[Mason's PoV]
I wake up slowly with a groan on my lips, because there's this heavy, comfortable warmth keeping me pinned to the mattress. It's the kind of warmth that makes you think you could sleep another hour, until you realize it's…wrong.
The RV's heater doesn't kick out heat like this.
And my sheets smell different, strangely sweet with something like burnt cinnamon and a pleasant wood smoke at the edges of the sweetness.
'Perfume?' I wonder but shake my head because that's not quite right either. This fragrance smells more…more natural…like it's coming from being…or rather being produced naturally from someone's skin instead of sprayed from a bottle.
I sit up, rubbing the back of my neck. The bed's still faintly warm beside me, like someone was lying there a few minutes ago…and my groin feels sticky.
'What the hell?!' I express in my mind as I start to feel violated, 'I didn't bring anyone home last night…Ariel dropped me off at the Night Club…then I drove back to the RV camper grounds…' I think as I jump out of bed I look down at myself and find nothing obvious.
I start looking around my home, everything's where it should be at least at first glance.
No damage, no obvious signs of rummaging. Just that scent hanging in the air, curling into my head like smoke in the lungs, making it hard to think about anything else.
Opening the bathroom door and looking up I see that the little pop-up door is open.
Backing up…okay staggering backwards into my bedroom my knees hitting the bed making me fall onto it.
I press my palm to the empty part of the mattress…it's still warm…someone was in my home and whoever it was, they were close…lying right next to me.
'They could have killed me and I would have never known what happened…but who…?' I wonder and only one name jumps to mind…one very beautiful face attached to it.
'Ariel…but that's insane…she hates me. I don't care what her father said about her scent marking me…' I express but the more I think about it the more it fits when I take into account how she acted in the TV series towards Nick.
"She's the only one bold…reckless…enough to break into the home of an Alchemist that she feared at first…and this smell. Yeah, now that I think about it I remember catching it in the tunnel yesterday, when she leaned near me to hand her father the soup…it was very faint under the smell of scorched stone and so much copper that there was an actual smell of it in the tunnel or cavern." I mutter softly while letting myself fall fully onto the bed.
I suddenly get this feeling that I'm being hunted…and I'm not sure it's in a dangerous way…even if it seems to be a predatory one.
The kind where the hunter isn't looking to kill…or hurt but to… claim.
"Oh fuck me the old man was right!" I groan, reaching up I massage the bridge of my nose…I'm not sure if it's unsettling…that I have a honey Dämonfeuer hottie stalking me and possibly wanting to mate with me or incredibly arousing.
Shaking my head I stand up from bed and head into the shower I catch another faint whiff of Ariel's natural musk on a whipping breeze coming in through the popped up vent in the roof of the bathroom.
I feel myself growling, 'I don't know what game Ariel thinks she's playing…but if she wants to get in my head…or my pants…she's doing a damn good job.
[Ariel 3rd PoV]
Ariel crouches high in the crook of a moss-slick pine tree, bare toes gripping bark, the early Portland morning dew clinging to her and dampening hair as if she's taking a shower.
From her perch, she can see everything, Mason's RV parked in its little gravel slot, the thin line of steam curling faintly from the bathroom vent, the slight movement of his shadow inside.
She's been here long enough to watch him wake.
The slow, delicious way he stirred, shifting against the mattress, the exact moment his hand slid over the empty space she'd left. She can tell when he noticed it…when the confusion settled in and his head lifted, nostrils flaring faintly.
She knows the scent he's catching. Knows it's clinging to his bedding, curling…sinking into him like cigarette smoke. The Burnt cinnamon and sweet woodsmoke...smell…her scent.
The dragon in her chest rumbles at the thought, pleased. This is how the claim deepens…not with words, but with the small actions, and unshakable knowledge that she was there, that she could be there again any time she chooses…that she's hunting him.
Remembering the way he tiredly lifted himself up, and rubbed the back of his neck, still half in the fog of sleep but already alert. The way his focus sharpened as his gaze sweeps the RV. Not frantic. Not afraid. Just…aware. It made her smile, a slow and predatory smile that showed off her teeth.
When he staggered backwards out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom after checking the popped bathroom vent, she almost laughed out loud.
The way he pressed his hand to the empty spot in the bed, testing the warmth. Still warm, she thought with a twisted sense of satisfaction.
That only grew while watching him putting the pieces together.
Her claws bite lightly into the bark as she leans forward, trying to get a better view of him as steam rolls out of the vent above him, and for a moment, the scent of him mingles with hers in the damp air.
Her dragon shifts restlessly. She can imagine him under that spray, eyes narrowing at the faint whiff of her musk on the breeze. She can feel the moment the realization clicks the awareness that she's still here watching him, stalking him.
For now, she stays in the treetop, perfectly still but for the slow rise and fall of her breath. Watching. Waiting. Letting the knowledge of her linger as surely as her scent does inside that cute little home on wheels.