kill them first,” he pointed out.
Such violence.
I delighted Garen by walking with him to the front of the hall, still not daring to go all the way to the front door just in case. “I’ll miss you,” I said to him, giving him a farewell kiss.
“I’ll miss you more,” he replied, smiling at me.
He was so handsome. But I didn’t think there was any way that he could possibly miss me more.
As soon as he left the mansion, I felt the usual sadness slowly envelope me. When Garen wasn’t there, this depression overpowered me and I couldn’t focus on anything other than my own helplessness. As it turned out, trying to push myself back into my studies didn’t help with this, either. The words in my textbooks were entering my brain all jumbled, and the class discussions made no sense.
Then it dawned on me that I’d been absent a week, and I needed to catch up before I could proceed with the lessons as scheduled.
Whew. For second I was worried that I was having a stress stroke. Is that even a thing?
For a change of pace after spending hours in the den, I went up the steps and down the hall to the kitchen to see how Brock was doing with his newspaper-reading.
Instead, I found Ash sitting there on the stool at the breakfast bar. He wasn’t even reading a newspaper.
“You’re not Brock…” I said to him slowly, confused that he’d decided to take the inside duties for the day. This means that Brock is flying around up there with a septic stomach, I thought, imagining briefly that I was some kind of doctor, and not just someone who’d seen a few too many medical dramas.
“No, I’m not,” Ash said to me flatly. He stared at me blankly and I recalled how much I’d often felt like he just straight-up hated me for no reason whatsoever.
I cleared my throat a little, trying not to lose my temper with him merely for being there instead of the other servant. “Why did you and Brock switch places today?” I asked as evenly as I could.
He shrugged one shoulder. “He asked me to,” he said. “He said that he wanted to stretch his wings and that it would be good for his physical therapy. It’s insane what happened to you guys up there.” Ash shook his head.
Really? He cares?
“Yeah, it was,” I said, suddenly realizing that I was absolutely shit at small talk. “Well, I just came up here for a breather from my work. It’s not good to stare too long at a laptop screen or words in general. I think I read that once.”
Ash surprised me by laughing a little at that. It wasn’t loud and it wasn’t for long, but he did do it. And it felt more gratifying than it probably should have to me. “I bet it was beautiful there, though,” he said after a few moments of awkward silence. “I’ve never been to Montana. I’ve heard it’s pretty cold.” He made a face like that was distasteful.
I nodded. “It was lovely,” I told him.
“We had a nice cabin right by Whitefish Lake. It didn’t snow, but it always kind of felt like it might start any moment. We caught some trout and ate it for lunch… I wish we could’ve stayed longer. It sounds kind of lame when I describe the few things we did.”
Ash looked at me—a real, genuine look this time—and smiled. He was actually kind of cute when he smiled and stopped being such a sourpuss. “It doesn’t sound lame to me,” he said.
When Garen came home from work that afternoon, I was eager to tell him about the new friend I’d made at long last. “He just kind of sat around all day. He didn’t even read. I think he was pretty bored. But when we talked, I think he felt better.”
“I think he felt left out,” Garen said. “We should give him a chance next time.”
I decided not to fight him on it this time. Really, I shouldn’t have a favorite servant. What am I, five? They both work their asses off keeping us safe and everything. He’s always on patrol duty; that definitely doesn’t mean that he has no interest in me. Quite the opposite.
Still, I couldn’t say that I wasn’t relieved when Brock resumed his inside duties the next day.
Little by little, returning to my schooling became easier, too. I got my focus and enthusiasm back, and I was able to catch up with all of my reading and discussion assignments so that I wasn’t trailing miserably behind everyone else. “This would be easier if I had my laptop, though,” I whined to no one. There wasn’t anyone in the den with me, though that didn’t mean that Brock hadn’t heard me. For all I knew, he had supersonic hearing. The full range of dragon powers still eluded me.
One evening, Garen returned home from work a little later than he usually did. I rushed out of the den and into his arms like some kind of puppy. “Sorry I’m late,” he said at once. “I had a lot of meetings, which will come as no surprise to you. But I do have a surprise for you…”
He set his briefcase down on the breakfast bar and I thought for a moment that the surprise was inside his suitcase. “Did you bring me back a card or something? A coloring book? You know I get bored…”
Garen chuckled deeply, shaking his head. “Not even close. Well, a teensy bit close. But you’re not going to guess it based on those clues.”
I tried to think harder, but my brain was so fatigued from reading essays about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “I don’t know,” I said. “Something that can fit inside your briefcase?”
“What?” he asked, seeming surprised. Then he looked down and noticed that he’d placed his case down as if it was an important piece of the puzzle. “Oh. No. Sorry. I’ll give you a hint: Brock’s bringing it for me. It’s not on me right now.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re being so secretive,” I said. “I wish you’d just tell me.”
“I thought you liked surprises!”
He laughed, shaking his head at me as I pretended to pout at him. I spend all of my time alone in this drafty old house with Thing One or Thing Two. The least he could do is let me in on his secrets.
“Sorry,” I said then. “I guess I’m just feeling grumpy because I missed you. I feel like I always miss you.”
Sometimes I thought that getting myself some kind of pen pal might be a good idea. The trouble with that was the inevitable but I can’t trust anyone problem. It wasn’t safe to write to strangers because if I wrote to a bad one by mistake, I could end up endangering us all. There really was too much pressure on me. I knew that it didn’t compare to Garen’s life, but it still sucked.
