“Katira?” I said softly. I stood on my toes, looking around for her, some sign, something, but found absolutely nothing. I wandered around the section I was in, looking down each aisle, and saw no sign of my familiar.

No sign, that is, until I neared the children’s section, where I found her reading a small book to a group of little children.

I hung back, out of sight, listening to her read to the kids. It seemed to be a tale about a man meeting a little dragon. The book had a small puppet with it that looked more like a gecko than a dragon, but it was for kids. They wouldn’t mind, and really, aren’t geckos kind of silly-looking and cute?

“...just what did I get myself into?” she said in a voice that nearly matched my own. Several of the kids giggled, and Katira looked up, seeing me smiling at her.

“Well, little ones, I have to go now. I think you might want to bug your parents about getting a copy of ‘The Derpy Dragon’ for yourselves. There’s a fair bit more that I didn’t read. Bye now!” she said happily.

The children all said their goodbyes, and Katira met up with me, wrapping herself around my arm, laying her head on my shoulder.

“I love children. They’re so innocent and pure and adorable,” she said softly.

“Maybe you should have one,” I replied.

She laughed softly, “Master, that simply isn’t possible. No matter how much I’ve tried over the centuries, I cannot have children. Besides, even if I could, they would lose their other parent too quickly, which would leave them alone until I bonded with another. I have a very short window of time once my Master passes to get the hatch closed. Thankfully, it is never far from my Master. Even now, if you wanted, we could go to the workshop. I don’t recommend it. Not unless the situation is dire,” she said.

I reached over and patted her small hand. “I understand, Katira. We will take these home, and both of us shall study. In the morning, we will leave a copy in the workshop, and wait until it arrives again. Is there anything else you wanted to look at here? Fiction? Instructional? Non-fiction?” I asked.

She shook her head sadly, and I wrapped her up in a hug. We paid for the books, and went home, the night coming swiftly.

Once home, Katira went back to the table, continuing to draw up her blueprints. I brought in the tile and the books, and started the process of applying the backsplash. Since I didn’t need to be at work for another week, I didn’t need to worry about going to bed at any set time. Hopefully, I could keep the Ma’alkaun from disturbing my sleep overmuch.

The Ma’alkaun. Just what was it? Did it want something specific? Beyond my death, of course. Just what did that get it, anyway? Was I just another meal? Was I dealing with the Fae? Something else?

I stood there, putting tile on the wall, grunting my frustration when I felt a pair of arms wrap themselves around my midsection, a pair of heavy breasts pushing at my back, and a spiraled horn resting on my spine.

“Katira? Are you okay? What’s going on?” I asked, as I turned around in her arms to face her.

“I don’t want you to die, Stu. I’m tired of losing my Masters. Your words in the past two days have given me hope that maybe I won’t lose this one. Or, well, I had hope, anyway. Until the Ma’alkaun came. And now, I’m expecting it to eat you like it did the other three. And then I’ll be alone again. Just a spirit in the void, waiting until another comes to take possession of the Grimoire,” she said. “And me,” she added in a hoarse whisper.

I wrapped my arms around the plump dragoness, rocking gently. Softly, I said “Hush, now. I said I’d figure a way out of this, and I will. I said I’d find immortality, and I will. There’s a way, I know it. If Necromancy is the study of communicating with the dead, and other associated magics, then there must be a way to do just about anything I want. I’ll find it, Katira. You don’t wanna lose another Master, and I don’t wanna see you cry.”

She sniffled and looked up at me. “You mean that, don’t you?” I nodded and she buried her face in my chest, lost in thought.

“Now, let me finish the tile, and we can go to bed, yeah?” I said, and she nodded, letting me go. She hopped up on the counter, watching me and waiting.

I placed and re-placed the tiles several times until I had the design I wanted, and nodded to myself. It had taken three hours, but my tile backsplash was complete. Now, all I had to do was let it cure. I turned to tell Katira that it was time for bed, and she smiled and held her arms out to me.

I picked her up, and she wrapped herself around me, holding on tight. She buried her face in my neck, breathing me in. I laid her down gently on the bed, turned out the light, and got undressed and in the bed with her. She wrapped herself around me from behind, and softly kissed the back of my neck. I shuddered involuntarily.

