The Dragon's Mate

by Emilia Hartley

  There was a photocopier somewhere in this building, right?

  Chapter Two

  If Luc could have compared his leader to anything in the world at that moment, he would have chosen a volcano. His leader, a black dragon named Dane King, had lost it when Luc finally descended on their Territory. None of the words aimed at Luc had been particularly nice, but he knew it was out of fear. Dane not only feared for the foundation of this new Embassy, but for one of his closest friends.

  “What in the world possessed you to take one of your awful pranks to the Embassy? Do you understand how much work Liana and I are putting into it? You could have ruined everything it stood for today.”

  “It was a freaking mannequin,” Luc argued. “If anything, the agent is on edge around our kind and shouldn’t even be placed there. It’s GOE’s fault that they hire dragon haters.”

  Dane sighed. “You’re not wrong, but at the same time you need to be aware that we can’t go around triggering this guy. He’s our connection to GOE and we need that to be a stable connection while the Embassy is running. GOE is our connection to the human world and the human law makers. The States aren’t going to be any nicer toward our kind if GOE acts like they hate us still.”

  Luc’s mind wandered back to the pretty intern. He was still angry every time he thought about how the agent had dragged the woman out by her arm. They should contact GOE and ask for a replacement. He was clearly unfit for the position they’d put him in if he was willing to shoot mannequins and manhandle young women.

  “Try anything like that off the Territory ever again and you’re Territory bound for as long as you breathe.” Dane’s words were final. There was no arguing with them.

  Panic seized Luc. There was so much that still needed to be done. They still had to find their parents. Luc needed to know what was between him and the human intern he’d met. He could do none of those things while he was Territory bound. Instead of raging against Dane’s decree, Luc held himself back. He had one more chance.

  One more.

  “Brother,” a familiar voice snapped Luc back to reality. Marc looked at his twin with disappointment. It was like a knife through Luc’s heart. “You need to take this seriously.”

  Luc’s lips pulled back from his teeth. “You don’t think I take this seriously? You don’t think I want to find out what happened to our parents?”

  Marc pressed his lips together as he studied his twin’s face. He was the calmer twin, always level headed and reserved while Luc was the wild card. Luc pulled people into his whirlwind, playing pranks and exploring everything the world had to offer.

  “If you took anything seriously, you wouldn’t have left a masked mannequin in Liana’s closet at the new Embassy.”

  His twin pushed past him without another word. Luc wanted to roar to the skies. He wanted to scream his frustration and rattle the trees around him. Luc wanted nothing more than the truth, than a chance to get his parents back. He couldn’t believe his own brother didn’t trust him.

  Instead, Luc straightened his spine. The crackling frustration slowly fizzled out and a steel determination set in. Luc would show them that he could be serious. He would put his head down and keep working toward their goal.

  It was all he had left.

  As he retreated to their modular home, Luc dared a glance back at his leader’s cabin. Through the big, bay window, he could see Liana chasing Miri around the living room while the small child waved around a stuffed dragon. Dane was lingering in the back, failing at holding back his laughter.

  So quickly, they had become a family. Dane had found his mate overseas and once they brought her home, the child found her way into their lives. Luc couldn’t help but wonder if there was anything like that in store for his own life. He could see Marc, his twin, happily settling down with a mate, but Luc didn’t know if fate would allow him such a thing.

  Both of them had been looking to the past their entire lives. Now, he glanced toward the future and felt apprehension grip his chest. No, he wouldn’t think about it. He wouldn’t dwell on something that might not happen. All Luc needed was to find his parents.

  In that moment, Luc wondered if he’d been attempting to not think about the future this whole time. It was as if every little prank, every joke he cracked was to keep himself living in the moment. Tomorrow was another day, one that held mysteries Luc couldn’t unfold. For all he knew, the GOE agent would turn around and demand his arrest. His brother could go missing like his parents had.

  No one could tell him that tomorrow might be a good day. All Luc has was the here and now.

  ***

  “You’d think you’d be a little more open minded, Dad.” Anya playfully jabbed her father with her elbow. Their skin tones were several shades apart from one another, hers darker from her mother’s African American heritage. Mixed race marriages still weren’t too well accepted in the US, especially not in the rural part of the world where the Guardians of Existence assigned her family.

  Her father cast a narrow eyed sidelong glance at her. He was not playing into her carefully worded argument, knowing that she had one stored in that noggin of hers. Anya spared a moment to pout and then let go of the argument. Her father would not be swayed from his view of the dragons. It didn’t matter if they suddenly rained gold over the states, he would complain that dropping gold was hazardous.

  Anya wished she could have done something more to sway her father’s view, help him to see the world as she did, because her mind kept returning to the offending dragon. No matter how many times she shook her head to dispel him, he returned.

  The dragon had been tall, his shirt clinging to broad shoulders and defining a narrow waist. Black hair had fallen over his forehead, cut short to keep out of his sincere, iridescent eyes. They gleamed like the colors hidden in an oil slick. Anya had wondered what was hidden beneath his human skin. Perhaps, when she got home she would look into South America and their dragon mythology.

