Page 12 of Flames and Blood

Minutes drag into hours. I think. Maybe they’re just very long minutes. I stopped being able to tell a while ago.

The door at the end of the hall swings open and something steps in. Not someone. Something. Everything inside me prickles.

The man who strides down the hall is tall and dark-haired, and he moves like someone I should recognize. He stops at my cell door and looks in at me. Pale eyes move over me, assessing. My nostrils twitch.

Smoke. Flame.

Dragon!

“You—” I begin, on my feet without realizing it.

“Back away from the door.” His voice is as cold as his eyes.

“But you’re—”

“I said, back up!” He’s used to being obeyed. I can hear it. I step back, forcing down the scales that are rippling beneath my skin.

The door opens, and he steps in. He’s got a case in one hand. Behind him, an escort stands at the door, and a woman with a clipboard stands where she can see me without getting close. He doesn’t introduce himself. He just gets in my space, no hint of the recoil I’ve had from all the others.

Dragon. And ancient.

He reaches into the case and extracts a tape measure. “Arm,” he says.

I raise it, confused. There’s no sign of a needle, so he’s not taking my blood.

“Height and body condition consistent with records,” he says, running the tape down my arm without asking. “Joint mobility within range.”

The woman writes.

“Feet apart,” he says to me without looking at my face. I don’t move. He moves them himself with the side of his shoe, then puts the tape around my hips, both hands settling on the bone through the coverall, thumbs pressing in to measure the spread. “Hip breadth. Pelvic alignment within tolerance.”

“Yes, sir.”

Blood registers don’t hold hip measurements.

“What the hell are you doing?” I push his hands away. He carries on as if I’d done nothing.

I’ve been handled by people who were afraid of me for over a year. This man isn’t afraid of me, and he isn’t cruel either. He’s reading numbers off my body and checking them against a sheet.

“Open.” He’s looking at me now.

“What?”

Two fingers press up under my chin.

Is he fucking serious?

The fingers press deeper, and I open my mouth for him. Everything in me wants to take those fingers off at the second knuckle, and it isn’t only the dragon wanting it.

“Dentition sound, full set. No extraction history.” He turns my head one degree to the left, then to the right. “Good bone structure,” he says. “Healthy skin.”

He steps back and adjusts my coveralls briskly, so they’re snug across my chest and belly, then runs an eye down my torso. My nail beds start to tingle.

“Overall structure seems fit for purpose. Though that will be verified following a full physical.”

“Yes, sir.” More notes.

“Query the client’s team on cycle records. Nothing in the sampled panel indicates a heat marker, but the panel wasn’t built to catch one. Note that we can’t confirm from bloods alone.”