Page 33 of Kidnapped By The Messy Dragon

Something about Roland’s warning keeps itching at me. Halfway through check-in, I place it.

“Hey, Roland.” I cross the lobby and catch him before he’s out the door, Zuri right behind me. “I thought Derrick pulled allthat cleaning solution off the shelves. How’d you get ahold of some?”

Roland turns around. “There’s Stillwater dish soap at the town shopping center now. New bottle. Hand soap right next to it.”

Zuri’s gasp is loud in the quiet lobby.

“Oh, shit,” I say.

Roland nods. “I knew something was up with it. My mate started smelling off when she used it. Really off. It drove my dragon nuts.”

“I gotta get home,” he says, already pushing the door open. “That shit’s going straight in the trash.”

“Good idea,” I tell him.

He walks out trailing smoke, and the doors swing shut behind him.

Zuri steps in front of me. Her caramel has gone hot and urgent under the antiseptic sting of this place.

“Screw my face,” she says. “We gotta get back home and tell Malachi.”

I grin at her. “Home?”

She narrows her eyes at me. It’s too late for a take-back. I plan to be insufferable about this for the rest of our lives.

Then the itch flares at the root of my nose, deep down where fingers can’t reach. The sneeze cracks out of me, and the sound slaps off the lobby tile. Smoke pours off my nose and both ear points, and I taste hot metal all the way down my throat.

“No,” I say, waving my own smoke out of my mate’s face. “I told you already, you come first. And I need this sneeze under control before I lose it.”

She crosses her arms. “You first.”

We have ourselves a staredown right there in the lobby, my smoke still drifting between us. She doesn’t blink. My eyes arealready watering from the sneeze, which gives her an unfair advantage, and we both know I’m going to fold.

My dragon agrees.

14

ZURI

Iwin the staredown, which is how Jalen ends up on the paper-covered exam bed first while I get comfortable on the second one. I make sure he sees my smirk.

The doctor who comes in is a dragon too. She has the same pointed ears Jalen has, silver hoops climbing one of them, and her locs are pinned up out of her face. She introduces herself as Dr. Ayanna from the ridge clan.

Jalen sneezes into a fistful of tissues from the counter and wipes the smoke off his lip.

Dr. Ayanna doesn’t flinch. “You have to be the strongest case I’ve gotten all week,” she says. “The others were mild.”

“Let’s just say this is what being nosy is getting me,” Jalen says.

“Ahh.” She pulls a penlight from her coat pocket. “Still living up to the messy name, huh, Jay?”

He shrugs. “Can you please forget about me and check on my mate? My dragon wants to burn something.”

He calls me his mate so easily now. I smooth the exam paper under my palms and pretend the word doesn’t do anything to me.

Dr. Ayanna sighs at him and strips off her gloves. She washes and dries her hands at the little sink, then snaps on a fresh pair.

Her gloved fingers are cool on my sore cheek as she tilts my face toward the light. She frowns at the bruise.