by Cara Bristol
No! His dragon roared, and Rhianna squealed and shrank back.
“It’s all right. It’s all right,” he tried to reassure her. Why could she hear him? She was human!
He wrestled with the dragon, who fought to shift to protect her. It felt like his bones were being torn apart. He contained him, but the idea harm could befall her caused his heart to seize. It didn’t matter if she was the enemy or if their coupling would be brief, he had bonded to her enough that he couldn’t allow his father to send her to her death.
He didn’t know yet how he would prevent it, but he would protect her. It was the least he could do. In that, he and his alter-self were in agreement.
Chapter Twelve
“How’s your meal?” K’ev asked. Full lips widened to a grin revealing teeth that didn’t look quite as sharp as they used to. “The animal and plant matter are to your liking?”
“Is that what this is?” She poked at a brownish blob. Meat? The green puree was probably vegetable. “Fine, but I’m afraid to ask what I’m eating.”
“Does it taste like chicken?” Yellow eyes glinted with amusement. She’d gotten used to his vertical pupils. Was getting used to him. K’ev seemed to be going out of his way to make her feel comfortable, even charm her.
“I’m guessing it’s not.”
“It had a beak. Does that count?” He really did have a nice smile.
He knew what humans ate. Often used Earth slang. “You seem to know a lot about us.” Or at least more than Earth people knew about dragons.
“You could say I have a vested interest in learning about your people and culture,” he said.
Know thy enemy, was that what he meant?
“I did visit Earth that one time. I tried a chicken. It was tasty, but too little to be a complete meal. More like an appetizer. And the feathers got stuck in my teeth.”
“You ate a live chicken?” Was he serious or joshing her?
“We prefer our food whole and live.” He glanced at his meal. “Of course, on a ship, that’s not possible.”
He was eating some sort of meat, still raw, but at least it wasn’t alive. Although his plate compared to a serving platter, the portion seemed relatively petite for a man who shifted into a creature the size of a small airplane. “I’m surprised you’re not eating more,” she said.
“Our demiforma bodies couldn’t accept as much food as a full shifted dragon requires. However, we have healthy appetites. Shifting burns energy,” he explained. “The dragon may feed when we descend to the planet’s surface.” He paused. “I thought I should warn you.”
She’d try not to watch. She could imagine the dragon swooping in on some unsuspecting, unrecognizable prey and gulping it down whole with a single snap of its massive jaws. “I appreciate that,” she said, realizing he’d been solicitous of her feelings. She narrowed her eyes. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
“Shouldn’t I be?”
“Well, yes you should, but…”
“But?”
“You don’t trust me,” she said.
“What makes you think I don’t?”
“You haven’t allowed me to explore the ship on my own.” Whenever she left her cabin, he had escorted her. She couldn’t so much as step outside her door. Her room didn’t allow it. Although luxurious and comfortable, her quarters refused to respond to any hand signal she tried. Hell, she couldn’t find the door. As soon as she entered her cabin, the portal melted into the wall and vanished.
“You’d get lost in no time. Everything looks the same to you, didn’t you say?”
His explanation sounded plausible, but it didn’t fool her. Despite his assertions to the contrary, dragons did lie. They lied by omission, through misdirection, and by taking advantage of loopholes. As long as what they said was technically factual, they didn’t consider it a falsehood.
Truth? She was a prisoner. Well-treated, well-kept, but still a prisoner.
However, a confrontation wouldn’t get her anywhere. He held all the power—at least for now. While she waited for further instructions to come through on the earpiece, she would play along and learn as much as she could about him and Draco. In the privacy of her luxurious prison cell, she’d examined the unit again, looking for a switch she might have missed, but found nothing. She’d also hoped removing it and then putting it back in her ear might trigger it to play, but that hadn’t worked, either. It didn’t so much as crackle. She wished she could listen to the message again for clues, but the device seemed to have gone dead.
Could his intelligent ship have done something to the unit? Demagnetized it or deactivated it somehow? She eyed K’ev with suspicion and nervously smoothed the hair over her ear.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m more of a prisoner than a guest.”
“If you were a prisoner, would I be taking you with me to the planet’s surface?” he asked.
“I don’t know, would you?” She tore a page from his book and turned the question back on him.
“Touché,” he said.
“You seem to be familiar with our idioms,” she commented.
“Your languages fascinate me. They’re expressive and colorful in a way Dragonish isn’t.”
“I’m surprised you’ll admit there’s anything you find fascinating about Earth.”
He released a string of harsh, guttural staccato sounds, more like grunts and barks than words. “That’s Dragonish for, ‘I like you’,” he said in English.
Her stomach fluttered. Was he flirting with her? The short time spent in his company was messing with her head. He was charming, attentive, and nice. Who knew a dragon could be that way? His unusual features were starting to grow on her, too.
On the subject of growing…heat suffused her face as she recalled the sight of his naked body, his arousal. The image had been seared into her brain. Even slightly scaled, his spine extending into a tail, he was all man. Masculine. Powerful.
