Page 27

My brows shot up and the words burst from me in English. “You’re sorry we shagged?” My voice sounded more shrill than I intended.

“Shag?”

“Had sex.”

His brows rose. “No, he said hurriedly, sticking to Primal. “I mean, yes.” He pushed his hair back off his face while I tried to decide whether to laugh or explode. “I mean that I am sorry you did not have a full understanding of what might happen.”

I exploded. “Damn the Taziers and their fucking serum.”

His brows dropped. “No. That is not the way it works. Was this not explained to you?”

“No.”

His eyes widened.

I took a deep breath and reined in my temper. “Explain it to me, then.”

He now seemed unsettled. “I am not certain Primal will have the words I need.”

“Try it in Drakonian. I understand enough, I think.”

He started speaking in his native tongue, but slowly, waiting for my nods after every few words. “The serum is designed to trigger a genetic sequence that is only present in a small percentage of human females,” he said. “When it is present, it manifests as a talent, usually.”

Ice traveled down my spine as I answered in English. “You mean that precognition thing was initiated by the serum?”

“Yes. It is a sign that you have the genetic sequence. Have you noticed any other changes?”

I stared at the way his hair shimmered ruby and gold, and it all clicked. “I’m seeing colors that I’ve never noticed before. And my irises have changed color, too.”

He nodded. “When the geneticists evaluate human females, they are looking for these alterations.”

I wasn’t sure that I believed him about the serum.

What I’d felt for him had been so powerful, and so unlike anything I’d experienced before.

Maybe the Drakes weren’t aware it had that effect?

But what I asked was, “Why are Drakes looking for females with talents, weird eyes, and good color perception?” I was confused.

I could see why two of them might be useful things, but why all the secrecy around it?

He visibly swallowed, before saying, “Females with that genetic sequence have proven to be compatible with Drake physiology.”

When I just stared at him, wondering if I’d interpreted that right, he grimaced, and said in Primal, “They can mate with us. And now, with this newest serum, they can have our offspring.”

My heart slammed to a halt. “No. Fucking. Way.” The words emerged with an outraged squeak, but the reality was that my pulse was bounding, and warmth flooded clear through me.

This was even worse than mating.

I turned to bolt, but somehow, he was between me and the door. He reached to me, but when I recoiled, he held his hands up instead. “Wait, please,” he said, and the genuine emotion in his voice froze me to the spot. “You should have been told all this at your evaluation. It is custom to do so.”

“I might have been, if I’d had one.”

His eyes widened. “You have not been evaluated? That—explains much.” He rubbed his temple hard with one hand before he continued. “My people are dying, Jaz. But the Drolgok scientists have discovered that some human females can save us from extinction, by having Drake offspring.”

“So, you’re using us like broodmares?” I couldn’t believe this. Zyair wasn’t any better than Kurt and Travis.

“Brood—mares?” he asked.

“Animals used to breed.”

“No. I mean, yes, many of the Drake clans see them that way.” Zyair seemed increasingly agitated. “But my elder brother—the leader of the Raptors—wants to enter a new, cooperative relationship with humans. He believes that would work for both of our species. ”

They needed human females to give them children. How likely was it that they would seek human cooperation, when they didn’t need it? I eyed him, not sure I could believe what he was claiming.

“So I could give you children?”

He nodded.

“And you could tell that by the way I smell? The Taziers sniffed me and called me ‘ripe’. Is that what they meant?”

His nostrils flared, and his eyes flashed emerald as a muscle jumped in his jaw. “It means that you are ready to take a Drake as a mate.”

“Is mating a permanent arrangement?”

His mouth straightened. “Once you fully mate a Drake, there is a chemical exchange that takes place that binds you to that Drake forever.”

His voice was so hoarse it almost obliterated the final word.

“So I’m bound to you?” I could barely whisper it. To come all this way, and end up caged anyway…

“Triads mate one female. You have not mated with Rhodes or Xandros yet,” he said quietly. “So you can leave now and be fine. Most likely.”

I tried to ignore the pain in his voice, and in his eyes. “What would happen, if I’m not fine ?”

“The chemical bond is like an addiction—if not renewed regularly, your body would go into withdrawal.” He straightened.

“I assumed that you knew all this. I thought that Senaik brought you along because he had plans to mate you. I should have realized the regulators would not have let you leave Earth, if they had known you were a breeder.”

“So do YOU want to use me as a breeder ?”

“No!” His reply was sharp with denial, and he took a long breath before continuing. “You and me—I thought you were accepting the mating, that was what I asked. But I did not know we would lock . It is not a mating thing, it only happens when you find your true mate.”

True mate? “What is that?”

His hand lifted, as though he wanted to touch me, but then it dropped again. “It is a Fated thing.”

Fate? My ears heard the word, but my mind shoved it away.

His mouth straightened. “I am so sorry, Princess Jazmin. I had no right to proceed… I thought you knew .” The last was said with undercurrents of something I couldn’t quite define. “I should have confirmed it.”

Frankly, “do you want to give birth to my dragonlings” would have been quite the buzz kill. I met his gaze. “Then why didn’t you?”

