“Don’t talk to us like that, ya foul immortal, you know damn right what we want.” My ears turned backward, my cowardice quickly being overrun by an indignant feeling. The man grinned, showing off yellow teeth.
“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re implying, sir,” I looked away from his face. “But throwing a pot through my window is not the best way to get what you want.”
“Shut your lying mouth!” He bellowed. “We know that dragon’s in there,” he pointed his torch at my house, “and if you’re hiding him, we’ll make you wish you were dead!”
His larger, but silent, companion nodded eagerly. It seemed as if they had less than a brain between the two of them. I was sure they would have used a more convincing threat if they had the power to think of one.
“I’ll put this simply,” I growled, my eyes searching the crowd. Where was Gorn? Surely he should have stopped this nonsense by now? “I don’t have what you want, and I’d like you to leave.”
The angry man grunted, yelled “Like Hell,” and before I knew it a torch was flying toward me. I flinched, but the painful impact I expected did not come. By the noise the crowd just made, though, something decidedly worse just did.
I opened my eyes to see the torch, extinguished, hit the ground, and my view of the crowd half blocked by a dark cloak. I groaned internally. It could only get worse from here.
The strangers guffawed unpleasantly, murmurs and angry comments running through the rest of the crowd. All my anger and mock bravery had gone, replaced with an overwhelming shame. If they had not thought I was associated with the dragon before, they had no reason to doubt it now. I had betrayed what little trust had been left.
“So, the little goat-girl is with the dragon! Immortals stick together, eh? Like slime on top of a pond.” I heard the words echoed by several in the crowd. Levent’s appearance was all the proof they needed.
I feared for a moment that the dragon-kin was just going to stand there silently, like a testament to all my bad decisions in life. I was about to plead for some sort of truce, when he spoke. For a moment I did not realize it was Levent, for his voice was so much louder and clearer than I had heard before.