by Ruby Dixon
It’s fear for Amy that keeps me going forward, even when a couple guards come out of their quarters and gather nearby, smirking at me. They look me up and down, as if seeing me naked despite my clothing. I know what they’re thinking. They’re thinking the dragon let me go because I gave it sexual favors or something equally filthy.
I hate that they’re right, too. Well, halfway right—I don’t think Kael had any intention of ever letting me go. I shove my filthy hair back off my face and keep my chin high, ignoring their stares. All that matters is Amy.
The guards take me to a small room at the back of the large building and sit me down at what looks like an old school desk. I’m left alone, and a few moments later, two different men enter. One is the captain of the militia, and one is the mayor. Both look surprised to see me, as if they didn’t quite buy the reports that I was here on their doorstep.
“Long time no see,” I tell them dryly. “I’m here for my sister. Where is she?”
“Somewhere safe,” the captain tells me.
Somewhere safe? Bullshit. “Safe like you kept me safe? Or are you saving her for bait girl number seven?” The thought makes me furious, and my fists clench. “She hasn’t done anything wrong!”
The captain raises a hand at me, as if trying to calm me. “Sit down. We’d like to ask you some questions.”
“I don’t want to sit. I want my damn sister back. She’s a citizen, and you have no right to hold her!”
“If she wants to remain a resident of Fort Dallas,” the mayor interjects, a sour note in his voice. “She’ll obey our rules. Just like you will. I’d be more than happy to send both of you out into the Scavenge Lands and bar you from re-entering Fort Dallas for good. Is that what you want?”
It’s awful, but a teeny, tiny part of me does want that. I liked being with Kael. I liked spending time with him, right up until the sex part. I’m still frustrated and hurting over how that turned out, and it feels weirdly like I lost a friend. Even so, I could probably survive for a while in the Scavenge Lands. I know how to hide and how to look for food and drink.
But Amy? She’s not strong enough. And without my help to bring in trade goods, Sasha will have to sell herself just to eat.
I can’t do that to them.
So I grit my teeth and say nothing.
“Good. Now sit down. As I said, we want to ask you some questions.”
I sit, feeling helpless and angry.
“Tell us about the situation with the dragon,” the captain says, his eyes glittering. “We left you chained. Yet you’ve returned here unharmed. I want to know how that happened.”
Unharmed?
Are they for real?
I want to laugh. Since they left me for dead, I nearly fell off a building when a dragon snatched me out of a stairwell. I was kidnapped by another dragon, rescued, bitten, and now I’m back in Fort Dallas. I feel like a ping-pong ball that’s been bounced around. A battered, bruised, feverish, sore and heartsick ping-pong ball.
Unharmed, my ass.
Of course, saying that won’t get me anywhere. So I tell a little lie. “The dragon let me go.”
“Why did he let you go?”
I shrug, uneasy at the thought of telling them much about Kael. For all his intensity, he had tried to be kind to me in his own way. It’s not his fault that I can’t handle dragon sex. “He saw me hurting myself, so he broke the chains.”
“Did you tame the dragon?”
My mouth twitches. “There is no taming that dragon.”
“Yet you are here and whole and unharmed. How did that happen? How did you get away?”
He’s vulnerable when he’s fucking you isn’t an answer I feel like sharing. “Where is my sister?”
“We’re holding her,” the mayor says bluntly. “We figured if you returned to the city, you’d want to see her, and we wanted to see you. Clearly we have questions. You’re not getting her back until you answer them, either.”
My stomach drops. “My sister hasn’t done anything wrong.”
The mayor is implacable. “No, she hasn’t. But this is about more than your sister. We’re trying to save an entire city of people here, and any information you can give us is key. Tell us what happened.”
I glare at the men, hating that they’re going to make me give them information, and hating that I’ll do it, because I need to free Amy. I’m weak, I know, but I can’t let my sister suffer. “Where do you want me to start?”
“At the beginning, of course.”
Irritated, I begin. I tell them about Kael landing and his transformation into human form. That gets their attention, and they quiz me repeatedly. I’m not entirely sure they believe me, except when I mention his appearance as a human—eyes swirling to black, dappled skin, and finger-claws—they exchange looks.
Bastards. So they’d known all along he could turn human? And no one bothered to say a peep to me, the human sacrifice? I’m filled with even more helpless rage.
They ask me more pointed questions. Did he speak in human form? Could he converse in English? Did I try Spanish or French? What words did he know?
I mention that he understands the word ‘no’ but leave out his name—it’s not mine to give, after all. I also leave out a great deal of the sexual tension that crackled between us and had a rather bad ending. That all seems too…personal.
I tell them instead that he was simply fascinated with me and had tried to feed me and protect me.
The questions begin again. How often did the dragon change into his human form? Did he have any particular vulnerabilities in human form? Did I think bullets would pierce his hide while in human form? The questions make me hugely uncomfortable, so I lie to them. No vulnerabilities. No, bullets won’t hurt him in human form. “He’s still covered in scales,” I lie. “Skin’s hard as a rock.”
