by Tasha Black
His eyebrows jumped up and he blushed an even deeper shade of green.
And somehow, in spite of everything, Phoebe began to laugh.
2
Tyro
Tyro turned in surprise.
The little Terran’s sudden laughter was like a waterfall, sparkling and merry.
She had seemed so cold and unhappy until now.
It made the big warrior feel light inside to see that serious face alight with mirth, and he couldn’t restrain his own laughter.
The situation was funny. He was a soldier, after all. And while he wasn’t a regular of the brothels and pleasure ships, he should have recognized an invitation to pay for coupling.
The trouble was, he was so distracted by the curvy little Terran that he hadn’t really paid much attention to anything going on around him.
First, he had horribly overpaid for groceries, and now he had dealt with a businesswoman as if he were an innocent dragonet instead of a grown man.
There was something about this Terran - something that was making his dragon behave strangely, pacing and groaning in his chest.
“My apologies,” he said to the saloon woman, bowing as low as he could with the baby in one arm and the unbelievably heavy trunk in the other.
“Don’t worry about it,” the woman said, looking a little miffed.
“We weren’t laughing at you,” he assured her solemnly. “We were laughing at me.”
“I knew that,” she replied in a warmer tone, winking. The pale tentacles on her head lifted once more, wiggling happily. “Come back and ask for Saana if you ever change your mind.”
Satisfied that he had made things right, he turned back to the Terran.
“We should continue,” he told her.
“Lead the way,” she said.
He hadn’t noticed before that her voice had a melodious quality. He wondered exactly where she was from. So many of the Terran planets had different dialects and accents.
He assumed she was from one of the lower Terras. A wealthier woman from one of the uppers would be unlikely to walk away from everything they knew to raise a child on a frontier moon.
Her amusement at bawdy humor supported his theory. He made a note to himself that she liked jokes. For some reason he couldn’t explain, he was unusually interested in pleasing her.
“Would you like to know more about your son?” he asked her, belatedly remembering his manners.
“Yes, please,” she said, eyeing the babe with an expression that almost looked suspicious.
“You may already know that the warriors of the Invicta are sworn to protect our homeland,” he began.
“Yes, I’ve heard that,” she said.
He wasn’t sure, but he thought she was being sarcastic. He decided to ignore it.
“We once committed a tragic mistake that we cannot unmake,” he said. “The details are unimportant, but as a result of our actions, the gentle society of Imber was destroyed. Recently, the Intergalactic Council ruled that the Invicta could use the preserved DNA of the lost Imberians to create pod babies. The babies will inherit all the mineral riches of their planet when they come of age. Until that time, the Invicta are sworn to guard them.”
“Most of that was in the brochure,” she said, nodding. “It doesn’t explain why the baby is green.”
“The people of Imber have chameleon-like abilities,” he explained. “Because I have been his guard, Atlas has imprinted on me, so he shares my green coloring.”
“And you’re green because?”
“My own genetics,” he told her. “Dragons of different lines have different skin tones and slightly different abilities. My green coloration and iridescent scales indicate my lineage.”
He expected her to ask a follow-up about his abilities, after all, most Terrans viewed those as the most interesting thing about the dragon warriors.
Instead she walked on with a determined expression.
“I’m sure you’re tired,” he said after a moment.
“It was a rough flight,” she admitted. “It will be good to get some rest.”
The lights of the village had disappeared behind them and the docks were in sight now. It wouldn’t be much longer.
“We’re nearly there,” he told her as he spotted the tent where they would spend the night.
His dragon roared at this and showed him a graphic image that made his heart forget to beat.
Mate, the dragon insisted.
That couldn’t be right.
This strange little Terran couldn’t be his mate.
But he closed his eyes and saw the image again.
His big green body covering hers, his hands tangled in her sun-colored hair, his cock sunk deep inside her, both of them screaming with pleasure.
Suddenly, the tent ahead of them seemed impossibly small.
3
Phoebe
Phoebe glanced over at the big warrior.
He had gone quiet. She figured he must be tired too.
But then he met her eyes with a startled expression.
Something passed between them, though what it was she couldn’t say. A tingle went down her spine, her cheeks burned, and a wave of longing swept over her.
No, Phoebe, no way.
She wrenched her eyes from his and focused on the stone road.
The last time she had let her hormones have anything to say about her actions, she had agreed to marry Cash Donavan, and look where that had gotten her - humiliated and off-planet with nothing but a big green baby and a trunk full of memories.
They walked on in silence for a few more minutes.
“Here we are,” he boomed out, pointing ahead of them.
She followed his gaze. He seemed to be indicating a collection of wooden docks on the lake.
“We have to make another stop?” she asked.
“No, this is it,” he told her. “That farm is all yours.”
She blinked at him.
He looked pleased.
“Are you trying to make a joke?” she asked. “It’s not funny. I’m tired.”
