The power of Zav’s aura buffeted me like a strong wind, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t sensed him sooner. Maybe he’d been flying nearby, spotted the explosion and landed immediately, turning into his human form so he wouldn’t attract attention.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted as soon as he was close enough to speak with over the honks of horns and shouts of people on the opposite side of the street. Already, a siren wailed, the police and maybe the fire department heading this way. Nothing was burning—thankfully, the grenade had exploded in the air over the street. “I know you didn’t come to get your chakras aligned.”
“That is not the proper way to greet a dragon.” Zav looked me up and down, his gaze lingering on my bloody feet. “Nor is this appropriate attire for battling criminals.”
“I’m not battling criminals. I’m exercising and contorting my throat to do ocean breathing.”
His forehead creased. “You must always be prepared to battle criminals. They are attracted to you. That is why I keep telling you that I will use you as bait.”
“No kidding.” A police car turned onto the street, and some of the yoga students were peering out the broken window and the front door. “Look, I’ve got a message for you. Let’s go over there.” I pointed to an alley.
I hurried to it. Zav considered his surroundings before clasping his hands behind his back and strolling after me.
“You leave blood on the ground as you walk.” He pointed to a spot. “This will make it easy for enemies to track you. Do you wish me to heal your injuries?”
“No, I don’t want anything from you.” Owing Zav a favor would be even worse than owing Zoltan a favor. I waved for him to keep following me, so I could go to the parking lot in the back where I’d left the Jeep. “But there’s a dragon who does. You know a Dob-something-or-other? Big silver dragon, likes to kidnap children?”
Zav’s face grew frosty. “I know Dobsaurin and am aware that he is in this world.”
“Did you know that he’s been trying to get your attention?”
“I do not know his reason for coming, but I have sensed him here. I have been far to the east and south, capturing rogue djinn in a hot desert region.”
“What brings you back? You missed me?”
He regarded me blandly again. “You do make it easier to locate criminals. They are drawn to you like a vylorni to a flame.”
“I’ve noticed.” I waved in the direction of the soot-stained sidewalk and broken window. My first yoga class, and I’d endangered all the students there. How had those idiot brothers guessed I would be there? They couldn’t have tracked me by scent in a city so large, could they have? “But you attract irate dragons who don’t like your current criminal-capturing gig.”
“Dobsaurin’s family does not like anything that my family does. We are rivals.”
“Yeah, I guessed.” I walked across the parking lot to my Jeep. Nobody else from the class had come out the back yet. Maybe they were waiting for the police to question them. I would need to go get my shoes and bag eventually, but I hadn’t locked my door, so at least I could grab a towel out of the back and wipe my feet.
A warm heat washed across my soles, followed by the itching of new skin forming, and I glared suspiciously at Zav. He stood a few feet away, his aura tingling all over me and probably making it even easier for magical beings to find me. His hands were still clasped behind his back.
“You’re healing me? Listen, I appreciate that you’d rather do that than incinerate me, but I really don’t want to owe you any favors.”
He cocked his head. “Why not?”
“Because you’ll try to redeem them. And tell me I need to travel with you and be your bait.”
“I do believe your reputation might have stretched even to the distant deserts. You may have attracted the djinn, thus making it easier for me to locate and capture them. Lesser magical beings tend to hide when dragons come near.”
“Shocking.”
“Your tone is not properly respectful. Do not forget that you are addressing a superior being.”
I only partially managed to muffle my scoff as I rubbed the towel across my feet. The blood had dried, and the wounds had completely disappeared. It wasn’t just that they’d turned to scars; it was as if the injuries had never occurred.
“Thank you,” I made myself say, however grudgingly. Now that I’d met a dragon that liked to kidnap children for fun, it made me realize I should be a little nicer to the one who was a law enforcer. Even if laws put forth by the Dragon Justice Court had little in common with Earth laws, Zav seemed vaguely reasonable to deal with. “Why are you here? I don’t suppose the Pardus panther-shifter brothers have committed crimes and you’ve come to capture them for rehabilitation.”
