Mated to the Alien Dragon (Celestial Mates)

by Kate Rudolph

  When we got to our quarters and he told me all that had happened with his mother I wanted to collapse. I didn’t know if the two days she’d asked for would be the calm before the storm or mounting torture, but I could handle two days, no matter how bad it was. I could.

  Twenty-four hours later, though, I wanted to pull my hair out. Drikal and I had decided to act as if nothing had changed while Riga worked the politics. But just because we were acting that way didn’t mean the rest of the keep was ready to do so. Ceri and Safa both seemed to be avoiding me and the one time I’d run into Veyne I could have sworn he was ready to take a swing at me. If this was what was happening when people were uncertain that I didn’t belong, I couldn’t imagine what would happen when it was confirmed.

  My staying in the keep was hurting Drikal. Even though he seemed happy when we were together, I could see that this would go poorly for him. He’d earned his position by strength, but he held it by maintaining his people’s respect. I didn’t want to be the reason he lost his position, didn’t want someone to hurt him because of me.

  My first instinct was to flee. I could make for the portal and all of Drikal’s problems would disappear. A weak part of me wanted to do it. He said we were true mates, but I didn’t think he’d follow, not when going through the portal might deprive him of his dragon half and cut off his chances of ever returning home. And it was that which kept me from going. I’d just discovered this new part of myself and I didn’t want to give it up. And I certainly didn’t want to go somewhere with no hope of returning to Drikal. My first instinct was born of a life spent on my own, relying only on myself. I had a partner here, one who said he wanted me, one that I was coming to love, scary as that was, and I couldn’t just run away.

  But if I stayed in the keep another minute I was going to go mad.

  “She can’t be a wyvern.” The whisper followed me as I walked down the halls to the nearest exit. It wasn’t the first and it was nicer than some. But a part of me wanted to scream and demand what was so wrong with being a wyvern. I might not have known the history of this place, but we had a word back home for hating someone because they were different and this was starting to feel a lot like that.

  “Are we sure she’s even a dragon? She’s not from here. I think she’s a spy.” The other whispered half of the conversation was even worse.

  Fuck that. I tried to close off my ears to everything else and rushed out of the keep with as much dignity was I could manage. When I got to the field where I’d first shifted I felt like I could breathe. The air around me was warmer than it had been the other day, but still pleasant. I wanted to try shifting again, almost like I thought I’d turn into a dragon this time if I tried hard enough.

  But shifting the first time had caused enough trouble.

  Was that what I would have to look forward to in a life with Drikal? Shifting in secret or not at all? Perhaps his people would be able to accept me as a wyvern if I never actually showed them I was one. But that was unacceptable. I’d only just found this part of myself, and I wasn’t willing to give it up. I shouldn’t have to. Even if there were legitimate reasons for the enmity between the dragons and the wyverns, I didn’t have anything to do with that. I wasn’t from here. Yeah, I could turn into a wyvern, but they weren’t my people.

  I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t hear the dragon land and I practically jumped out of my skin when I noticed the beast. It wasn’t Drikal. Instead, this one was marked by blue and looked like a sleek speed machine.

  Between one blink and the next Veyne stood in front of me, an indecipherable look on his face. “Should you really be so far from the keep?” he asked. “Given recent events I can’t guarantee your safety.”

  Did he know about my shift? Or was he talking about the attack on Drikal? Given his glares over the last few days, he had to know, but Drikal hadn’t said anything about his second offering his support. For all that Drikal trusted him, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. There was something slimy hidden just beneath Veyne’s surface, something I’d seen in guys at home, and every time I’d ignored that instinct I’d paid for it.

  “We’re not really that far,” I responded.

  “They wouldn’t hear you call out for help if something happened.” He took a step nearer to me.

  I stepped back, the hair on the back of my neck standing up at his tone. “What could happen?”

  He shrugged. “We’re on the brink of war. I wouldn’t want anyone’s loyalties to get confused.”

