“Can I have a digital wall, then?” I indicated the black one behind him. “So I can watch you like you’re creepily watching me?”
He actually seemed to consider the request before answering this time. “No. It is not safe. You are too clever.”
“Why isn’t it safe? What are you afraid I’ll see?”
This time, he did not answer. I waited, counting to one hundred like I’d been taught in journalism school. I was good at silence.
Turned out he was better.
“Fine.” I threw my hands up after I lost track of my fifth count to one hundred. “What am I supposed to do all day?”
“You may take long baths in your facilities. You like those, correct?”
I did like long baths, actually. I could stay in them for hours. But there wasn’t any way I was going to confirm my imprisoner’s guess.
“I have several more questions.” I folded my arms over my chest. “Questions that need answers.”
He regarded me with a wary look. “Questions such as…?”
“Like, how is there god tech in the Pleistocene Age? Why does your human form have pecs but no belly button or…?”
I glanced down at the blank V between his legs, then back up.
“Drakkon are not like you, Dorie.” His voice had a weary quality to it, like a frustrated teacher who was having to explain something for the umpteenth time. “You are a hybrid. A human who shifts into an animal by the pull of the full moon. Our original nature is drakkon, and we fold ourselves into this form. What you see is merely a shell.”
My hand itched for anything to start taking notes, but with my bullet journal out of commission, I had to settle for recording all this info in my brain. “And your really good modern-my-time English?”
His expression softened. “We have had many rotations of practice.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t really answer my question.”
Another smoky grunt. “Perhaps we are not the drakkon to ask these questions at this time.”
“But—”
“You may go now,” he said, indicating the door with one of those ungodly large hands. “Retreat into your bath.”
I kept my feet planted where they were, and this time it was my turn to say, “No.”
“Dorie…” His voice held a smoky threat.
But I didn’t care. “You might as well slit my throat now. That’s better than whatever sanitized word you want to call keeping me in a cavern against my will.”
“Rev—Dorie, you are being dramatic.”
“I am not,” I promised him. “I will lose my mind if you don’t let me out of that cavern, so I’m sorry, but you are going to have to figure out something better than ‘go take a long bath, Dorie.’”
Another long silence stretched between us, but I refused to back down. Mostly because I had nothing better to do than stand my ground.
His jaw worked. “If you wish, we can train you.”
I jerked my head back. I hadn’t expected him to give in. Or make me such a strange offer.
“Train me to what?” I asked.
“Protect yourself. Also, we would like your heart and muscle condition to be optimal, just in case…”
He didn’t finish.
