I changed into a T-shirt that hadn’t been maligned by nightmare sweat and went downstairs, pausing in the back yard to breathe in the fresh night air before going into the basement. The late summer air smelled of recently cut grass, a welcome change from the musty interior of the house’s upstairs. If I survived this, I vowed to take a week off and get my new home fixed up.
As I turned for the basement steps, a dragon that wasn’t Zav came within my range. I stopped and groaned, almost reaching out to him to tell him to deal with her.
But Velilah spoke into my mind first. You have not told him to leave and return to his kind.
No, I haven’t. He doesn’t take orders from me. Or you.
Unless he is incredibly foolish, he will take orders from his queen. She wishes that he mate with me.
Look, he’s here in the house. If you want to discuss it with someone, discuss it with Zav. I suspected this attempt to circumvent him meant she already had and hadn’t found him receptive. Good.
His clan is at risk from political machinations among the dragons.
No shit.
The Stormforges need an alliance, and my clan is willing to offer it, but only if he mates with me and promises them preferential positions in the Ruling Council.
Not my problem. Go talk to him.
I was about to warn Zav that she was pestering me, but she stopped speaking and also stopped flying closer. Interestingly, she was over by the dog park where we’d battled Shaygor. Could she sense some remnant of the fight? Did she know anything about the Crying Caverns or that the Silverclaws and Stormforges might be at war soon? If Zav were to mate with her, would his family have enough allies to win that war?
That same uncertainty that I’d felt in the elven sanctuary returned, bringing to mind the decision my father had made to leave my mother and go back to marry someone he didn’t love because it could help his people. Then, I’d been afraid Zav would do the same. Now that I suspected he wouldn’t, I was afraid again, afraid he was making a big mistake in picking me. I didn’t want him to go mate with some bitch that only wanted to use him to better her family’s position, but… what if she had twenty dragons in her clan, twenty dragons who would help Zav’s clan against the manipulating Silverclaws?
I shook my head. No. I was going to help Zav. Me, along with Sindari, Ti, and Willard’s rich shifter doctor. We would sneak in, heal and free Zav’s relatives, and then he wouldn’t need to bow to the queen’s pressure. He could stay with me or choose whoever he wished because it was what he truly wanted, not because of politics.
I told her to go away, Zav spoke into my mind. Come join me.
Will she listen to you this time? Or do we need to get a restraining order?
What is that?
Our court would order her to refrain from stalking you and arrest her if she doesn’t comply. I imagined a plucky young police officer walking up to a dragon and delivering that order. That would go well.
Vermin laws do not apply to dragons. Come join me in the vampire’s abode. He is being rude.
That’s the basement in my abode. Zoltan doesn’t even pay rent, despite being richer than the rest of the people living in this house.
So, he is an unsatisfactory ally to all. I will inform him thus.
The female dragon flew out of my range. Good. We had enough to deal with without a dragon stalker.
Another text buzzed on my phone as I descended the steps.
Your dragon is still being difficult, Zoltan’s message read. Where are you?
I opened the door instead of answering, worried about what Zav might be doing to our unsatisfactory ally. Our unsatisfactory ally that we were depending on to concoct a formula to heal Zav’s kin.
Zav was inside the lab, his arms folded over his chest, and glowering. His powerful aura buzzed with threatening magic. Zoltan glowered back while waving a needle around, but he was keeping a good six feet away.
“Are you being difficult?” Ignoring Zav’s glower and his dangerous aura, I slid up to his side and patted him on the butt.
“He has already taken a sample of my blood. I do not believe he needs more of it. He wishes only to retain dragon blood for his nefarious alchemical purposes.”
“Untrue,” Zoltan said. “I need to check your blood again to see if the signs of infection are gone.”
“You can see from looking at me that I am hale and not diseased.” Zav gestured from his face, down his robed form, to his feet.
My gaze snagged there. I didn’t know when he’d found time to acquire new shoes, but he had. Sort of. These were brown shoes with teal highlights. They had thick soles and ventilation holes all over. It looked like a hiking boot and a water shoe had gotten drunk together and had babies. Someday, I would ask Zav to take me to the shoe store with him. I had to find out if the merchant was messing with him or genuinely trying to find the right footwear for this frequent and fussy client.
“That’s not how it works.” Zoltan gave me an exasperated look and flung a hand toward Zav. “Tell him.”