  So he knew. “I wouldn’t betray Drikal.” I hated that he thought that he had a right to question me, but I tried to hold onto my calm. Blowing up at him would only make it worse in the long run. I wasn’t sure exactly how the whole alpha leadership thing worked, but I knew that if he wanted to, Veyne could challenge Drikal for his position. I wasn’t going to give Veyne the excuse to do it because of me.

  “You show up out of nowhere, claiming to be hand delivered by a service I’ve never heard of. You have nothing but the clothes on your back and a secret. Your arrival could not have been more suspicious if you tried. And you’ve convinced my alpha of things that aren’t possible. I’ve been watching you since your first day here. Whatever enchantments or technology you’ve used to ensnare him, I’ll figure it out and undo them. He’ll thank me in the end.” He moved another step forward, but this time I held my ground. If I wasn’t careful he’d back me up into the forest behind me and I didn’t like him to think I was cowed.

  “Thank you for what? Being nosy?” I already knew I wasn’t going to say anything to Drikal about this bizarre conversation. I didn’t want to drive a wedge between him and his closest confidante, but if Veyne started talking like this in public he wouldn’t be trusted by my mate for long.

  “For protecting my people.” His eyes glowed for a moment before dragonflame shot out of his hands and I had to rear back to keep out of range of it. That sent me stumbling into the forest, where hands grabbed for me, clutching my arms tight enough to bruise. Someone put a bag over my head and ropes around my arms and before I could fight back I was trussed up and dragged away. I didn’t know what direction we were going in or who was working with Veyne, but I knew that this was bad. Really bad. And I didn’t know how to get out of it.

  Chapter Twenty

  Drikal

  When Kristen wasn’t in our rooms I checked the pool. When she wasn’t there I asked one of the servants, but no one had seen her. An alarm sounded in the back of my mind, but I tried to reason that she had taken some time for herself and nothing was wrong. She wasn’t in the room that she’d been moved to after Healer Gerin had discovered she had wyvern blood, and neither Ceri nor Safa could say where she’d gone.

  I wanted to put the keep on high alert, but that was just the stress of the last day and a half catching up to me. I had my duties so I could not stay attached to my mate, no matter how long I wanted to be around her, and she wanted to learn the castle without me there to interfere or influence. She also liked to take walks, and when I went to the central courtyard and asked if they’d seen her, one of the servants reported seeing her exit through the main gate. She’d seemed upset, the servant said, but she’d been going so quickly that he hadn’t been able to pause to offer help.

  I followed where the servant said she’d gone and on my way met Veyne, who looked a bit mussed. Perhaps he was coming from a tryst in a nearby village. He greeted me with a smile and a wave. “I’m surprised they haven’t chained you to your desk to make sure you finish your duties before you hide away with that mate of yours.”

  It was jovial, more jovial than he’d been about my relationship with Kristen since the first. Over the past few days, Veyne had been cold, and I was certain he’d heard the rumors about Kristen’s true form and didn’t like them. Maybe he’d merely been stressed and his latest rendezvous had unwound some of that tension. “You’re very funny,” I told him. “But before you get too concerned, my desk is clear of all tasks for today. One of the serva
nts said they saw Kristen come this way, did you see her?”

  Veyne shook his head. “I’m sorry, the path has been clear all the way from the river. Would you like help searching?”

  I considered it, but something in the way Veyne asked gave me pause. I didn’t actually expect him to do anything to harm my mate—to harm her would be an act of aggression against me, especially since he was one of the few who understood she was my true mate. But he was acting differently than he had since she’d arrived and I didn’t want to spend too much time wondering why. Not now, not until I found her.

  “Thank you for the offer, but I’m sure she’s merely taking a walk.”

  “If there’s no need to worry, would you accompany me back to the keep? I had an idea about why those wyverns might have attacked and I wanted to run some new defensive strategies by you.” He nodded towards the keep as if to remind me where my duties lay.