Dare I hope? If he was after them, it would make sense that he’d shown up.
“No. I do not know who they are. I brought you the gift you requested, even though your tone reminds me that you are not deserving of gifts from a dragon.”
“Uh, what?” I was positive I hadn’t requested anything from him except that vial of blood, and he’d already given me that.
“A poster of myself that you can throw hatchets at.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“I am not.” Zav drew, seemingly out of an invisible poster carrier attached to his back, a rolled-up tube.
Had he actually found a print shop and had one made? I couldn’t believe it. I squinted at him as I accepted it, still expecting a joke.
“I suppose dragons aren’t known for their senses of humor,” I said when I didn’t find any sign of amusement on his face. It was a handsome face, with a strong, angular jaw and high cheekbones, everything enhanced by a perfectly trimmed beard and mustache, but it was a haughty one. It had to be hard to laugh when one’s haughtiness mask was affixed so tightly.
“Who told you this lie? Dragons have riotous senses of humor, but we only tell jokes among our own kind. Inferior species would not have the necessary mental acuity to grasp them.”
So much haughtiness.
“Oh, I bet.”
As I opened the tube and tipped the poster out, I noticed a twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy with a skateboard under his arm eyeing us from across the parking lot. He was watching but pretending not to be watching. Maybe he liked Zav’s robe and wanted to know what Etsy shop he could order it from.
“I also came because Dobsaurin told me he left a message with you.” Zav’s violet eyes narrowed. “He was exceedingly coy when he spoke to me, and it was from a great distance. I know he is here in this geographical region, but I cannot pin him down.” He gazed at the walls of the buildings around us, as if he could see through them to the snow-capped Cascades to the east and the Olympics to the west. “I believe some magical artifact is assisting him in evading my senses. He taunted me with his words, as if he had some knowledge that I did not.”
“Uh, the only knowledge I have is that he wants to kill you for sanctimonious meddling, and he’s a dick.”
“I already know this.” Zav paused. “What is a… dick?”
“The thing hanging between your legs.” I unrolled the poster but almost lost my grip when Zav bent to look down. Did he think I meant his robe? “The sex organ that’s there if you gave yourself all the human parts when you shape-shifted. I guess I don’t know if you did. And,” I hurried to add, “I don’t want to know.”
Zav straightened. “I would not shape-shift into an ill-considered amorphous blob. When I am in human form, I am anatomically correct.”
“I’m so glad for you.”
I held out both sides of the poster. It wasn’t the big black dragon I’d expected. It was a blown-up photograph of Zav, with his familiar haughty and handsome face and wearing the same black robe with silver trim. He was posing with one leg propped on a chair and his chin on his fist, his elbow on his knee. I assumed it had been the photographer’s idea. It wasn’t a bad one. The photo was attractive. If he wanted to retire from
enforcing dragon laws, he could easily get modeling gigs here. Or, if he was as anatomically correct as promised, a career working in the sex industry.
“I have to admit, I was imagining throwing hatchets at the dragon form of you.”
“The dragon form of me couldn’t fit in the booth, and the photographer was unsettled. He would not consider going outside with me. I decided not to magically compel him. People don’t do their best work under such conditions.”
“Imagine that.” I turned the poster, wondering at the plausibility of setting up a hatchet-throwing arena in my small apartment. And if I could truly bring myself to hurl blades at his face. “Mangling someone who looks human seems sadistic.”
“You would not consider it sadistic to mangle a dragon?”
“Nah. It would be like operating a crane with a wrecking ball and swinging it into a building marked for demolition. Satisfying.”
Zav gazed at me. Something about it made me feel guilty, like I was morally wrong to find the idea of mutilating a dragon appealing. It wasn’t my fault he was so pompous and annoying. His arrogance invited fantasies of mutilation.
