Never Deal with Dragons

by Christensen, Lorenda

  If things continued as they were, and humans didn’t already have a worldwide system in place to prevent dragons from taking whatever they needed without consequence, we’d soon fall by the wayside and become extinct.

  I shivered. This was a big job.

  Emory wasn’t suited to high-stakes arbitration. In addition to his ill-concealed hatred of dragons, my boss would shove anyone under a bus if it meant saving his own hide. I had the skinned knees to prove it. He’d side with the party most willing to offer him personal safety and security. That was hardly an endorsement to mediate discussions that had the potential to shape the future of the human race.

  My musings were interrupted by Trian as he handed me a cup of tea.

  “How are you holding up?”

  I couldn’t help but smile. It was amazing how the local anesthetic had managed to improve my mood. “You seem to be asking me that question a lot lately. I think I’m doing pretty well after being almost poisoned, and then slapped around by a dragon.”

  His lips curved in response, but I could tell his mind was somewhere else. He wandered over to the window and stared out.

  “News reports that bad?” There was no way Trian’s dragons had been able to dispose of the body without at least one of the “journalists” noticing. Lord Relobu was as close to royalty as we had in Oklahoma; there were always the intrepid few paparazzi milling just outside his gates, hoping to get a picture of something juicy. And headless dragon bodies definitely qualified.

  Reporters were likely throwing segments on the evening news already. Not that it mattered much. Televisions were available only to the wealthy, and even they had problems getting a reliable signal. Dragons liked to do to TV broadcasting towers exactly what they did with the cell versions—knock them over. The real problems would hit tomorrow when the newspapers went out.

  He grunted. “At this point, I could care less what the human news stream decides to run.”

  I looked at Trian and realized that despite our try at a relationship, I didn’t know him very well at all. Oh, I could read his expressions: whether he thought something was funny or sad or puzzling. As a companion, he’d been smart, funny, and infinitely exciting in bed. But now, as he once again stared blindly through the window, I tried to evaluate him with fresh eyes.

  Sometime before he’d grabbed the doctor, he’d changed into a pair of jeans and a dark green shirt, but he still managed to blend seamlessly into the shadows. Other than his odd golden eyes, at first glance he was average in every way. Dark hair, dark skin—he wasn’t tall, nor was he too short; his frame was muscular but not bulky. A panther to Relobu’s lion king.

  The thought startled me, and it suddenly made sense why both Relobu and Richard deferred to him in matters of “information” as well as security. “You’re Relobu’s spy.”

  He didn’t look away from the window. “Yes.”

  My thoughts flew back to that night long ago. I remembered being hurt, but mostly confused. It shouldn’t matter; I’d done my best to bury my self-esteem issues with the relationship.

  But I couldn’t help but wonder. As Dr. Randal motioned for me to raise my arms and allow her to examine my ribs, I asked Trian, “Was I an assignment?” I hated hearing the weakness in my voice.

  “Yes.” He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. And although his answer was exactly what I expected, I wasn’t prepared for the sharp stab of pain in my chest or the tightness in my throat—neither of which had anything to do with Dr. Randal’s gentle prodding.

  I’d been such an idiot.

  “For how long?”

  “Relobu gave the order two days before I left you.”

  Wow. Only two days before he single-handedly destroyed my career.

  “I can’t be sure without an X-ray, but I’m pretty confident none of your ribs are broken. Just badly bruised. I’ll give you a script for some pain medication. You’ll need to take it easy for a week or so.” Dr. Randal rolled my shirt back down and patted me lightly on the knee. I avoided her eyes, afraid of the pity I might find there.

  I did what I’d been forced to do a year ago. I shoved the pain aside and concentrated on my work.

  “I need to get back to DRACIM. I’ll let Richard know as soon as I pull together a portfolio of interested and qualified employees.”

  “Myrna—”

  I interrupted him, angry at that small part of myself that wanted to hear his excuse. “Trian. I don’t have time for this. Can you order a car to take me home, or should I call a taxi?

  Trian regarded me silently for a while before turning to the doctor.

  “She’s going to be okay?”

  “Nothing a little rest won’t cure.”

  He sighed heavily, but nodded. “I’ll get a car.”

  Dr. Randal gave me another pat on the leg as she handed me the script. She stood, nodded to Trian, and left the room. He gave me a shallow nod of goodbye before turning gracefully toward the door, his general air of competence unaffected by something as petty as a woman with hurt feelings.

  I rubbed my chest absently as I watched his back disappear into the hall. The bruised ribs must be acting up.

  Chapter Five

  A day later, and a whole lot more sore, I was once again standing at the entrance of Lord Relobu’s home, trying to calm my nerves. It wasn’t every day I walked into a dragon lord’s house to beg for a job. Even though I’d called ahead, I was slightly surprised the guards admitted me to Lord Relobu’s estate, considering the circumstances surrounding my last visit.

  I was crazy to feel guilty for being attacked, but before I’d been transported into another room to lie on the dragon lord’s couch, I’d gotten a good look at the damage we’d done to his dining hall. There’d been precious few chairs still intact after the incident, and I was still wondering where Lord Relobu was going to find another dining table that would seat one hundred persons of the non-clawed variety. All of Ol’ Blue’s banging had left deep scratches on its once-gleaming surface.

