“So, no drama, eh? Just a little kidnapping of a little boy from the only home that he knew and to top it, let’s just bury him and leave him alone.”
“They were supposed to be back within hours.”
“But they weren’t. And what did you do recover Quinn, eh?”
“The world is a very big place. We had no idea where he was.”
“Yeah,” she snapped. Dana stood as rage filled her. “All this magic you are supposed to have, and you just couldn’t find one little boy. You just couldn’t keep well enough alone, or trust his innate goodness. No!” She breathed in ragged gasps and her knees wobbled under her.
“Sit, Dana,” said Ed gently. “You’ve tapped into your dragon’s anger. These feelings are not your own.”
“You damn well better believe they are my feelings.”
“No, Dana,” said Ed ruefully. “You feel compassion, as I’ve designed you to do, but most definitely the anger is not yours.”
“As you designed me to do. How does one do that?” Dana couldn’t believe his crazy words. The order of genetic engineering he spoke of went far beyond anything that scientists could attempt now.
“With great difficulty. It requires constructing extra sensitivity to the emotions of others—” He stopped in mid-sentence probably from the incredulity on her face. He shrugged and stirred the food on his plate. “In any case, we cannot change anything that happened to young Quinn. But you may be able to. You are the strongest of the seneschals so far. If you are true to the work I’ve done, you should be able to persuade Abalon to stand down on his precipitous plans, maybe even return to Dragon home.”
“I still don’t understand how I’m supposed to persuade a high government official.”
“It is part of your seneschal nature. Your presence soothes and clams the volatile nature of dragon-kind. You are, for lack of a better analogy, a kind of catnip.”
“Catnip?”
“Have you ever seen a cat under the influence of catnip?”
“Well, sure. They get all goofy, and playful, and—Wait. Are you saying that it was me that seduced Quinn?”
“No. Like I said, you are irresistible to dragons, but it was yours truly that made coding errors that allowed seneschal DNA to become dominant instead of recessive. Any male dragon meeting a female seneschal naturally responds to her as if she were a female dragon.”
“Well, that’s as clear as mud,” said Dana with frustration. “You make it sound as if any male horny dragon would get down with a female seneschal.”
“No. Not exactly. You still have to find each other attractive for the mating part to happen. You do find Quinn attractive, don’t you?”
Dana scoffed. “I still don’t see how you could accomplish any of it. Or in what ways either Quinn or me hasn’t been manipulated?”
“Very few.”
“And you? Do you find me irresistible?”
“To have as company, yes. I must admit that I’ve spent too many years alone here. But I am an old dragon, and saw my own mate pass long ago.”
“Your mate?”
“Rhea’s mother.” A faraway and sad expression stole across his face. “She was such a beautiful dragon.” He huffed and looked at his food.
“Well, I seem to have lost my appetite. “
Dana looked at her own food and felt her own lack of appetite. It struck her how long lived dragons were. They lived hundreds, if not thousands of years, and here was one dragon that still keenly felt the loss of his mate untold years ago. What would that mean for Quinn and her? Would he suffer when her human body lived out its span of time? Would he stare out into space as Ed did now, remembering his mate long dead and feeling the pain of it?
It seemed an impossibly cruel fate for any dragon.
She said so.
“What?” said Ed. Dana’s question jolted him back to the present.
“It doesn’t seem right, that dragons will lose their seneschals long before they end their life.”
“Well, the thing is when a seneschal dies, the dragon tries to end his life too. If his fellow dragons don’t stop him, that is the result. The grief is too great.”
“Oh,” said Dana in a soft moan. “That is too cruel.”
“Yes,” agreed Ed. “This is why Rhea forbids mating seneschals and why she had all of them killed.”
“What?” Now Dana was shocked.
“Hundreds of years ago. She thought she took care of the problem.”
“But there you were,” said Dana bitterly, “still at your old tricks.”
“Yes,” admitted Ed.
“Ed, manipulating people and their DNA is wrong.”
“Is it?” said Ed. “Or necessary? Dragons live in a world of their own making. All were in agreement in the making of humans for a labor force. Somehow, we thought that using parts of our own DNA was right. The hominids we mated wouldn’t have developed sentience on their own.
“You can’t know that.”
“Dana,” said Ed as if he were speaking to a small child. “How many hominid species developed and died out with developing no more than a rudimentary culture? Only one developed sentience and survived. Who do think that was?”
Dana opened her mouth and closed it while a frisson of indignation simmered in her gut. If Ed was speaking the truth then humanity owed the dragons for humanity’s sentience and intelligence. Still none of that made what the dragons, and more specifically Ed, did to manipulate humans. The more she thought of it, the more outraged she became.
If Ed thought this sharing of information made her sympathetic to his cause the ancient dragon was very wrong. And the thought that her eventual death would cause Quinn to seek his own horrified her.
