Baby? I can hear his amusement, as clear as day. Is this like the pie thing you called me?

It’s a term of endearment.

To call me an infant?

Yup. Just roll with it.

I shall. My sweet, sweet infant of a mate. His lips brush over my forehead.

I laugh at that. Uh, not quite the same thing.

Our thoughts mingle pleasantly over small nothings as he holds me close. I keep smoothing my hands over his scorchingly warm skin, touching and comforting until he falls asleep. The moment he does, I extract myself from his grip and creep over to my journal.

Day One of Project Dakh’s Past, I write down. Drakoni. No longer lived in native lands. Spirits are drakoni. Mention of “warriors” in the past.

I make my notes and then close the journal, then tiptoe back into bed with him and rest my cheek against his chest. It’s a puzzle, and one I’m determined to figure out. If he can’t remember his past, maybe I can help him piece it together and we can figure out who he was and where he came from.

It might take a while, but we have nothing but time.

31

Day Three of Project Dakh’s Past. Not much progress. Today, when I teasingly challenged him to a duel over some sexy stuff, he laughed like it was the funniest thing ever and kept saying “where?” Maybe duels mean something else to drakoni? Maybe they have them in specific places? Things to ponder.

Day Six of Project Dakh’s Past. Saw me clipping my nails and was horrified. Said it’s a mark of shame for a drakoni. Weird.

Day Eight of Project Dakh’s Past. Red dragons overhead today as scheduled. I was worried, but he said they would ignore me because I wasn’t a threat. Not sure what the difference is between reds and golds?

Day Nine of PDP. Reds are apparently females and can smell that Dakh has a mate. Little weirded out at all the smelling going on. Makes me want to do laundry.

Day Eleven of PDP. Was having sex with Dakh and feeling naughty. Suggested he come on my face and he acted shocked and not in a good way. Guess drakoni don’t do that. Said I was his mate and “deserved” his seed. Oookay.

Day Fourteen of PDP. Memory really bad today. He’s resisting all attempts to answer my questions. Lots of ravens in his head. Poor thing.

Day Sixteen of PDP. Dakh is so sweet to me. It hurts when he hurts. Today we talked about family. I told him mine died in the riots after the Rift. He couldn’t remember his, and I could tell it bothered him. My poor Dakh. I do this journal for him.

Day Eighteen of PDP. Breakthrough? I hope! Dakh woke up this morning with a memory of mountains. He doesn’t remember much more than that, other than it was very warm and sandy. Sounds like a desert with mountains? I’m going to flip through the travel magazines and see if we can find something that matches his thoughts.

Day Twenty of PDP. Saw another dragon overhead, this time a gold one. Dakh says he didn’t know him, not like he knew Kael before. I wasn’t in danger from the dragon, but it bears to mind a question—if Dakh knew Kael and not this other, were there different groups of dragons? For some reason, I thought they were all together. Maybe not? All the dragons I’ve seen so far seem to be solitary creatures. Even Dakh’s quite happy to “nest” with just me.

Day Twenty-three of PDP. Emma’s suggested that I think about fantasy dragons and their habits and see if any of them apply to Dakh. She also asked if it was possible he came from an alternate universe, something very Lord of the Rings. It’s possible, but anything’s possible. I took a bunch of coins out of the old cash registers and some of the gold from the jewelry department and made a “treasure” bucket. Talked about it in front of Dakh and made a big deal about how valuable they used to be. He was more interested in having sex. So that’s a bust, though the sex was pretty awesome.

Day Twenty-four of PDP. Asked Dakh how he breathes fire. It seems to come from his gut, but it doesn’t burn his throat. He can flame on command and never runs out. Says it is something they achieve in a rite of adulthood. I’m fascinated at the thought, but he can’t tell me more than that. He gets a distracted look in his eye and his thoughts go murky. It’s almost like something on this side (aka Earth-side) is stopping him from thinking clearly.

Day Twenty-seven of PDP. No period. I panicked a little at that. I don’t know anything about half-drakoni half-human babies. Are we talking lizards? I suppose I should be glad they don’t get fire until adulthood, but maybe we need to think about condoms.

Day Twenty-eight of PDP. Nothing to do with Dakh’s past, but thought it was worth mentioning that the condoms here are all way out of date, and the moment they touch Dakh’s hot skin, they get brittle and break. So there goes that. Good news is that the pregnancy tests all say I’m negative. Unless they’re out of date, too.

Day Twenty-nine of PDP. Nope, not pregnant. Not sure how I feel about that. Kinda relieved but also kind of sad. Dakh is sad. It’s sweet that he wants to be a father, but I worry about bringing a child into a world like this. Plus, maybe it’s selfish, but I like it being just me and Dakh right now. Nobody to worry about but us.

Day Thirty-one of PDP. Dakh chased off another red dragon today. Said she was so crazed she didn’t even realize he had a mate. Whatever is in the air here that makes the dragons go nuts, it’s really bad for the reds. Remembering that the reds are females makes me feel a little weird, because I remember the dragon that attacked us back in the skyscraper was a red, and Dakh tore its throat out. He says she was going to challenge me for his attention, which I guess is a drakoni thing. Battles are very big for them. Females challenge other females for the right to approach a male, and then the female also challenges the male. It makes me wonder about their culture. What were they like in their human forms? Did they just go around challenging each other all the time?

Day Thirty-two of PDP. No written language for the drakoni, it seems. Dakh still finds it weird that I read “messages” in books. I asked him how they would get messages long-distance, and he said something that didn’t make sense. Said that it wasn’t necessary and they always answered “the call.” Whatever that means.