Battle Bond: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons #2) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,37
while you stalk around me and touch my stuff. No using me for bait to get this silver dragon to come calling. And finally, no making me want to obey and please you.” I still wasn’t positive the compulsion he’d put on me weeks earlier had faded. Maybe I was only here talking to him because he’d made me want to be nice to him.
Zav gazed at me. I couldn’t tell if it was a thoughtful and considering gaze or if he was ignoring my speech while making a mental to-do list. Whatever that looked like. Clean the cave, pick up fresh sheep to eat for dinner, compel innocent maidens to service him.
“I find you a surly mongrel,” he said, “and do not care for this manipulation.”
“Tough. You want me to research your silver nemesis, you agree to my stipulations, or forget it.”
His eyes narrowed. They were glowing a soft violet, and I remembered what he’d told the kid. It occurred to me that he might be able to magically compel me to go do that research for him, while massaging his feet and pumicing his corns. Especially since Chopper was in the Jeep instead of in my hand.
“Listen.” I lifted my hands in a placating gesture that probably worked better on humans than dragons. “I’m my own person, and I’ll do my best work if I’m a willing participant. If you were in my shoes, you wouldn’t want someone with superior power manipulating you, would you?”
“It is the way of the Realms that those with superior power use it to maintain their dominant positions.”
“Yeah, yeah, survival of the fittest. But you wouldn’t like it if someone more fit than you manipulated you, right?”
“It happens. That is the way.”
“It’s happened to you?”
Zav lifted his chin without answering. Great, did that mean that some other more powerful dragon could come along and compel him to do things? Like Dobsaurin?
“I will agree to your terms for the duration of this time that we are working together,” Zav said, “but you may wish to rescind your rules if we encounter Dobsaurin. If you are under a compulsion from me and under my control, it will be more difficult for him to put a compulsion on you.”
“I’ll risk it. Besides, I’m researching where he is, not going with you.”
“You will come with me to make certain we can find his lair and deal with him.”
“No, I won’t.”
Zav tilted his head. “You already agreed to this.”
I reviewed the moments of our conversation, wishing I’d thought to record it. Already, it looked like he was treating this as a binding agreement. As I thought about it, I realized that, yes, he’d said he would help me with the Pardus brothers after we found Dob and dealt with him. Damn it.
“Why do you want me along? Won’t I just be in your way?”
His eyes went from a faint violet glow to full-on beaming. “You will be in his way.”
12
When I walked up to Nin’s food truck, the graffiti had been removed—or painted over—and she was outside on a ladder installing security cameras while men in the lunch line offered suggestions. There weren’t as many customers as on a weekday, but they all had opinions about installing cameras. Nin thanked them politely, smiled, nodded her head, and ignored them in favor of carefully following the instructions.
“Hello, Nin.” I wished I had better news for her. “I visited your competition, found them unpleasant, handsy, and with unexpected allies. I’m in the process of researching and regrouping and coming up with a Plan B. I can’t openly go back to their house, since they had their lawyer complain to my boss, the whiny gits.”
I didn’t mention the new dragon duties I had to fulfill before I could finish Nin’s assignment. Since Zav’s departure, I’d started researching the social-media sites for news on the silver dragon, and I’d found a few videos of him that had been posted the day before, when he’d been spotted flying around the Woodinville and Redmond areas. Unfortunately, a dragon could fly hundreds of miles a day, so there was no telling where he was now.
Nin climbed down from the ladder and regarded me solemnly. “I am sorry that your yoga studio was attacked.”
“Oh, you heard about that?”
“There are many rumors going around—my customers share them with me. A new dragon threat has arrived, pedestrians are being plucked off the Burke Gilman Trail, and a yoga studio with the Ruin Bringer in it was assaulted.”