The captain frowns and writes that down. “I thought you said his skin was human-like except for a pattern?”
“It is,” I tell them, and put on my blankest smile. “A pattern and the scaliness, of course.”
They exchange a look that clearly questions my intelligence. Yeah, put that in your report, asshole.
I do mention the other dragon that Kael had attacked, though, and they make me go over in great detail how Kael attacked him. How he’d moved, how long it had taken for his teeth to tear out the throat of the other. How long had it taken for the other dragon to bleed out? Had the other dragon tried to communicate with her?
The questions make me uncomfortable, and I give them as little information as possible. This isn’t learning how to live alongside the dragons or stop the attacks. This is a ‘how do we defeat the enemy’ sort of questioning talk, and I don’t like it. Maybe a few weeks ago I’d have been all for it, but that was before I knew Kael.
I don’t like the thought of these assholes attacking him. I don’t like the thought of them waiting for him to get into his human form and then hurting him. Because when I think of him in his human form, I don’t think of the dragon-man that bit me. I think of the flirty, playful Kael that says my name in that adorably mangled way of his. “He’s not a monster,” I point out to them. “I think he’s just confused most of the time. All he wanted to do was protect me and take care of me. He didn’t hurt me.”
The captain writes down a few more notes, then flips through his papers. “Let’s go over it again. You mentioned that he ripped out the throat of the other dragon. Did he struggle to do so at all? Do you think his throat is a vulnerability in dragon form? Were you able to tell the amount of scales there versus the rest of his hide?”
I hate this. “Why do you care? It’s clear they can learn English. We can teach him to speak with us and get him to leave the city alone. I’m sure he would do it if we talked to him and the other dragons. We just need to communicate with them somehow.”
The captain stares at me for a moment. Then he looks down at his notes again. “Tell me about the scales on the throat again.”
No one’s listeni
ng to me. No one at all.
KAEL
My head aches.
My body is curiously tired, but the throb in my head is the worst of it. I tense, waiting to see if this is another form of the creeping madness that always waits at the fringes…but there is nothing. I feel…normal.
I open my eyes, gazing up. Through the broken ceiling, I can see the skies overhead. They are dark, twinkling with light from the stars. Far in the distance, I can see the greenish, smoky outline of the rip in the skies that my people originally came from. The sight of it doesn’t send me spiraling. Instead, it just makes me feel a little sad. It’s a place I can never get back to, and I suppose a little part of me will always miss it.
It takes a moment for me to realize that the skies are dark. They were not dark earlier, not when I claimed her.
My Clau-dah.
No, I realize. Claudia. That feels right. Dainty and elegant but strong, like my mate.
I reach for her, seeking her small, soft body. Memories of our recent mating flood my mind, and I growl low in my throat with pleasure. Claiming her was the greatest joy I have ever experienced, and I revel in the thoughts of her sweet form under mine, the scent of her filling my lungs, the taste of her on my tongue. Already I am hungry for her again. I reach out with the mind-link even as I reach for her body. I must have fallen asleep after giving her my venom. I’ve heard stories of it draining the strength of a drakoni because our very essence is shared. Claudia has no essence to share back with me, so perhaps that is why I have been unconscious for so long.
But my mind is crystal clear and bright, a sign that the bond is true.
My searching hands do not find Claudia nearby, though. I sit up, flaring my nostrils in the hopes of picking up her delicate scent. Did she walk away?
But the only scent of her is hours old and faint.
She is not here.
I sit up, all weariness forgotten. Claudia? I ask, testing the mental link between us that is established with a mating.
No response. I can feel the tether between us, but she is too far away to receive my thoughts.
Too far away?
Rage flashes through me, hot and fast. Had another male snatched my female while I slept? Unthinkable. A claimed mate is off-limits, even in the madness-crazed minds of the drakoni. No one would dare. Claudia is mine. I have claimed her. She is mine to protect. Mine to cherish.
Mine.
I roar my outrage, bellowing my fury to the skies. I flash into battle form and launch myself into the air, ignoring the crumble of the ceiling as I push my way through it and the way rocks fall to the ground far below. It does not matter if I destroy the entire building. All that matters is getting to my mate.
I climb higher into the skies, my wings beating furiously. There is no other dragon nearby, no sense of her scent, but instinct guides my mind. With the mating bond between us, I can lock on to her mental tether and find her. I close my eyes and let it guide me.
Claudia will come back to me, no matter how many I must attack to free her.
She is mine to protect.
19
CLAUDIA
My head hurts. I rub at my temples, squinting at the bright lights overhead. The hard plastic seat I sit on feels a little too rough against my sensitive skin, but complaining will get me nowhere. My captors—because I can’t call the mayor or the captain anything but that at this point—aren’t interested in me or my comfort. I didn’t think they’d let me just waltz out of here with Amy, but I also didn’t think I’d be grilled endlessly, either. They want to know more about dragons. How they eat. How they sleep. How they talk. No matter what I tell them, they have more questions. I’ve been here for hours on end. Maybe even all night.
