“And this one doesn’t wish to marry?” Eve asked under her breath to the one who’d growled her name.
“Beringer married one of the last dragonshifter females before they became scarce. He sees no reason to study the language. He has his woman,” Kyran said.
“Well, you speak English very well. Should I assume you were desperate to marry?” The second she said it, she wished she could take the joke back.
Kyran didn’t answer. The men took their leave.
“What’s that guy’s story?” Eve asked, pointing at the man who kept watching them from the trees. She had detected glints of his shifting eyes as they’d gone through the village, but the second she turned her full attention to him, he’d disappear.
“Who?”
“No one,” she dismissed. “He’s gone now.”
“Come, I will show you the rest of the village.”
CHAPTER TEN
There was something very easy about being alone with the dragon prince. Eve saw the formality in him when he talked to his people, but they seemed to respect and like him in return. That genuine admiration did much to encourage her positive assessment of his character.
Kyran explained how they shared the planet with catshifters called the Var who lived to the south of the Draig lands. He spoke of aliens landing occasionally and as that being their only real threat on the planet. Pointing to what she gathered was the west, he indicated they were starting an underground survey to possibly mine for ore to use in interplanetary trade—but that such a reality was still a long time away.
The light shifted from the greener tint to a bluer hue, in what she could assume indicated the evening hours. He didn’t seem in a hurry to go back. Since she was enjoying the exploration she didn’t protest when he brought them to a path in the forest and led her deeper in to the woods. Aside from the swooping of an occasional red bird of prey, they were alone.
“What do you think of your new kingdom, m’lady?”
“You have to stop saying things like that.” Eve didn’t want to feed this man’s delusion, but eventually he would find out just what kind of person she was. “Some women are made to be queens. I’m not.”
“But you accept this world very well. Can you not accept me?”
“There’s something you need to understand about me, dragon man. I’m adaptable, so I can come to terms with a lot—even apparently being on an alien world. Not much surprises me and not much scares me. My parents were, let’s just say they were not the reliable sort. They kicked me out of the family van when I was seventeen with a bag of ditch weed that I could either smoke or sell for cash, and they didn’t look back. I sold it because I don’t do drugs and needed food. My mother homeschooled me some when I was little, so I at least learned how to read. Sometimes they’d drop me off at a school, lie about transcripts being on the way, and used it like their own personal daycare. When people started asking too many questions, we’d take off.”
He didn’t speak. She’d shocked him? If so, it was for the best. Maybe then he could see why pursuing a relationship with her was a bad move.
“When food ran out, I stole from a farmer’s market. I did send money when I had it, but I did steal and I knew it was wrong. I lived on the streets and did odd jobs so I could buy a guitar. I did a few street gigs and bought a better guitar. Being transient is the only thing I’m good at.” She glanced back to where the village was beyond the trees. “I’ve been on my own a very long time. If this is where the wind has taken me for now, so be it. It’s not like I have some white picket fence to run back to. I have an old tour van and random couches in the back of clubs. It’s not glamorous, but I eat, I make music, I don’t hurt anyone.”
“Your parents abandoned you to starve?” He couldn’t imagine. “And the people did not take you in and feed you?”
“I was seventeen. And what people? Foster care? They’d have kicked me out the moment I turned eighteen.” She shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but it did matter. It hurt deeply.
“I do not know what that is, but your people, other humans, should have made sure you never were hungry enough to steal. Here everyone contributes and everyone eats.”
“Well, on my world not everyone contributes and not everyone eats.”
He touched her arm and the contact sent tiny tremors over her. She wanted desperately to hold him against her, to kiss and touch, to lose herself in the pleasure his body promised. “I give you my word you will never starve.”
“Can we talk about something else?” She shrugged off his hand and backed away. Eve didn’t need him to fix her life or feel sorry for her. That’s not why she told him.
“As you wish. How old are you now?” he asked. “The abandonment must have been a very long time ago.”
Did he just call her super old?
“How old are you?” she shot back a little too quickly.
“I believe it translates roughly into sixty Earth years.”
“Sixty?” Suddenly, she laughed, and he was glad for her smile. “I think you mean thirty.”
“No, I am confident that it is at least sixty. Maybe seventy or more.”
“Well, damn. Can I have the name of your surgeon?”
“Why?” He tried to reach for her. “Are you ill?” He glanced around the forest as if to look for help that he could send to fetch the doctor.
“It was a joke because you look so young for your age.” Eve shook her head. “You really have to learn to relax, Kyran.”
“You must be around my age,” he said, “and you look young.”
Eve snorted with laughter and grabbed her stomach. “I’m actually thirty. I see aging is different for our kind.”
“Perhaps not. Here on our planet metabolism slows and people live longer.” He reached to cup her cheek when she didn’t meet his eyes. “The gods would not have paired us if we were not to live our full lives together.”
“We’re not married, Kyran. You just don’t have a lot of experience with women here, so that’s why you think that there is more between us. If you look at it logically, you will see that I am not queen material. I’ve never lived in a real home. How can I adjust to a castle?”
