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She wasn’t sure if he had found it or if he had given up when he turned back to the darkening plains with a sigh.
“You can curl up on the floor,” he said, moment later. “If you want to sleep.”
“Thank you,” she told him with real gratitude, scrambling to the floor of the sleigh right away. It would be easy to make a nest for her son among the furs.
“Hate to see you fall asleep and drop him out of the sleigh after you came all this way,” the soldier said dryly.
Was that a joke?
She snapped her head up to look at his face, but he was still staring stoically at the frozen ground ahead of him.
Maybe it was her imagination, but the corners of the right side of his mouth might have been curved up very, very slightly.
Too tired to think about it, she sank into the furs, curling her body around the baby in his little nest.
4
JHON
Jhon clucked to the lichen-deer as it pulled the sleigh right up to the doors of the inn, like it had been there before.
Which it probably had.
With few trained animals on the moon and only the one place to spend the night on this part of the tundra, it was likely the creature had slept here many times.
And its good-natured chuffing told him it was well-treated at the inn.
“Time to get up,” he said gruffly, nudging the pile of furs on the floor of the sleigh with his foot.
A moment later, a sleepy face popped up, framed by a tangled mop of brown hair.
“We’re here,” he told her.
Her scent was even more intense than before. Maybe the furs had dampened it, or the winds had been kind until now.
In any case, he leapt out of the sleigh and moved to her side, ostensibly to help her out, but more to get a breath of fresh air and convince himself and the dragon not to do anything stupid.
Claim her now, the dragon begged.
But that he would not do.
“Think you can get our room key?” he asked her. “It’s under the name of your agency.”
“Yes,” she said, “but…”
“But what?” he snapped.
“But I, uh, don’t have any money,” she said, looking down. “I mean, no local currency.”
Classic helpless Terran. She could have changed her Terran money at any outpost before flying here.
“Not to worry,” he told her. “It’s paid for already.”
“Oh,” she said, looking deeply relieved. “That’s good.”
She held the baby close to her chest as she swung down using the handle and dropped to the ground in a crouch, without taking his outstretched hand.
“I’ll just see to the stag,” he told her.