  The sun was sinking lower in the sky by the minute and while Kristen was a wyvern and could definitely hold her own against a bit of darkness, I didn’t want her forced to wander and stumble to make her way back. “It can hold until morning. We’ll talk first thing.”

  Veyne seemed ready to argue, but finally nodded and walked on the path I’d just taken. The path to the river led right by the meadow where Kristen had undergone her shift from woman to wyvern and it would have been the first place I checked, but Veyne said he’d not seen anyone on that path. Instead I turned towards the village and started walking. As I walked I wondered what had made Veyne look so mussed if he wasn’t coming from a village tryst. No one lived out by the river, and he’d never been one for swimming. But he was entitled to his secrets, so long as they didn’t put my mate or my people at risk.

  I made it halfway towards the village before the nagging sensation in my mind pulled me off that path. If Kristen had left the keep in a rush she wouldn’t have wanted to see people. Even though it had only been a day, I knew the whispers were getting to her. It would be even worse in the village. Strangers weren’t common and rumors of her arrival had to be running rampant. Even if they didn’t know of her wyvern blood she’d be stared at for being new. No, if she was going anywhere she’d take the path to the river and go to the meadow. Just because Veyne hadn’t seen her didn’t mean she wasn’t there.

  I picked up my pace, eventually going at a full on sprint to make it there, but the meadow was empty and the shadows grew long. By now Kristen could have headed back to the castle and be wondering where I was, but I decided to take one last look around. And when I made it to the edge of the forest my heart stopped.

  Torn fabric on a tree branch. Disturbed dirt. Gouges in the ground. There’d been a fight—quick, dirty, brutal, and not too long ago. I picked up the fabric but I didn’t know if it belonged to my mate or one of her attackers. And I was certain she’d been taken, even if the evidence was flimsy at best.

  I backed up into the meadow and gave myself enough room to take my dragon form. I wanted to search the surrounding area for her, but if they stayed in the trees I’d never make them out. I let out a roar and fire followed in its path, singing the grass under me.

  I beat my wings and made my way back to the keep. My mother was waiting in the courtyard when I arrived, her face grave. I shifted back quickly and tried to keep my temper in hand. My mother was on my side; she wouldn’t have done anything to harm my mate.

  “What is it? Is there news?” Only as I asked did it occur to me that she had no way of knowing that Kristen was gone.

  “Greer has contacted us. He is demanding to speak to you or Kristen and says if you will not talk to him tonight he will be at the keep tomorrow, no matter the consequences.” My mother spoke in a low voice but we were already gathering witnesses.

  The part capable of wondering had assumed Greer had Kristen, but if he wanted to talk to her, perhaps not. Who then? They must have been skilled to get into the territory and work without Veyne detecting them. Unless he’d lied about coming from the river path. But why would he?

  I wanted to summon every guard to look for my mate, but if I didn’t get rid of Greer we could have bigger consequences. “Kristen is missing,” I told my mother, my voice on the far edge of calm. “I saw evidence of a struggle in the meadow near the river. I want our best searchers out as soon as possible. She may have been taken and I want those responsible found alive and brought to me, but I care more about recovering her. If she’s injured or…” I couldn’t even contemplate the rest of that thought.

  But my mother nodded. “I’ll see to it. Talk to the wyvern alpha. He refused to say what he wants, but we can’t deal with him and this business with her. Not if we have any other choice.”

  Even as every instinct demanded that I join the search to find my mate, I made my way to the communications room in the keep. A hologram of Greer was pacing back and forth, his expression pinched as he waited to be seen. When I engaged my end of the communicator he snapped to attention and I knew that my own hologram was being beamed to his keep, standing in a room not dissimilar from this one and impatiently waiting to be done with this conversation.

  “Alpha,” he greeted.

  “Alpha,” I returned.

