Page 8 of Her Dragon Daddy Disaster
Hendricks noted the tension.
“Steady,” he ordered in low tones. “Nobody gets jumpy.”
Then he motioned me forward. I found myself at the center of a cordon of beefy Secret Service agents as they escorted me toward what I assumed was the Oval Office.
“Wouldn’t it be wiser to do this over phone?” Sarah asked quietly as we walked.
I doubt she knew I could hear her easily.
“You don’t think I tried?” Hendricks growled back, clearly unhappy about exposing the president to danger.
I sat back and let myself be ushered into the presence of the most powerful man in the world. At the door, Sarah andher team, including Hendricks, were ordered to remain outside. I wondered why they would deprive themselves of the extra security until the door opened for me.
Beyond a regiment of massive bodies, IthoughtI could make out the president, but my only clue was the gray cloth of his suit compared to the black of the agents.
It felt a bit excessive.
“Let’s go,” one of the guards at the door growled, indicating with a thrust of his jaw where he expected me to go. The heavy rifle in his hands—not the pistol that was the common sidearm—didn’t waver in the slightest.
Entering the room at gunpoint, I waited while half a dozen mountains of men stepped forward.
“Arms up. Legs apart,” the most senior of them snarled at me, not concerned at all with anything resembling decorum toward the representative of the power that had been kicking their ass for the past eight months.
I glanced past him at the president—whose age-lined face was now visible—and arched an eyebrow.
“Manners, Jessop,” he murmured. But his heart wasn’t in it. After watching so many of his people die to mine, and to be confronted by one of those very same creatures, I could understand his hatred for me.
The guards then proceeded to give me the most thorough patting down I’d ever been subjected to.
“I promise you,” I said dryly as one of them wentwayup my legs to ensure I didn’t have something lodged … privately, “I’m unarmed.”
“We’ll be the judge of that,” one of the snapped.
Only my amusement at their determination stopped me from laughing outright. They didn’t understand at all. I didn’t haveanything on me becauseIwas the weapon. Surely, they had to suspect that?
Finally, the suits stepped back.
“He’s clean,” the one named Jessop said smartly. “But I still don’t trust him. We should do this over the phone, sir.”
The president shook his head. “We’ve been over this, Jessop.”
“Yes, sir.”
I watched the exchange between the agent and the most powerful man in the world without care. Would he still retain that title, I wondered, after the war? His country had been devastated. It seemed unlikely.
“So, you’re the one calling himself a dragon.” There was no greeting, no false pleasantries. Just straight to business.
My opinion of him went up slightly.
In response, I lifted a hand, letting ruby-red scales flow down it. My fingers slowly turned to claws. A second later, wings burst from my back so abruptly the president’s bodyguards flung themselves in front of him and started to shuffle him from the room.
He stopped them when I didn’t move and tucked my wings tucked neatly behind me.
“Quite the answer,” the president said, shouldering his bodyguards aside.
“I want there to be no doubts,” I said, meeting his steely gaze with ease, then shifting it to the men between us.
“They think you’re going to try to kill me,” he said.
