Chapter Six
The dragon recoiledfrom him so violently that she hit the other side of her cage.
Logan hadn’t wanted to scare her, but he’d been trying to talk to her ever since Sebastian had locked her in. Sensing her mind and feeling the frantic hum of activity there had been easy, since it was more or less what he had been doing with the rest of Sebastian’s menagerie. But he didn’t need to use words with the animals, and they didn’t understand him even when he did.
He was sure the dragon woman would’ve eventually identified the feeling of an external force nudging at her mind, and hopefully she would have been able to understand that he was friendly. But she didn’t need to be comfortedeventually. She needed comfort right now.
She needed somebody, and he was the closest thing to a somebody this place had.
It was just ....
It was just hard to remember the right words. He talked to himself, sure, and he talked to his hellhound, which was the same thing, but his own mind could fill in most of the gaps there. He could think in concepts, pictures, feelings, or flashes of intuition; he didn’t have to spell everything out. It was like most of the actual words in his head had just decayed by now.
And he’d already gotten to the point where sometimes just trying toconsciouslythink—to remember or plan or occupy his mind—was hard.
Trying to actually communicate with someone else felt impossible. It meant pulling himself out of the semi-feral haze he’d fallen into and forcing his way back to humanity, in a place where humanity didn’t have many upsides. It meant making himself just sane enough that he’d have to go crazy all over again.
But none of that mattered compared to how scared she had to be right now.
Okay, he had figured out how to say hello. Now he just had to figure out the rest of it.
Speech came haltingly, in fits and starts.
>
She studied him and came a little closer. >
>
Words, dammit. Find words. Or at least gestures.
Slowly, almostcreakily, he managed to nod his head.
>
Another nod. >
Her thoughts—a flurry of relief and gratitude—reached him in bright flashes, like pulses off a strobe light. He could relate to that.
The difference was that she was trying to figure out telepathy, and he was trying to figure out how to be a person again. Pretty big difference.
Thinking about that right now wasn’t going to help him, though. He concentrated on her instead.
He had never seen a dragon in the flesh before, not even Sebastian.
She was magnificent. If all dragons looked like her, it was no surprise they had inspired thousands of stories.
Her scales were pale gold, like a touch of early morning sunlight, and her wings were trimmed with scarlet. The fire she had defiantly breathed into Sebastian’s face had crackled and glittered in the air before it had dissipated.
She had been just as fierce in her human form, too. When Sebastian had started pushing her towards the cage, she’d struggled so much against him that she had almost been a blur: nothing but rigid muscles, torn clothes, and disheveled white gold hair. For a second, Logan had felt a frantic surge of hope. Maybe she would break free. Maybe she could get the upper hand on Sebastian.