Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 119764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
I repeat it and wait for the next word. When she flips the picture-glyphs again, though, she makes a strangled sound and flicks past the next page. That makes me curious, and I grab her hand, stopping her before she can move past. I take the pages and turn them back to the one she skipped past.
It is a glyph of two humans with their lips pressed together.
She pushed her lips on Ribbit once. This is something humans do regularly, then? I point at the picture, asking for the word. “Dakotah?”
Her scent changes to one with a tinge of nervousness. “Issakiss,” she says. “Kiss.”
“Kith,” I repeat. “Kith…bad?”
She’s startled by my question and babbles off a bunch of sounds, too quick for me to follow. Normally she makes her mouth sounds slower but she’s clearly nervous. Why are mouths pressing bad? She did it with her daughter. The humans in the glyph look quite happy.
“Kiss good,” she says finally, then shakes her head as if denying this.
I am even more confused.
She notices my confusion and puts her hand in a fist, then presses her lips to the back of her hand. She makes a loud smacking sound. “Kiss.”
But… I hold the picture up, pointing at the other person. It is people putting lips on people, not people mouthing their hands. “No?”
Her face gets red and she seems flustered. “No.”
I eye the picture again, wondering if I am misunderstanding it. Perhaps the humans are feeding one another, like a mother bird does to a baby bird.
Dakotah takes the pictures from me and flips through the pages. She finds one that makes her happy and shoves it under my nose, her tone bright. “Sun!”
I am rather suspicious of this mood, but if she will not tell me, how can I ask? I don’t have the words for it. “Sun,” I say grudgingly, and try to determine what the spiky yellow ball on paper is.
CHAPTER 20
DAKOTA
My heart is fluttering hard as I finish off the lesson and decide to find other things to do. I’m flustered, thoughts racing, as I get up with a burning need to suddenly rake the ash out of our firepit. “So busy,” I say to no one at all. “So very busy.”
I can’t stop thinking about kissing.
Specifically, about kissing Murr. Like, that shouldn’t even be on the list of things in my mind, and yet my brain keeps circling back to it, over and over again, like an itch that just can’t be scratched.
I should not want to kiss a dragon. Ten years of a world-ending apocalypse has taught me that dragons are the enemy. Dragons are bad. I’ve seen people burned alive by dragonfire. I’ve seen dragons snap up people and eat them like they’re chicken nuggets. Dragons have been terrifying creatures ever since they came through the Rift, and they’ve destroyed everything in their path.
Doesn’t matter that things have been quiet for the last six months. Doesn’t mean things won’t go back to shit again very soon.
Just because Murr has been nice and kind to us doesn’t mean he deserves to be kissed. Him being curious about kisses doesn’t mean he deserves to be kissed. The fact that his features in his human form are strikingly attractive doesn’t mean I need to put my lips on them.
I need to remember how bad things have been in the past. They’re good now, but that can change all too quickly. I need to somehow communicate to him that kisses are things that only happen between two consenting adult partners. If I kiss him, is he going to think it’s okay to kiss Rabbit next?
Because absolutely fucking not. I will put a crossbow bolt in his big dangly dick if he even tries something like that, red meat or no red meat.
It’s just best that kisses don’t happen at all, I tell myself. It’s safest for all parties.
I’m not going to think about how hard he stared at my mouth, his lips parted, as if he wanted to see what I felt like. I’m not going to think about how it’s been over seven years since I’ve had sex. I have a toy hidden in the depths of my bag if I get lonely enough, and surviving takes precedence over horniness more often than not.
The apocalypse has taught me that I don’t need a man. That they just complicate things.
I sure don’t need a dragon.
CHAPTER 21
DAKOTA
The next day’s weather dictates our actions. It’s rainy outside and cold, a sign that the weather’s changing. There are leaves littering the parking lot outside, and I’m dreading the winter. Texas winters are always mild compared to a lot of states, but they still get colder than I’d like, and it makes survival that much harder every day.
Luckily for us, we have a nice building to shelter inside. Even if we can’t make a fire indoors—and won’t, because I don’t want to risk it—being out of the wind and elements makes the chill tolerable. I put on my thickest sweater over my clothing and double up my socks. Rabbit is still wrapped in her blankets, sitting next to an open space on the floor near one of the windows. She’s working on a puzzle she found near the back of the store, and one of the cats is in her lap. One of the black cats has attached itself to her and goes with her everywhere, and it both warms my heart and scares me. If we have to leave the cat behind, she’ll be devastated.