It had been eighteen years since I last saw Bre'teria, and in that time, I'd never once heard her call me 'her' human.

"Do not test my patience!" Her great silver-scaled form bellowed, her wings flared with her fangs bared. "I shall reduce you and your ilk to nothing if you do not comply!"

Baron Crawford, a fat and pompous man of self import, balked at the threat with what looked like a boar leg in his hand. It seemed like he was actually considering freeing his captive for a moment before his sneer crept out. He took a disgustingly large bite of cooked boar meat and had the audacity to actually laugh at the majestic creature at his gates.

"I think not." He crowed before swallowing, standing at the edge of his hundred-foot tall wall around his estate. "Not without some...incentive."

His cackles were drowned out by the bellow of one pissed off dragoness. "Incentive!? The impudence! I shall rend flesh from bone, sunder your lands and salt your fields! Your incentive is that I shall be quick if you release my. Fucking. Human!"

I honestly expected the argument to go on longer, but Bre'teria smashing the castle gates. The deafening impact shook me from the top of the wall. Crawford fell on his ass in the most undignified way.

The slaughter that ensued was horrifying and glorious. Rather than kill the fools before her as a dragon, Bre'teria cast a spell on herself to make her human.

Gods, that silver hair was as mesmerizing as the last time I saw her.

It took her minutes to tear through Crawford's guards with her bare hands. She was a blur of Amazonian splendor as she kept true to her word. Limbs flew whimsically through the air as the cries of grown men echoed around the Baron.

Each spray of blood on his courtyard paled him by another shade.

"M-make her stop..." He cowered as he crawled on his knees toward me. His gems, gold, and jewelry scraped against the stone. A lone ornate dagger rested at his hip.

It was at this point I thought fitting to reveal I'd liberated myself from the chains that shackled me. His idiocy was abundant, and I felt responsible for making him aware. "No? You pissed off a dragon. I couldn't stop her if I wanted. You imprisoned me for my reputation alone, yet made no effort to prepare for the feats I'm renown for. Why would I worsen the world by letting a fool like you pollute it?"

+++++++++

"Leave it to a man to grow impatient and finish first." Bre'teria's airy sweet tones rippled across the stone. Even veiling her presence as a human, she was brimming with power and majesty.

And sass.

"My lady," I bowed after tucking the last of the dead baron's rings in my pocket, "I would never dare to offend you in the same way twice."

She stared with a sultry smirk a half a dozen paces from me, her lean arms crossed over her chest. "No, I'll be seeing to that." Her tone was borderline threatening. I didn't doubt she spotted me pocketing the jewelry I'd looted, so I wasn't certain what deserved this response.

The next few minutes ticked by as she stared me down uncomfortably. For her? For me? Possibly both. I certainly felt knots in my stomach.

"Why did you really save me?" I asked with a timidity I hadn't shown since my apprenticeship. "Your human? Your fucking human? When did that happen?"

She hissed as her eyes glowed with her magic. For a second, her draconian fangs were bared before she composed herself. She was proud, even by the standards of her kind, so such a confession was probably wounding.

"When the egg that held your daughter began to hatch. It takes eighteen years for a dragon egg to mature. I thought you'd like to be there when she's born."