Page 11 of Accounting for Drakes

Yorath nodded. “How do I find her?”

“Head for the spa. And know that she is going to leave here today, with or without you. First, send your concubines away, or nothing else will be possible.”

Yorath nodded and turned to his terminal, setting up a call. A sturdy-looking female flared up on the screen, and Mbrak left. Whether the emperor did or didn’t dismiss his females, Abil would know and react accordingly. Yorath had been warned.

The rest was up to those two.

* * * *

Abil looked at herhair and smiled. “It’s pretty.”

The stylist smiled. “It is. I had no idea you had curly hair.”

Thick waves surrounded her, and the mint green of her dragon was now in her hair. She had a sheen to her skin that wasn’t there before, and she felt pretty.

“Thank you. Next, a dress that I can wear out tonight.”

She chuckled and got up.

Yorath was standing in the doorway to the salon and was looking at her in wonder.

Abil smiled. “Did you want your hair done?” His hair was perfect.

“No, I am here to offer myself to you. May I escort you to your next stop?”

She smiled and walked over to him. “Very well. I am using your language skills, after all.”

He took her hand and wrapped it around his forearm. She had seen that move before in the simulations. He was being polite and gentlemanly.

“So, why do you need language?”

She chuckled. “Mbrak already told you. I grew up without human language or intervention.”

“Yes, but were you alone?”

“Yes and no. There were no other bipeds, but a drake that had been struck in the same storm that took us down was there. She was damaged and couldn’t shift to human, so the drake took care of me and helped me do things. She was my shelter and my companion, but we didn’t speak, and she taught me only to take what I needed from her mind.”

“Did she have a name?”

“No, but I called her Nanny. She helped me get the education modules working on the shuttle. She buried my family.”

“I see. What happened when you were found?”

“She let them take me and told me it was time, but then I had to work to find language after so long in silence.”

“Did you ever see her again?”

Abil shook her head. “No, but she said she would dance at my wedding, and I laughed because I could not imagine her dancing with people.”

“Oh, you are thinking of her as a drake.”

“Sort of. I have been looking for a drake with dragonfly wings, but I couldn’t find one in the histories.”

Yorath’s mind went quiet. “A drake with dragonfly wings?”

“They were all thin and made a buzzing noise when she was mad. She showed me the damage she had gotten from the meteor shower, and it had burned through her wings.”

“That was why she couldn’t shift. Her wings were damaged. To take on a human form then, she would have been close to helpless.”

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