Not if this is what you’re going to do with it.
That felt depressingly fair.
What I am going to do, Iz said with fake confidence,is sleep. Good night, manifestation of my own subconscious who has no business interrupting me.
Her dragon sulked, but she did at least get that nap in. She woke an hour later to find that Cat had uncurled from her wrist and decided to rest on one of her dragonmarks, lying exactly along one of the dimly glowing paths.
Iz petted his spade-shaped head for a moment and then said, “I have to get up now, you know.”
He hissed at her, probably in some vague complaint that the fluffalo got to lounge on her good black pants so why didn’theget to lounge on her stomach, whichhethought was exactly the same thing, but he slithered back to her wrist.
Whenever he fastened himself there, his sheen really did look more metallic than usual. It was like he was consciously disguising himself so it would be easier for her to take him everywhere.
Considering how well he seemed to understand her, she wouldn’t be surprised if that was true.
Was it just some kind of odd bond between dragons and air-snakes, or had all the animals who’d spent time with Logan’s mind so close to theirs come away this intelligent?
A bleak and somewhat disconcerting thought occurred to her.
“You’re not another shifter, are you?” she said, looking down at her living bracelet.
Cat looked at her with clearyou’ve got to be kidding mevibes.
Iz tried to remember everything she’d ever learned about air-snakes, which wasn’t much. Supposedly, they were the smaller, domesticated relatives of the non-shifter dragons, which had all died out centuries ago. The air-snakes, however, had been small enough and cunning enough to survive into the modern day.
Which she guessed meant that she had the same relationship to Cat that, say, a werewolf had with a dog. Their animal natures recognized each other, and the tamer one deferred. One of Theo’s colleagues was a werewolf, and he did seem to have a special connection with dogs, just like Iz had always heard big cat shifters had with house cats. She would have to ask Simon about that. For that matter, she now had to ask Evie if this meant Evie could potentially command an army of spiders.
If the answer was yes, Iz was going to make very sure to stay on her good side.
She shook that thought off and decided to never, ever come back to it again.
“Okay,” she said to Cat. “You’re not part-human. But you’re still obviously more in sync with me than a regular pet. No offense,” she added to the fluffalo. “You’re sort of like ... my familiar.”
Cat didn’t dispute that.
Of course, Iz couldn’t do any magic beyond what was required to open up the hidden passages to dragon communities, so she was hardly a witch and didn’t reallyneeda familiar. But Cat could probably sense that much; everyone said that animals could smell magic.
Maybe, after Sebastian, he’d had his fill of sorcerer dragons. Maybe he just wanted tobe.
Iz had never felt like she had that freedom. Her little bits of success and independence had always felt like they came with treadmills she had to constantly jog on just to stay in the same place.
And again, Sebastian had more or less verified that. She had slipped on the treadmill once, and she’d lost a month of her life. And now Cooper didn’t even want her to come back.
She was aware that she was being completely and ridiculously unreasonable, and that Cooper would have givenanyonesome time off after they’d been held captive by a psychopath. She wouldn’t really want to work with someone who picked her up after weeks of underground captivity and said, “Well, see you on Monday!”
You are having too many human thoughts,her dragon said.Go put on beautiful temporary scales and enjoy going out with your mate to feast on fresh, bloody kills.
Her dragon had never really gotten used to the fact that they didn’t hunt much anymore.
“I think we’ll probably just go to a restaurant,” Iz said diplomatically.
It subsided into a martyr-like silence and let her pick out her beautiful temporary scales, also known as a dress.
Theo had packed several dresses, as he was charmingly reliable like that. He’d even included two pairs of heels. (She dearly wanted to tease him about apparently thinking she would need perfect date night clothes one day after being sprung from a horrible cave, but ... he was right.) Iz chose a simple but hopefully elegant black cocktail dress, one that made Cat a bright pop of aquamarine at her side. One should always dress to accentuate one’s air-snake.
She was going to put her worries and insecurities aside for the night and have a nice, normal meal. She was going to concentrate on Logan.
This wasn’t the right time to figure out if she was a good marshal or not. Itcouldbe the right time to try to be Logan’s mate.