“People sometimes show up in the depths of the night, hoping to acquire leftover soup. Your kind are overly preoccupied with sexual acts.” Jildarin looked at her with condemnation.
“Some people enjoy them. Do dragons not…” Rylana didn’t know how to finish the question. She knew dragonsmated, especially after the discussion she’d overheard between Jildarin and his brother, but, in all her years as a mercenary, she couldn’t remember anyone talking with authority on the subject or whether, when they shifted into human form, they experienced human…urges. She didn’t think dragons discussed such things with outsiders, and the soldiers had always been a lot more concerned about dragons using their human forms to spy rather than for liaisons.
“Engage in sexual acts? For mating purposes when a female is in heat, yes, but notall the timelike humans and orcs, and do not even bring up goblins. They are like rabbits. I cannot imagine being so preoccupied by coitus.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if I have the unwise urge to ask you on a date.”
“Do so.” Jildarin stopped at the door to the diner and looked at her. “You are still here. The employment will not start again until the morning.”
“Does that mean you’re denying my request to sleep here?”
“Yes.”
“The storeroom would be fine. I left my things there anyway.”
“The storeroom is mylair.”
“What if I slept in the diner? Or the kitchen?”
“You are anassassin.”
“No, I’m an archer, and I can’t use my bow while there’s a tranquility ribbon on it. I don’t have any mithril arrowheads anyway. My normal ones wouldn’t pierce a dragon’s scales.” Rylana could hardly believe he viewed her as a real threat. Even if the half-orchadtried to poison him recently, what could she do to such a powerful being without an army beside her? “You sleep in your dragon form, don’t you?”
“I am usually compelled to spend hours regenerating in my natural state, yes.”
“Then you’ll be impervious to my weapons, right? I’d have to stab you in a vulnerable spot like your eye, and I assume that’s closed when you sleep.” The rain had picked up, droplets falling from the edge of Rylana's hood, and her cloak was already soaked through. She longed for dryness. “What’s the problem?”
“I do not share my lair with others, even those incapable of menacing me.”
“I’ll sleep under a table. Or in a little corner behind an oven. Anywhere dry would be fine.” She shook the water droplets from her hood.
“My enemy,” Jildarin said slowly, as if she were dim, “I do not trust you.”
“I’m the one who’s going to be vulnerable sleeping next to a dragon in his native form. You could chomp me in half at any point during the night.”
“When I am in my native form, I can’t fit through the hallway to the tables.”
“Then we’ll both be safe from each other.”
Jildarin made an exasperated noise and opened the door, chopping an ambiguous wave that could have been an invitation to follow or a promise that he would hit her in the head with amallet. “You will sleep in the storeroom in a corner where I can keep an eye on you, and you will not leave at any time during the night, lest I suspect you of inimical intent.”
Rylana stepped inside, willing to agree to anything to get out of the rain. As if the matter were settled, he was already heading for the hallway.
She didn’t want to argue but couldn’t help but ask, “What if I have to pee?”
“You will not leave your corner.”
“That sounds messy.”
“It had better not be,” he said darkly over his shoulder.
9
The floorin the corner of the diner’s storeroom was dry and the air warmer than Rylana had expected, given that the kitchen ovens had been allowed to burn down for the night. Since dragons preferred southern climates, maybe Jildarin had a magical implement that provided warmth. Or maybe his giant dragon body put out heat.
During the night, Rylana had been very aware of the powerful, winged, and fanged predator sleeping scant yards away in the center of the storeroom. Only after she’d seen his silver-scaled body on the cement floor, tail curled around it, snout resting on the end, had she realized that what she’d initially considered haphazard and overflowing stacks and mounds of crates, kegs, and sacks were arranged to form a cozy space around him as he slept.
Ordidhe sleep? Whenever Rylana had stirred and looked over, she’d caught one of his silver lids open, an assessing emerald eye gazing in her direction.
