Page 31 of Claimed by the Savage Dragons

I glance between them, more than a little confused. Earlier, Tor seemed adamant that he was taking me there no matter what. So, what’s changed?

‘Can’t you just… leave me somewhere if you don’t want to take me to your home anymore?’ I ask.

The darker haired mandragonsnorts. ‘If he does that, he’ll be hunted down and probably killed, and you will be found and brought back anyway.’

‘I don’t understand. What are we meant to be discussing?’

‘You. Coming with us.’

I blink. ‘I thought that’s what was going to happen anyway.’

I struggle to sit up, not liking the way they’re both looming over me.

Tor pulls his friend back a little, giving me some much needed space and it means I don’t have to crane my head back so far to look at them.

‘Look,’ the other one says. ‘We aren’t explaining this right.’

‘Youaren’t,’ Tor mutters.

‘You think you can do better?’ the other one huffs.

Tor rolls his eyes and then looks steadily at me. His unwavering gaze makes my stomach do a funny flip and I try not to think about what he did in the pool room, how good it felt.

‘Remember I told you about how the humans are treated where we live?’

‘How could I forget?’ I mutter. ‘Isn’t that why you…’ I find I can’t even finish the sentence. I feel my cheeks heating instead.

‘Yeah, well… Brax had another idea. It only works if he’s on board though. It’s a law. If it’s enacted, there can’t be anyargument from the others in our faction about who you belong to.’

I give him and his friend a suspicious look, but anything’s better than becoming a sex slave to a cave full of dragons who hate humans, right?

‘Go on,’ I murmur.

‘It’s called the Nesting Law. A female can decide to nest with two or more dragons. They live together, only mate with each other. It’s a little like a human marriage.’

I stare at them in open shock. Of all the things I might have guessed, them asking me tomarrythem wouldn’t even have made the list.

‘But you barely know me,’ is all I can think to say.

Brax laughs dryly. ‘Marriages have been built on less in the human world. There was a time when most unions between your wealthy families were based entirely on quid pro quo.’

‘For thousands of years in fact,’ I whisper, and I register a spark of surprise in his eyes that I know what he’s talking about.

I plow on though, directing my next question to Tor. ‘Why would you do that?’

He shrugs. ‘There aren’t many females in our faction. It would be nice to have one, even if she’shuman.’

The way he says the last word makes me cringe. He doesn’t like me. And yet I have a niggling suspicion that he’s not telling me the entire truth about his motivations.

‘So, you just want me for sex?’

He shrugs.

‘But…’ I rub my eyes, trying to steal a few moments to try to work out what’s happening.

‘So how is it different for me?’ I ask. ‘I’m a sex slave no matter what.’

Brax tilts his head. ‘Do you really have to ask? Two of us or a hundred of us, human. Is there really a choice to make?’