“I’m not making a joke,” he said, looking confused. “That’s your farm.”
“It’s a dock, on a lake,” she retorted. “I was promised land.”
“I don’t know what you were promised,” he said. “But that’s a luxberry farm, and a very good one from what I’ve been told. Did you ask if the land you were granted was submerged?”
“Submerged,” she echoed, horrified.
“That’s how luxberries are grown,” he said, entirely too calmly. “They have to be underwater. Come on, let’s take a look.”
She followed him helplessly onto the creaking wood of the dock, freezing in place when the whole thing shifted under her feet.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“It feels like it’s going to collapse,” she spat.
“It’s partially floating,” he explained. “But it’s very sturdy.”
“How do you know?”
“Look at the age of the trees on this moon,” he said, looking out at the wooded ridge that overlooked the village. “Nothing here will be flimsy until they run out of easy old-wood cuttings.”
She scowled and took another step.
The dock moved under her feet, but when she thought of it as floating, it felt more stable.
A white tent had been set up a few yards onto the dock. Beyond that sat crates of tools and implements she assumed were for growing or harvesting the berries.
“Can we stop at the house first?” she asked. “I’d like to lock up my stuff before we start looking at equipment.”
“Sure,” he said, continuing.
“Uh, where are you going?”
“The yurt,” he said.
“The what?”
“The yurt, that’s your home,” he said. “It’s a nice big one, too.”
She blinked at the white tent. It was smaller than her wraparound porch back at the camellia farm.
But Tyro was a
lready heading over to it, a delighted expression on his handsome face.
She was really starting to hate him.
“Come on, you’ll love it,” he called back to her.
She stomped down the deck, loathing every wobbly step of the journey. When she reached the tent, he was holding the door open for her. It had an actual door, that was a small comfort.
She stepped inside, prepared for the worst.
An unexpectedly spacious room awaited her. The walls were thick canvas, but the floor was piled with furs, and lanterns hung from the ceiling.
There was a huge bed, a small cradle, a sofa, and a small open kitchen with a cookstove and sink. It looked like a luxurious hotel suite, except that it was perfectly round with accordion marks on the walls.
“Do you love it?” Tyro asked quietly.
The question was impertinent.
But she did kind of love it. Or at least she didn’t totally hate it.
“It looks like a circus tent,” she said, unwilling to give him the satisfaction.
“It does,” he realized out loud. “Atlas is going to grow up in a circus tent.”
The gigantic baby was mercifully asleep on his shoulder. Phoebe didn’t want his head being filled with a bunch of nonsense like that. Her own daddy had prepared her for a serious life from the very beginning.
And what good did it do me? I live in a circus tent, too.
She stifled a panicky giggle at such a ludicrous notion.
“Are you okay?” Tyro asked.
“It’s been a long day,” she said, pulling herself together. “When does the rest of the staff arrive? I could use a good meal.”
“We don’t have a staff,” he said.
“What do you mean we?” she asked.
“I mean the three of us,” he said, looking at her like she had just been thawed out of a deep-sleep.
“But you’re not staying,” she said. “You’re just here to drop us off.”
She assumed he’d be on his way as soon as he saw that they were settled in. Or whatever passed for settled into a tent.
“I’m here to guard the baby,” he said.
“Well congratulations, you got him to me and you got me to my tent—”
“—yurt,” he corrected her.
“Yurt,” she echoed, balking at the sheer impropriety of it all. “At any rate, you’ve done what you had to do. We made it here safely. Now you can get out of this excuse for a farm.”
“That’s not how it works,” he said softly.
And she could tell by his careful tone that something terrible was about to come next.
“It is my sworn duty to guard Atlas,” he said. “Until he comes of age.”
“Eighteen years?” Phoebe spluttered.
That was impossible. No one at the agency has ever said anything about spending eighteen years with a hulking dragon warrior that wouldn’t stop smiling until you just wanted to slap him. Even if the smile did make her feel like the ground under her was shifting long before she stepped onto the floating dock.
“Actually, it’s twenty,” he said. “On Imber, the age of majority is twenty.”
“Twenty years,” she murmured to herself.
“And then I’m free to go,” he said brightly.
“So I guess I do have a staff,” she said, trying to see the bright side. “I have you.”
“No, Atlas has me,” he said quickly. “I don’t work for you.”
She let herself sink to the floor in total despair, face in her hands. This was not how she pictured her new life. Not at all.
“I know you’re tired and hungry,” he said, his voice gentle. “This will be easier for all of us if you and I make friends. Maybe we can help each other.”
She looked up at him.
“My name is Tyro,” he told her again as he offered her his hand. “What’s yours?”
4
Tyro
Tyro held his breath, watching the fascinating creature before him try to make up her mind.
He hoped she would agree to open her heart to his friendship.
The dragon clearly wanted more than that, but it would have to do for now.