Across the parking lot, the boy was still not-watching us.
“Do you have any idea what that kid wants?” I asked to change the subject—and because I was curious.
Zav shouldn’t have been able to see the boy from where he stood, but it didn’t surprise me that he knew what I meant. “He wishes to deliver a message to you, but he’s not certain if I am your mate and will drive him off in a fit of jealous rage.” Zav’s forehead crinkled. “His thoughts are alien to me. It’s possible I misinterpreted them.”
“Yeah, I think so. Don’t sweat it. Teenage-boy thoughts are alien to other humans too.” I looked over at the kid, caught his gaze before he could pretend not to be looking, and waved for him to come over.
“I truly need the message that Dobsaurin delivered to you,” Zav said earnestly. “If he is here to openly challenge me, this is unprecedented, and something must have changed between our families. I must warn my kin.” His gaze drifted from my eyes upward to my forehead. Well, that was better than all the guys whose gazes went down to my boobs. “You are not wearing your magical sword. It is interesting that I have difficulty reading your thoughts.”
“You’re probably distracted by my great beauty.”
His gaze drifted downward, more considering than interested, and I wasn’t positive he’d even been aware that I was female. Not that the baggy T-shirt I’d chosen for this class was form-flattering.
“Never mind,” I said. “Look, he kidnapped some children, and he said it was because he wanted to get your goat. He didn’t say why, just implied that he would kill you. That’s really all he gave me. He spent most of our time together trying to flambé me.”
“My goat?”
“Your attention.”
“If he wishes my attention, he has it. If he wishes to challenge me, I am not afraid to battle him. Why would he use you to deliver this challenge and then hide?”
“How would I know? I didn’t even know he existed until the other day.”
Zav frowned at me. “It is true you are ignorant of politics in the Cosmic Realms.”
“Yes, I am. I’d like to stay that way. And also not to be incinerated by dragons trying to get your attention.”
The boy had skated over and was close enough to hear that last sentence, but he didn’t react to it.
“I think you’re the one,” he said.
“I’m sure that’s true.” I eyed him again, hoping the kid wasn’t here to take revenge for a parent I’d killed. That had happened before. But there wasn’t a drop of magical blood in his veins—this close, I would have sensed it—so he couldn’t be descended from any of the magical beings I’d assassinated. “One for what?”
“A guy paid me five dollars to deliver a message to the big blonde chick that he said would run out of the yoga studio after an explosion. He said she’d probably be on fire.”
“I’m tall, not big. Don’t call women big. They don’t like that.” I held out my hand, already imagining the idiocy this message would contain if it had come from the panther brothers.
“If you are big, people will fantasize about hurling wrecked balls at you,” Zav informed the kid.
“Wrecking balls.” I gave him a weird look—the kid gave him an even weirder one.
I wasn’t sure if Zav was trying to be personable, but he’d been less alarming when he’d simply been calling humans vermin and telling me how deplorable this planet was.
“Let’s have it,” I told the kid.
He’d taken out a wrinkled envelope, but he hadn’t given it to me. “The guy said you’d also give me five dollars.”
“He said I’d do that while I’m on fire?”
His face screwed up as he considered the logic. “Yes.”
I snatched the letter from him faster than he could jerk it away, then shooed him back across the parking lot. “Thanks. Go spend your big earnings at the arcade.”
He looked like he wanted to object, but Zav frowned at him, made his eyes glow violet, and the kid jumped and ran away.
“Nicely creepy,” I said. “I think the villains in Stargate SG-1 did that.”
“It is sometimes a warning among my kind, sometimes an indication that power is being used.” Zav returned his scrutiny to me.
I had a feeling he thought I knew more about his dragon nemesis than I did. I had no idea how to convince him otherwise.
“Are you stronger than Dob is?” I tore open the envelope.
“The law and the righteousness of my beliefs will aid me against him.”
