Page 34 of Red Dragon’s Heart

She was beginning to get the feeling he wasn’t as mean as he pretended to be. Maybe they were having a moment?

She said, “I’m sorry you lost everything too. Did you leave a family behind? I mean, do dragons have families?”

“No,” he growled. “We kick our babies out of the nest as soon as they can fly, and that’s the end of that.”

She was pretty sure he was messing with her, so she guessed they weren’t having a moment after all. “Do you always have to be a dick?” she asked crossly. Getting angry was good. It made her stop wanting to cry.

He said, “Why waste decades of practice?”

Strangely enough, she understood that, in a way. She’d spent years hiding her feelings, putting up with all the crap that women in the sciences still had to take from the guys, especially if the woman was smarter and more competent.

Pretending not to care was the only way to get respect, to get ahead. Nobody had ever given Maddie anything. Not after her parents died. She’d had to fight for all of it, and not let herself be intimidated.

This was no different.

She’d won over enough men to succeed. She could win over a grouchy dragon, if she tried.

Although, PetLand might not have been the best way to start. Maddie was still upset and in need of retail therapy, and kind of pissed off at Zak. So she brazenly filled her shopping cart with the best, most expensive brands of kitty litter and kitten food, a deluxe cat bed, and the Taj Mahal of litter boxes, one that plugged in and had a motorized self-cleaning mechanism.

Zakerek just stood with his arms folded, glowering. The effect was somewhat ruined by Princess Di poking her little face out from the curtain of his hair—she was still refusing to leave his shoulder.

Maddie was just starting to consider taking pity on Zak and not spending all his money, when she saw the cat tree.

It had four carpeted levels, one of them enclosed, with a peaked roof and little round door, like a birdhouse. There were hooks with dangling kitty toys, and a detachable cushion for the top level.

“No,” Zak said.

“But it’s so adorable! And Princess Di loves it.”

“No, she doesn’t. She thinks it’s overpriced and ostentatious.”

Princes Di chose that moment to make a flying leap for the cat tree. She landed on the top level, kneaded the cushion, and curled up in the middle, purring.

Maddie picked up the tree, trying not to dislodge the princess. Zak muttered, “Keep this up, and the furry brats will be living better than we do.”

“They already are,” she pointed out. “I still don’t have a bed.”

“Fuck,” he said under his breath. Then he said, “If you’re going to start being a princess now, I can sleep in the cell.”

Well, there was a confusing statement that needed unpacking. He hadn’t thought about where she would sleep. He didn’t assume she would be sleeping with him. (After last night’s dream sex, she wasn’t sure if she was glad or sorry about that.) He wasn’t planning on locking her in at night… probably. He implied that wanting an actual bed made her a princess, and yet he’d automatically done the gentlemanly thing and offered to give up his bed for her. Despite claiming to be a dick.

She decided not to point any of that out, and just said, “Thank you.”

He made a little growling noise, grabbed the cat tree out of her hands and stalked off. Princess Di, annoyed at being jostled, leaped back onto his shoulder and huddled under his hair again.

When they got to the checkout line, Maddie noticed that a few extra items had made their way into the cart at some point. Some colored balls with bells inside, three felt mice, and a miniature battery-operated fish that flopped realistically.

She said nothing, conscientiously keeping her mouth from twitching. But it was another sign that the big fierce dragon might really be a softie on the inside. Way, way inside.

When he wasn’t turning into a drooling monster.

That thought gave her a stab of guilt. She’d never meant for her work to be used to turn any creature into a monster, but that’s what had happened. And if he hadn’t actually been one before… then Eric was capable of unspeakable evil.

And she owed it to Zakerek to fix what had been done to him.

Besides, any guy that would let a kitten ride on his shoulder couldn’t be that bad, right?

Maddie expected they’d go straight back to the warehouse, but Zak apparently had a couple more stops planned. One was the grocery store—which she was relieved to see, since most of the food from Zak’s refrigerator was now scattered across the floor of his cell.