Dragon Thief by Marc Secchia Read Free Book Online

Human?
    “Abundantly.”
    “I find your lack of trust in a Dragoness … disturbing.”
    Not half as disturbing as Kal found trying to measure up to his Shapeshifter girlfriend, who was so mind-bogglingly humungous, his eyes began to water in disbelief before they had traipsed halfway to her hind legs. Kal cracked what he liked to call his signature grin. Aping a thick Sylakian accent, he drawled, “Island boy, I like my women big. Real big. I mean, seriously heee-yooooge .” Tazi’s muzzle jerked in surprise. “I swoon to think I mistook her snoring last night for an earthquake. I like it when her haunches obscure the Yellow Moon, and her dulcet tones would flatten the average Sylakian fortress. Boy, I fancy my woman so big, when I hear her booming tread a-coming from the next Island, I get the shivers and the quivers right up to my withers.”
    “You are a buffoon!” she guffawed.
    “Word to the wise. Don’t encourage me.” He bowed floridly. “I missed my true vocation–”
    “What, court jester?”
    “Wordsmith, if you please. Occasional comedian. Conversational harpist.”
    “And what, by my wings, is a conversational harpist?”
    Kal shrugged briefly. “Who knows? It sounds good.”
    Fixing him with the mesmerising gleam of her eye, Tazithiel rumbled, “You will sit on my back or I will sit on you. Your choice, clever thief.”
    “I’d prefer it if you sat on my … er, I sense the hour is not ripe for a wisecrack?”
    Tazi’s foreclaw, the size and sharpness of a decent sword alongside his neck, slid smoothly back into its sheath. “How frightfully perceptive you are, Kal, for a man.”
    “It’s a point of pride. Tazi, are you a mind-reader? I’ve heard Blues can do that.”
    The Dragoness blinked. “A falling-star-swift change of subject–oh, you must mean our strangely coinciding desires to attempt an impossible journey?” He nodded. “No. Not that I know of. Don’t shake your head, you grubby excuse for a Sylakian sweet-tuber farmer. Had I been able to read your mind, I would’ve tossed you off the Island before you ever set foot in my lair.”
    “Forsooth, woman!”
    “Who says ‘forsooth’ in this day and age? And will you stop worrying at that scab on your lip? It’s healing nicely.”
    Kal pouted. “It itches.”
    Puckering her lips, the Dragoness swung her muzzle toward him. Even though her jaw touched the ground, her nostrils reached the level of his chest, and the tiny spikes adorning the top of her muzzle topped his shoulders. She blew a flame-ring toward him. “Kiss better?”
    The scurvy scavenger fended her off with a yelp. “I am not kissing that fire-hose! Show off. Flaunting your fires so brazenly.”
    “I’m a Dragoness. Shocking, isn’t it?”
    “My exceptional powers of intuition have indeed ascertained this fact. And, toss me off the Isle without forethought? I’m hurt. Cut to the quick.”
    “Oh, you poor man. Are you not a profligate philanderer and a worthless thief?” There was far too much of his life’s story encapsulated in that sentence for Kal’s liking. He was just beginning to complain when Tazithiel clapped his left shoulder with her paw, summarily flattening him. “Step into my golden boudoir, o most talented tearaway, and finish explaining that trick you were trying to teach me before.”
    “I thought we succeeded?”
    At least fifty gleaming fangs framed the Dragoness’ smile as she released her wheezing captive. “Oh? I must’ve slept through that unconvincing, lackadaisical excuse for a pillow-rolling.”
    Brushing off her paw, Kal stalked off in high dudgeon, yelling for the rocks and birds to hear, “Fickle woman! Feckless Shapeshifter! Despicable Dragoness–whatever you are!”
    * * * *
    Since both parties became hopelessly distracted in the course of making apologies thereafter, Kal and Tazi delayed setting off until the following morning. Dawn found a certain malefactor taking his leisure upon the same barren outcropping