“Oh man, you’re really screwed, aren’t you?”
What would happen if Zav lost and Dob won? Would Dob be satisfied and go back to his own world, or would he stay here and terrorize more people?
“I am not. But he occasionally uses methods that are unacceptable to the Dragon Justice Court and myself. If we were to do battle, it would be important that bystanders were not nearby.”
I imagined people bursting into flames as dragons battled overhead, spewing gouts of fire everywhere. “Yeah, if you’re going to fight, please lure him away from the city.”
“That will be my goal. But I must locate him first. That is why I am questioning you.”
“I knew you didn’t just come to give me the poster.” I sighed as I read the short note.
Stay out of our affairs, or you and your weapons-making friend will be forcefully deported.
It wasn’t signed, but it wasn’t a big mystery who’d sent it—and tried to bomb the yoga studio.
“Are you sure you don’t have a couple of panther-shifter brothers named Pardus on your list of people to send through a portal back to your court?” I asked.
“I do not.”
“I don’t suppose you’d like to punt them through a portal anyway?”
“Not if they have not committed a crime against the tenets of dragonkind.”
“They’re advertising that they can make weapons to slay dragons.”
“I assume that is untrue.”
“From what I’ve been told, probably. But don’t you think such claims might offend your court?”
Zav tilted his head. “Why do you not slay them yourself? This is what you are known for, is it not? Assassinating the magical.” Judgment oozed from his tone.
“Only if they’ve committed crimes—specifically murder. I don’t get sent out against magical beings unless they’ve been killing humans.” There was also the matter of the ten shapeshifter allies the brothers claimed. At least ten. Who knew how many were in that Northern Pride? Maybe I could get Willard to send me what the office had on them.
“If you cannot give me further information on Dobsaurin’s whereabouts and intentions, I must go.” Zav looked to the sky.
“You have another dragonkind-irking deadbeat on your list?”
“I must find Dobsaurin.” His gaze returned to me, speculative. “I d
o wonder…”
He was thinking about dangling me out in the woods to attract the dragon. I could tell. But Dob wasn’t from Earth, and he shouldn’t have had time to build up a grudge against me, so I doubted that would work, even if I were willing.
“He’s after you, not me,” I said. “Don’t even think of putting a compulsion on me or whatever you did last time. I’m my own free person, not somebody’s puppet.”
“I must consider the needs of the court over the needs of one mongrel.”
“Must you call me that? My name is Val. I’m a capable warrior.”
“Of mongrel heritage. Be pleased that your mixed blood gives you an advantage over the typical vermin that inhabit this foul, infested place.”
“You’re a dick too, FYI. But I’m still going to give you something.” I opened the car door and pulled out the wine that I had no interest in drinking. The cider and chocolate I could find a use for—even if it was weird huckleberry cider and lavender chocolate—but wine was only slightly more palatable to me than coffee. “Try this.” I shoved the case of twelve bottles into his arms. “Probably in human form. Maybe you’ll like it. Wait, here.” On a whim, I grabbed one of the boxes of chocolate and put it on top. I’d been given enough to share. “That too. I bet if you sample the offerings of this vermin-infested planet, you might agree that we come up with some good stuff.”
“Doubtful.” Zav wrinkled his nose as he surveyed his gifts.
“Humans love chocolate. Good chocolate is a delicacy.”
“Is it made from meat?”
“Uh, no. Do dragons only eat meat?”
“Meat and occasionally fish.”
“Nothing with any fiber? How do you stay regular?”
He gave me a blank look. It was just as well. I couldn’t believe I’d brought up toilet habits with a dragon.
“Never mind. Just try it. And if they’re awful, you can pelt Dobsaurin with them.”
“I will pelt him with fire and brimstone.”
“Also acceptable. I’m going to find my shoes.” I waved and headed for the door.
“Wait.” Zav spoke in a normal tone, but power laced the word.
Battle Bond: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons Book 2) Page 9