She sighed long and loud as she rolled over onto her right side and opened her eyes. He sat at the table, eating out of a wooden bowl. Her stomach growled again. She sat up slowly.
Dane swung his gaze toward her, and his eyes remained hard and implacable. Nothing like the teasing, light man who had mingled with the stern yesterday. Certainly he’d been fiery yesterday and had driven her insane with his touch. Today…today he glanced at her and a flash fire smoldered in his gaze. If she’d thought his feral need would be forgotten, she had been wrong.
“Bad dream?” he asked.
“Yes. I was on the ship when the storm came and then there was this huge wave towering several stories above us. We couldn’t escape.” She shivered as the memory snaked up her spine with horrible clarity.
“I’m sorry you had to face that. It’s beyond incredible you survived.”
“Yes. They…no one else was found washed up on shore, were they?”
“Only the dead.”
Tears pricked her eyes, and the weakness drove her crazy. “I’d met two women on ship named Xandra and Mia. I was hoping they’d…made it.” She hated feeling this out of control. “Dragonians cremate the dead, don’t they?”
“Not always.” His eyes softened for one moment, as if he understood her grief for the women who’d befriended her for such a short time. “The bodies on shore weren’t women.”
The tiniest ray of hope filled her soul. “Do you think they could have survived?”
“Not likely. But anything is possible. You lived.” His eyes went stony again and he said briskly, “Come and eat.”
She slipped from bed. She’d wrapped an extra sheet around herself last night. The tunic and pants she’d worn yesterday were dirty, and her Magonian dress hung over a chair, drying on a linen towel. She’d washed her Magonian clothing last night after taking her own bath and then discovering how to drain the tub and refill it. The entire time she worried Dane would stumble in and…well, want something from her. Despite the passionate physical responses he seemed to draw from her with little effort, she still feared what she’d never experienced. But the way he’d looked at her before and after he’d kissed her and caressed her, Ketera was awash in a soul-stirring curiosity. After he’d fought the dragon and kissed her, their relationship had altered. The hunger she’d seen in his eyes had burned hotter and brighter until the threat of physical connection seemed to hover between them at all times.
Would the excitement that stirred in her belly, the unrelenting ache between her legs relent if she allowed him sexual congress? The mystery of the act drew her. Her body wanted to know and experience, though her mind said it would ruin her and strip her of integrity and dignity.
He’d dressed in his blue tunic again, and she couldn’t help staring at his chest. She liked the way the hair on his chest swirled lightly over his pectorals and scattered downward over those amazing muscles and into the waist area where she couldn’t see anything else. She jerked her gaze away and took a plate filled with meats and cheeses. She bit into the meat, not caring if it was satarn meat. Even that repulsive creature would do when a body was starving. No, not satarn. It tasted far sweeter. Did they even have satarn on this continent?
She sighed and popped a piece of meat into her mouth. He passed her a wooden fork and she took it. Embarrassed, she smiled. She’d been so ravenous she’d used her fingers to eat. As she thought about her situation, uncertainty plagued her. At the same time, determination pushed her forward.
She took a deep breath. Perhaps, just perhaps, the only way she could procure his help was to tell him some of the truth. “I must return to Magonia.”
His head jerked up. “That’s not possible.”
She looked him in the eye. “I have to find a way to return home. I can’t stay in Dragonia. I don’t belong here, and I won’t abuse your hospitality. You’ve been…extraordinary, and I can’t thank you enough for saving my life. Twice it seems.” She smiled, but his expression had hardened rather than softened at her praise. “You could have left me for dead.”
“I would never do that.” His voice was hoarse and touched with emotion. He tossed his spoon back into his bowl and leaned back in his chair, his eyes defensive.
What had gotten into him?
She continued. “My father is imprisoned in Magonia near the mining town of Opali. He worked on an excavation near there and was arrested. I’d traveled to see him and was on my way back to Aramandi with one of his artifacts for safe-keeping when the storm hit our ship. I’d planned to go back to Opali after I stowed away the artifact.”
His brow crinkled. He stood and came around to her side of the table and crouched beside her chair. “What was he imprisoned for?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You don’t know why he was jailed?”
She sighed. Suddenly she had no appetite left and she pushed back her chair, turning toward him. “I know the reason, but I can’t tell you. His life is in jeopardy. They said he would be tried and convicted and that if found guilty—” She sucked in a breath as mental pain saturated her.
Dane’s frown deepened, his eyes dark with concern. “What happens?”
“He’ll be…” She swallowed hard. “He’ll be executed.”
Dane stood abruptly and prowled the floor. “How do you propose to free him? Do you possess evidence of his innocence?”
She looked down at her hands. “You see, that’s part of the difficulty. He’s guilty.”
He stopped eating up the floor with his long strides. Emotions flickered over his face. Uncertainty. Concern. “Guilty or not, you can’t leave here. There are no ships that sail to Magonia. If your ship hadn’t been destroyed by the storm you wouldn’t be here now.” He sighed. “Unless you were waylaid by a slaver ship and brought to Dragonia to fall prey to men like the one who wanted you on the beach.”