“And you should look at us spiritually.” Kyran reached for her hand. She hesitated before giving it to him. “I do not know if all this doubt is a human trait or simply yours, but you have to stop cycling things in your head and just feel the truth.”
“But—”
He shook his head, cutting off her words. He took her hand and brought it beneath his shirt to rest over his heart. Her fingers trembled as she touched him. “Close your eyes, Eve, and know.”
For some reason, she obeyed. Maybe she wanted his convictions to be true. No one had ever wanted her so terribly they were willing to cross portals for her. Kyran was kind and caring and patient. She felt that already. But now, as she touched him, she felt not only the warmth of his skin but a tingling thread being drawn from his heart into her. The sensation started as the prickling of pure emotion—heartache and fears, passion and pleasure, longing and pain, happiness and joy, rapture. The emotions collided in her like an offering of all life was and could be—not a sugarcoated fantasy but a reality that nothing was perfect but this could be close.
From the emotion of possibilities sprang forth a stream of conscious thoughts. At first, it was merely words—beautiful, heart, don’t go, stay, stay…
Eve gasped and opened her eyes as his voice sounded in her head. He had shifted and stood before her as a dragon. Intense eyes stared at her from the harder brown flesh his face had become.
“I can feel you are scared, not of me but of a rooted life,” his voice said though his lips did not move.
“I,” Eve whispered aloud. His head lowered slightly and she stopped talking. Instead, she tried to direct her thoughts back to him. “I feel you begging me to…stay?”
He smiled and nodded.
“You’re worried if I go you won’t ever find anyone else.” Eve felt her should
ers slump some. “But you’re wrong, Kyran. You have so much to offer. I think you just don’t understand Earth dating customs. I can help you. I—”
“I feel you don’t want to help me because you don’t want me with anyone else. You love—”
Eve jerked her hand from his chest and stepped back to cut off the connection.
“It’s too late,” he continued to speak in her mind. “The connection is formed. We are truly mated. Forever. I told you, this was blessed by the gods.”
Eve’s gaze roamed down his body, automatically looking over his shifted form. He had characteristics of what she’d call a medieval dragon, as if that creature mated with a man to create the Draig. Unable to deny the feelings swirling inside her, she stepped to him. Taking his face in her hands, she kissed him, not caring that he was unlike her. Hard skin melted into softer flesh and he kissed her back as a man.
“I told you, we cannot mate in shifted form,” he whispered against her mouth.
“You’re pretty confident you’re going to get lucky.” Eve grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him with her deeper into the forest as she looked for a place they could lie down.
“I am indeed very lucky, m’lady.” He tugged her against his body and lifted her off the ground. She wrapped her arms around his neck. Her feet dangled as he walked.
“I said get lucky,” she started to correct before she said, “Never mind. Yes, you’re very lucky.”
He smiled into their kiss before deepening it. Kyran laid her down slowly onto a bed of short fluffy plants. It felt like cotton against her skin. He skimmed his hand over her waist and lifted her shirt.
“You better not stop this time,” Eve thought. Kyran chuckled, indicating he’d heard her.
The soft plants tickled her skin as he pulled her shirt over her head. She wore her black bra. He fumbled with it, trying to pull it up like a shirt. Laughing, Eve pushed up to unhook it in the back.
Kyran removed his shirt and tossed it aside before leaning over her to kiss her stomach. He trailed his lips up the valley of her breasts. Eve’s breath caught. Their bodies were connected by more than flesh. She felt as if his heart beat next to hers. When he breathed, she felt as if the air filled her lungs. His eyes flashed with gold, drawing her deeper under his spell.
With each aching sweep of his mouth, he stirred passion. Eve’s toes curled and she arched up. Kyran unfastened the ties at her waist with deft fingers before tugging them off her legs. As she laid naked on the alien soil, she rubbed against the cottony bed.
Kyran stood and she watched him fully undress. The solid form of his muscles flexed beautifully. Dots of sunlight streamed through the trees to dance over his flesh. The hard length of his arousal stood powerfully tall from his hips, yet she felt no fear when his hips settled between her parted thighs.
Kyran splayed his fingers over her chest, gently holding her down. Mindless, she reached for him. He brought his free hand between her legs and intimately rubbed her sex. He slid in her moisture, circling her clit.
Eve dug her heels into the ground and pressed her hips up. She moaned, begging him for more. Kyran let loose a low, rumbling primal sound in the back of his throat. Releasing her chest, he tugged her hips and angled his body for penetration. His cock brushed along her sex before he eased into her. Slowly, he filled her, stretching her so that her body could take him.
Eve gasped when he circled his hips, liking the way he hit her just right. It was as if he read her desires and knew just how to please her. A warm hand cupped her breast, delighting the hard nipple with tiny pinches. He thrust deeper, working in and out. The tension built. He rocked faster, harder. Eve stiffened, orgasming hard. Instantly, Kyran joined her, coming inside her.
Weakened in the aftermath of pleasure, she dropped her limbs to the ground and didn’t move save to catch her breath.