  No, she wouldn’t. She would go home and fill out the rest of the forms needed for this internship. She wouldn’t go digging around the internet for information about a dragon. She had no reason to be in his business. Absolutely none.

  Yet, her mind slowly returned to him again. When his eyes had landed on her, there had been a flash in them, a smirk on his lips. That expression had made her cheeks warm. She’d had to turn away from her father to hide the pink on her face. He would have lost it and the dragon would have been detained.

  Anya had already gone against all of her father’s wishes and spent the last two years of her life in a Public relations major with a minor in American Dragon History. He knew she wanted to help change their status here in the States, not that he approved. It’d been her mother that had held him back from stopping her.

  If Anya got caught up with this iridescent eyed dragon, there would be no stopping her father’s wrath. All Anya had to do was keep her head down and work hard, get through her internship and move on to her job in DC. That was her dream.

  Of course, it would make her father a bit happier, too. There were no dragons in DC as far as they all knew.

  “I don’t think you should intern there,” her father finally said.

  “I’m not a child,” Anya grumbled. This was a conversation they had at least once a day. The only difference was that her mother wasn’t there to diffuse the situation.

  “No, you aren’t. But it is still my money that is paying for your education.” Her father focused on the road ahead of them as if he knew he couldn’t stand the look on her face already. “I think this internship might not be the best for you. It’s still new and finding its legs, meaning it could fail while you’re working there and that would look awful on any application. On top of all that, it is full of irresponsible dragons that could easily hurt you by accident.”

  The dragon’s prank had been irresponsible, but it hadn’t hurt anyone. She couldn’t tell her father that. She couldn’t remind him that he’d overreacted to the situati
on. The dummy hadn’t done anything to deserve what he’d done to it.

  “You’re not stopping me,” she said, her words final. She would walk there if he took away her car. She would find a way. This was the dream internship she’d always hoped for. It was the best foot in the door for what she wanted to spend her life doing.

  Beside her, her father sighed. His voice was gentle when he spoke. “You can’t save everyone.”

  “I can try.”

  Despite her small size, Anya seemed to be convinced she was big enough to repair every injustice in the world. She spent her weekends volunteering at the local animal shelter and would gladly stop traffic for an animal trapped on a highway. She gave their thanksgiving leftovers to the homeless and her old clothing to shelters.

  “I know your heart is in the right place, but a dragon is not a puppy. It is not an innocent thing that the world has treated unfairly. Dragons are dangerous creatures with violent streaks. There is no helping their situation in the US because they’ve earned this place through their own actions.”

  This was another old argument. Anya saw the world very differently. She’d carefully read the laws pertaining to the dragons in this country and found very little hope for a dragon here. The best they could get was a place in the Territory in Nebraska, becoming part of the quiet family that had never done anything to deserve the biased laws.

  The SUV pulled into their driveway and Anya shoved her door open. Living with her parents was convenient because it was so close to the Territory and the new Embassy where she interned, but it was not going to be enjoyable, she thought. Anya missed her apartment off campus that she shared with other students. She missed the freedom she’d had there, even if she couldn’t have pets.

  “This conversation isn’t over, Anya.”

  She stopped and spun around. Her face was flush with defiant anger. The image of the dragon man flashed through her mind again, sending an odd sensation through her gut. The idea of never seeing him again terrified her. It was such a sudden and forceful emotion that she was wordless for a moment.

  Her father took that opportunity to press on. “I am your father and I get to say what I think is safe and unsafe for you. I think you should call the organization in DC and take the internship they offered you a week ago. If you don’t, then I will have no other option.”

  Anya leveled her steady glare at her own father. The tiny plugs in his scalp from the hair transplant process always made her laugh. It made it easier to look at him without being too angry. It helped keep her from yelling in return.

  “I’ve already accepted this internship. There is nothing you can do to stop it, Dad. It’s only a few months of work and then I’m going back to school. That’s it. I’m sure you can deal with it.”

  Without giving him a chance to speak, she spun back toward the door. A pair of mutt dogs came pouring out when she whipped it open. Feeling the short fur of the Staffordshire terrier mix under her hand helped calm her down. She looked down at the sweet, brown eyes and felt a smile spread over her lips. The dog happily licked her hand, covering it with slobber.

  Both dogs were examples of how Anya could do anything if only she was determined enough. They were rescues about to be put down in the shelter and she’d brought them home. Both of her parents had been angry once they discovered she’d brought them into their house, but the dogs managed to grow on her parents so that they earned a place in their home.

  The dogs broke away after greeting her. A long-legged Collie and Greyhound mix returned to its bed beneath her mother’s desk. A pair of reading glasses sat on the edge of her mother’s button nose, a feature Anya was glad she inherited from her mother.

  “How’s the next spy novel going?” Anya asked her mother to keep her father from continuing their conversation.

  “How’s the argument going?” Bernice Forrest asked in return.

