Page 14 of A Matter of Dragons

“Oh, no, of course you wouldn’t,” he said with a strange sort of half-smile. “But there’s really no way to tell. I mean, unless you’re an elf. They can sense all kinds of magic.”

“Okay, elves know.” I bit my lower lip, thinking. “But how do the other dragons tell, then?”

Doshir raised an eyebrow. “How do they tell who’s a dragon, you mean? I think normally the scales and talons and fire breathing give it away.”

On the King’s blessed name, I tried not to smile at his stupid joke. Tried and failed miserably.

“But, if you’re asking how a dragon can tell if someone else is an actual human or a shapeshifter dragon in human form,” Doshir continued, “well, it’s not easy. Dragons are all fireproof, of course, even in human form. But it’s rather frowned upon to go around pushing humans into fires just to see if they’re fireproof.”

I smiled again, against my will. “Dragons frown on that?” I said. “I thought dragons went around terrorizing villages and kidnapping princesses.”

Doshir waved his hand dismissively above his frost wine. “Dragons don’t attack unless it’s going to gain them some strategic advantage, and there’s rarely any strategic advantage to human villages. And princesses are terribly boring.”

I made a noncommittal murmur of assent and raised the frost wine to my lips. I’d only met two princesses, both potential wives for King Donovan who’d been rejected for one strategic reason or another. And, yes, they’d both been incredibly boring.

“So, yes, shapeshifting is problematic,” Doshir said. He paused as he took another sip of frost wine. “That’s why all official dragon business must be conducted in draconic form.”

“Official dragon business?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Doshir chuckled. “Dragons are incredibly litigious. You have no idea how many rules and protocols they have.”

That sounded utterly ridiculous. I took another long sip of the frost wine. Yes, it was excellent. Sweet on the lips with a subtle burn in the back of the throat, a gentle warning of its high alcohol content. Excellent and dangerous.

“Still,” I pressed. “You’re saying there’s absolutely no way to tell if some human-looking person is actually a dragon on the inside?”

Doshir shook his head. He was watching me with a strange, almost hungry look in his dark eyes that made something deep inside of me flare with sudden heat. Careful, I told myself. Don’t get distracted.

“So, that guy—” I nodded my head toward a sad-looking, paunchy man drinking alone in the next room over. “He could be a dragon?”

Doshir glanced over his shoulder at the balding man in the room behind us who was nursing a small silver mug with a dejected expression on his face.

“Oh, him?” Doshir asked. “He’s definitely a dragon.”

My laugh surprised me. It came out of some part of myself that I usually kept safely locked away, and it echoed through the room.

Damned wine. I set down my glass, which was somehow empty again.

“No.” I shook my head. “That makes no sense. Why would a dragon take the shape of a human? I mean, what possible reason could there be to leave the scales and talons and fire breathing?”

Doshir’s full lips curved into a strange, almost wistful smile before he hid them again behind his glass.

“Well, by all accounts, draconic society is a total drag,” he said. “There are rules upon rules upon rules.”

I snorted. “You make it sound like King Donovan’s court.”

Doshir’s eyebrows shot up. His mouth opened, then closed again, as though he’d very abruptly decided not to voice the thought that had just flown into his head.

“I mean, I guess I can see why a dragon would want to get away,” I said. “Especially if they knew about this frost wine.”

Doshir returned my smile, and the room felt warmer. Much warmer. A deep gratitude for Eadberh and his blessed one-night stand rose inside my chest, buoyed by two glasses of frost wine. I rubbed my hand over my left arm, smoothing down the fabric that hid my scar, even though Doshir hadn’t so much as glanced at it. His eyes had danced across my chest a few times, but they hadn’t once dropped to my left arm.

That was odd. Usually, men couldn’t stop staring at my thrice-cursed scars, even when they were covered. Even after they’d gotten a good look, as Doshir had, on the steps to his shop. But Doshir didn’t seem to care what I was hiding under my sleeve. He seemed far more interested in my questions, and my chest, and perhaps more, if that flash of hunger in his eyes was any indication.

Heat swirled through my core and rose in my cheeks. By the blessed kings of Valgros, this felt good. I was fulfilling my mission, gathering information on dragons, all while drinking the best wine I’d ever had with a gorgeous man who seemed far more interested in my breasts than my maimed arm. Praise the Kingdom, and praise Eadberh’s ceaseless libido.

Doshir reached across the table, lifted the bottle, and poured a stream of golden frost wine into my empty glass.

“And I haven’t even told you about hatching prophecies yet,” he said.