DRAGON'S BROOD II (Kirishima x Bakugou)

Chapter 33: Bandits

Kirishima's PoV

Smiling, I looked down on my mate. He was sweaty and needed a moment to catch his breath again. Almost proudly I noticed that his shoulders and neck were covered all over with my marks. It gave me satisfaction to see him like this. He was mine, and everyone should know that.

But when Katsuki finally stands up groaning, my smile was a little forced. He was clearly in pain and I couldn't help feeling a little guilty, even though he had assured me that it was all right.

The dragonslayer noticed my worried look and rolled his eyes. "I said I could handle it," he grumbled and gave me a short kiss. "Now don't look like that and put your clothes on. We should go back to the camp."

I nodded and looked for my clothes scattered across the ground. I found my trousers and shook them out to get rid of sand and earth. Then I reached for my shirt and frowned. Since I had tied Katsuki up with it, it was not only crumpled but also strangely stretched. I sighed. I probably couldn't wear the shirt anymore.

I put the piece of fabric over my shoulder and reached for Katsuki's hand, who had just finished dressing. I had to hold back a grin when I saw how stiff he walked. But Katsuki didn't complain with a single word.

When we had taken a few steps, Kat glimpsed over to me and frowned. "You have even more scars," he remarked almost reproachfully.

I looked down on my right shoulder where the palace guard had dug his claws in. The scars were barely visible. Only two thin pale lines spoke from the claws of the guard. I was not surprised that he hadn't noticed them before.

I shrugged my shoulders. "At the entrance of the palace of the Kirishimas, they didn't believe that I belonged to the ruling clan. I was insulted for slander and the guard was not exactly gentle." I winked at him reassuringly and squeezed his hand. It felt like an eternity ago, when these events had happened. In the meantime so much had happened that I hadn't wasted another thought about that incident.

But Katsuki gritted his teeth. "You really can't go anywhere alone," he scolded quietly. "I have the feeling as soon as I let you out of my sight you hurt yourself." The reproach sounded a little as if he was my worried mother and not my mate. As if he wasn't Bakugou, the tough, badass dragonslayer. But it made me smile because I knew that he was just worried about me.

"Did everything run smoothly for you?" I asked him. Obviously it had gone well, because he was already on his way back to the order with Todoroki, but I wanted to hear it from him.

"Of course," he hummed as if it were the easiest in the world. "I told you, I have contacts at the court. And how did you manage to get your mission done so quickly?"

"I just couldn't be without you any longer," I teased, even though there was a spark of truth in the words.

Katsuki shook his head rolling his eyes, but I saw the light smile that crept onto his lips. "Seriously. How could you convince the dragons of the mission? Were they so easy to persuade?"

I thought about my conversation with Kurini, but first of all I had to think about Mashimo's hostility. "No, it wasn't really easy," I confessed. I was about to begin to explain this with my second heritage when loud voices broke the night silence.

Katsuki gestured me to be quiet, but that wasn't necessary. I already tensed and had taken cover the moment I heard the voices. There were not only the voices of Midoriya and Todoroki, but also strange ones and the excitement of the conversation didn't bode well.

We snuck up to our camp. In a few meters distance, hidden between the sparse trees, we watched the scene. Todoroki and Midoriya had apparently been surprised in their sleep. The other dragonslayer seemed to have fought back, at least he had a big cut on his arm, but they were unarmed and couldn't do much.