Page 54 of The Discount Damsel

“Where is Dirk the Dangerous, anyway? The Hero awaits.”

Millie glanced over her shoulder and found that the little blue luck dragon hadn’t moved from the gloom of the balcony archway. “Getting ready for his grand entrance, of course.”

The ministry official snorted and returned to his seat. Flipped back to the previous page in his chronicle and searched for an appropriate place to record this change in Sir Roger’s circumstance.

This particular DDP was proving stranger by the day. First valets, now Heroes left alive and turned into manservants for the Dragon’s princess? Sir Eustace had never heard of such a thing. He needed another margarita, which unfortunately would have to wait until after this barbarian made his Rescue attempt.

“You may continue, Ivar the Bane. My deepest apologies for this interruption.”

“Manservant?” the barbarian roared without missing a beat. “Or rival?”

“Actually,” Sir Roger said, “I’m her⁠—”

“It matters not. She will have no man in her life but me. You die with the dragon, along with that freakish handmaiden in the brown dress! No one should have shoulders bigger than mine, least of all a woman.”

Sir Roger and Millie glanced at Bradley, whose long dark curls curtained his face as he looked down at his brown robe. When the apprentice’s gaze rose, he found Sir Roger smothering a smile and Millie tittering.

“I know I need a haircut!” he signed angrily.

Their mirth was fleeting.

The green veins of the warhammer flared with light, and the Hero slammed his weapon against the tower once more.

The three clutched hard to the railing as they were pitched forward.

“You bumbling blockhead,” Millie shouted. “If you break down this tower, I’ll fall and there will be no ravishing!”

“I’ll catch you.” The Hero swung his warhammer again, and something in the workroom finally keeled over with a crash and a shatter. The pigeons in the attic had finally had enough, too, and pissily vacated through the vents in a shower of gray feathers.

“He cannot break down this tower,” Bradley signed frantically.

Not only was this tower ancient enough to be considered Architecture of Historical Significance, it held a wealth of magical knowledge and artifacts unheard of outside the College. There were secrets here, old magic, even life from a bygone age. And this elephantine horndog was going to ruin everything.

“I don’t suppose you want to offer him a position in your talent stable,” Sir Roger said. “You mentioned sensuality training.”

Millie whacked him in the arm. “Not the time, Sir Roger. And it’s Seduction 101, which requires subtlety, something this brute knows nothing about.”

Still gripping the railing to maintain her balance, the pirate aspirant whirled around. “Master Dirk!”

The little luck dragon’s cerulean scales had paled to aquamarine. “I take it back. I am not fighting that.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“Yes I do. Millie, as much as I want to see you fulfill your dreams of becoming a pirate, I like my guts, horns, and certainly my testicles exactly where they belong. Attached to my body!” Dirk sucked in a calming breath and smoothed down his feathers. “Now please excuse me while I forfeit this fight with whatever dignity I have left. I wish you both many happy brutish babies.”

All three humans abandoned the railing to pig-pile the luck dragon against the floor with cries of, “No!” and “You did not just extort the Knightly Code of Conduct to back out now!”

Dirk wiggled and thrashed, summoning wind and water to blast his overprotective friends aside, but it was Millie who maintained her grip on his pearly horns and wrangled him around to face her.

“Forget about me, Dirk,” she said. “Is this how you want to give up on your dream, by surrendering without a fight whenever you come up against a daunting obstacle?”

Dirk thrust a claw in the barbarian’s direction. “That is one massive obstacle!”

“But not undefeatable.”

“He has an enchanted warhammer!”

“And you are Dirk the Dangerous. Or was that all pretend?”