She was at her desk reading the formal complaint from the Norwegian delegation. Bjorn had filed it at twenty-three twenty on behalf of Lord Solberg, demanding immediate access to the claimed party for standard bond consultation.
Yuki looked up. She did not invite me to sit. “Dominic.”
“Yuki.”
“You went outside,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And shifted in compound airspace.”
“Yes.” I gave her nothing less than the truth.
Her thumb tapped the folded paper before she continued. “You climbed the building and conducted a perimeter flight.”
“I did.”
Yuki closed her eyes for one second. Not in anger. Exhaustion. “Every dragon in this compound understands the pull,” she said. “It isn’t preference. It’s sacred because it can rearrange a life faster thanreason can object.”
I did not answer, because there was nothing useful to say.
“It’s also dangerous for the same reason.”
The complaint from the Norwegian delegation sat between us.
“You’re the most trusted and lethal enforcer I have,” she said. “And tonight you climbed my building like a newly shifted adolescent because your mate was in a room out of your reach.”
Yuki held the look a few seconds, then let her eyes drift shut and pressed two fingers to the center of her brow.
“I’m trying very hard not to find that endearing.”
She exhaled once, slow and controlled, and when she opened her eyes again, whatever mercy had briefly entered the room was gone.
“The council will constrain it anyway,” she said.
She enumerated the restrictions. Airspace. Perimeter flights. The wall. Her window. I would comply with all of it.
“She put her hand on the glass,” I said.
“I’m aware.”
“She was not afraid.”
Yuki looked at me for a long moment, and the patience in her face was worse than anger. “No,” she said. “I imagine that’s part of what makes this difficult for you.”
I said nothing.
Then she glanced down at the complaint. “Bjorn has always written beautifully when he’s angry.”
Her gaze lifted again, and I understood a moment before she spoke that the formal part of the conversation had ended. The complaint was still under her hand, the law still in the room. But Yuki was no longer asking as council chair.
“Tell me how you are.”
I considered several useful answers.The bond is stable. I can function. Solberg has not moved. She is alive.None answered the question. “I am well enough,” I said.
Yuki’s face did not soften. One reason I had served her for seventy years.
“You’ll function?”
