by Kate Rudolph
He couldn't let the hope show on his face. It was the kind of fancy his father would scoff at.
"Be gone," his father finally said. "I am busy."
Crux left. He headed back towards the training grounds, and his brothers attempted to summon him back for another match. Crux considered it for a moment before turning abruptly and heading out of the palace and down into Dragon City.
He thought of every lady he knew, and he knew many, but none of them had managed to spark his interest. They all knew he was a prince and what mating with him would mean. He'd never felt like so much meat as when he attended parties with scheming ladies intent on the Dragon Crown.
That was the problem of his position. No one wanted him for him. They wanted his rank or his coin or his favor.
But there had to be someone.
The streets weren't too crowded as he walked. Dragon City was not the largest settlement in the kingdom, despite the castle. Or perhaps because of it. The king's guard liked to make sure the city was safe for the royals who lived there and could make things… uncomfortable at times for the residents of the city. But it was why Crux was safe enough walking alone and no one gave him a second look.
He didn't know what made him stop. He was on a market street full of shops. Some sold weapons. Others entertainment devices. And if his nose did not deceive him, he was near food stalls of some kind.
But that wasn't what caught his attention.
He read the sign on the window: Royal Matchmaker.
He could question the validity of the claim. As far as he knew, his father and brothers had never approached a matchmaker in their lives. There were other ways to find mates.
But Crux had heard of this matchmaker. It was said she wasn't just good, she was unnaturally good. A psychic.
If he had a fated mate out there, perhaps she could point him towards her.
It was crazy. Crux was a prince, he didn't need a matchmaker.
But he only had until the next full moon to make the choice on his own. And a true leader knew when it was time to ask for help.
He looked at the door for several long seconds and almost continued down the street. It was madness to even consider it.
But his father had driven him to madness, and he was running out of choices.
Crux reached for the door, ready to greet his fate.
3
If Courtney needed any more proof that she was in space, it came when she started floating. Whatever was keeping gravity going failed, and she found herself plastered to the ceiling and reaching for the wall, trying to orient herself.
She saw streaks of yellow outside the nearest window, and sweat coated her arms. It was getting hot and they were crashing.
Gravity came back with a jolt, and Courtney knew she didn't have much time. She needed to brace herself before they made impact.
Not that it would matter.
She was going to die.
But she couldn't give up hope. She scrambled down the hall and let out a cry of relief when she found a fold down chair with easy-to-use restraints. She climbed into it and secured herself with shaking hands.
Then everything was shaking.
Then there was a crash.
And then it was scarily silent.
Courtney didn't hear anyone screaming this time. She didn't know how she was alive. Maybe she wasn't. Maybe she'd been dead the entire time and this was hell.
Except it didn't really feel like hell, not what she'd imagined anyway.
She thought her roller skates had managed to wrap around her neck and reached up to adjust them. But the skates were hanging on her shoulder.
There was a giant metal collar around her neck.
Courtney couldn't stop the panicked sound that escaped her throat.
Somehow that made this whole thing all the more real. She was on some kind of space ship and the scary aliens had put a collar on her and she was so far from home she had no hope of ever getting back.
She didn't have time to be amazed at finding out aliens were real.
And she couldn't stick around for more of them to find her.
Courtney undid her harness and reached up again at the collar, trying to pry it off. It didn't budge. Frustrated tears pricked at her eyes, and hyperventilation threatened again.
She made herself take a deep breath. Then another. She didn't know what the collar did, but clearly it didn't control her. She'd been able to walk out of her cell without anyone stopping her, and she'd bashed that alien's head in.
Did that count as murder?
Not thinking about it.
She'd worry about getting the collar off once she was off the ship. If the aliens couldn't see her, they couldn't control her collar. She hoped.
Walking around now was riskier than it had been before, and she was super conscious of her sock clad feet. Pieces of metal and other debris had become dislodged in the crash, and Courtney had to step carefully to make sure she didn't hurt herself.
She heard a woman screaming as she passed down the hall and couldn't keep walking. She had to try to help.
She looked for a panel or something on the wall that would make the door appear, but she didn't recognize anything. There was weird alien writing, but she couldn't read it. And for all she knew, it wasn't writing at all, but a strange decoration.
She banged one of her skates against the wall, hoping force would do the trick. It didn't, and the woman behind the door only screamed harder. Courtney didn't say anything. She didn't know if the woman could hear her and she was afraid to make too much noise.
And then she heard trampling footsteps coming her way fast.
Courtney looked at the wall and winced. "I'm sorry," she whispered to the woman behind the door. Then she ran. She wasn't letting the aliens catch her again.
Running in bare feet on a space ship that was falling apart was a terrible idea. Worse than walking on Legos, and she was sure her feet were bleeding and her socks torn to shreds. She tried to push the pain out of her mind, but Courtney had never been good at that.
It had one benefit. She was so focused on the pain in her feet that she couldn't worry about the aliens behind her.
She gasped for breath as she ran, and then something occurred to her. Could she even breathe the air outside? She was on some foreign planet millions—maybe billions—of miles from home. Why would the air be breathable?