“I don’t know how it works either. What are you looking for? Antibodies that would show he fought off the bacteria?”
“I am simply looking to see if there is still evidence of bacteremia—bacteria in the blood stream—as there was before. He should be relieved, because many bacterial infections are focused in the gastrointestinal tract, which would have required he give me stool samples for analysis.”
“He should be relieved, or you are?”
“I should think we both would be.” Zoltan lifted his needle toward Zav. “Now that I’ve thoroughly explained myself twice, will you allow me to take your blood?”
“Do not imply that I am unintelligent, vampire.”
“Do not be so uptight and paranoid, dragon.”
“Lesser beings concoct all manner of plots against my kind. We are rightfully suspicious of them.”
“What if you stick around, watch the test, and incinerate the blood after he’s done checking it?” I suggested to Zav.
“That’s hardly necessary,” Zoltan said.
His protest made me wonder if he did indeed plan to keep some of Zav’s blood for his experiments. I gave him a hard look.
“Fine, fine.” Zoltan lifted his hands. “I care not what he does with it after I examine it.”
“Very well.” Zav lowered his arms and looked at me. “If the vampire tries anything shifty, I will give him to Velilah’nav to eat.”
“Are vampires palatable?”
“No. But Velilah’nav wishes me to go somewhere with her so she can sample the food of this world.”
“She’s angling for you to feed her? I knew there was a reason I wanted to kick her ass.”
Zav’s eyelids drooped contemplatively. “I do not believe such a battle would go well for you, but you did wound Shaygorthian.”
“Yes, I did.” I quirked an eyebrow at his speculative bedroom eyes. “Are you fantasizing about me battling her right now?”
“Possibly. I do not care for the way she is attempting to manipulate me, and you know I like it when you vex my enemies.” He wrapped an arm around my waist.
Zoltan cleared his throat before Zav and I ended up kissing over this shared fantasy of ass-kicking. “I am prepared to take the blood sample.”
Zav glowered at him but lifted his forearm and shook the voluminous sleeve of his robe so that it fell to his elbow. “Do so. Know that I am watching you.”
“And contemplating eating me apparently.” Zoltan came warily forward with his needle.
“No, I wanted to give you to another dragon to eat.”
“Much better.”
As Zoltan finished taking a small vial of blood, a distant dong sounded. The doorbell? I didn’t sense anyone with a magical aura standing on our porch. I glanced at the time on my phone. It was after eleven.
The ceiling beams creaked as someone walked to the door. Maybe Dimitri had ordered pizza. He usually got back late from the coffee shop.
“Running the test will take some time.” Zoltan headed to his centrifuge.
“I will wait.” Zav wasn’t taking his eyes from his blood sample.
“I won’t. I’m going back to bed. If this works, I assume we’ll be able to leave soon.” Even though I’d been bracing myself for this for days, a fresh twinge of nerves assailed my gut.
“I have already prepared doses of the formula,” Zoltan said, “as I am quite confident this will have worked. You can go tomorrow if you wish.”
“I’ll let Willard know.”
A knock at the basement door startled me.
It opened, and Dimitri leaned his head inside. “Val, are you down here?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you order barbecue delivery?”
“No. I assumed you ordered a pizza.”
“A pizza is what I would order… if I had ordered something. But I didn’t.” Dimitri stepped in and held up two large, bulging paper bags. “This came already paid for though. The guy just left it on the porch. It was a delivery car from one of the local restaurants. If it wasn’t you, was it a mistake? Maybe some neighbor ordered it. Or Freysha? Do elves eat barbecue?”
“Barbecue?” Even though Zav was in human form, his twitching nostrils reminded me of a wolf. “Those bags are full of meat.”
“I would ask if you ordered barbecue,” I told him, “but I doubt you’ve set up a Paypal account.”
“I have ordered nothing.”
“Would it be wrong of us to eat it?” Dimitri sniffed the bag. “It smells really good. Maybe one of the neighbors thought one of us is cute and had it sent as a housewarming gift.”
“People send plants for housewarming gifts, not bags of barbecue.” I eyed them. “Unless you can have Zoltan test it for poison, I wouldn’t touch it. I have enemies, remember.”
“Enemies who know you adore barbecue?” Dimitri sounded disappointed and like he truly wanted some neighbor who thought he was cute to have sent it to him.