“She punched a boy,” Thad added.
“Oh, good,” I said before thinking better of it. Thad sounded distressed about the situation.
“Good? He has a black eye. The principal called me and said she would be suspended, if not expelled if it happened again. The only reason she’s not in more hot water is because she gets good grades and usually never gets in trouble.”
“Do you want me to talk to her about it?”
“No. You’ll encourage fighting.”
“Well, I’d want to know why she punched the boy. Maybe she had a good reason.”
Amber nodded firmly.
“Whatever the reason, that doesn’t mean she can punch people. Val, I don’t think you should do the sword stuff anymore. Not if she’s going to use what she learns to hurt normal people.”
“I’m teaching her to stab people, not punch them. She probably learned the punching from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle reruns.”
“You’re not funny, Val. She’s grounded. Please tell her to come home.”
Amber slumped lower against the wall. Maybe she had inherited some better-than-average elven hearing.
“She’s taking me dress shopping. Don’t you think that’s more torturous than sitting in her room with her Xbox and her computer?”
“I do, but that’s not the point.”
“Thanks for the agreement there. I’ll give her a ride home, okay?”
“Good.” He hung up.
“Someone’s in a grumpy mood,” I muttered.
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Val? Really?” There was the scathing/pitying look again. She’d mastered it.
“They were popular when I was a kid.”
“The eighties were epically weird.”
“You’ve seen the hair, I trust.”
“I heard kids used to brush their bangs against the wall and hairspray them so they would be big and poofy and flat in the front.”
“That’s possibly true. I didn’t have bangs, so I couldn’t be that trendy. Why’d you punch the kid?”
“None of your business.” Amber hustled toward the front door of the bridal shop.
“Does it have anything to do with why you want to quit swim team?”
“That’s none of your business either.” She opened the door and jerked her head for me to follow.
“I said I’d drive you home.”
“You didn’t say when.” She strode inside, trusting I would follow.
Maybe I should have been less cheeky with Thad. Raising a teenager had to be at least as trying as battling invisible monsters in a haunted artifacts room.
5
As I stood in a strapless bra and slip with my arms raised, the bridal-shop seamstress taking my measurements, Zav’s familiar aura pinged my senses.
Greetings, my mate. Are you ready to go to the dwarven home world?
Uhm, not at this particular moment, but soon. I have to put on my clothes, give Amber a ride home, and pick up my supplies from the house. I also didn’t know if I should leave before hearing back from Willard about the spy camera, the finger bone, and if her team had located the thief lurking in a nearby van.
You are naked? Leave it to Zav to focus on only one part of that sentence.
Not entirely. I’m wearing… I looked down at the strapless bra, having been told that my current underwear wouldn’t work under a wedding dress and that all the measurements had to be taken with the right undergarments on. This experience was already more tedious than I’d imagined. Things, I finished.
When I am in my human form, I enjoy seeing you in things. And also out of things.
I’m glad to hear it. I need a few hours before I’m ready to go.
I must inform you that I scouted Dun Kroth after informing my clan about the wedding. I hoped that I could find an appropriate dwarven master for you to question about your sword and that your trip would be simple and painless.
That’s thoughtful of you.
Yes. Unfortunately, it was the same as the last time I visited their world. No dwarves were about, and the entrances to their underground cities were sealed. It may be challenging to find someone, even with me as your guide.
Any chance they’ll be more likely to come out if you’re not my guide?
What do you mean?
Didn’t you say before that they’re hiding from dragons because of the strife between your clan and the Silverclaws? Maybe if I show up without a dragon, they’ll stroll out to greet me.
The seamstress laid a couple of rectangles of fabric over my bare shoulders and hmmed as she studied them against my skin. She was in her sixties, her black-dyed hair swept back into a bun with two chopsticks and a pencil sticking out of it. It was possible there were other accoutrements in there—earlier she’d appeared to produce a measuring tape out of thin air. I trusted she’d done this a few thousand times, so I didn’t question anything, but I did look to Amber, wondering if she had an opinion on the fabric swatches.
Once Amber had picked out the underwear and pointed to a few dresses she liked as inspiration—and had been certain I wouldn’t balk at being asked to remove my clothes—she’d taken a seat and was fiddling with her phone. Now, she had her text messages open and wasn’t paying attention to my procedure.
Before, I believed that was the reason for the dwarves’ disappearance, Zav continued, but it has been several months now since our clan defeated the Silverclaws, and there has not been a war or anything that should be worrying the dwarves overmuch, so I am no longer certain that is the reason for their continued hiding. Also, I must go with you. There are dangers on all the worlds, even the relatively civilized ones, and you need a guide.
I sensed Zav landing on the roof, and Amber looked up. She ought to be able to detect his aura too.
The seamstress removed one fabric swatch and replaced it with a slightly different shade of white. “Oh, that’s nice. Yes.” She wrote a few notes on a clipboard.
“How much longer will this take? My fiancé is coming.”
“He wants to be involved in your dress fitting? That is unorthodox but sweet. Of course, he cannot see you in the final dress until the big day, as that would be unlucky. I won’t show him my sketches.”