His straightforward approach with the facts bothered her. She stood, keeping her hand clasped around the sheet so it wouldn’t fall from around her body. She approached him slowly. “I could hire a boat. I have to return.”
“No.”
Anger bubbled upward. “That is your answer? I’m supposed to be resigned? Would you allow your father to rot in jail and face death?”
He moved in on her until he stood within a hairsbreadth of touching her, his eyes blazing. “Even if you could leave here, how do you propose to break him out of prison? And if he’s guilty, why shouldn’t he pay for his crime?”
She swallowed hard. “Because he’s guilty of something that no one should have to pay for.”
“I say again, what is his crime?”
“Telling the truth.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I agree, but telling the truth on Magonia will send the Truth and Order Police to your door.”
He planted his hands on his hips, puzzlement drawn on his face. “How is that possible?”
She could see he’d need more of an explanation if she hoped he’d help her. She walked away, the sheet dragging behind her. She stood in front of the arrow slit window where she’d first seen the jungle. She wondered if more dragons would appear and shatter the peaceful day. “I was an archaeologist on Magonia. Just like my father.”
“What is an archaeologist?”
“Someone who explores ruins, looks for the items that peoples centuries before have left behind. To better understand our past.”
“No one does that here. Most Dragonians live for now. Not for what happened in the past. We don’t have ruins because every castle on our land has been here hundreds of years and is maintained to perfection. Simple abodes for common people are never dug up for study. What good would it do us to see what our ancestors did? We can see the results. We are the products of what came before.”
She smiled and kept her gaze on the jungle. “The Truth and Order Police decided right about the time my father was arrested that this same thought was very logical. Most people on our continent are too afraid of the past to
give it much thought. The Truth and Order Police decided that telling the public what archaeology discovered was too risky. It gives people ideas.”
“Ideas?” He sounded puzzled.
She rubbed her forehead as a headache started between her eyes. All right, here it came. How could she explain this without telling him everything about her father’s incarceration? She sighed and abandoned trying to hide it. She’d have to trust someone on Dragonia if she wanted to save her father. “If people question what they’re told by the scribes, they are reprimanded. Archaeologists who tell the truth about what they find are rare. Those who do tell the truth, as my father did when he found a certain artifact, are imprisoned.”
She turned back to Dane. He stood too close again. His eyes, though, held great understanding and even sympathy. All the inflexibility she’d seen earlier had vanished.
“Truth is conditional on Magonia on a grand scale,” he said.
She smiled. “That is the way of it. It’s amazing how one group of people can claim to be arbiters of maintaining truth yet they do all they can to hide the truth.”
His lopsided grin acknowledged that he understood. “In this land, we don’t hide what we find. We just don’t look that hard to find it in the first place.”
She returned his smile. “Perhaps there is a middle ground there that would work better.”
“Perhaps. What did your father discover that was so damaging?”
His gentle tone softened her toward him. “If I tell you the rest, you must swear to help me leave here.”
“I cannot do that.”
“Then I cannot tell you what he found.”
He walked toward her. “Damn it, sprite—” She took a step back, startled. His hands clasped her bare shoulders, and the heat in his eyes could have been anger or passion. “I won’t help you if I don’t know the whole story. And I guarantee if you try and leave me again, you’ll only find trouble. You cannot help your father if you’re kidnapped or killed or injured.”
Tears of frustration prickled her eyes. “Then what do you propose I do? I won’t stand by and let him die. I won’t.”
“You had a plan? If he’s guilty, then what evidence or help could you possibly give him to save his life?”
She put more trust in Dane, but wondered if she’d regret it. “My proof may be lost at sea. I had it with me when my ship went down. As it is, if anyone else finds the texts, they may sell them for a great deal of money.”
“Texts?”
“Documents that were buried over two thousand years ago that tell how the supercontinents were divided into Dragonian and Magonian land.”
“What truth is that?”
“You’ve never heard it?”
“Magonians and Dragonians evolved apart. We cannot agree to live peaceably, so we live on the two continents. We have nothing more in common but our language.”
Her mouth opened in surprise. “Then our combined histories are not a mystery to you?”
“No. Why would they be?”
By the god. Could it be Magonians were kept in the dark by their leaders and Dragonians knew the truth? Stunned, she managed to speak. “Then you know Magonians refuse to believe anything but what the scribes have told them about Dragonians. We are sheltered. Kept in the dark. It keeps us in hate of you.”
He stayed silent for a few moments, as if processing what she’d dared reveal to him. “That’s why you wouldn’t tell me right away about your father. He wanted to release these sacred texts to the Magonians so they would know the truth of your past.”
She nodded, a great weight lifting from her. “Yes.”
“And that got him arrested when the authorities found out he had the texts.”
She nodded, misery gathering inside her. “One of my father’s coworkers decided to leak the truth to the authorities, but Father had already sent the texts to me for safe-keeping. When I heard of his arrest, I wanted to save him. I thought maybe if I turned in the texts he might be spared.”