“I don’t want Quinn to suffer.”
“If Rhea’s people get to him he won’t.”
“What does that mean?”
“My daughter has a ceremony that will uncouple your mating. He will feel nothing for you.”
“What?” she said. She stood slapping her hand and not the table as her indignation boiled over. “What is wrong with you people?”
“First, we are not people. We are dragons. And she is only doing what any leader can to protect one of her people.”
“I can’t believe you agree with this.”
“You can believe what you want. You, however, should eat up. We have a lot of work to do to prepare you for your meeting with Abalon.”
“What kind of work?”
“Eat up,” said Ed mysteriously. “And then you’ll rest.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Quinn
Hibley led Quinn through a winding maze of corridors whose walls were lined with colorful frescoes. Many of the pictures depicted war, or more specifically, war with humans. At the pace that Hibley took him through the passages Quinn didn’t have time to study the details, but there was enough death, gore, and violence to make the message clear.
Humans must die.
Quinn shuddered. A small number of dragons could wreak a destructive path on a huge chunk of land. He had seen the video of what Tem Rawlins did in his battle against United Kingdom soldiers. The battle resulted in tick in the loss column for humans and Rawlins and Rawlins, to date, was still at large.
They entered a hallway lined with wood doors. Hibley went to the first open door and peered inside.
“This one is unoccupied. I’ll have someone bring you linen.”
He whirled on his heels and strode away leaving Quinn at the door to wonder what was going on.
“Who was that?” said a voice behind him.
Quinn looked over his shoulder to see a blond-haired man about his age behind him. Something about him seemed familiar, though he hadn’t met him previously.
“Calvin Porter called him ‘commander.’ I knew him as Captain Hibley.”
“One of those,” said the man derisively. “One of Rhea’s plants.”
Quinn wondered at the hostility at the man’s
“I’m Quinn Morgan,�
� he said turning and sticking his hand out to the man.
“Evan Waters,” he replied shaking it.
Now Quinn knew why the man seemed familiar. He was one of the dragons that broke out of the English prison. His face was on every newscast for several days.
“I didn’t think I’d get to meet a notorious jail breaker,” said Quinn.
Evan grinned. “I had a little help.”
“Yes. Templeton Rawlins and what was her name?”
“Astrid Davis.”
“Yes, I remember now. Are they here?”
A shadow crossed Evan’s face. “No. They left.”
“Why are you here then?”
“That’s complicated,” said Evan. His words came out slowly as if he was measuring each one carefully. “And why are you here?”
“That bastard, Hibley, dragged me here.
“Not a volunteer then?”
“No. Worse part is another dragon took my mate.”
“Mate? You have a mate?”
“Yeah, only the guy, the dragon that took her called her a seneschal.”
Evan pursed his lips and his forehead crinkled when he frowned. “Who was this dragon?”
“He called himself, Ed. Or rather Primus Edgar Gentrix.”
“I’ve never heard of him.”
This was a very old dragon and Evan never heard of him? Why wouldn’t he? This seemed very odd to Quinn, though he had to admit that he knew very little about the dragon community.
“So, what now?” he said.
“This evening you’ll be brought to Reanne, and you’ll be introduced to the community.”
“And then?”
“You’ll be assigned work or warrior training, and life goes on.”
“But I never asked to come here.”
“Yeah,” said Evan ruefully. “These folks are surprisingly unconcerned about that.”
“And if I want to leave?”
“You have wings. Leave.”
“But-” Quinn did know what to say. He had no idea where he was or how he’d get home. Or if he could go home. As far as the Marines were concerned he was UA, unauthorized absence, which could land him serious jail time. If he got back to base somehow, they would lock him up and he’d have no chance to find Dana.
“What’s on your mind, Quinn?”
“Nothing. I’m just concerned about Dana, my mate.”
Evan hissed and dragged Quinn physically into the empty room and shut the door.
“Listen,” said Evan darkly, “Don’t talk about your human mate around here. The Guard is very loyal to Rhea, and while she’s incapacitated, someone might take it into his head to rectify the situation.”
“I don’t understand. Dana is my mate. My dragon says she’s mine.”
“That may be the case, but that doesn’t stop the fact that these dragons are adamantly opposed to interspecies mating. Trust me. No amount of human is acceptable. Rhea set a huge amount of effort in her program to adopt out her wyrmling, but she always intended for each one of you to return home.”
Evan stared at Quinn with an intensity that hammered home the fact that he was deadly serious.
“Adopt out wry lings?”
Evan scoffed. “Yeah, a bunch of you was placed with wealthy families with the hope that you’d inherit their businesses, wealth and power. It’s how Abalon got to be Prime Minister of the UK.”
“Abalon? A dragon.”