I sensed Zav striding through the front door. We were in a private area in the back, but he walked straight through the curtain and into view, the familiar power of his aura flowing over me and, as always, making me tingle with awareness of his presence.
“Oh, my,” the seamstress said, taking in his chiseled jaw, elegant black elven robe, and… the yellow Crocs that Thad had lent him, assuring Zav they were lucky. It was unclear whether the Oh, my had been for his handsomeness or the strange shoe choice.
Why, oh why, did Zav have to find Crocs comfortable? I wondered if Amber would help me get some footwear custom-made for him and if he would actually wear it.
Amber stood up and stuck her phone in her pocket, then didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. She’d stopped calling Zav scary and weird since he’d saved her from that fae guy, but the only time she seemed comfortable around him was when she was too busy picking out jewelry to notice his aura.
Not that Zav noticed her aura either. Not at the moment. He was busy ogling me.
“This is what you will wear to the wedding? It is excellent. I can see much of your flesh.”
The seamstress drew back, her mouth forming a scandalized O. “That’s her underwear.”
“Technically, it’s your underwear,” I told her.
“Actually, you bought it, Val.” Amber smiled at me. “To go with your future dress. You can pay on your way out. I picked out some shoes for you too. You need to wear them for the dress fitting so we make sure you won’t trip over your hem.”
“The dress is going to be long enough that I need to worry about that?” I didn’t return the smile. I was too busy wondering how I would kick someone in such a long dress. With the guests that Zav was inviting, a brawl or two was inevitable.
�
�You’re not getting married in Vegas,” Amber said. “You’re not supposed to show off your legs.”
Maybe I should have taken my mother’s advice and eloped to Las Vegas after all.
“The legs are nice.” Zav stepped forward and slid a hand down the outside of my thigh.
That roused a tingle that promptly had me thinking bedroom thoughts, but I swatted his hand away. “No fondling in front of family members, please.”
“Ew, Val.” Amber wrinkled her nose. “Nobody says fondling anymore.”
“Groping?”
The nose wrinkle grew more pronounced.
Zav clasped his hands behind his back and turned to regard her.
Amber straightened her nose—and her face—and stuck her hands in her pockets.
“Offspring of my mate,” he said, “you are schooled in the ways of human fashions?”
The seamstress’s mouth made that O again. Or maybe she was mouthing human.
“You can call me Amber. Uh, what do I call you?”
“I am Lord Zavryd’nokquetal.”
“Val calls you Zav,” Amber pointed out.
“Yes. I allow this familiarity because she is my mate. And she has a tongue impediment.”
Amber looked at me. “Is that like a speech impediment?”
“No. It means my brain and my tongue agree that his dragon name is stuffy and hard to pronounce.” I tapped the seamstress on the shoulder. “Will you give us a minute?”
“Yes, I believe so. I’ll… go select a garter.” She hustled through the curtain.
“Sindari and Freysha call him Lord Zavryd,” I suggested to Amber while wondering if that garter was for me or for her. If I wore anything on my leg, it would be Fezzik’s holster.
“What’s up with the lord?” Amber asked. “Do you own a lot of land or something? Are you like an English nobleman? Or a knight?” Her eyes brightened, as if being a knight would be quite romantic.
“My mother is the queen of the Dragon Ruling Council and commands all of dragondom throughout the Cosmic Realms.”
“Doesn’t that make you a prince?”
“No.”
“It’s a dragon thing,” I told Amber. “Just call him Zav. Or Zavryd. He’ll allow it because you’re my daughter and you managed to select an engagement ring for me that makes me a better cook.”
“Yes.” Zav beamed pleasure at me. “You have smoked ribs in anticipation of my return?”
“I keep the smoker going around the clock, filling the entire block with scents of slowly cooking pork.”
“Excellent.”
“I’m fairly certain the vegan neighbors want to leave angry signs on my door or perhaps toilet paper the house, but the dragon topiaries you regrew with impressive speed force them to stay on the sidewalk.”
“Excellent,” he repeated. “The new topiaries have sturdier root systems than the last ones. They will be extremely difficult for assassins to destroy.” His eyes narrowed. “And we will not invite your meat-hostile neighbors to the wedding.”
As a carnivore, Zav had been extremely perplexed when I’d explained the vegan movement to him. He hadn’t been at all amused when I suggested he try tofu sausages because one never knew… one might like them. Not surprising from someone who incinerated the breading whenever we got chicken strips from drive-through restaurants.
“Given that you’re planning to serve carcasses, that’s a good idea.” I planned to have a variety of salads for my elven kin, but I doubted a table of greens would be enough to remove the taint of heaping piles of meat nearby.
“I must discuss the wedding with you.”
“Let me put on my clothes. I think the seamstress got all the measurements she needs.”
“For the first fitting,” Amber said as I hopped off the platform and headed for my clothes.
I eyed her over my shoulder. “First fitting? What does that mean?”
“She said there would be four to seven.”
“Four to seven fittings? For one dress?”
“It’s your wedding dress, Val. You want it to be perfect.”