“Was that wrong of me, Master? Should I not do that again?” she asked quietly.

I let out the shuddering breath I didn’t know I had been holding, and answered, “No… that wasn’t wrong of you. You’re just sending me signals, and I’m not sure if you’re aware of them, or if you’re just teasing me. Before you, it had been an extremely long time since I’ve slept with a woman in any capacity, so I’d have to say that it will be extremely easy to, uh, ‘get me going’, if you catch my drift.”

She leaned closer, placing her mouth just behind my ear, and in a soft, honeyed voice she said, “Stu, I’ve lived for literal millennia. I’ve spent literally hundreds of years with my Masters. I know Exactly” -her tongue snaked out, bushing my earlobe- “What” -she kissed me behind my ear- “I’m” -her soft lips pressed against the side of my neck, sending shivers down my spine- “Doing.” She bit my neck gently, causing goosebumps to spread across my skin like wildfire.

I panted softly, and gently rolled over, facing the temptress in my bed. “Do you want me, Katira? Are you telling me that you want me inside you?” I asked in a no-nonsense tone.

“Yes, Master. I do.”

“As you wish.”

**********

I awoke in the predawn, in a tangle of limbs, deliciously worn out from the night's activities. Katira rose with me, and she went to make tea.

“I’m not leaving you alone until we deal with the Ma’alkaun. You will learn to live with it,” she said.

I stopped and wrapped an arm around her midsection, pulling her to me. “You’d better not ever leave me alone. I’m intent on keeping what I have,” I said, kissing the nape of her neck.

She stood there panting as I went to take care of my business. “Not fair!” she yelled at me.

I took care of things, and returned, picking up the book on Morse code, intent on learning it as quickly as possible. I sat myself at the table as Katira set my tea down in front of me. Flipping open the book, I discovered that it was a primer on the history as well as the practical use for Morse code. From telegrams to military needs to ham radio operations, it was all there. I also found the chart for the standard set of characters, and placed a small slip of paper there to use as a bookmark.

I sat there, sipping my tea as I pored over the information. I practiced sending messages to Katira by tapping on the tabletop, receiving rapid-fire answers that required me to pause and look it up.

In this way, the two of us more or less learned the code in an afternoon. While we were by no means fluent, we could, with time, send each other whatever messages we wanted.

“Do you think you would be able to join me in my conversations with the entity? I’m worried I might make a mistake in either translation or etiquette,” I asked my scaled familiar.

“So far, I’ve never experienced the ‘time dilation’ you have, so I doubt it. Would you like for me to write out a list of questions for the Ma’alkaun? Maybe we will have the same ideas.” she replied.

I nodded, and set out to write several questions, including translations, so we could compare notes. After a few minutes, we had a list of questions, and Katira had three that were different from mine.

“This seems like a good start. Let’s go put the book downstairs. Hopefully, I will get a good night’s rest. Or at least some of the night,” I suggested.

“I promise to leave you alone and let you sleep tonight,” said the shimmery woman.

“Uh…heh heh… Yeah,” I said, turning red. My thoughts drifted to last night, and I smiled, my body reacting accordingly.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Seems like you would rather I not leave you be, Master,” her voice dripped with desire as she locked eyes with me.

“Honestly, no. I don’t want you to ever leave me be, Katira. However, we have work to do. The flooring materials should be here in a couple of hours. Let’s get down there, drop off the book and pick up the Grimoire. I may as well have it on me,” I said, rising from my seat.

She sighed dramatically, “Okay. I guess if we have work to do, we should do that first.”

I shook my head, smiling at the playfulness of my familiar. Together, we walked to the hatch, and opened it, revealing some new rubble from a hole in the wall that wasn’t there before.

“What in the…” I walked over to the hole to get a good look inside, as there was a light beyond.

Katira stopped me with a soft hand to my fuzzy chest. “No, Master. I’d suggest you not look in there. Not yet. For now” -she waved a hand in front of the hole, sealing it with new stone- “I’ll keep this area closed. For now,” she promised.

I shrugged and walked over to the Grimoire, trading it for the smaller book on Morse Code. Figuring it couldn’t hurt, I concentrated on the book, making an intention in my mind’s eye for it to ‘shine’ for the Ma’alkaun.

