“A vial of your blood.”
“Not that.”
“A cure for my boss.”
“I am not an alchemist.”
“Then I need a vial of your blood. What’s the big deal? I saw how humongous you are. It’s not like you’re going to miss it.”
Most guys would be delighted to be called humongous, but Zav stepped back, tension snapping into his body. It was only then that I realized he’d been speaking to me normally, almost pleasantly. Until I’d pissed him off again.
“No dragon would allow his blood to be experimented on, not by another dragon, and definitely not by some vampire vermin.”
I had a feeling he considered everyone who wasn’t a dragon to be vermin. “That’s my price. Why can’t you find their lair and get your own dark elves, anyway?”
“I can. I choose to delegate.”
“I didn’t sign up to be your assistant. I have my own mission, someone’s life to save. Sorry, but that’s more important to me than your to-do list.” I waved to the open balcony door. “You can see yourself out.”
He strode toward me, not away, his eyes darkening with his anger. Sindari growled and crouched. I reached for Chopper.
I was fast enough that I managed to get the sword halfway out of its scabbard before his power locked on to me again, but that only made me feel like an idiot with my arm stuck over my head. Sindari growled again, but he appeared as frozen as I was as Zav stepped in close.
Again, he reached for my head. This time, he laid his hand on the side of it and stared into my eyes in some parody of a lover’s gaze. But there was no love in his expression. He didn’t hurt me or dig his fingers into my scalp, but his eyes were as haughty as always as he stared into mine, and the power that crackled around him skittered over my skin and made my nerves tingle with something closer to pain than pleasure.
“It is an honor to serve a dragon, to be selected as a personal minion,” he said softly, “and you will serve me. Bring me the dark elves, and bring me the artifact, and do not question me further.”
A new type of power gripped me, something more subversive than his raw strength. It altered my thoughts, and I envisioned myself doing as he wished, dragging his enemies out of some tunnel to lay before him, then dropping at his feet and lifting the egg-relic up over my head to him, so eager to do his bidding, eager to please, hoping for a pat on the head like a dog…
I couldn’t voice the words “Fuck you,” but I was pleased that I managed to think them. Unfortunately, that didn’t drive the eagerness to please him out of my mind. And he only smirked as he stepped back, releasing me again. Weirdly, my body missed that power crackling all around me and through me.
Without another word, he walked toward the balcony door, the curtains swirling on a gust of air again. He looked back over his shoulder as he strode out, but I couldn’t read his expression. Then he was gone, springing off the balcony railing and shifting in the air back to his dragon form.
I released my grip on Chopper, the sword sliding back into its scabbard, and sank to my knees. A new level of exhaustion came over me, and I dropped my hands to the floor, needing the support. As I stared at the rug, two things sank in. First, I’d made a mistake in not negotiating until I’d found a reward that he would give me—a dragon could make a charm or something even more useful that would help me. Second… even though he’d left, and his aura was fading as he flew farther away, he’d imparted an urge in me that I couldn’t deny.
I did want to bring his enemies out to lay at his feet. I longed to please him, to have him touch my head again and tell me what a good girl I was.
Snarling, I balled my hands into fists and thumped them against the floor. I was going to deny that urge. His dark elves could stay in their lair, having orgies all over his precious artifact. I’d die before I helped the smug bastard.
18
When the waiter at Bitterroot BBQ brought my tray of brisket, ribs, beans, and collard greens, I dug in with enthusiasm, wishing I could eat Dimitri’s share too. He sat across from me, looking cheerful and perky as he grabbed his cornbread. I couldn’t believe he’d slept through the entire dragon encounter, snoring in oblivion while I was getting my mind diddled.
I also couldn’t believe that, once I’d finally fallen asleep, I’d spent the night dreaming of riding a black dragon over the city, over the mountains, and across the Sound—and loving it. Laughing as we dipped and soared, looking down at a passenger ferry from high above and startling sea lions sunning themselves on a beach. Either my mind was messing with me or Zav had left the notion in there, along with the one of me eagerly doing his bidding. Maybe that was the reward he thought I would want, though I had a hard time imagining him deigning to let a mongrel ride on his back. More likely, my sleep-deprived brain had come up with the dream all by itself.
