Battle Bond: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons #2) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,52

that much, since I assumed this was his first cell phone. Judging from his exasperated look, he didn’t know what to do with the lock code prompt that came up.

“Don’t watch.” I leaned over, covered my hand with my other hand, and tapped in the code. “I don’t want you getting lonely in the middle of the night and ordering naughty videos with my banking information.”

He didn’t comment, only looked at the map and thrust the phone back at me.

Are you flirting with him? Sindari asked as Zav crouched to touch the earth again.

I fumbled the phone, almost dropping it on the dirt map. What? No.

I have observed humans and some of the other species like elves and dwarves using humor in an attempt to win mates.

That’s not what I’m doing.

That is good. Because I don’t believe he finds you humorous.

Yeah, that’s my read on him too.

Dragons are impressed by power and raw physical strength, not humor.

I’ll be sure to hit the gym later and work on my bench press. You know I want him to find me sexy.

Sometimes, I don’t know when you’re joking.

I’m joking. But thanks for the advice. Maybe if I ever meet a non-arrogant dragon who likes mongrels, I can put it to use.

You are welcome. I believe if you call him Lord Zavryd and refrain from sarcasm, he will treat you—us—fairly.

I’ll keep it in mind.

As I watched Zav pluck up little hills of earth to show the spots where the people had disappeared, I silently admitted that Sindari was probably right. I might be able to have a cordial, business-like relationship with Zav if I stopped giving him grief.

The problem was my aversion to having anyone boss me around. I’d struggled with it in the military, and it was even harder now that I was older and used to calling the shots. I worked for people, but I didn’t bow and scrape. They either hired me as I was, or they could find someone else to fix their problems.

When Zav was done, I stepped forward and pointed to the forested hills east of Duvall. “This is where I’m guessing his lair is. He could have picked up someone here, here, and here and then continued east to a cave. I think that land is either owned by the state or by the big logging companies. There’s a lot of wilderness out there, plenty of places for caves. He could be farther up in the mountains, too, but I assume there’s a limit to how far a dragon would want to tote people.”

Zav looked at me, and I almost expected a comment about how he’d toted me three-hundred miles, but he was apparently done being sarcastic. “If he picked up all three of his kidnap victims in the same trip, yes. There is a limit to how much weight even a dragon can comfortably carry, especially on this world.”

“What’s different about this world?”

“It is one of the planets with higher gravity on which sapient life evolved. My kind evolved on a world with less gravity.”

It was strange hearing him talking in scientific terms instead of magical. I supposed it made sense that these Cosmic Realms were actually planets in different star systems, but I hadn’t considered it before.

“Long ago, before the cities of men existed, I walked in those foothills.” Greemaw was studying the map, not paying attention to us. “It was too long ago and for too short a time for me to remember all the caves, but I may be able to speak to the earth up there through the earth here and learn a few things. All is connected.”

“We will wait,” Zav said without the impatient vibe he’d had for me earlier. Maybe golems were up there with elves as lesser beings that dragons considered more pleasing to spend time with than others.

Greemaw shifted off her bench and leaned against the stone wall of her alcove, closing her eyes. How long would we wait, I wondered. Could I wander off and call Nin to check on her? For that matter, I should call Dimitri and make sure he hadn’t had his blood sucked by Zoltan the night before.

As minutes passed, neither Greemaw nor Zav stirring, I stepped away. There wasn’t enough reception for phone calls, so I texted them both.

Dimitri replied right away, saying he was still at Zoltan’s place, eating pizza and finishing up the giant robot sentry tarantula. Imagining a delivery driver tramping into the back yard and leaving a pizza