sitting on the front stairs, his sudden appearance startling me slightly. I guess “alone time” is done.
I give him a narrow-eyed look. “Of course I know that.”
“So how do you expect him to answer you?” Hudson asks. “Sign language? Interpretive dance? Smoke signals?”
“You could shut up and let me talk for a minute.” I snark. “How about that?”
Hudson holds a hand up in a “feel free” motion.
I turn back to Flint. “I’m not sure how you’re going to answer my question, but I guess we’re going to have to figure that out.”
He snorts a little, then tilts his head in a gesture I can only describe as royal. As in the royal “go ahead” decree.
“You said before that I could ride on your back. But…” I look him up and down, which pretty much amounts to looking up, up, and then up some more. “How am I supposed to reach your back? You’re gigantic. I mean, this is definitely not going to be like riding a horse.”
He snorts again, and this time there’s a whole lot of insult in it. Turns out dragons—or at least this dragon—are a lot more expressive than I ever imagined.
Flint eyes me for another couple of seconds, just, I think, to make sure I understand how insulted he is to be compared to a horse. Then he slowly lowers his head and nuzzles my shoulder with the bridge of his nose.
And just like that, I melt. Because when he’s not trying to kill me in his dragon form, Flint might actually be the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I tell him, even as I reach up to stroke his nose and a few of his frills.
He makes a little noise, then presses closer, and I can’t help but laugh. “You made it very clear you don’t want to be called a horse, but you’re acting like a giant puppy dog right now.” To prove my point, I bring my second hand up to scratch the top of his head. I swear to God, Flint grins in response—or comes as close as a dragon can to smiling, super-sharp teeth and all.
I pet him for a couple of minutes, and I enjoy it at least as much as Flint does. But I’m also conscious of time quickly moving along, so finally I pull my hands back and step away.
The dragon snorts and moves forward to nudge me—a very clear signal that he wants more—but this time I give him only a cursory pat on the head. “You know, I would stand here all day and pet you if I could. I swear. But we have an assignment to do, and you still haven’t explained to me how I’m supposed to get on your back.”
Flint snorts again, then heaves a ridiculous sigh as he lowers himself to kneel on the ground.
“Yeah, that’s great. But there’s still no way I’m going to manage to make it onto your back.” Even kneeling, belly to the ground, his back is still a good eight to ten feet off the ground. I can’t even reach to the top of his back, let alone swing myself up onto it.
Flint tilts his head again, like he can’t believe we’re even having this discussion. I’m also pretty sure he rolled his eyes at me—which, not going to lie, doesn’t feel good. I mean, it’s one thing having a human Flint roll his eyes at me. It’s a whole different feeling when a dragon does it. I don’t know why, but it is.
This time, when he leans down and nudges me, I don’t even bother to pet him. “I’m serious, Flint. We need to figure this out.”
“You could always throw a saddle and some really big stirrups on him,” Hudson suggests.
“If you’re not going to help, I don’t want to talk to you right now,” I retort before Flint nudges me again, a little more forcefully this time. “Hey! That hurt!”
He does it again. And then again, this time hard enough to leave a bruise.
“Flint!” I scowl at him as I stumble back a little more. “Will you please stop fooling around? You’re hurting me.”
He sighs, and it is the longest-suffering sigh I have ever heard from an animal—or a human, for that matter—in my life. This time when he lowers his head, he doesn’t nudge my shoulders. Instead, he nudges my thighs.
“Okay, look! That’s it! If you keep this up, I’m going back—” I break off on a scream as Flint finally