I shoved a rib in my mouth, gnawing on the bone far harder than pleasure would have demanded. At least my stomach was happy. We hadn’t eaten since driving back from Bend the day before, and I’d woken up at noon, ravenous and with no food in the apartment that hadn’t been thrown on the floor and trampled.
“You all right?” Dimitri asked.
“I’m just trying to figure out how I’m going to collect everything I need to get when I don’t even know how to get down there.” The restaurant was busy with people eating at tables close to ours, so I refrained from mentioning dark elves and secret underground tunnels. “Did you really not wake up at any point last night when Zav was in my apartment?”
“Nope. I was passed out.” He’d woken up even later than I had.
I’d had to prod him off my couch with the promise of food.
“He really asked you to fetch some, uh, bad guys for him?” Dimitri glanced at one of the side tables where the couple was cheerfully chatting about their plans to visit the Chihuly Museum and go to a Mariners game. What must it be like to have such a normal life?
“Yes. I don’t get it.” I leaned closer and lowered my voice. “Couldn’t he smash through the building or street or whatever is on top of the tunnels and reach in and pluck them out? You didn’t see him on the rooftop. He’s huge.”
“Maybe he’s not supposed to destroy cities to do his job.”
“Even if that’s true—and I have a hard time imagining his justice court caring about lowly vermin cities—then why couldn’t he walk down there as a human and get them? Why send me? A puny little mongrel.”
He lowered his voice. “I’m sure you know more about dragon shifters than I do—”
“Not much more. This is my first one.”
Dimitri raised his eyebrows. Maybe I did have a problem with interrupting.
“I wonder if he’s less powerful in that form and worries that an entire clan of dark elves—how many live down there?—might overpower him.”
“He incinerated bullets and froze me in my tracks while in human form. He froze Sindari, too, and he’s at least moderately resistant to magical attacks.” I didn’t want to contemplate the possibility that Zav was afraid to go down there, not when I had no choice but to go in.
“I said less powerful, not a wimp.”
“I don’t know.” I scraped collard greens onto my fork and shoveled them into my mouth while I considered. “He’s so arrogant that even if he was less powerful, I think he’d still believe he could kick all of their asses.”
“Maybe he’s just busy then. Long list of criminals to catch.”
I snorted. “He does sound aggrieved by that. And pissed that it’s forcing him to visit our lowly world. Who gave him this task, do you think?”
“Someone higher up on the totem pole?”
“His mom?” My snort turned to a snigger as I imagined Lord Cocky getting taken by the ear—the horn—and being given the to-do list as punishment.
Dimitri’s mouth twisted with skepticism.
“He did mention that female dragons are powerful and run the show. Maybe that’s why the males, embittered by their pitiful status in society, take their aggressions out on smaller species.”
“Maybe you can run that hypothesis by him next time he lands on your roof. If he kills you, at least you’ll die at home.”
“Flattened like those poor deck chairs.” I set down my fork as a new unpleasant thought surfaced. “What if he’s still pissed at me for interfering with his arrest of the wyvern, and he’s trying to get me killed? By giving me an impossible task?”
“Couldn’t he have killed you last night in your apartment if he wanted you dead?”
“Or any of the times we’ve met, yes, but maybe that’s against the laws he’s upholding. I don’t think he killed any of the werewolves, though the ones that caught fire might have eventually died.” I grabbed another rib. “You know what I should have done? Told him he’d have to come with me down into that lair and that I’d help him get his dark elves, but only if he and his bullet-incinerating body stood in front of me while I hunted down the alchemist.”
The baseball couple glanced at me. Maybe I hadn’t lowered my voice enough. The waiter brought their check, which they hurried to pay without waiting for change and then hustled away from the table with a few backward glances toward me.
I waved a rib at them.
“He would be a powerful ally,” Dimitri said, “but can you really imagine a dragon working with anyone but another dragon?”
I didn’t want him for an ally anyway. I worked alone. That wasn’t going to change. It was bad enough I’d let Dimitri go see the vampire with me. It had almost gotten him eaten by a haunted house.
“Until I figure out how to find this lair, it’s a moot point.” I dug out my phone and tapped open the map application again, thinking of Zoltan’s implication that the alchemist would have to have access to a body of water large enough to hold a kraken.