A sneer touched his mouth. “You preach nonviolence yet your society would kill your father for speaking the truth?”
She nodded, a sense of shame coming over her. “Yes.”
“Our society never kills anyone for speaking the truth. Only to protect the innocent.”
“You are all so wild. So out of control. I can hardly believe what you say.”
He shook his head. “As I told you, our history is very transparent. We do not worry about lying because we don’t lie.” He smiled. “Much.”
She made a small, derogatory sound of contempt. “All of this doesn’t help me if I can’t find the texts.”
He pressed her shoulders. “Then there is no way to save him.”
She yanked away from him and stared blankly at the wall. Tears stung her eyes and spilled over her lashes. “Forget I ever mentioned all this. You think I should give up on my father and I won’t. He’s all I have.” She wiped at the moisture on her face. She wanted to kick and scream at him for being so hard-headed, matter-of-fact and perfunctory about what she couldn’t do. “Or maybe because you live for today with no past or future you’d let your own father perish.”
He clasped her shoulders again. Dismay and consternation filled his face. “We live for today on Dragonia because this is an uncertain world, and we may not have tomorrow. Saves us from too much planning and too much regret. As for my own father, he’s already dead.”
Tears continued to rain down her face, and she hated it. She’d never cried in front of a man—not in front of anyone—and it twisted inside her like a knife to the gut. “Do you always let things happen to you, Dane? Or do you have any say in what occurs at all?”
His hands caressed her shoulders. “Of course I plan what I do—you’re taking what I said all wrong. Dragonians don’t fear the truth like your culture must.”
“No one here hides the truth or tells lies? That can’t be so.”
“Our lives are on display. The truth is there for most people to see, no matter how much it might hurt.”
“Then you’ve never lied to anyone?”
He gave a mock laugh. “Ha. Right. I lied last evening when people asked about you. I’d planned originally to say you were a relative. But that all went to the levels of hell when…”
“Yes?”
“When I kissed you in public, I erased any chance of people believing you are related.”
“Then they think we’re living in sin.”
“Living in sin? What sin?”
“Man and woman living together without marriage.”
He snorted. “That is not a sin here. I will tell others that we are mated.”
The tears that had rained down her cheeks still kept coming. She drew in a shaky breath. “Mated? As in…”
“Mated mentally and physically. Compatible sexually on every level. Dragonians usually, though not always, find one person who is compatible this way. But when people see us in public, you must be willing to play the part as my mated one.”
Aghast, she said, “That’s ridiculous. Why would I want to lie about something like that?”
“Because if you don’t another man will try to stake a claim.”
“Because he thinks I’m his mate?”
“No. Because he wants you sexually. Plain and simple.”
“I’ll just tell him no.”
He made a sound of disbelief and his hands tightened on her shoulders. “It’s not that easy. Men claim what they want without hesitation. You remember I said that there are many more men than there are women? Men here are territorial about females because this world is dangerous and life often fleeting. Women bring life into this world…or at least they used to.”
“Used to?”
“Remember I told you that we’re almost sterile. Women aren’t having many children anymore. And most of those babies born are male. That makes women precious and rare. We are going slowly extinct, and if we don’t discover why so few children are being born, we will eventually vanis
h. Now that I’ve kissed you and pleasured your body, no other man who knows that I’ve taken that kiss will approach you. But if you in any way show that my claiming isn’t real and that our feelings for each other aren’t real, another man will try to take you for his own. And he may not be honorable about it.”
His hands went up to cup her face, his thumbs brushing away fresh tears. He looked into her eyes and there she saw compassion, and it undid her thread by thread.
“Are you honorable, Dane?” Her voice trembled.
“I am. Most Daryk Ones are honorable, but not all.”
“What makes Daryk Ones so different from other men?”
He sighed. “We are picked from our early years because of our height and strength. We are trained to protect the citizenry and to serve feudal lords who rule enormous castles and surrounding townships. We are the only ones who can fight dragons and win.”
Her eyes widened. “It all sounds most fairy-tale-like.”
“Fairy tale?”
She sighed. “A tale told to small children to teach them a lesson or entertain. I’d heard of castles and dragons but never saw them before I landed here. My father’s research told him such abodes and animals existed, but I wouldn’t have believed it unless I saw it for myself.” She paused only long enough for a breath. “Who is the lord of this castle?”
“Armen Helnak. His family has owned this castle for five hundred years. My father was born here, my grandfather also. Generations have lived and died here.”
The quiet pride in his voice filled her with calm but not complete assurance. Tears continued down her face. “And you think Dragonia will eventually make war on Magonia?”
“That isn’t the wish of the majority on Dragonia.” One of his eyebrows lifted. “I think the only war that is likely to happen now is civil war in Dragonia.”
She sighed. “And we are peaceful as a society. We know little about battle and how to fight.”
The more she discovered about him, the more passionate she felt about escaping. He confused her more than any person ever had in her life. When he drew her into his arms and hugged her, she stopped crying. The warmth of his embrace and the security she experienced, stunned her. He pressed her head against his big shoulder and held her there.
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