LOGAN FELT IZ’S AMUSEMENTfizzing against him, as bubbly and intoxicating as champagne.
Directing his hellhound to bedoggyrather than feral had been an impulsive decision, but it was clearly one that had paid off. He’d have to remember that as a way to cheer her up in the future.
>he said. >
Iz smiled. >
>
She nosed against the bars, breathing out a trickly, pleasantly warm steam against him. Usually, the cave was a little cold, and Logan had been here so long that he had stopped thinking about it. He had gotten used to just always being a little uncomfortable all the time. But dragons ran hot, even when they weren’t breathing steam on you, and Iz raised the temperature up to where he actually felt ... warm.
> Iz asked.
>
>
Logan agreed wholeheartedly. >
But even the most secure prisons in the world sometimes had people escape. There was no such thing as a completely foolproof system.
Besides, now they had one advantage over Sebastian: numbers. Sebastian probably thought that didn’t matter because they were all behind bars. And sure, they couldn’t stampede him. But they were a hoard, and he wanted to keep them all in one place so he could come here to glory in his power over them and think about how amazing he was for having collected them all like trading cards. And every time he added someone new to his hoard, it got a little more complex and a little more difficult to manage.
Sebastian had too much hubris to notice that. Before Iz had come along, Logan might not have noticed it either, because it wasn’t the kind of thing his hellhound would think of, and his hellhound had been the one in control.
But now that she was here, Logan was thinking. As dangerous as it was, he was even hoping.
When Iz had said“whenwe get out of here,” he hadn’t even flinched. He hadn’t thought about changing thatwhento anif.
Besides, if he could help break her out of here, he wouldn’t have to let the guilt over being glad she was here eat him alive. That would be a plus.
Iz stood and walked to the front of her cage, her tail swishing angrily back and forth. She stuck her narrow snout against the steak and sniffed it.
She was controlling herself so tightly now that Logan couldn’t feel her moods, but he was apparently a quick study when it came to reading dragon body language, because he could read the disgust in her face as clearly as if it’d been printed there in big block letters.
She was obviously steeling herself up to go through with gulping it down, but she couldn’t quite make herself do it.
She looked over her shoulder at him. >
>
He immediately disproved this theory by falling silent, unable to think of a single interesting thing to say. He’d been on a roll of his mind actually working like a person’s, too.
Iz gave him a cute little dragon grin like she knew his mind had just gone completely blank.
> she suggested.
Right. It would be a good idea to remind himself of his human life.
It would be good torememberit, too, but he wasn’t sure he could.
Two seconds ago, he’d been congratulating himself on being able to make jokes and string regular sentences together. Now the darkness was threatening to suck him back down again. When he thought about his life, all he could imagine was this cage, like he’d been born in it.
Iz needs you, he reminded himself.You can do this. It won’t kill you to remember who you used to be.
He strained, groping around in that darkness, until he came up with something. At first it was just more a feeling than anything else:
> What was that called? To his relief, the word finally came: >