Despite his attractiveness and charisma, she couldn’t forget, shouldn’t forget the threat he posed. He could be trying to lull her into a false sense of security to get her to slip and reveal Earth’s secrets. Fat chance! She would laugh and flirt with him, but she would remain on guard. Besides, she couldn’t reveal what she didn’t know.
Was that why she’d been kept in the dark? So the enemy couldn’t torture the truth out of her? Thus far, they hadn’t abused her in any way, but that could change. She eyed K’ev. He acted so nice…
In her head, she heard a low rumble, like a purr. His dragon? Or the ship? She thought she’d detected a slight vibration.
“We don’t have superlatives in Dragonish, like fascinating, or awesome, or great,” he continued.
“There are different degrees of like,” she replied. “How do you communicate you really like something?”
“Nonverbally,” he said. “Tone, gesture, and olfaction.” He canted his head. “By the way, my dragon thinks you’re fascinating, too.”
Was that the purr she’d heard? For sure, she wanted to stay on the dragon’s good side. Especially if they landed on Elementa, and K’ev shifted.
Rhianna nibbled her mystery meat. “Is Elementa safe for me? You said humans couldn’t live there.”
“You can’t long-term, but you can tolerate it for brief periods without sustaining permanent adverse effects. You won’t be on the surface for very long, and you’ll have a breathing apparatus. If it gets to be too much, you can return to the ship. But, I thought you’d be interested in seeing it.”
Sharing a meal, taking a stroll—the situation almost seemed like a date, except for the threat of annihilation.
She wished to see for herself what their two planets were supposedly fighting over—and then rub in his face that no settlement existed. Had he invited her for the same reasons? To prove his point? Only one of them would be right.
She was 99 percent sure they would find nothing, except the abundance of natural resou
rces opened a sliver of doubt. If Earth had discovered the mother lode of all mother lodes then, well…but no. Earth’s officials and rulers wouldn’t risk the entire civilization for metals, no matter how precious they were.
What did Draco covet? K’ev had said they had no interest in the metals, but dragons hoarded treasure, didn’t they? What could be better than gold, platinum, and rhodium?
“Are you finished with your meal?” he asked. He’d cleaned his plate.
“I think so.”
“The ship has landed, so let me escort you to your quarters to change clothes.”
“We landed?” She’d thought she’d heard a difference in the faint hum the ship emitted. “What’s wrong with what I have on?” The dark-green knit sheath dress she’d donned in anticipation of the visit was comfortable, her flats sensible.
K’ev must have wiggled his pinky finger or something because a huge viewing window appeared in the wall.
Rocky black ground, absent of any vegetation, stretched as far as her eye could see. Obsidian outcroppings formed glassy, tortured statues against a striated persimmon-and-scarlet sky. Beautiful, but stark and lifeless. Earth would not have established a colony here. Now she was 100 percent certain. “It’s so barren.”
“This part is. Other areas have simple vegetation, and there is a wealth of single cells and simple animal life forms. Bacteria, lava worms. A few other more advanced creatures.”
“Lava worms?” She scrunched up her nose.
“They’re quite a delicacy—but they’re like chickens. It takes a whole lot of them to make a meal.”
A demiforma attendant cleared away their dirty plates.
“Please tell me I didn’t eat any of those!”
“Lava worms or chickens?”
“You know what I’m talking about!”
He laughed. “No. No lava worms—or chickens, either. The latter are hard to come by in this part of the galaxy. Thus far, Earth is the only planet with poultry.” He gestured at the window. “You can see why you need to change clothes. Your dress and shoes will be shredded climbing over volcanic rock.”
“Okay, I can find something more suitable.” If she didn’t have anything, Helena might. They were the same size. Her bags—and Helena’s, which had been loaded on the ship in advance of their boarding, had been brought to her cabin. She’d searched her friend’s luggage for clues, but either there was nothing to find, or the dragons had gotten to it first.
“Garments have been delivered to your quarters. Draconian clothing will offer greater protection. You’ve already seen how it can repair itself. It also adapts to the environment. It will cool you if you overheat and protect your soft skin from lacerations if you should trip and fall on the rock.”
“Can it shave off ten pounds?” she quipped.
“You don’t need to be any different than you are,” he said gruffly.
* * * *
A gray jumpsuit was laid out on her bed. It looked about two sizes too small, but she remembered how K’ev’s clothing had accommodated his shifts from near-human to demiforma. She also remembered how it had flown off him when he released the dragon, so when he’d shifted back, he’d been naked. Don’t think about that. She blocked his nudity from her mind by focusing on the jumpsuit. It was hard to believe the gossamer garment could have all the properties he claimed it did, but she’d seen enough dragon technology not to doubt it.
After taking off her dress, she stepped into the one-piece suit through the neck opening, pulled it up, and shoved her arms through the wrist-length sleeves, and then adjusted it over her shoulders. Gray mid-calf boots had also been provided. She wondered if she should don socks but decided if she was supposed to wear them, they would have given some to her, so she slipped on the boots. They conformed to her feet, offering perfect arch support and toe room.
She smoothed her hands over her hips. Against her skin, the jumpsuit didn’t feel like anything at all. She might as well have been naked. “I wish I had a mirror,” she said aloud. The wall next to a wardrobe shimmered, and then she stared at her reflection.