Her chocolate-colored eyes were so serious.
“You may address me as Miss…”
She hesitated for a moment, her eyes locked on his.
“Phoebe,” she finished. “Just Phoebe, I think.”
She was named for the sun. It suited her.
“It’s nice to meet you, Phoebe,” he said, smiling down at his golden-haired mate. “Would you like me to prepare you some dinner?”
She nodded, looking relieved, then took his hand and let him help her back to her feet.
“It would be my pleasure,” he said, trying his best to ignore the jolt of sensation that shot through him as their hands touched. “Why don’t you get comfortable? I’ll try putting the baby down.”
She nodded and looked around.
“Bathroom is usually behind the kitchen, because of the plumbing system,” he said.
She headed to the door at the back of the kitchen and disappeared inside as he eased Atlas into the cradle. The baby was already sleeping hard after his afternoon outside. Fresh air really seemed to tucker the little guy out.
Tyro stroked the baby’s soft cheek with a calloused finger, and then grabbed the sack of groceries and headed outside.
While there was a kitchen inside, he wanted to grill the produce. And he figured Phoebe could use a little time alone to adjust. Hopefully, when he returned with an incredible meal, she would be happier to see him.
Tyro made it to the end of the dock and stepped off onto the rocky beach. The fire pit there was a good size, and someone had left fuel for it. Before long, he had a nice fire crackling.
The sun was sinking fast, casting a pink glow on the surface of the lake. Phoebe must have figured out how to turn on the lamps. The yurt glowed like a beacon against the darkening sky.
He began unpacking the grocery sack. He extended a claw to slice fruit and vegetables, and then laid them on the grill to cook.
When he looked up from his task his breath caught in his throat.
Phoebe was clearly standing in front of one of the lanterns while changing out of that impractical purple gown.
Her graceful silhouette was visible in exquisite detail.
He knew he should run to the yurt and warn her that she was displaying herself to the world. The very thought that someone else might see her charms had a rumbling growl starting in his chest.
But they were on the far side of the lake, and there were no houses nearby.
He turned back slowly, in time to see his shadow mate lift her gown over her head, revealing round breasts with stiff nipples.
His body roared with need, the dragon inside commanding him to claim her.
Not yet, he told it inwardly.
Claim her before someone else does, it insisted.
That thought was unbearable. But still, he held back.
She was confused and unhappy. Claiming her would only add to the new situation that had overwhelmed her.
Claiming her would make her love her new situation.
He closed his eyes and saw his hands in her hair, heard her screams of ecstasy.
Not yet, he told himself firmly, opening his eyes. First, I have to feed her.
Tyro looked away and finished preparing their meal, singing to himself to stay focused. The song was one of the first Invicta marching cadences he had learned as a new soldier. It had bawdy lyrics and an upbeat melody.
One day maybe he would teach his mate the words. He hoped they would make her laugh, like she had laughed at his misunderstanding today.
It was a happy idea, and he was feeling at peace by the time he approached the yurt with a platter of steaming delicacies.
5
Phoebe
Phoebe braced herself as the door opened.
She had spent more time than she was proud of wondering what he would think of her when s
he was wearing an everyday shift instead of that whorish purple gown the adoption agency had insisted she wear.
It was his fault. He was out there humming to himself in that deep, rumbly voice that somehow turned her insides to a blossoming meadow and her brains to mush.
I’m just tired and overwhelmed, she told herself. Tomorrow I’ll be myself again, and I won’t have this misguided crush.
But when he appeared in the doorway with a gigantic tray of fragrant food, it was hard not to find herself melting all over again.
“Are you ready to eat?” he asked.
His dark eyes danced with pleasure and she nearly lost herself in them.
“Very ready,” she said, turning away from him so as not to encourage herself.
“Please, sit,” he told her as he set the tray on the little table and went back to close the door. “I’ll find us something to drink.”
She did as she was told. On the one hand, she wasn’t usually one to follow orders. But on the other, he was serving her, which was something he had assured her he wasn’t there to do. She didn’t want to do anything that would make him remember.
He pulled out drawers and opened cupboards until he found what he wanted - plates, silverware, glasses, and an ancient looking bottle.
His armor didn’t cover much of him. Those big muscles contracted and stretched as he moved with the grace of one of the big cats in the hologram films.
She felt her body warming at the sight and she bit her lip, hard.
“You okay, princess?” he asked.
His back was still to her, how did he know she was frustrated?
“Why do you keep calling me that?” she asked instead of answering.
“No reason,” he said.
She huffed in indignation.
“Fine,” he said, turning to her with that big, disarming smile. “You didn’t tell me your name at first, and you seemed so… refined.”
“Thank you,” she said, pretending not to notice that he had surely been about to say a word that was less complimentary.
“You’re welcome, princess,” he said with a teasing half-smile.