Kyran kissed her lips and whispered, “I am a very lucky man.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“It is done. We have joined,” Kyran announced.
Shocked, Eve tried to stop walking but Kyran insistently led her into what appeared to be someone’s private office. The king looked over from where he stood in front of a row of shelves that held rolled parchments. His hand dropped from where he’d been about to grab a scroll.
Eve’s mouth opened but no sound came out. She was far from a prude, and granted, her childhood didn’t exactly classify as normal, but she was pretty sure you didn’t announce to your parents when you got laid. Regardless of what planet you lived on.
“Many blessings!” The king grinned. “The people will be happy to hear of this. You have set a fine example.”
Eve tried to smile but knew her stunned expression couldn’t have looked pleasant.
“If the rest of the princes find wives, this will solve our problems.” King Severin approached Eve. “Well done, daughter. I can’t believe I was worried that taking brides from Earth would end badly. You are a very agreeable species. Not at all contrary like the eldest of our elders have made humans out to be. Finding women should prove simple enough. We will have all the eligible males settled within a few years.”
Eve didn’t really feel like his words were a compliment. “Ah, exactly how many Earth women do you plan on kidnapping?”
“We are marrying them,” Kyran corrected. “Giving them a home.”
She felt his sincerity inside of her. The connection between them was strange, and she tried to block it. “Listen, just because I’m not freaking out on you more doesn’t mean that all Earth women are like me. They expect to be wooed, romanced. Not just hit over the head and dragged through a portal to an alien land. Many of them will have boyfriends and families. You can’t just get them drunk and lead them down the rabbit hole.”
The king looked at his son and frowned. Instantly, he darted forward and put Eve behind his back. “You struck your wife?”
“I would never,” Kyran swore.
The king turned confused eyes to her. “Was it an accident? Why would you say my son struck you? No man shall ever strike his wife.”
“My meaning was lost in translation.” Eve made a mental note to be more literal. It would be hard. Sarcasm and sass didn’t go away over night.
“So you have not been injured by my son?” the king insisted. “The joining was your doing?”
“He has been very kind.” Eve inched back as the king stood extremely close. “And, uh…” She made a weak noise, sure she’d never been so mortified in all her life. “He did not hurt me when we, um, joined.”
Slowly, the king nodded. “Good.”
“Anyway, as I was trying to say, kidnapping women will not really go over well with the Earth government. It’s also not fair to take women away from their homes without giving them a chance to decide for themselves. Things are very different since you left Earth. People are different.” Eve glanced at Kyran. “And to tell you the truth, your guys looked a little comical—” The men gave her confused looks. “It was amusing. You sent a 1950s TV cowboy, a ninja, an outlaw biker and the sailor from—well, you wouldn’t know the 70’s music group I’m talking about.”
“You make a good argument, m’lady,” the king said. “You can instruct our men how to woo Earth women before they bring them home. You will start with Prince Finn and the Var princes.”
Eve wasn’t sure how he took her protest of kidnapping women to equal she was offering to set up a lonely shapeshifter intergalactic dating service. Then, seeing an opening, she nodded in agreement. “I’d be happy to help. But it would probably be best if I went with them through the portal.”
To her utmost surprise, they both agreed in unison.
Just like that. Yes. She was free to travel back to Earth.
“See, the gods know,” King Severin said to his son, grinning. “I will tell the queen of this arrangement. You should show the princess under the palace.”
When they were alone, Kyran pulled her into his arms. “My father really just wants an excuse to seek out my moth
er.”
“Under the palace?”
“The portal is in a cave system that runs under the palace. We actually created another entrance that requires less climbing and is reachable through the forest where we spent our first night together. However, it can still be reached by taking the stairwell down.”
“So you will really let me go through the portal?” she asked. Somehow the idea of escaping didn’t excite her as it should have. She should want to go home, but with Kyran’s feelings swirling inside her, she was confused. Logic told her she needed to get away from him to think without his presence clouding her emotions.
“It is true not everyone is allowed to go through, but you, my princess, have very special knowledge that can benefit us greatly.” Kyran swept her into his arms and held her as if it was the most natural thing in the world to hold his woman in such a way. Complete trust moved through them. She also felt his desire for her. It flowed openly as if he had no reason to hide anything from her.
“I know you wanted to dine with your family tonight, but do you think we might make other arrangements?” She tugged on his arm and gave him a meaningful look.
Kyran answered by carrying her through the door and rushing down the hall. Eve tossed back her head and laughed, lightly kicking her feet. One thing was certain. With Kyran, she would never be bored.
* * *
KYRAN HELD HIS WIFE CLOSER, wishing to never let her go. In all his years, he’d never understood just how life altering finding a mate really was. Eve was the piece he’d been missing without even realizing it.
His blood simmered at her nearness. The softness of her skin contrasted his harder muscles. How could he have known humans were so fragile? The delicateness of her called his protective instincts forth. She wasn’t like the female dragons. Her eyes were playful and she said things that made no sense, and yet he always seemed to understand her.
“You are remarkable,” he whispered, nestling his face into her hair. “I am truly blessed by the gods.”
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