Katira shaded her eyes with a hand. “Master? What did you do?”

After I explained it, she beamed a smile at me. “That is the first step to magic. Placing some of your energy into a thing. You do it much differently than any other I’ve had before. Most of the time, they used blood. It’s a very potent way of doing so. This, however, seems no less effective,” she said, still shielding her eyes.

“Awesome. That also seemed pretty easy. Let’s get out of here, and give the entity some privacy. I suppose it will speak when ready,” I said, and headed toward the hatch.

We walked out and set the latch without incident. I took the book and sat down at the kitchen table, opening it to the first entry I had read just a few days ago.

Had it really only been less than a week since I met Katira as a skeletal kitten? I shook my head as I remembered the past few days. From meeting the tiny, apprehensive kitten to finding a dragoness built like the woman of my wildest and most frequent fantasies who demanded to sleep in my bed with me, to being hunted by a strange entity hellbent on my destruction for some reason. Just five days had elapsed. Five days.

I watched Katira busy herself with setting up the living room in order to make the construction work that much easier for herself. She was a one woman construction crew, apparently. She was also completely nude. Which further distracted me. How had I been chosen to be a Necromancer? A twist of fate? Odd luck? Was it random? I’d have to ask later, when we weren’t busy with repairs and a creature attempting to destroy me.

I looked down at the page before me. It was blank. I quickly thumbed through the book, finding nothing but blank pages. Returning to the front, there was the personalized note. It was still there. Nothing else was, though.

“Katira?” I asked aloud, my eyes never leaving the book.

“Yes, Master?” she said, appearing directly to my left.

I did a double-take at the speed with which she had moved. “Jeez. That was fast,” I muttered. “Anyway, why are all these pages blank? I thought this was filled with spells and experiments and journals and whatever else,” I said, confused.

“Oh. Well, until we go to the guildhall and finalize your membership, all you will see is the introductory note. That’s all. I thought we would be going soon, so I busied myself with the repairs until you were dressed and ready,” she said, looking at the floor. “Although, it seems you might be ready for something else, Master?” she asked with a smirk.

I cleared my throat. “You were naked, bent over, and you looked incredibly attractive. This is a natural reaction to certain visual stimuli, Katira. While I would definitely enjoy a romp with you, there is work to do. We have to await the delivery of our materials, and then actually finish the floor and the walls. Not to mention the fact that I need to eat. And soon. We also have no idea when the Ma’alkaun will appear, and I’d like to not have that happen at the guildhall,” I explained.

She huffed in annoyance. “Fiiiine. I guess we can do those things first,” she said, then grinned at me before sauntering back to the living room to finish her preparations.

I let my eyes stay glued to her rear as she walked, then shook myself back to reality. She looked over her shoulder with a mischievous grin, and got back to work. I went to my room and pulled on my linen trousers and then went back to the kitchen to make something to eat.

I decided to finish off the last two slices of pizza. Cooking them the same as I did yesterday, the house was soon filled with the smell of an old pizzeria. Looking around my small home, I could easily visualize what it would look like once we finished the needed work and decorated it a bit.

As I stood at the counter, contemplatively chewing my pizza, a knock sounded at the door. Must be the delivery man. As I looked up, Katira’s form shifted slightly, and she once again wore the loose shorts and oversized tee shirt that displayed a prominent amount of cleavage. She answered the door, and I heard a short, muffled conversation.

“Ma- Stu? The materials are here. Where would you like them?” she said. I caught her slip, and she looked slightly embarrassed by it.

I headed outside to see how much we had, and what kind of area to put it in. “Hm. Over there under the oak will be fine,” I said, pointing at the tree about thirty feet from the door.

“No problem, sir! We will unload this, and will have the receipt ready for you in about a half hour,” the driver said. He quickly moved to start his process, while Katira and I went back in.

“Katira? Would you be a dear and get a pitcher of lemonade ready? The work they’re doing will work up a sweat, and I’d like for them to have something cool and refreshing for when they get done,” I suggested.

“Of course, Master. That sounds like an excellent idea. It is good to know that you actually think of the people that work for you, no matter how short a time,” she said, smiling.