  If anyone else had been in either of our rooms there would have been ceremony to stand on, but as it was we did away with it. We were both busy men with better things to do than spend half an hour acknowledging our own greatness.

  “I want to see her,” he demanded. But it wasn’t the demand of one alpha to another. No, I heard something ragged in his voice, something almost desperate. “I have to know.”

  There was no one else he could be talking about. “She’s not yours to see. And given what happened last week, you’re in no place to make that request.” News traveled fast, but I had to give credit to Greer’s spies for finding out so quickly. It would take my spies more than a day to get information about a dragon if Greer suddenly started courting one.

  “I want war no more than you do, Drikal. Those idiots who put us all at risk will be brought to justice when they’re caught. But I am begging you to let me see the woman.” His face grew haggard and he stepped towards me, as if he could shake me to make me listen.

  “Why?” We had no way of tracking Kristen’s family, and given her second form we now knew why. But perhaps Greer knew something. I wracked my brain, searching memories for any rumors from the wyvern lands, but if I’d ever known anything it was long forgotten.

  “Twenty-five years ago my father’s sister fled through a portal in the wyvern lands. She was pregnant at the time and fleeing her mate. Given the approximate age of your newcomer and the rumors swirling, she may have royal wyvern blood. She is my family and she deserves to know her place.”

  “Her place is at my side.” Not just any wyvern, but the wyvern alpha’s cousin. Had I done something to offend fate? Where had I gone wrong? “Is that why you took her?”

  Given Greer’s expression, it was a wild guess, and his confusion only confirmed that he had nothing to do with her disappearance. He had the most motive. At first I’d thought he’d want her just because she was an alpha wyvern, but now with the prospect of a lost family member recovered he’d want her even more. “Are you saying that you don’t have her?”

  “She is not your subject and you have no rights over her. Go through the proper channels next time you want to speak.” I switched off the call and watched with satisfaction as his hologram dissolved.

  Greer didn’t have her, so who did?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kristen

  In the media shows when a person was abducted they were conveniently rendered unconscious by drugs or a blow to the head and they woke up wherever their abductors wanted them to be in the blink of an eye. Apparently Veyne’s conspirators didn’t know the proper protocol and dragged me along, bound, stumbling, and blind to some unknown destination. I tried to call out for help, but every time I made a noise one of my captors would hit me with something blunt that sent me falling to t
he ground. Sometimes I was lucky and just fell on dirt, other times my knees protested as they struck rocks.

  I didn’t know the land around Drikal’s keep well enough to take a guess where we were going, and I dreaded that they were going to hand me over to the wyverns or something. It was bad enough that Drikal would face censure from his people for keeping me at his side, I didn’t want him to go to war for me. I knew I wasn’t important here, but if the wyverns were aching for a fight then I’d be the perfect catalyst. It wasn’t about me, I was just a pawn.

  And this pawn wasn’t going to let that happen.

  I tried to get a hold on my thoughts. Panic wasn’t going to get me out of this. I’d been in bad situations before, but nothing like this, though it did make me wonder if I could have actually handled those guys who’d been chasing me before Celestial Mates picked me up. They weren’t nearly as scary as these captors.

  Though, really, if the guy from Celestial Mates wanted to do another convenient rescue, it wouldn’t be out of place.

  I gave that thought a second to percolate before dismissing it. Why was I waiting for someone else to save me? I was a freaking wyvern. I could turn into a flying beast and shoot fire out of my mouth. And theoretically I could do it without needing to shift. I’d summoned those embers when Drikal was injured and I’d coughed up smoke more than once. Not exactly the most impressive resume, but more than I’d ever expected. Why on Earth would I think I could do that? Well, I wasn’t on Earth anymore.

  It was hard to concentrate with the way they were dragging me, but I tried to center myself, letting my legs do the work of walking like they had for all my life. My body knew how to move; I had something more important to concentrate on now. But before I could actually get that done, my captors shoved me and sent me stumbling to my knees.