Chapter 1319: Phei’s Little Sister

Phei immediately waved one hand. "No, no, that somehow made it worse. Forget I said anything. Gods, the longer I stay in this place, the more I forget Melissa’s lessons."

A low rumble rolled through the Dragon Lady’s chest.

Phei put one hand against his heart. "You know my Melissa taught me very clearly that there are two things a sensible man never calls a woman. Fat and old."

The Dragon Lady stared at him.

"And apparently large."

She started walking again.

Phei hurried after her for several steps before looking at her back. He could easily keep pace with True Void Steps, but that seemed terribly unnecessary when the most magnificent transportation in the entire Primordial Frozen Zone was walking directly beside him.

He glanced at the broad space between her shoulders: ’Would she let me mount her again?’

Phei froze. Wrong word.

Ride her?

’Yeah, even more worse.’

He rubbed his forehead.

"Gods."

The Dragon Lady released a long sigh.

Phei looked up.

Without even turning toward him, she lowered herself until her back came within easy reach... Phei slowly smiled: "You really do know what I’m thinking."

One icy eye rolled toward him.

"That is a horrible invasion of privacy, by the way. We’re discussing boundaries after we survive."

The Dragon Lady continued waiting.

Phei grinned. "Why, thank you."

Void folded around his body, and he disappeared from the ice before reappearing between the two familiar crystalline ridges along her back. He sat comfortably, rested one hand against a snow-white scale beside him and immediately felt something warm settle inside his chest.

This had become strangely natural.

Nearly a year ago, he had looked at the Dragon Lady and seen something enormous, wounded and mysterious, a beautiful creature he barely understood and had every reason to fear. Even after freeing her, he had watched her carefully. He had followed her, studied her moods and learned which sounds meant anger and which meant simple annoyance.

Learned how close he could approach before she became uncomfortable and when to leave her alone.

Somewhere during those months, all that caution had disappeared.

Now he sat on her back with his legs resting comfortably against scales harder than diamonds and felt no more fear than he would have sitting beside Maddie at breakfast.

Actually, Maddie might be more dangerous at breakfast if someone touched her dessert.

Phei smiled and slowly rubbed his palm across the scale beneath him: "You know something?" The Dragon Lady’s ear shifted. "I think I’m going to treat you like my little sister from now on."

Her head immediately turned enough for one eye to become visible.

Phei laughed. "What? You don’t like that?"

A pulse of displeasure travelled through their Soul Bond.

"The little part?"

Another pulse.

Phei nodded thoughtfully. "Understandable. Very sensitive subject."

The displeasure strengthened.

"Fine. My Dragon sister."

That earned a slightly better reaction.

Phei’s smile softened.

"I never had one, you know."

The Dragon Lady slowed.

Phei looked down at the glittering scales beneath his hand. "A little sister. Not really."

He had family now. More family than he sometimes knew what to do with, if he was being truthful. Women who loved him, people who protected him, people he wanted to protect even harder, cousins who turned into his women, mother-in-laws who were also his women and a Mother in every emotional sense that mattered and relationships complicated enough to make a family tree surrender and become a forest.

But the feeling sitting beneath his hand now was different.

The Dragon Lady had somehow slipped into a place he had never realized existed.

She was powerful enough to flatten cities when she fully revealed her full form, proud enough to glare at him for calling her large, ancient enough compared with ordinary humans to make the phrase little sister sound ridiculous and yet, to Phei, there was something unmistakably younger about her. Something that made him want to tease her, annoy her, spoil her, protect her and occasionally remind her that she was not allowed to throw herself into suicidal battles simply because anger told her to.

It was irritatingly similar to how he imagined having a younger sister would feel.

Except his little sister could breathe frozen death and probably eat a mansion.

Phei liked that part.

His fingers moved between the edges of two scales, careful despite knowing he could probably strike them with a hammer and achieve nothing except embarrassing himself.

"I assure you, I take care of mine."

The Dragon Lady’s steps slowed again.

"I mean family. My family."

Something warm crossed their Soul Bond.

Phei felt it and smiled: "You’re a good one, Dragon Lady."

Her tail moved once behind her.

"I really hope we become a proper family after all this."

The warmth strengthened.

Phei leaned forward until part of his chest rested against one of the raised scales along her neck.

"And when we get home, I’m spoiling you."

The Dragon Lady glanced backward.

"Yes, home. Wherever I am living eventually. You’re coming with me." Her gaze lingered. "No arguments."

The Dragon Lady snorted.

"That sounded like an argument."

Another snort.

Phei laughed. "You’re already acting like a real little sister. Excellent progress."

Her tail whipped sideways hard enough to smash through an enormous pillar of ancient ice; the pillar exploded into glittering fragments.

Phei stared at it and looked forward again. "I’m going to assume that was unrelated."

The Dragon Lady walked on.

Phei’s grin refused to leave.

He began imagining it properly now, her outside this place, far away from the abyss and the Zone Lord; Maddie seeing her for the first time and immediately trying to climb her. Maya would probably begin talking to the Dragon Lady as though they had known each other for years, asking seventeen questions before waiting for a single answer. Melissa would spoil her within a day. Mother would somehow make the enormous Dragon behave like a child being welcomed home, and Sienna...

Phei paused.

Sienna would stare.

The Dragon Lady would stare back.

Hours might pass. ’Perhaps they would become friends.’

Perhaps the world would end. Either seemed equally believable.

His palm travelled again across the hard snow-white scales.

"What would happen if Sienna put you in that elixir she used on me?"

The Dragon Lady’s ear twitched.

Phei looked thoughtful.

The Great Immortal God essence had rebuilt him so thoroughly that he was still discovering changes in his body, and that had been Phei, a Dragon who had already possessed ridiculous regeneration and a Cosmic Dragon bloodline.

The Dragon Lady had spent centuries having her essence siphoned away.

Her body had recovered enormously over the past year. Her scales had regained their brilliance, her core had strengthened and her cultivation had risen as they killed and refined everything the Zone Lord sent against them, yet Phei could still remember what she had looked like when he first found her.

Weak, starved of power, imprisoned.

He hated the memory more now than he had then.

His hand stopped moving. "I’m asking Sienna."

The Dragon Lady glanced back.

"She’ll complain quietly first."

Phei nodded wisely. "She likes doing that."

The Dragon Lady’s eye narrowed as though questioning whether insulting the Nether Goddess behind her back was wise.

"She loves me." Phei paused. "Probably."

The Dragon Lady snorted.

"Definitely."

Her amusement reached him making Phei smile.