I looked at Zav, wondering if he would care if I grabbed a dress off the rack. What did it matter if it was a little short and my ankles showed? My ankles were sexy, damn it.
His eyes were glazed, and he didn’t appear to be paying attention.
“You’re thinking of those ribs right now, aren’t you?” I asked.
He smiled at me, his fantasizing-about-meat eyes not that much different from his bedroom eyes. “Perhaps if you make a few extra kilos, I could take them back to my world so that the queen, my sister, and my cousins could taste them. Such a sampling could entice them to come to the wedding.”
“Are they not planning to come currently?” I tried to sound disappointed rather than relieved and turned my back to change into my much more comfortable underwear. The strapless bra had a band that dug into my torso like wyvern claws.
“They are not. The queen has removed her objection to me choosing you as a mate, but she sees no point in human ceremonies. We are already mated in the dragon way. I told her there would be races, a great hunt, and aerial acrobatics competitions, but even these magnificent events were not enough to entice her.”
“Uh, right. We may need to talk about the festivities you’re planning. They’re not traditional in human weddings.”
“This will be a cross-cultural wedding,” Zav said, the emphasis he put on the term making me think he’d heard it somewhere else and appropriated it. “I will permit human festivities, and you will permit dragon festivities. Is this not fair?”
“I don’t know. Are dragon festivities legal?”
“They are legal to dragons. You will inform your wedding planner about this fair approach to the occasion.”
“Willard? She’ll be thrilled.” I had to admit that I didn’t disagree with Zav. I would prefer it if his odious family did not come, but it would be fair to include festivities that both our peoples enjoyed.
“One need not be thrilled to serve a dragon; one merely needs to be respectful and obedient.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s Willard. Obedient.”
“I will inform her that you agree to the changes. We must find an appropriate place for the hunt. I will arrange for more suitable prey to be brought to your world. The great herbivores of your past have gone extinct. That is most unfortunate.”
“You’re going to import animals?” I imagined something like woolly mammoths and mastodons thundering through the streets of Seattle, stampeding past Nin’s food truck. Was that my chest tightening with an incipient asthma attack or pure panic?
“Large and fast animals capable of defending themselves and putting up a fight to a dragon while also being most succulent and satisfying to the stomach.”
That sounded worse than mastodons.
“Where would be an appropriate place to drop off the prey?” Zav asked.
“Canada,” Amber said.
I nodded agreement. “Make it the Yukon.”
Far fewer people to be trampled there than in Seattle.
“The wedding will be located there?”
“No, but it’s heavily forested. It’ll be a great place for mastodons or whatever you’re bringing. And you can fly down to the wedding after the hunt. That’s the appropriate order of events, isn’t it?” I looked at Amber. “Hunt, wedding, wedding reception, right?”
“Don’t forget the races,” she said.
“Oh, I won’t.”
“The races will be after the hunt,” Zav said. “After all that exertion, the dragons will be famished and ready for the feast. When is the feast?”
“I guess that would be at the reception.”
“That is after the wedding?” Zav asked. “That may not do. There should be a feast before and after. Or concurrently throughout.”
I imagined dragons lined up noshing at the buffet table and watching with vague interest as Zav and I walked down the aisle.
“Why don’t you see
if you can talk your family into coming before we get too far into planning for them?” I tried not to sound hopeful that he would fail at that.
“They will come. I am a master at politics among my people.”
“Don’t you just challenge anyone who pisses you off to a duel?” I asked.
“Dueling is a foundational part of dragon politics.”
“Of course.” My phone buzzed as I finished dressing. “Hey, Willard. Is there a law against importing animals to Canada? I know they’re not big on agricultural products at the border crossing, but what are their feelings on giant succulent prey animals?”
“Livestock has to be inspected, cleared of pests and diseases, and possibly quarantined,” she said without missing a beat. “I take it your dragon has returned to Earth.”
“He has. We’re discussing the wedding. He has some updates for you.”
“I can’t wait. I have an update for you on the thief.”
That nervous flutter of unease returned to my stomach, and this time, it had nothing to do with mastodons. I was obligated to hunt her down, since I’d told Willard I would, but what if I found her and learned she was the legitimate descendant of Chopper’s true owner? Chances were it was all a ruse, but… what if it wasn’t?
I wasn’t a thief. If I found the true owner, I would feel obligated to return the sword.
“Oh?” I asked warily.
“We traced that camera’s signal to a van a half mile from our building, but it was already leaving the area when we got a team together to try to surround it. She probably stuck around only long enough to see if you defeated the whatever-they-weres or were sucked into that box. We managed to get a partial plate number, ran a search, and found a van matching the description with the full plate number. It belongs to a car-rental agency in Seattle. The keys and the van disappeared two nights ago and were reported stolen to the police.”
“A thief didn’t legitimately rent the van? Shocking.”
“Indeed. We think she’s in the country illegally. We’ve run facial recognition software on the photos my agent managed to get, but if she’s in a database in the US anywhere, we haven’t found her yet.”
Secrets of the Sword 2 (Death Before Dragons Book 8) Page 4