  “Same thing, different day.”

  Without jumping in on the back and forth Anya had with her mother, her father retreated to the kitchen and cracked open a beer. He deserved it, she thought. It isn’t every day he gets to Taser a dummy. Anya followed suit, grabbing a beer before heading upstairs to finish her paperwork.

  Unfortunately, the beer only helped her thoughts to return to the dragon man she’d met. She thought about his smile, like she’d dazed him and all he could do was smile at her like that. It made her chest warm. She couldn’t help but hope that she might see him again the next day.

  She knew that humans could be a dragon’s mate. She’d read about it online, it was rare but it has happened before... How did they know when they were mates? How was the bond acknowledged? Were there fireworks at first sight? Or was it more like this, that constant nagging feeling in the back of your mind?

  Anya knew better. She wasn’t a dragon’s mate. She was the daughter of a high ranking GOE agent. She would get on with her life and go to DC to lobby for dragon rights, not fall in love with a bronze skinned dragon man.

  ***

  First thing in the morning, Anya poured herself a cup of chai in a travel mug and skirted out the door before her father could stop her. She needed to take her own car, a beat-up Jeep, anyway. Today, she had to log into data storage at the nearby GOE facility and start sending electronic files over to the computer system at the American Dragon Embassy.

  For this, she chose a simple midi skirt and tucked in t-shirt combo. It felt much more comfortable compared to the little dress she’d worn yesterday. She could still feel Beauchamp’s eyes like slime across her legs. The tea provided a jolt of caffeine with each sip, the bracelets on her wrist jangling with more cheer than Anya could manage that early.

  If she was lucky, she would be able to flash her badge, fumble into the secure office and begin the transfer without any interference. That was if she was lucky. It turned out, this day, that Anya had a little bit of luck in storage. The security guard at the door scanned the dependent status identification badge she’d had for years, even asked her how her father was doing before letting her through.

  There was no receptionist on duty to ask Anya when she was going to cash in her rain check with Beauchamp or warn her to not let a catch like that slip past her. That meant Anya didn’t have to choke back the gag she felt each time she had to sit through the interaction.

  Her badge slid through the key card lock and welcomed her into the secure office, number 114 as mandated by her instructions from Headquarters. Anya wondered why she had to use this computer in particular. There were other offices she could have accessed, labs with computers readily available for agent research.

  She tried not to question the American branch of the Guardians of Existence because, most of the time, they showed that they didn’t outwardly hate anything not human. The higher ups had assigned Tasers and not silver loaded handguns as the weapon of choice during the assembly of the Embassy and that gave her hope. It might have been to keep from having a lawsuit on their hands as the dragons grew to become their own entity within the country, but Anya would take a win where she could get it.

  Sipping her chai and getting frustrated with her jewelry choice, Anya slowly began the digital transfer of files. They were sent in chunks, data and information packaged by decade from which she worked back in time. The first files to go were the early 2000’s. Then back into the nineties and eighties. It wasn’t until Anya reached the file that belonged to the decade of the sixties that she had a problem.

  A red error flashed across the screen when the data refused to send. She set down her chai and glared at the screen. There shouldn’t have been a problem. Anya checked her connection and it seemed to be fine. Not once had she thought to click on the folders to see what laid inside them.

  Feeling anxiety begin to stir, she clicked on the defiant folder. It prompted an access code, the box bordered by a red band that said this was a high-level security file. Brows furrowing, Anya decided to test something. She closed out of the security code box and clicked on a copy of one of the previous
files she’d sent. The information freely opened and spilled out over the screen.

  She didn’t understand why the other decades of information weren’t bound by access codes if the older ones were. Anya closed out of the information she’d opened and returned to the defiant file. There was only one thing she could do that would allow her to sleep at night. She chewed her lip. She could leave it and let GOE have its secrets, or she could open it and figure out why this file was locked.

  In the end, Anya couldn’t leave it be. She’d seen her father use his passcode on his work laptop at home in the past week, memorized it in case she needed anything at the Embassy that an intern wasn’t normally allowed to access. It wasn’t the right thing to do, but it often made Anya’s life a bit easier. There had been times she’d even been able to charge cafeteria food to his account by memorizing his passcodes.

  Anya held her breath as she typed in the code. It might not work, she told herself. If it didn’t, there would be a flag up in another office that someone without access tried opening an encrypted file. It would be only a matter of moments before they realized she’d done it. Still, she pressed ENTER and waited.

  The program seemed to be content because a wall of files opened before her. She couldn’t believe how many there were. She scrolled up and down. None of the file titles made any sense to her. They weren’t labeled by month and year like the other files had been. These were labeled with letters and numbers that didn’t add up to anything.

  Curious, she clicked a file labeled LA-257. With baited breath she watched the folder unfold into several redacted documents and scanned photographs. The first document that appeared listed the details of what seemed to be a person, from hair, eye, and skin color to weight and disposition. Anya wondered if these were documents from detainees after the Welsh Occurrence.