The Dragon’s E-Mail Order Menage

Chapter 7

“Hey man, what the hell is with you? You’re walking around like you’re sleepwalking. Everything okay?”

“Sure, why wouldn’t it be? I’m just taking it all in. You know I love this place, man. I like the way I feel here. It gets inside of my blood.”

“Is it bothering you? I know sometimes it gets you a little bit down, even though you love it. Not that I blame you. Sh*t, I don’t think I’d handle it half as well as you are. I don’t take kindly to being ignored.”

“No sh*t.”

“Okay, I know, I’m a brat. But for real, you okay? You just seem kind of far off. Like your mind is working on something that’s giving you some trouble.”

“Nah, I’m just watching her. Look how happy she is!”

“I know, right? Like a fu*king kid in a candy store. I knew she’d like it here. Sh*t, how could she avoid it? Especially her being a dragon, just like us. I defy you to find me a dragon shifter that wouldn’t go ape-sh*t over this view and we aren’t even to the top yet.”

Levi watched Maggie climbing over the bizarre red rocks with the exuberant energy of a child and Hudson stood just behind him, finding it impossible not to follow the sweet sight with his own eyes. Levi was right, Maggie looked like she was completely over the moon.

He had a feeling he was seeing her now for the first time, really seeing her. He hadn’t really given it much thought (and he was more than a little ashamed to admit that to himself), but she had probably been flailing a bit since coming to live with him and Levi.

Sure, the house was extravagant and impressive, it alone enough to keep a person occupied for a good long while, but had either he or Levi ever actually stopped to talk to her about what her transition was like? How it was going? He didn’t think so. He had talked to her some about her family, both before they met and after their rather tumultuous official beginning, but that didn’t necessarily mean all that much.

He knew she had a large family, knew her parents sometimes drove her up the wall, but he didn’t know the stories she kept close to her in her heart, the stories that could very well keep her up at night when she found herself alone in her large, impersonal bedroom that might as well have been in her own apartment for its size and isolation from the rest of the house.

They had given her that on purpose, talking it over for hours and deciding that giving her that kind of privacy would probably be what was best for her. He wasn’t sure though, and looking at her now he was becoming aware of just how unsure he was. Because now she looked like a wild animal finally let out of her cage. Her brilliant wild hair, tied up on top of her head in a messy bun when this whole hike had gotten under way, now looked like a halo of fire framing her head like she was some kind of angel in a painting done long, long ago.

Her face was flushed and her eyes flashed with pure joy and something more primal. He could see her taut muscles moving just beneath the surface of her black yoga pants (and god bless the person who invented those) and her pert bre*sts bouncing beneath an old, worn t-shirt. He could feel his member stirring against his leg, which wasn’t exactly surprising. He had been half-way aroused ever since that brief but still mind-blowing kiss she had given him. But it wasn’t just the physical aspect of her. It was all of her, the things he had learned already and the things he still had to look forward to. She was perfect, more powerful in more ways than he believed she could possibly know; than any of them could yet know.

Levi had definitely been right about bringing her here. He had been right about bringing all of them here. Hudson didn’t exactly believe in the things the feral shifters seemed to, the ones who believed the tent rocks were some kind of mystical mecca that would give them something nothing else could, but he did know that there was something special about the place. That much was just true. He thought that even normal humans felt that.

He could see it in the difference between the looks on their faces on their way up and on their way down. He could see it in the way their shoulders ceased to hunch up, in how they walked hand-in-hand instead of closing themselves off. But for shifters it was more than that. Hell, maybe there really was magic in this place. Maybe that was why he felt his blood rushing through his veins like a train barreling down the tracks, why he felt like all of his senses were on steroids, on a hyper-drive that couldn’t quite exist anywhere else.

Maybe that was why he had done it. Maybe that was why he had opened up to her about things he had never spoken of to another living soul. Even Levi. He had lived with Levi for years, spent the formative years of his life and thought of his family (as screwed up and dysfunctional as they were), and he hadn’t even discussed what had happened to him with them.

They knew the basics that a ranger had found him in the tent rocks without a family, but he had never said a word about it to any of them. But then there was Maggie, who hadn’t known for any amount of time at all compared to the other people he had in his life, and he had told her his story of origin. He didn’t regret it, not in the least, but it did throw him off.

It was an amazing feeling to be able to do a thing like that, but it was also fu*king terrifying. He guessed that revealing yourself to a person was always a scary thing, but knowing that and going through it himself were two different animals completely.

“Yo! You turn into a statue? Seriously dude, what are you doing?”

“Yeah dude, what are you doing?”

Hudson and Levi both looked at Maggie in shock and then bust out laughing. This wasn’t any small kind of laughter, either. This was the kind of laughter that came from deep inside of his belly and made him feel almost dizzy, but in a good way. Like the fun part of being drunk without all of the nasty things that came along with it.