“Yes,” huffed Evan. “Only he is obsessed with the idea of killing humans, so he’s orchestrating his Dragon War he’s pushed humans to take on dragons. He’s so convinced of the superiority of dragons he can’t imagine that humans could destroy us all.”
“Damn,” muttered Evan. “The commander is on his way back.”
“How do you know?”
“You learn a few things here,” said Evan. “Remember what I said.” Without another word the mysterious Evan left the room shutting the door behind him.
Quinn examined the quarters. It had a vault ceiling and white limestone walls. A single iron framed bed, small enough to be called a cot sat on the right-hand side wall. Other than a small table by the bed there was no other furniture.
“Love what they did to the place,” said Quinn sarcastically.
Without a knock announcing who was at the door, it opened revealing Hibley, who held a large square of brown fabric in his hands.
“This dinner dress. Wear this for tonight.”
“Okay,” said Quinn.
“Meanwhile, get some rest. It may be a long night.”
Hibley turned on his heels left him alone again.
Quinn brushed the bed with his hand automatically while gritted his teeth. He was used to taking orders, but he wasn’t getting them from assholes. Hibley was a first class one. And really, dragged to this place, where so far everyone he met expected that he would just follow orders grated on his nerves. The guy, Evan, seemed okay, but he was just as closed mouthed as Hibley.
And Dana? Where was she? Was she okay? That old bastard took his mate, which pissed him off royally. Through their emotion connection he sensed she was alive and in relative safety. But she was held against her will, and the dragon part of him wanted to tear through the skies and find her. But he wondered just how far he would get. He didn’t know enough about his new abilities to do the dragon thing very well.
Quinn paced the room. Everything that happened was too much. Finding out he his true heritage, mating Dana, kidnapped to this place—it was too much. But he couldn’t move forward.
He had to hold position and learn what he could about what he could do. And for this he would pretend to be a good dragon soldier. And when he learned enough, he’d go find his mate.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dana
Dana woke though her brain felt as if it was filled with cotton candy. She lay in hammock close enough to the waterfall to hear the pattering of water falling into the pool. But she was far enough away that none of the spray splattered on her. Leaves of different plants hung over her head, but she was no botanist and couldn’t identify them.
Where was she? The answer was hazy.
A grey-haired man walked into her field of vision.
“Good morning, Dana,” he said kindly. “How are you this morning?”
“Um, my head sort of hurts.”
“Yes,” he rumbled. “Well, it will be okay now. We will be leaving soon to do see your dragon.”
“Dragon?”
“Yes. Abalon.”
“I don’t remember anything about a dragon.”
“You will,” said the man with a too easy grin that made Dana uneasy.
“Where am I?” she said.
“My little fortress. I brought you here yesterday.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“You have a very bad day. Do you remember you were kidnapped?”
Dana seemed to remember something about a dragon, and flying, but she had a very difficult time putting things together.
“You did something to me,” she accused.
“Now, what would I have done to you, Ms. McGarrity? I rescued you, remember? From that dragon, Quinn Morgan, that kidnapped you.”
Quinn. Right. That Marine she was interviewing with what’s his name—Captain Hibley. They wanted him in a study. What study was that? Oh, yes. The PTSD study.
“I remember Quinn,” she said.
The old man sucked in a breath as if preparing for a blow.
“He was supposed to be in a government study.”
The man released a breath.
“Yes. That’s right. Only he turned out to be a dragon, and he kidnapped you.”
Dana sat up in the hammock and tried to figure out how she could get out of it without landing on her ass.
“Here, let me help you,” her companion said. He held out his thin as matchstick arms.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” she said. “I’ll figure this out.”
“I’m stronger than I look,” he said.
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Dana nodded and hung her legs of the hammock and the man grabbed her waist and helped her ease to the floor. He was right. The man was strong.
“I’m sorry. I’ve seemed to have forgotten your name.”
“Ed,” he said.
“And you brought me here? Why don’t I remember that?”
“Just a little dragon magic,” he said softly. “To help things along.”
“What does that mean?”
“We do need to get going,” said Ed. “I left some clean clothes for you, and some toiletries. After breakfast, we’ll head out.”
“And where do I clean up?”
“Why the waterfall, of course. Hurry, now.
Dana cleaned up and dressed with the unsettling feeling that she was missing something. Fragments of thoughts floated to the front of her mind but they were disjointed and made no sense.
This was not right and totally unlike her. Events prior to three days ago ran a straight and even line through her memories. Dana flashed back on one college psychology course about mind control experiments revealed during a Congressional investigation. It was a deeply disturbing class. But one thing she remembered was how the subjects of the experiments reported missing time and scrambled memories. And now she works up feeling the same way?
Adored by The Dragon: (The Dragon Lord - Book 3) (The Dragon Lords) Page 7