Then he collapsed back into his navel-less, nipple-free version of a human.
And there was something else missing. I glanced, then double-took, then full out stared at the V between his hips. Itwas sharp and well-defined, but it extended into nothing. No genitalia of any kind. He was a total Ken Doll down there.
“Hello… Dorie.”
I dragged my eyes back up to his face when he spoke.
His smoke-and-glass voice had a tightness to it. I sensed irritation behind it. But hey, he called me by my preferred name. And a stiff hello was way better than, “You shouldn’t be here!” and holding a knife to my throat.
Or a fireball that could burn me to ash.
“Sooo…”
Kiwi screamed in the back of my head about not freaking out as I worked to keep my voice casual. “You’re a dragon.”
He dipped his head, jaw working as if he maybe didn’t want to answer. “Our kind is called Drakkon.”
“Drakkon,” I repeated. “Thanks for the correction. I’m always down for a pronunciation guide.”
He regarded me a long, unblinking time. “You are the same… but different.”
I winced. “Yeah, falling into an ice age will change a person, for sure.”
“You have found our room. We thought we would have longer to reprogram the door.” He let out another sound. Not quite a sigh. Closer to a grunt. “You are too clever.”
Too clever could be taken as a compliment. But it did not feel like one.
“I’d call it more curious than clever.” I glanced back at the door I’d come through, still glowing in the wall. “Speaking of curious things, the wooden doors leading into my room from the castle interior refuse to open.”
I squinted up at him accusingly. “Do you have something to do with that?”
“Those doors are only programmed to open for our kind.”
“Then it’s just a programming thing.” I let my face relax. “Phew. I thought you’d imprisoned me or something.”
“We have not imprisoned you,” he assured me.
“Oh great.” True relief filled my chest like a balloon. I hitched my thumb over my shoulder in the general direction of the door. “Could you come use your drakkon nature to open the door for me, then? I’d like to take a look around. You know, get my bearings.”
“No.”
I waited for an explanation, but that was the only word that came.
And, eventually, it was on me to ask, “Why not?”
“You are not a prisoner, Dorie. But you are under our protection.”
Under his protection.I turned the words over in my head. They had a sour taste to them. Like “protection” rhymed with “prisoner.”
“How about if I don’t want to be under your protection?”
He didn’t blink, but his eyes narrowed like I’d asked him a most confusing question. “It is impossible for you not to be. It is our honor to protect you.”
“Really?” I scrunched my nose and tilted my chin. “Because yesterday I woke up to a guy yelling at me for being here and putting a knife to my throat.”
“Yes, we regret that….” He looked embarrassed for two whole seconds before his large shoulders lifted into a shrug. “But you survived the attack. You are alive. You are talking to us now after finding the door we should have reprogrammed. This is a good thing.”
“You and I have two very different definitions of ‘good thing.’” I put those last two words in air quotes.