“Another hint?” Garen asked me then, when I’d just stared at him in blank frustration for long enough. “You had one before, but not for very long…”
“A life?” I blurted out without thinking.
He looked at me sadly. “Aww, you have a life. This surprise will probably help you feel better about it, though. In fact, I know it will, based on the reaction you had when I gave it to you last time.”
Suddenly, it dawned on me. “A laptop?”
Garen beamed. “Ding, ding, ding!” he exclaimed.
I guessed that that was Brock’s cue because he came inside right after Garen’s exclamation. He was carrying a big, black bag. “Wait, is it a laptop or is it porn?” I joked.
I guess those two things aren’t entirely unrelated.
“For being such a good sport with all of the shit that’s been coming your way,” Garen said, as Brock gently placed the bag down on the floor in front of me. It stood up on its own, which let me know that there was a box inside. “May this help you get your journalism degree and keep you sane when you’re feeling lonely.”
My eyes got a bit teary just hearing him say that. It proved that he’d been paying attention, both to how I’d been feeling about living in the mansion, and to my dreams for the future.
I reached down into the bag and gently pulled out a big, black box. There were no words or logos on it. “This is very strange,” I said with a smile. “Did you guys get me some hipster dragon brand of laptop?”
Garen beamed a little. “Maybe.”
“Oh my god.” I rolled my eyes at him.
I opened the box to reveal another black laptop that matched the first one he’d given me exactly. “Thank you, Garen,” I said to him with sincere appreciation. I carefully set it down in my stool so I could go over and hug him. “Now, even if I can’t be mobile out of the house, I can at least be mobile in the house! I can take it on the toilet!”
Brock laughed, shaking his head. “You sure did pick a weird girl, Master,” he said.
It actually made me happy to hear him say that because he didn’t used to speak so freely. When we’d met, he’d been such a strict-seeming dude. Just like Ash.
“I didn’t pick her,” Garen corrected him, smiling lovingly at me. “We picked each other. As the prophecy predicted.”
As sweet as that sentiment was, I wasn’t sure how true it was. I definitely hadn’t chosen this life for myself, and I’d been dragged into Garen’s room to be with him that first time. None of it had been about my choice. But that was something that I didn’t think it would be wise to discuss in front of the servants. There wasn’t any way that they would understand where I was coming from. They didn’t really know my story the way Garen was slowly starting to. They were Believers who thought that Garen and I were joined together to save the world from extinction. It would be unwise to seem like I was wavering on that, even though I totally was.
After doing my share of gleeful dancing around about the laptop, I went ahead and safely placed it on the table in the den where it belonged. It was mobile, sure, but I had a study space.
I realized after that discussion that I desperately needed to talk to Garen about my mental state and my views on things. He went up into the bedroom to change out of his work suit and into his relaxation suit—they were basically the same black suit and green tie combo I’d come to know and feel okay about—and I decided to join him in there. Like a dork, I knocked first before entering the room.
“Hey,” I said. “I know this is kind of random, but I think we need to talk.”
Garen looked at me as he untied his tie. He looked sexy in his suit, minus its tie. It made him look a little looser and at ease, even if his hair was still carefully gelled into place. As if driven by compulsion then, I went across the room to him and placed my fingers into his hair, shaking it out into the way that I liked it. Spiky, but not held up by anything artificial. Bedhead. I thought bedhead looked cute on him, even if he thought otherwise. There were some things he could be wrong about.
“What do you want to talk about?” he asked me, sounding so confused and innocent. I could sense that he was letting his guard down with me, more than he ever had before our vacation together. He’d told me about himself and opened up. I had a feeling he didn’t do that sort of thing often. And ever since then, he’d felt more like he could be real with me. I liked that, and I didn’t want it to suddenly change now.
Now that I was having some reservations.
Again
.
“I don’t want you to think that I’m inconsistent or unreliable,” I began, feeling butterflies in my stomach like I was trying to ask him to a fucking dance or something else that was miniscule by comparison.
He shook his head at me, sinking down onto the bed while still dressed in his sexy, loose look. Ugh. He’s making this difficult, now.
“I don’t think that,” he said. “You can tell me anything. I trust you.”
Aaargh!
“Please don’t think that I’m not appreciative or that I don’t admire your work… or care about you,” I began. I took a deep breath. “But I just still don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if this is the life that I want for myself. This constant fear of being found. This inability to leave your fucking house.” I could feel my voice rising and quavering to an irrational degree as the emotions took hold. “I don’t want anyone to die protecting me. I don’t want to hurt anyone over some dumb prophecy. I don’t even believe in fate.”
Garen looked at me as if I’d just slapped him. He didn’t say anything at first. He just stood up from the bed and came over to me. “It’s okay,” he said after a few moments, wherein he looked sad, and I felt like completely worthless shit. “It’s a lot to expect of a person. It’s a lot to process and live with. Trust me, I know.” He sighed softly and ran his hands through my long hair, fluffing it up a little and then bringing me in for a hug. “You’ve probably noticed that this isn’t currently ideal for any of us,” he added.
I laughed a short laugh. “Yeah, no shit.”
“But please give me time to think about this,” he said finally. “There has to be a way for this to work out comfortably and happily, and safely. I just… I need more time.”
I looked him in the eyes. As much as I wished that I could just end it now, cut and run, there was no resisting those glowing green eyes or that handsome, chiseled face. As I looked at him, I realized that I didn’t have much to say. No, of course I didn’t plan on just leaving. I wasn’t going to abandon him. He was my boyfriend, and his servants were my friends.
Abducted By The Dragons: The Complete Series Page 17