Chapter Six
J ulie’s heart thumped as she maneuvered her Ford Fiesta onto the highway, stealing glances at Sard’s imposing form crammed into the passenger seat.
His broad shoulders nearly touched the roof, and his knees pressed against the dashboard, yet he didn’t utter a single complaint.
The lack of his usual grumbling actually worried her.
“No, your salon was of great help to us. Your vivid colors enchanted many females and generated much goodwill for my dragons.” He frowned and examined his big, calloused hands.
“My family didn’t have much of an opinion about my ‘little hobby’ to start a clothier of Earth designs until I embarrassed them by losing to low castes. ”
She’d never really thought about it before, but all of Sard’s employees were male. Dragon society was matriarchal because female dragons were larger and could breathe fire. They also had social classes. Females were kind of exempt, but the males fought brutally for honor and recognition.
“We were the number one company outside Draconis for five years in sales volume and revenue. But one loss wipes out any accomplishment. The pressure on aristocrats is enormous. I don’t think low castes appreciate how hard it is for us, how painful it is to drop to second place.”
“Second place still sounds amazing.”
“But it’s not amazing enough.”
As the double lanes merged into a single lane, a black SUV zoomed up and tried to overtake them.
The line of cars in front of Julie slowed down, and she had to quickly press the brake, leaving no room for it to merge.
The SUV laid on the horn as it dropped back behind Julie, then swerved erratically in the single lane, gunning to tailgate her.
“Sorry, sorry,” she murmured, adrenaline pumping through her.
The big freeway barrier made it impossible for the SUV to pass on the left, and anyway, she was in a line of cars, so where was it going to go?
She’d love for it to get far away from her.
It edged toward the right shoulder like it was going to try to pass her that way.
“That’s dangerous. And illegal. I wish that car would just calm down and back off.”
“I understand.” Sard crunched a piece of brimstone candy, then unrolled his window and unsnapped his seat belt to lean his entire upper body out into the thunderous wind. “CEASE YOUR VEHICULAR AGGRESSION, INSIGNIFICANT SPECK! LEST I REDUCE YOUR PATHETIC CONTRAPTION TO A SMOLDERING HEAP OF SCRAP!”
Fire blazed over the roof of her car for emphasis.
The SUV swerved, nearly careening off the road before dropping well back.
Sard shimmied back into the passenger seat, clicking to roll the window back up, the scent of smoke and brimstone intensifying.
Julie gaped, then raised her voice over the whistling wind. “Did you just light my car on fire?”
“No, I avoided the paint.” Sard fastened the seat belt as the window closed with a pop. “Where was I? Ah, yes. All my employees share my pain. I am lucky not to be disowned as so many of my employees were, but it’s difficult to feel grateful for that at just this moment.”
“Ah…” Julie was still stuck on the flames she’d seen reflected in her rearview mirror and how he promised he didn’t melt the trim. “Huh.”
He looked out the passenger window. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It’s too depressing.”
She shook herself and offered him a bag from her snack stash. “Cheese puff?”
He inspected the bag. She expected some comment like Humans call this food? and she’d make a joke about how it was food adjacent and they’d both laugh, but instead, Sard just opened the bag and ate the whole thing.
“Save some room for dinner,” she said as he shook the crumbs into his mouth. “Although, I guess we have a few hours until we reach the roadside hamburger stand.”
“I can eat elsewhere.”
“My mom and I always stopped there. They have thirty flavors of milkshakes and amazing fries. It’s part of the ritual.”
“Ritual?”
“Of the road trip.” She told him about how every summer, her mom would take a week off work, and they’d travel up to visit her grandparents, who’d lost all their savings in bad investments and had moved into her great-grandparents’ falling-apart last-century family home.
“My uncle owns it now, but he only goes there for fishing a few times in the summer, so he lets me use it for vacation on other weeks.”
“You go fishing there?”
“No, I read books, toast marshmallows, and start puzzles I don’t have time to complete by myself. It’s lonely now that my mom’s gone, but still relaxing.”
Sard watched her.
Her face heated. “Oh, sorry. I can stop talking if you want.”
“No, it distracts me from unpleasant thoughts. Please continue.”
“It’s not too boring?”
“You are a fascinating woman,” Sard said without a hint of irony. “You could make inarticulate noises sound brilliant.”
She snorted. “You always do that.”
“What?”
“Make me feel like it’s okay to take up my own space.”
He cocked his brows. “Why would you not take up space? Humans can’t alter their own bodily mass.”
“I know, but some people make it a point to crush people as tiny as possible.”
Before Sard had crashed into the salon doors, she’d been made to shrink down and to be less. Less firm, less confident, less vivacious.
The hours flew by.
Sard still had plenty of appetite for the hamburger stand, where he polished off his first deluxe cheeseburger, fries, and a raspberry shake, while Julie had the grape flavor.
Every once in a while, he grew silent and introspected, but even in his subdued state, Sard’s presence filled the car with an electric energy that made her skin pinch, sensitizing for him.
His smoky scent, mingled with sweet candy, was oddly comforting.
He had often spent ten hours with her in the salon, but much of it had been spent pacing and screaming into his communicator-earpiece thing. Today, she got him all to herself.
They reached the old cabin in darkness. Sard offered to make a torch with his breath but she thought that would violate the burn ban. “It’s already a fire hazard, but I will never forgive you if you burn this place down.”
He helped her unload the car, hefting her suitcases and ice chest effortlessly and carrying almost everything in one trip. She organized the supplies as neatly as possible in the old cabin, then found him outside in the darkness, staring up at the stars.
“I shouldn’t have come,” he murmured. “It makes everything harder now.”
“Here?” she asked. “Or to Earth?”
“Hmm.”
She stood close beside him, basking in his warm radiance against the night chill. Despite being summer, in the mountains like this, it got pretty cold.
“There are so many worlds,” he continued without answering the previous questions. “Everything seems so far away.”
“That’s how we felt,” she agreed, watching the sky with him. “Only we also wondered if anyone else was out there or if we were all alone.”
He made a rumble deep in his chest. “If we were alone in the universe, there is only one thing I would do.”
Her mouth went dry. Silent signals passed between them. His eyes glowed red like gemstones, and they focused on her, bright with inner fire.
She swallowed in her dry throat. “What’s that?”
He cupped her cheeks, his huge hands gentle on her face, but his expression fierce and uncompromising. “Claim you.”?