“You can thank my father for that,” I said. “He ran a restaurant, and treated everyone like family. Employees, customers, even the owners of the place. He would have loved you,” I said, lost in the memory.

“Oh. He’s gone. I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” she said softly as she stirred the lemonade.

“Bah. It’s okay. He’s been gone for nearly seventeen years. I’ve had plenty of time to learn to deal with it,” I answered.

“Well, you could always get to talk with him again soon enough!” she suggested cheerfully.

“No.”

She stopped mid-stride and looked at me fearfully, her expression one of pure terror. “W-what?” she asked in a tiny voice.

I fixed her with a hard glare. “I said no. Under no circumstance will I raise my father from the dead, no matter how much I miss him. No matter how much I’d kill to have his words again. That poor man earned his rest, and I’ll not disturb it,” I said softly.

“O-okay, Master. I’m sorry I suggested it,” she said, her voice shaking a bit. She placed the pitcher in the refrigerator, and stood there silently, wringing her hands and staring at the floor as she fidgeted.

I walked to her and lifted her chin to look her in the eyes. She offered no resistance, and gazed at me, trembling.

“I am not mad at you, Katira. Not in the slightest. There are, however, certain things that I simply will not do. Disturbing my daddy’s rest is one of them. I apologize for sounding like I was angry,” I said in a low, soft tone.

Her lower lip trembled as she quietly said “Okay, Master. I’ll keep that in mind.”

I wrapped her up in a tight hug and held her for a moment. “Hush, now. You’re just as safe with me as I am with you. I promise,” I whispered.

She squeezed me tightly and nodded against my chest. She opened her mouth to speak, but a knock sounded just then.

“Get the lemonade, and we will meet them,” I said softly, kissing her forehead.

She walked behind me with the lemonade and two disposable cups, and I opened the door.

“Here we are, sir! Your order has been unloaded, and here is the receipt.” he said, handing me a slip of paper. He and his associate were covered in a sheen of sweat.

As I thanked him, Katira spoke up from behind me, “Would either of you like some lemonade? I understand you might be thirsty.”

The driver perked up. “Lemonade? That sounds amazing, ma’am. Yes, please. We would both like some,” he said, wiping the sweat from his brow.

Katira served them both, and they gratefully downed their drinks, both asking for seconds. She gleefully complied, and we stood around talking, discussing our little house projects.

“So what will you be doing besides renovating the other two rooms?” the driver asked.

“Oh, probably add some better lighting to the workshop downstairs, and maybe fill in some holes with the right stone,” she supplied.

“What she means is we still have some work to do in the basement, still. Going for a rustic look, y’know?” I said quickly.

They both nodded their heads, and handed the empty cups back to us. “Well, we have more deliveries to make. Good luck on your projects!” the driver said with a cheerful wave.

We headed back inside once they drove off, and I looked at my familiar. “Katira, sweetheart. We really don’t wanna draw attention to the workshop. What if someone overhears that, and asks to see?”

“Oh,” she said quietly. “It seems I’m making a lot of mistakes today. I’m sorry, Master.” She set the pitcher back into the nearly empty fridge. “I think I should go away for a while. It would probably be best,” she said sadly.

I took her small, soft hand in my larger one. “Nope. You ain’t going nowhere. I told you before, I’m not leaving you alone until we’ve dealt with our guest. You’re stuck with me. We will get through this, just like anything else. Okay?” I said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.

She nodded and hugged me again. “I should get started on the material, then. Keep busy, you know?”

“No, I think we would be best served by resting today. Come on. Let’s just go lay down for a while. We can go to the guildhall later tonight, if you still want,” I bargained.

She sighed and nodded. I took her hand and led her to the bed, stripping down and curling up behind her. I wrapped my arm around her midsection and pulled her close, nuzzling her neck.

She responded with a shiver, and pushed back into me. “Are you trying to start something?” she asked in a low, sensual voice.

“Not really. I’m trying to hold you and let you know it’s all okay. That’s all,” I murmured in her ear.

She stopped squirming, and gasped softly. “Oh,” she said in a quiet, shaky voice. She took my right hand in hers, interlacing our fingers, and held it between her breasts, next to her heart.

I was asleep in moments.