  As I’d waited on Saturday for the car that would take me home, the dragon lord had stopped in to offer his apologies for the “disturbance”—his words. He’d waved away my decorating concerns and wished me a safe trip. I’d have laughed at the idea of a dragon being worried about my safety in a limo after I’d almost been killed by a dragon just hours before, but I didn’t think my ribs would have survived it.

  Today, we bypassed the dining hall altogether as the butler escorted me to the wing of the house that held the human offices.

  When we reached the door bearing Richard’s name, the butler murmured assurances that someone would join me soon, and then backed politely out of the room, pulling the doors quietly closed behind him.

  With nothing better to do, I surveyed the office of the world’s most talented dragonspeaker. The room was surprisingly boring. Sure, Richard had one of those cute mini golf games on his desk, and the requisite number of framed family photos, but the rest of the office was far too neat and tidy for my taste. Not a piece of paper was out of place, and even his ink pens had been lined up in order of length.

  Richard was a total control freak. I’m not sure my office had ever been this organized, even after I’d finished my once-a-year purge.

  I brushed aside my vague feelings of inferiority and stared out the window. The day was overcast and dreary, and a group of dragons flew in lazy circles above me, either uncaring or unaffected by the change in pressure.

  I opened the folder I was carrying and scanned my resume one last time. As promised, I’d prepared a neat, typewritten list of all the DRACIM employees qualified and willing to serve as a mediator between two dragon nations.

  It was a very short list. The news of the dragon attack had already churned through the gossip mill at DRACIM, and there were few dragonspeakers willing to take on an assignment where they might be in danger of more than an accidental claw or tooth misplacement. Out of the ones who were willing to take the risk, only a handful were trained in arbitration
techniques.

  I hoped that the lack of names would work in my favor. Because my current title, Secretary to Mr. Emory Glask, really didn’t inspire trust and confidence in my abilities, regardless of my training records.

  I turned at the knock on the door, and was surprised to see Trian slip into the room.

  “No Richard today?” Although Richard hadn’t directly said it, considering the importance and time-sensitive nature of the job, I’d assumed he would be hiring for this position personally.

  I really didn’t want to interview with Trian. Not only would he be uninterested in reading over the items in my folder—Trian was never much for paperwork—I couldn’t help but notice that Trian filled out his clothes better than Richard. I had enough to deal with already; I didn’t need the added stress of physical attraction to muck things up.

  So I sighed in relief when Trian said, “He’s finishing up a conference call. Asked me to step in and make small talk until he arrived.” Trian shrugged and smiled slightly as he buried his hands in the pockets of his dark slacks.

  Back when we were dating, I’d often teased him about his penchant for dark clothing, once going so far as buying him a bright yellow sweater and demanding he “put a little sunshine in his life.”

  He’d responded by brushing his lips over mine and saying “I already have.”

  I’d thought him terribly romantic.

  That was three weeks before he left me.

  I shook my head to dislodge the memories. No reason to relive moments of the past, whether they be from yesterday or a year ago. I searched for safer conversation. “So how do you guys split up the workload? He takes the business meetings—you preside over the beheadings?”

  Trian shot me a sidelong glance. “I can assure you our beheading ceremonies here are few and far between. I still get a little free time.”

  “Good to know.”

  A silence fell when neither of us could come up with neutral conversation. I suddenly understood why Carol took great pains to avoid her ex-boyfriends. Once she went so far as to crawl under my dressing room door at the mall after I refused to unlock it and let her hide from an accidental meet-up with her ex and his current crush. Why she hadn’t just slipped into one of the empty stalls next door, I’ll never know.

  On the bright side, she’d bought me a pair of shoes as an apology. I told her she could see me in my underwear anytime if it meant I got free clothes after. So sue me—I’m a clothes prostitute.

  I watched as Trian paced the room, running his fingers along the spines of the books tucked into a corner shelf. “Usually, Richard handles the business meetings and HR, while I keep track of the dragons and their work shifts. Among other things.”

  “Other things” being going undercover and stealing documents from naive girls with stars in their eyes.

  Well, what do you know? I might still be bitter.

  “Relobu put you in charge of the dragons, huh? That seems odd. He must have a firmer hold on his subjects than I thought.” It wasn’t that dragons—well, most dragons—actively hated humans. Sure, there were the odd few out there who blamed our race for playing God with the genetic testing that had created them. But by and large they treated us as necessary evils in the food-providing process.

  Most of the dragon population accepted humans for what we were: a weaker race they sometimes paid money to keep from squawking. They were fine with us interfering when the price was only cash, less so when we tried to order them around directly. It was like asking a whale to obey a goldfish.

  We were a necessary annoyance. Our race provided things essential to survival, for both dragons and humans. Dragons couldn’t exactly manage their own cattle. And they weren’t too keen on menial labor, such as cleaning, farming, and building.

  In general, we were seen as a kind of servant class, because we weren’t big enough or strong enough to insist things were the other way around. I was here hoping I could help change that. And maybe even get paid for it.