“It listened to me!” Rhianna widened her eyes. “Mirror—go away!”
Solid wall replaced her reflection.
“Mirror, come back!”
It reappeared.
Was it that easy? The ship would respond to her voice? “Door open!” she ordered.
Nothing happened.
“Open door!” Nothing. “Let me out.” Nothing.
“View window.” Nada.
“Music!” she said on impulse.
A raucous jangle of grunts, bugles, and growls blasted her ears. “Music off! Music off!”
The room went blessedly silent. Their technology was amazing, but dragons couldn’t sing worth a damn.
Interesting. The ship didn’t react to her hand signals but did respond, to a limited degree, to her voice. Her quarters must have been programmed special for her. “I can look at myself and listen to horrible Dragonish music, but I can’t leave my cabin unescorted,” she said to her reflection.
Rhianna sighed and pivoted. The jumpsuit molded to her body, fitting like a second skin without binding or pinching. Above her right breast, the Draconian crest, an image of a fire-breathing dragon clutching a scepter, was woven into the fabric.
She assumed she’d be exerting herself by hiking and climbing over rocks. It could be windy. Gathering her hair into her fist, she pulled it back into a ponytail and turned her head. Nope—the earpiece was visible.
She nibbled a fingernail. The president had cautioned her to keep the comm device with her at all times—but also had warned her to keep it safe. What if it fell out of her ear while she scrambled over rocks, and she lost it?
Maybe it would be best to leave it on the ship. But what if a message came through in her absence? It hadn’t activated until she’d inserted it in her ear, so perhaps contact was required for it to work. Besides, she had to keep adjusting her hair to ensure it remained hidden. The wind could expose the unit so that K’ev might see it.
Rhianna removed the earpiece and hid it in a sock, which she rolled up and tucked into a shoe. She buried the shoe and its mate—stuffed with a decoy sock—in her bag. If someone searched her belongings, they’d find the unit, but they’d have to be actively looking for it.
She’d finished braiding her hair into one long plait when a portal opened in the wall to reveal K’ev. “Ready?” he asked.
Her heart leaped. What if he’d appeared while she was fiddling with the earpiece?
“I’m ready.” She entered the corridor, and the opening to her quarters sealed. “If you’re going to appear out of the blue, knock or something. I could have been in the middle of dressing.”
“Ah yes, you have strange and arbitrary conventions about nudity.”
They weren’t strange or arbitrary, but he could think what he liked, as long as he didn’t pop in unannounced. “Please knock before you enter.”
“The walls would absorb the sound, so you wouldn’t hear it anyway,” he said.
“Could you have music play in my quarters when you arrive?” That would get her attention.
“So you discovered Draconian music,” he commented as he led her through the maze.
“And that I can call up a mirror but can’t open any doors.”
“For your protection.” He handed her a small gray bag with a long strap. “Here. You’ll need this.”
“What is it?” She peeked inside the bag to see a silvery cylindrical object.
“A prophylactic inhaler. You should use it every hour or anytime you experience respiratory discomfort. It will cleanse your lungs of harmful particulate matter and make breathing easier.”
“Thank you.” She slipped the strap over her body crosswise. “You don’t need one?”
“Elementa’s atmosphere and terrain are suited for dragons.” He gestured for her to proceed into the corridor. “We developed the respirators
for your people when they visited Draco.”
As they strode down the hall, she resumed her original questioning. “With regard to keeping me locked up for my safety, what are you protecting me from? Am I safe on your ship, or aren’t I?”
“That is not a question that can be answered with a yes or no. It’s more complex.” He sighed. “You are not in physical danger from me, my dragon, or the members of my crew. But, you and I are on opposite sides. It would be foolish for either of us to trust the other.”
“So what you’re saying is you don’t trust me.” Why did she feel hurt? He wasn’t stating anything she didn’t already know, that she hadn’t already said to him. If she found something her people could use against the enemy, of course she’d pass it on. His people had threatened to annihilate her people. Except…she liked him. Liked his humor, his grin, his yellow eyes, the way he smelled, his banter, his confidence.
Was that his plan? Charm her to his side so she’d betray her own people? By his own admission, he’d said she couldn’t trust him. She should be more worried about that.
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” he said.
“I’m not hurt—”
He snorted. “I can smell it.”
“I’m thinking.” She scowled. Emotions didn’t smell. Sure, bodily fluids like sweat and blood had an odor. Maybe tears and saliva did, too, if one’s olfaction was developed enough. But that didn’t mean that distrust, confusion, or nervousness produced a scent.
Still, it was uncanny how well he seemed to read her. She needed to remember a predator would pounce on vulnerability. She needed to appear strong, invincible. Smell my courage. She glowered.
K’ev stopped and placed his hands on her shoulders, his short claws noticeable but not digging in. His body temp ran high, his palms hot against her skin. Her jumpsuit reacted and began to cool.
If his touch had seemed warm, his gaze sizzled. “Perhaps for today we could both not think so hard and enjoy the moment. You haven’t left Earth before. Let me show you Elementa. Maybe we can enjoy a pleasant day together.”