But she could already see cracks in the hull of the ship. It definitely wasn't airtight anymore. So she had to hope she was lucky. Anyway, it would probably be better to suffocate than to suffer whatever the aliens wanted to do to her.
The hallway seemed to go on forever. Courtney kept moving, but she wasn't getting anywhere, until, suddenly, she did. It wasn't a door. These aliens didn't seem to like doors, but the wall had torn away to reveal barren wood that might have once been a tree and dark dirt.
The sky in the distance was bright and blue, with the slightest green tinge, but it almost looked like Earth.
How was she going to get back to Earth?
Courtney carefully stepped out of the ship and onto the soft ground, her feet practically weeping with thanks. The ground was a little damp, and that would be an issue later.
If there was a later.
But Courtney needed a plan. The aliens were bound to exit the ship eventually, and if they found her, she was a goner. What were the chances that there was a civilization of not-evil aliens on this planet?
Well, there was a tree, and dirt, and water. Those were things that life needed, if she remembered anything from high school biology correctly. There was life of some kind on this planet. Now she had to figure out if it was the kind that had figured out space travel.
She really hoped that if there were other aliens here, they were nice.
Courtney moved carefully, both because there was plenty of ship debris on the ground and because she was sure one of the evil aliens was going to burst out of the ship at any minute. She considered picking up a bit of debris to use as a knife, but
figured her skates were the better option. They'd already taken out one alien, so she hoped they could handle more.
If it came to that.
This whole thing had to be a nightmare. The kind of bad dream that made it so she couldn't sleep for a week. As Courtney took gasping breaths of the planet's air, she tried to force herself to wake up. This wasn't possible. Aliens didn't exist. Space travel didn't exist.
This wasn't real.
She squeezed her eyes shut, determined to prove it was all fake.
But her socks were getting wet from the damp dirt, and she could hear the ship creaking and falling apart next to her. The place smelled like the green of fresh air after a rainstorm mixed with the spilled gas scent of a gas station. Not exactly pleasant, but somehow familiar.
There was nothing else familiar about this.
"Move," she commanded herself. "Do it." She couldn't sit around and cry. Even if this was just a dream and her alarm rescued her at any moment, she couldn't let herself surrender to despair. "They can't have me."
She moved, but slowly. She took two quick steps and nearly impaled herself on a nasty spike of debris. After that, Courtney's pace slowed to a crawl. She made it around the corner of the ship and saw dense foliage and a mountain range further beyond it. She could hide in the forest, she hoped. And maybe find water or food.
Her stomach grumbled at the thought. Food hadn't been on her mind at all when she woke up, but she wasn't sure the last time she'd eaten, and her body was starting to protest.
Well, her body was going to have to deal with it.
Courtney crept along, trying to get away from the ship and hoping none of the aliens saw her. She thought she'd made it until the collar around her throat started to tighten and she froze, gripping it, trying to loosen it.
She wrenched her head around and saw an alien standing in the wreckage of the ship pointing something at her. He jerked his hand towards her, but she refused to be summoned, even if she couldn't breathe.
Better to suffocate. That had been her thought before. It was a lot harder to hold onto the conviction when her airway was cut off.
She grasped onto one skate, ready to launch the pair of them at the alien in a desperate attempt for freedom. But he was thirty feet away. There was no way she could launch the skates that far, not even if she could gasp in a full breath.
It was over.
Black spots danced in front of her eyes, and her legs went wobbly. If she tried to move, she'd fall over. Hell, she was sure she couldn't stand for much longer.
Her ears popped and a bright light flashed behind her. If she had any strength left, she would have turned around to look, but instead she saw a blast of something shoot over her shoulder and hit the alien square in the chest. He tumbled to the ground and the choking hold on her neck let go.
Courtney sucked in a breath and looked at her savior. He was haloed in bright light and looked like a human man. He held out a hand as the bright light behind him faded. "Come on. Let's get out of here."
4
There was no way Crux would find his mate on this planet, no matter what the matchmaker said. This was no place for a lady dragon. But he couldn't just step back through the portal to home and leave the human in front of him struggling with a slave collar around her neck.
He hated slavers. They were the scum of the universe. He was going to make these ones pay for wasting his time. After he rescued as many people as he could from their care.
The human prisoner had dark hair that was held back from her face and pale skin. Dark eyes with dark smudges under them, and the kind of curves that would make him think sinful thoughts if he wasn't in the middle of a mission to find his mate. She wore a long red tunic and dark leggings, and for some reason she had wheeled shoes hanging over one shoulder rather than on her feet.
Crux had never been to Earth, but he'd met a few humans. None of them wore shoes like that.
"Were there other prisoners on the ship?" he asked as he led her away from the debris and to the edge of the forest. They didn't have a lot of cover, but it was better than standing in the open. He had the feeling she couldn't make it far.
A feeling that was confirmed when she slumped down to sit on a large rock beside a short tree. She breathed deep, her hands shaking before she balled them into fists and then rested them on her legs, fingers gripping her knees hard enough to bruise. "I heard a woman screaming," she said. "I couldn't help her. I tried. But I couldn't open the door. And they were coming down the hall. What's happening? Who are they? Where am I?" She looked up at him with pleading eyes.
