“I don’t know when you got your assignment,” I went on, very slightly encouraged that he’d stopped, even if it was only to glare venomous daggers at me. “But I got mine two weeks ago. She was the last of three wyverns that attacked children here in Oregon, and she was mine to take down. I…” I what? I’d run out of things to say. Did the dragon even understand? “I had dibs,” I finished weakly, as if we were squabbling over a toy on a playground.
“You are a bounty hunter?” the dragon asked in his resonant voice. His resonant scornful voice.
I had a feeling he didn’t often talk to the people he was about to slay.
“No. I work for the army.”
“You are a soldier?” He looked me up and down, skepticism joining the scorn.
With my jeans and shirt half torn off, acid burns on my hand and sleeve, and half the forest tangled in my thick blonde braid, I didn’t look my best. It had been more than ten years since I’d been active duty, and if I still had a uniform, I didn’t know where it was, but what did some dragon know about what soldiers on Earth looked like or wore?
“Technically, I’m a government contractor for the army now, not a soldier.” No need to mention that I took the occasional freelance job on the side. “I get a modest base pay and combat bonuses for completed missions. Which means I make in a year about what it would cost to buy a new Jeep.” I thrust my sword toward the mangled vehicle dangling in the trees. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t fallen down. “And my missions are hunting down and killing magical beings that have committed heinous crimes against humanity. Like that wyvern did.”
“You are female.”
“So what? I’m six feet tall, can bench more than my bodyweight, and can skin the balls off a ram with my sword.”
His eyes narrowed, and a part of me wanted to skin a dragon’s balls and show him that I was capable.
“Females do not fight,” he said. “They rule society and command males to fight.”
It dawned on me that he hadn’t been calling me weak. “Oh, so dragons are like bees?”
That violet light in his eyes flared. “Dragons are not like insects.”
He stepped forward, and I whipped up the point of my sword. A wave of power knocked me twenty feet, the same as it had that wyvern, and only luck kept me from slamming into a tree. A bed of wet ferns broke my fall. Sort of.
Fortunately, the dragon did not rush after me. He stood between two trees, sunlight filtering through the branches and onto his short black hair and hard face, and scrutinized me. Had I confused him? I hoped so. I also hoped that he didn’t eat people he found confusing.
“Listen, dragon.” I pushed myself to my feet. “I—”
“Lord Zavryd’nokquetal,” he corrected.
“What?”
“My name.”
“Can I call you Zav?”
“No.”
I pushed myself to my feet. “If you’d ever heard how badly I mangle suea rong hai when I try to order it from Nin’s food truck, you wouldn’t want me to attempt to say your name.”
His eyes narrowed. “You may call me Lord Zavryd. You have interfered with the will of this representative of the Dragon Justice Court. You have slain a wyvern that would have been punished and rehabilitated. We do not kill dragons or dragon-kin, no matter how weak and degenerate they are.”
“Sorry, but like I said, I had the assignment first. She was mine to take down, and I did.” I lifted my chin. Maybe he appreciated someone looking him in the eye. And maybe someone who worked for the justice-whatever wouldn’t kill me. But he’d only mentioned dragons and dragon-kin as worthy of keeping alive, not humans.
His nostrils flared, more like the dragon he’d been than the human he was now, and he looked me up and down again. Disdainfully.
“You are part human, that verminous infestation that blights this world, but…” He sniffed, nose wrinkling. “You also smell like an elf.”
“And here I thought I smelled like ferns and dirt.”
I’d been twenty-one and not-dying of what should have been mortal wounds after a helicopter crash before I’d believed my mother’s story that I had an elf for a father. After that, I’d accepted it and learned to appreciate the handful of atypical aptitudes it gave me, such as the ability to heal quickly from wounds. Already, the acid burns in my skin had stopped hurting. That didn’t mean I could survive having a dragon snap me in half like a toothpick.
“An elf would never lower herself to be an assassin for humans.” He curled his lip. “Your trinkets and cat will not protect you if you irritate the Dragon Justice Court.”
He turned and walked toward the road.
It took me a minute to realize that he was done insulting me and leaving. Was I actually going to survive this day?
When he reached the road, he faced me again. “If you interfere with my work again, I will eliminate you.”
His eyes sent chills through me, but I made myself meet that gaze with all the confidence I could muster. “I’ll keep that in mind. Any chance you’re on your way back to whatever realm you came from?”
Something flashed in the dragon’s eyes, some emotion that was, for the first time, not irritation, indignation, or pomposity. Was it… wistfulness?
“No. I have many criminals that I must remove from this benighted prison yard of a planet. Stay out of my way, mongrel.”
He—Zav, was all I would call him—shifted from human form to dragon in a second, then sprang into the air, muscular legs propelling him up to the treetops before he extended his wings. He flapped them twice and soared out of view.
I lowered my sword and looked at my Jeep. How was I going to get home?
My phone buzzed. I dug it out of my pocket.
Great news, Ms. Thorvald. It was Dr. Brightman. My therapist acquaintance had a cancelation on Monday and can work you in. Here’s the link to book the appointment.
I groaned. I’d rather talk to another dragon than a therapist.
My wounds had mostly healed by Sunday afternoon when the bus dropped me off at the Greyhound station in Seattle. The acid burns on my hand were gone, and I trusted any bruises I’d received in my fight had disappeared. Healing fast was the biggest perk of having elven blood, especially in my line of work. Some people might think it a perk that I was in my forties and didn’t yet look thirty, but I wouldn’t mind getting past the stage where guys ogled my chest.
As I left the bus station, I grimaced at the idea of walking the mile to Occidental Square where Nin’s food truck was usually set up. I’d lost track of how many miles I’d walked this weekend, first on that dirt road and then on Highway 101, before I’d been close enough to order a car to take me to Portland. The outrageous receipt for that trip was in my inbox; I planned to write it off on my taxes as a work expense if Colonel Willard wouldn’t reimburse me.
If only I could be reimbursed for my Jeep. I’d spent most of Saturday on the phone with the insurance agency, trying to convince someone that an act of God had hurled it into those trees. My initial attempt to be honest and blame a dragon had gotten me hung up on. The last I’d heard, the agency was sending someone out to look at the crash site. Nobody had openly said I’d doctored the photos I’d sent, but it had been implied.