  So for Trian to be in charge over Relobu’s dragon force, he was either crazy or really, really good at defending himself.

  Trian smiled. “That, and I have my own ways of earning their respect.”

  His words were said with such self-assurance that I was taken aback. I took a moment to study him. The year had changed him very little. Still lean and muscled, his dark hair an inch or so too short for his prominent nose and sculpted cheekbones, he looked exactly as he had the last time I’d seen him. Only now, I recognized his calm demeanor for what it was. Confidence. That usual quiet composure was because he knew he didn’t have to raise his voice to be heard. When he spoke, people listened.

  I envied him the ability. When I was quiet, people tended to mistake me for a doormat. I’d had a hard time getting Emory to understand I wasn’t employed to run his errands.

  How had I ever thought Trian was unassuming? I suppose he’d been purposefully flying under the radar while we were together. Looking at him, I had to wonder if I even knew this man.

  I’d run out of things to talk about. I glanced at my watch, wondering how long it would be until Richard appeared. I hoped I wouldn’t be forced to chitchat for the entire afternoon. Trian’s presence was…unsettling.

  A thought occurred to me. “I’m assuming Richard isn’t aware that I’m a past assignment of yours?”

  Trian’s easy expression hardened, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have said he looked insulted. “No.”

  “Well, that’s good. It will make my life marginally easier.”

  A silence again filled the room. It made me uncomfortable. I scrambled for a topic. “Oh—I noticed you have a black dragon on staff here?”

  When Trian didn’t respond, I looked at my watch.

  Where in the heck was Richard?

  Trian wandered to the chair across from the one I’d occupied and sat down, his long frame relaxing into the worn upholstery. It cheered me somewhat to see Lord Relobu’s hoarding instinct wasn’t out of control. I didn’t know a thing about antique furniture, but even I could tell the chair Trian settled upon was old and very expensive. Most dragons would have stored the treasure in a climate-controlled vault somewhere, but Lord Relobu decorated his home with his priceless collections. And allowed his human employees to use them.

  I hoped the dragon’s unusual respect for his human employees boded well for my success today. I knew it was a long shot, asking the Dragon Lord of North America to allow a secretary to negotiate on his behalf. Even I had to admit the idea sounded ludicrous. But I’d been the one to type up the list of possible replacements, and without DRACIM employees, I knew his hiring pool was miserably shallow. The only question was how serious he had been about needing humans from DRACIM to participate.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when Richard, dressed in a pristine light gray suit and blue tie, came in the room and flashed me his usual charming smile. But I could tell he was distracted, because he didn’t even bother to flirt. The squeeze he gave my hands felt more grandfatherly than seductive. “Myrna—good to see you. I got caught up in some business and was just now able to get away. You have the list?”

  Richard gestured for me to have a seat on the sofa facing his desk as he took the chair behind it.

  I straightened in my seat. It was an odd feeling, promoting myself for a job I was asked to recommend someone else for. It felt way too presumptuous, especially given my current position. But I shook off the nerves. I didn’t see a way around it. Better to jump right in.

  “Along with DRACIM’s official list of qualified personnel, I’d like to personally inform you that I’d be interested in applying for the job.” Feeling slightly foolish, I handed Richard my resume.

  Richard took the sheet of paper and glanced over it. “You started at DRACIM as a junior mediator? Why did you decide to work for Mr. Glask?”

  “To be honest, Mr. Green, I was demoted because I lost some sensitive work papers about a year ago. At the time, DRACIM didn’t feel comfortable empl
oying a mediator who couldn’t manage confidential information appropriately. As part of their jobs, mediators often work outside the DRACIM offices. They felt I was more suited to a job based solely inside DRACIM property.”

  I remembered just how embarrassed I’d been when they’d asked me to sign an agreement promising no DRACIM data would leave the building without express permission from Emory. Just this morning, I’d been forced to call Emory on a Sunday and wait for him to show up to work before I could come here. It was awful, and humiliating, and it made me want to kill Trian every time I thought about it.

  Startled, Richard looked up from the resume.

  Trian was no less surprised. He rose from his seat and joined me on the sofa. “Myrna, I’m so sorry. I had no idea—” He put a hand on the back of my neck, running his fingertips lightly along my backbone in an attempt to soothe. I don’t even think he noticed. He’d always been one for casual touch.

  I shifted slightly, wishing I could say the same. My body, familiar with those strong artistic fingers, so out of place on his otherwise efficient form, wanted to curl into the touch and enjoy the odd mix of comfort and warmth he provided. Apparently some things were never forgotten. But today, I was more angry than vulnerable.

  I deliberately kept my attention on Richard. “I know this doesn’t exactly make me perfect for the job, but if you looked at my training history and performance reviews, you would see that I’m fully qualified to handle negotiations of this type.”

  Richard placed my resume on the table and cleared his throat. “Myrna, we appreciate your willingness, really, but this job will require delicacy and an intimate knowledge of dragon custom to navigate the negotiations successfully. We’d prefer someone with a few more years of experience. I’ll take a look at the names on the list, and get back—”