Time to go home, back to Fort Dallas.

If Kael just wants a sexual plaything, he’ll have to look elsewhere. I shudder again, remembering the feel of those hot fangs burying deep in my throat. Funny how movies always made vampire bites look sexy. Clearly no one writing those scripts has ever been bitten in the throat before, because that shit’s not fun at all. Even now, the wound feels hot and achy. So does my pussy, but…for entirely different reasons.

I have to leave before Kael returns to his senses. I need to get back to Fort Dallas and the safety of its car wall and the concrete barriers. There, I’ll be safe from the attentions of a too-amorous dragon that likes to bite when he orgasms. I shove at his body, suddenly furious. I’m not sure if I’m mad at him for being a dragon and therefore not as human as I’d like, or if I’m mad at the Fort Dallas militia who left me out here to die and told me to tame him. Or if I’m mad at myself for getting into this situation.

Probably all of the above. Doesn’t matter, though. I’m going to let that anger fuel me and get me out of here. With small, wiggling motions, I manage to shift his weight to one side, and from there, it’s simply a matter of rolling his big, heavy body over.

He flops onto his back, and I study him. Kael’s face is peaceful, his mouth slightly parted as if he’d thought about kissing me a half-second before I koshed him on the head. His cock is still semi-hard, and gleams, wet with the after-effects of our lovemaking.

No, it was sex, I mentally correct myself. All the ‘loving’ went out the door when he bit the crap out of me. I get to my feet and step over his big, sprawled body and glance at my reflection in the mirror. My neck is bright red and angry where he’s bitten me, the two deep punctures spaced a fair distance apart on my skin. I run a hand over the wound, wincing. It’s swollen and feels hot to the touch.

Did he poison me? Fucking great. I turn and glance down at his fallen body, torn between the urge to kick him in the jimmy for being such a jerk and the urge to pick him up and snuggle up against him. I must be really fucked in the head to even think about the latter, but the urge is still there.

I step over him and leave the bathroom. I lock the door behind me and then realize how stupid that is. He can just crash through a wall or fly out the hole in the ceiling. I can’t lock him anywhere he can’t get out, so I need to be fast and smart.

I head for the emergency exit stairs. If I run hard, I might be able to make it back to Fort Dallas by nightfall. I’ll have to knot my torn-up janitor’s jumper again so I’m not naked, but it’s do-able. Today’s not a dragon-attack day, so I should be safe.

Please, just let Kael stay asleep until I get home.

If I’m not inside the walls of Fort Dallas by the time he wakes up, I’m screwed, in more ways than just one. I think of the bite that came at the end of sex—and the hot wash of his semen inside me—and shudder. Not again. The thought spurs my weary, trembling legs as I race into the main room, snatch up the tattered remnants of my jumper, and then gallop down the nearest stairs. I can rest when I’m safely back in my own bed.

This will all be over soon.

17

CLAUDIA

I should have looked for better clothing, I tell myself as I pull open a bent car door and slip between two fused Oldsmobiles that make up a portion of the Fort Dallas barricade. The jumper I re-snagged stayed knotted for about a hot minute and then ended up falling to pieces more than before. At this point, I’m strolling into the streets of Fort Dallas buck naked, covered in scratches and filth, and smelling like dragon sex.

But at least I made it home. Beating Kael back to the city had been the most urgent priority, and if that means parading around naked and getting scratched up in the process? I’ll do it again in a heartbeat. There’s no one out in the Scavenge Lands but me, anyhow.

It’s been a long fucking day, but it’s nearly over. I hope.

I’d spotted a red dragon in the skies not ten minutes after I’d left Kael behind. I’d hidden, terrified that it was going to somehow see me. My mind was full of Kael’s fight with the other gold and how quickly he’d torn the throat out of his opponent. The last thing I need is to be claimed by another dragon while fleeing the current one. I’d huddled inside an old dumpster, not caring that it reeked of old filth and the stench was overpowering in the midday sun. Didn’t matter—it was safe. Well, safe-ish. I doubt I’ll ever feel completely safe again. But after an hour passed and there’d been no more dragon sightings, I’d abandoned my hiding spot and continued toward Fort Dallas, constantly looking over my shoulder for wings of gold.

But the skies remained clear.

And now night is falling, the skies dark purple with twilight, and I can see the small home fires burning inside Fort Dallas. It’s a relief, and I know out there that maybe Amy and Sasha are warming their hands at one of them. I press inside the barricade, wiggling my way through the familiar hidey-hole that I’ve escaped out of dozens of times on scavenge runs. Every good scavenger has their own secret way to get around the guards at the gate, and this one is mine. I make my way through the back seat of the car and land in a narrow-crawl space between a crumbling brick building and an old, trash-filled alley used for black market dealings, a bit off the main roads. No one is out, and that’s good. People tend to congregate near fires after dark or hide inside their homes. Works for me. No one will see me pull a Lady Godiva act through the city.

Which is good, because I’m tired, achy, and cold. The wound in my throat throbs with uncomfortable heat, and it makes me worry. Are dragon bites infected? To think that I’d kissed Kael.

To think that I’d wanted to kiss Kael. That I’d craved him. Hell, that I’d pursued sex, even after he was ready to back off. I must be crazy.

I keep to the shadows, making my way through the hodgepodge of streets that make up the shanty town of Fort Dallas. The small ‘house’ I share with Amy and our friend Sasha is located in the poorest part of town, which means it’s toward the center of the city, where people are the least protected from dragon attack. The outskirts—and the old parking garage that contains all the important buildings like the militia barracks and the jail—are where people are safest, but you need money or power (or both) to get a place like that. I have neither, so we live in the back half of an old school bus in an abandoned parking lot surrounded by others who have just as little money and protection.