“I asked you if you wanted it. You agreed. I trusted you knew what it meant…” He dropped his gaze from mine.

I… had wanted him. Very badly, more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. But I couldn’t tell him that. Because I needed to be free, and this was the very last thing from it.

He’d thought I’d been told the score… something twisted inside me, ever so slightly. But dammit, he shouldn’t have pushed under those circumstances. This was a life-altering decision, and I’d had zero idea.

His mouth straightened. “Your scent—and fleeing from the battleship—such things always make me…” He gritted his teeth. “I wanted you.” He said it almost on a groan.

And there was the truth of it. Surrounded by my aroma, and with adrenaline flowing, he had asked. And if I had said no, I didn’t think he would have forced me.

But he hadn’t really made sure that I understood what it all meant. Was it deliberate? I believed he hadn’t known I was oblivious to what was really going on. But the outcome of his decision to go ahead affected both of us.

These Drakes wanted me to have their children …

The entire Fated thing was a component I couldn’t even begin to get my mind around. I violently squelched the flutter within me, and straightened. “‘Do you want to screw’ is not the same thing as ‘I’m going to lock my cock inside you and claim you for life so that you can spawn baby dragons.’”

He looked right at me. “I am sorry, Princess Jazmin.”

The thing inside my chest—be it organ or muscle—constricted. But there was no easy way out of this mess. “Drop the Princess. I told you to just call me Jaz.” I pulled myself up straight. “Now get out of my way.”

My voice shook, and I almost quailed when I saw my words hit home. Hard. But then he moved aside.

I gathered every ounce of my failing resolve. “When we get out of here, I want you to drop Yani and I off once we are away from Nirzk territory.”

The skin around his mouth spasmed, but he nodded.

“Very well,” he said.

I ignored my aching heart and swept past him and out the door.

I stroked Sookie as Yani lay half hidden beneath the power core containment system and told her that we would be free of the Drakes once we shook loose from Nirzk territory.

There was a thump, as though she’d raised her head too fast and too far. And then silence, before she said, “You want them to drop us off?”

“That was the plan, wasn’t it?” The tone of her voice confused me.

“Originally, yes. But?—”

“But what?”

I was pretty sure I heard a sigh. “That was before you matebonded one of them.”

The word pierced my heart, but I gritted my teeth and said, “He told me it likely wouldn’t cause issues, because it was only once. And apparently it hinges on me also, um, having sex with his brothers. Which I haven’t done. ”

“Yet,” she stated. Rather surprisingly.

The pulse of raw heat through me made it hard to breathe. “I don’t want to screw his brothers!” I protested in a squeak.

Her stubby fingered hand emerged and waved. “Spanner,” she requested, with an odd note in her voice.

I handed it to her and it vanished again. But apparently our less than comfortable conversation wasn’t done.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked.

“About what?” I hedged.

“About… oh never mind.”

I swallowed. Suddenly, my heart was in my throat, and I almost couldn’t force the words past my lips. “There is nothing between me and them. Nor will there ever be.”

Silence. Then, “Well, that’s helpful. Because I want you to go with Xandros to that abandoned settlement, and see if you can salvage some metal to patch the starboard storage bay.”

My mouth opened, closed, and then opened again. “Can’t he handle that on his own?”

“You will need his dragon to lift it. Which means it would be easier if you did the cutting. His beast hands won’t be able to manipulate the device.”

Oh. It did make sense. But being out there alone in the swamp with a big, muscular, tattooed dragon who cooed at hedgegophers…

Dammit, I meant what I’d said. They are just a means to get free.

“If there is no other way,” I said.

She slid out from beneath the power core containment system, and regarded me with a strange look on her face.

“Are you going to be okay here alone?” I asked.

She waggled a brow. “I’m not alone. There’s Kurt. And a pissed off Tazier in the aft storage bay.”

“That’s worse than alone.” I insisted.

She shrugged and waved the spanner. “I’ll be fine. I’m not exactly helpless. And we need that metal.”

Alrighty then. I accepted the cutters and goggles from her—she gave me two sets, which immediately kyboshed the me-cutting—him-lifting scenario.

“Just in case you need both,” she said, before I could point that out.

I tossed them and a few extra power cells into the pack she handed me, along with two flashlights, before I headed out of the engineering bay with determination in my step.

“Wait,” she called.

I turned to see her pulling something from a cupboard, and she hurried over to hand it to me.

A wool hat. In a screaming mix of orange and purple.

“I crocheted this for you,” she admitted. “Missed your birthday. I had problems with the pattern. Just finished it before all this began.”

The colors pulsed before my eyes, and the cable effect running in a spiral had missed in several areas, but my throat suddenly closed as I dropped the pack and hugged her.

“It’s beautiful, Yani. Thanks so much.”

She cleared her throat as she backed out of the hug. “It’s cold out there. It’s real wool. It will keep your head warm and dry.”

I pulled it on, picked up the pack, and headed down the hall. If she could crochet me a hat, I could do this for her…