And still, no one has brought me my sister.
I’m exhausted. I haven’t slept in forever, I’m tired, smelly, and feverish. My head is pounding something fierce, and these lights shining in my face are just making everything worse. “I want my sister,” I tell them for what feels like the millionth time. “I need to see her.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible until—”
Claudia!
The call is so strong that I jerk to my feet, startled. “Kael?” His voice is so clear it sounds as if he’s in the room with me.
“Miss Jones?” the captain says, giving me a puzzled look. It takes me a moment to realize I’m still standing in the tiny barracks room with the mayor and the captain.
Yet Kael’s voice was so clear… I rub my temples again. “Sorry. I think I’m just tired.”
“We’d really like to know more—”
Claudia! Possessive triumph coats his voice, rich and syrupy sweet, and I stare at the walls. I don’t see him…but I can hear him. How is this possible? “Wh-what?”
I am coming for you.
“Um. Do you guys hear that?” My voice is shaking. I think I’m losing my mind. I’m actually holding a conversation with Kael and imagining him coming for me. I’ve officially snapped.
They exchange a look. “Hear what?”
“Nothing. I think.”
Your thoughts are delicious, purrs Kael in my mind. Bright and pure. I am glad you are my mate, Claudia. You fill my soul with joy.
It’s weird, but it actually sounds like he’s coming closer. I press a hand to one ear, then the other, checking for listening devices or something. There’s nothing, though. His voice is coming from inside my head. I glance at the ceiling anyhow, as if it might somehow reveal a big golden dragon hovering over my shoulder. “How is it that I can hear you?”
“The dragon?” the captain asks, voice rising in alarm. “Where is he?”
You are mine, Kael says inside my head. We are linked now that we have mated and I have claimed you.
The fuck? Linked? I don’t want to be linked. No one asked me if I had an opinion on being linked.
You’re unhappy. I do not like that. Why are you displeased?
Uh, because you didn’t ask me? Shit, now I’m responding in my head.
I asked you. I said your name and you responded by putting your mouth on me and—
That’s not the same thing! That wasn’t asking for permission to open a channel in my head! I don’t know at this point if I’m saying the words in my mind or saying them aloud. Things are blurring together.
How was I to ask for permission if we could not speak? But now we can. Satisfaction rolls through his mind. Now you can share your thoughts with me all day and all night.
Yeah. Great. I don’t want to share anything at the moment, though. I’m still mad.
The mayor shouts something at me, and additional soldiers file into the room, guns in hand. I clutch my head, distracted between the sound of Kael’s insistent voice and whatever the mayor’s shouting at me. “Can you be quiet for a second? I can’t think!”
I am coming to the human hive to get you.
Oh shit. My eyes go wide. “You’re coming here?”
“He’s coming here?” the captain roars, panicked. “Sound the alarm. Ready the bunkers! Go go go!”
A klaxon goes up—the dragon siren.
“How is she talking to him?” the mayor asks. “Is she bugged somehow?”
“He’s in my head,” I tell them, pushing my hands against my scalp as if that will stop my brain from freaking out. The blare of the siren is mingling with Kael’s heavy thoughts, and it’s all pressing in on me. “I can’t think with all this noise—”
“What’s he saying?” the captain demands. He moves to stand inches away from my face, his eyes intent. “We need you to tell us exactly what he’s saying.”
The siren blares, long and loud, and I can hear the stomp of feet overhead as the militia readies. Kael’s going to walk right into an army, and I’m leading him to it. I don’t know what to do. I need to stop him before he gets too close, because I don’t want him to die.
I’ve never wanted that.
You are upset. Kael’s thoughts cut through the chaos in my mind like a
knife, slicing away the outside world. I hear the siren. Shall I make it stop?
“You’re close enough to hear the siren?” I choke.
“He’s right overhead,” the captain roars. “Take action!”
Claudia. My Claudia. Do not worry. I am close.
“How close?”
Very close. I am coming for you.
“Why? You need to leave me here.”
I cannot. You are my mate.
“Mate?” I gasp out, horrified at the thought. Not only am I mind-linked to a crazy dragon, but he thinks I’m his mate? “I don’t want to be your mate.”
Something cold and hard presses to my temple. I freeze as the gun cocks, the sound loud in the deafening silence of the room. “If he thinks you’re his mate,” the captain tells me, “I’m going to need to use you as leverage. I’m sorry.”
He’s got a gun on me, I tell Kael. Back off. Please! I don’t want to die.
What is a gun?
There’s no time to explain. Can’t you please just go?
They took you away.
I don’t mention the fact that I ran off. Kael, just go, please. I need to find my sister, and I’m not going to get anywhere with you flying overhead. The gun bites into my temple, and I shiver. In my argument with Kael, I forgot that someone’s got a gun to my head.
Kael picks up on my fear, though. His thoughts grow wild, darker. I can feel them growing darker, and it’s terrifying. Why are you afraid? Why is my mate afraid?