Crux's heart went out to her. Slavers loved to take people from planets that weren't yet sophisticated enough for interstellar travel. The panic and dismay was enough to crush most spirits. "I realize this is all hard to take in, but you're safe now." He held up his teleporter and waved the device at her. "I can send you back to my home and then once I've dealt with this issue, I'll send you back to Earth. You are from Earth, right?" Humans had been abducted from that planet ever since they'd evolved, and there were quite a few settlements around the galaxy full of them. But those humans normally weren't so disturbed by the thought of capture.
Her eyes got wide, and she shook her head in disbelief. "Of course I'm from Earth. Where the hell are you from? Who the hell are you?" She squeezed her legs even tighter, and Crux had the strangest urge to reach out and comfort her.
Maybe his father was right. Maybe he did need a mate. "My name is Crux. What's yours?" He spoke in his gentlest tone, the kind he'd use with a scared animal. He didn't want this woman bolting and running right back towards the slavers.
"What the hell are you?" she demanded.
He was pretty sure that wasn't her name. But she was scared and grasping for any control over the situation she could find. He'd dealt with scared victims before, and he would give her as much time as he could to deal. "I'm a dragon." Obviously. Hadn't she seen him shoot his fire at the slaver who'd been choking her? "What's your name?" Slavers often stripped their victims of their names, but it took a long time for names to be forgotten completely, and this woman didn't act like she'd been a slave all that long.
After all, she'd run. That was one of the first things that got beaten out of the victims.
Her breathing stuttered, and tears leaked out of her eyes. "I'm Courtney. I want to go home."
Crux's heart broke for her, just a little. "I can’t send you home yet. But I can send you somewhere safe until then. Will you let me?" He didn't want to give her a choice, and he'd shove her through the portal if he had to, but it was better if the decision was hers.
She looked at him for a long moment, and he could see her stoking her inner fire. She wasn't a dragon, but she was tough. "Okay."
Thank the skies.
"This will only take a moment." He punched in the coordinates and the portal opened. "Step through. Tell whoever you meet first that Prince Crux sent you and that I'll return once I've dealt with the slave ship. Have an infirmary readied."
Courtney's eyes got wide. "Prince?"
Crux grinned. "Guilty. Now go." Under other circumstances, he might have given her a playful shove, but he doubted the human would take that well.
Courtney pushed herself to her feet and took a deep breath before stepping towards the portal. But instead of stepping through, she ran straight into it and bounced back as if it were a solid wall. That didn't stop her from trying again.
And failing again.
Crux closed the portal before she could try a third time.
"Why didn't it work?" She didn't sound angry, not exactly.
Crux was. Keeping her safe while fighting the slavers would be hard enough. But he had an idea. "Your collar. I'd wager that it prevents you from being rescued through a portal. Perhaps from getting too far from your captors. We'll need to get it off of you before I send you back."
She sank back down onto the rock and reached up to stroke the offending collar before grabbing her wheeled shoes and clutc
hing them close to her chest. "You can't just take it off? I tried pulling it."
Crux approached slowly to take a look. He found the clasp and worked it with his fingers before shifting to his warrior form to try his claws. He shifted back when it didn't work and stepped back into Courtney's line of sight. "It looks like it requires a special tool. There should be one on the ship." He had to make a plan quickly. The slavers were bound to come this way soon. He only hoped there wasn't a tracking beacon in the collar as well. "Let's find a place to stash you, and then I'll head to the ship to find a tool. You'll be in my palace by nightfall."
That startled a laugh out of her. "Palace. Fuck. I must be hallucinating. This can't be real. How can I even understand you? Dragon? Yeah, right."
He held out a hand towards her face but didn't touch her. "May I?" He gestured towards her ear.
Courtney glared at him, but finally gave a cautious nod.
He reached behind her ear and ran his fingers over her silky skin. She shivered under his touch, and those unbidden sinful thoughts came back. Crux swiftly shoved them aside. Even if he wasn't on the lookout for his mate, this woman wouldn't be for him. She was too traumatized, too raw. She needed safety, not his lust.
Once his fingers ran over the ridges of the translator, he pulled back. "It's not uncommon for slavers to implant translators on their victims."
She reached behind her ear to feel for herself. "That sounds expensive."
"It's cruel. It gives them another excuse to beat their victims since the victims understand them perfectly well." And it was one reason that Crux would make sure no slaver walked off this planet alive. "Come on, let's find a place for you to hide."
"You're going to leave me alone?" She stepped close to him, reached out, then tore her hand back as if she couldn't stand to touch him. "That's not safe."
"It's safer than taking you back to that ship." This kind of land was bound to be full of caves and warrens, the perfect place for a human to hide for a bit.
But before they could move out, something crashed through the woods and two slavers burst through the trees. Crux dove in front of Courtney, calling up his warrior form without a thought and absorbing the blow from his blaster. The slavers weren't shooting to kill, not when they could get their merchandise back.