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She shakes her head. “No, but I wasn’t given a choice, Axel. No one should be forced into a position of control by someone else without a choice.”
“A position of control?”
She ducks into the bathroom to change clothing, but she doesn’t stop talking. “You haven’t done it, but you could force me to do things. All the other dragons do.”
“Do you really have to disappear to change your apparel?” I ask. “Can’t you stay here, where I can see you?”
Her head pokes back out. “See? This is what I mean. Modesty is my right. I can choose what parts of my body people are able to see. You can’t tell me what I can and can’t share.”
It’s confusing. “We don’t have this concept. From birth, every one of us is subject to the whims of my father. None of us are entitled to any rights. In fact, he’s not either. If someone else is stronger, then they should take his power over us away.”
Her head disappears, and this time, she keeps quiet. When she steps back out, she’s wearing the clothing made from my skin that I gave her. She always looks beautiful, for a human, but in that, she looks stunning.
“Now you just need your swords.”
“Can’t you just shift and get them for me?” She bats her eyes, as if that will convince me.
“Get them for yourself,” I repeat.
“Sometimes I think you’re getting better, but then others, you’re still a real jerk.” She stomps on my foot as she walks past, and it actually hurts. I don’t flinch, of course, because showing weakness is anathema to the blessed.
But it’s an effort.
I follow her to the room where she lost her swords. They’re still dangling from the ceiling. She flips her head back, staring at them with flaring nostrils. “And how, exactly, do you propose I get them? Did you see any ladders? Or perhaps a misplaced set of wings I can borrow?”
I can’t help my smile. “You stopped Sammy from dropping to his death.”
She huffs. “You know that I can’t do that on command. It only works when the circumstances are dire.”
“And when they’re dire enough, maybe you’ll get your swords back.”
The words she says next are not words I’ve heard commonly used, but I make note of them for later. If I’m remembering correctly, one of them is a word she fussed at Coral for saying just last week.
“Now, if you’re done?—”
“I’m not done, you sack of scales. I’m not about to attend a big party full of both dragons and humans without any way to even poke them if they get out of line.” She flings her hands upward and says, “I want my swords.”
And they drop straight down and into her hand, amid a shower of drywall chunks and dust.
She’s so shocked that she nearly misses catching them, and Liz has reflexes that would make any blessed proud, probably thanks to our bond increasing her capacity, but it’s still impressive. “How did you—” She splutters. “You knew I’d get them down if you got me angry enough.”
“It seems to be a surge of human emotion that allows you to use your powers for now.” I shrug. “I had a hunch.”
“So you weren’t just being a jerk for no reason.”
“I never attempt to be a bad person,” I say. “It just seems to happen at times, at least, by your reckoning.”
She rolls her eyes. “You offered to free my siblings,” she says. “That’s when I stopped hating you as much.”
“I offered to fly them to the edge of our holdings,” I say. “I didn’t have any control over what happened to them beyond that point.”
“You were using them to control me,” she says. “And instead of holding on to that power, you offered to give it up. That’s what made our bond better than rape.”
“But you think that all the other bonds out there. . .?” I study her face. “You think they’re toxic.”
She nods. “I do.”
“And that makes you hate us more.”
