“What is?”
“These marks. In combination with the tattoos around your eyes it indicates your parentage.” He touched her face, “Mother.” Stroked her arm, “Father. But there has been no record of Eiwyn and Draven having children before she disappeared.”
“Eiwyn. That is my mother’s name.”
“I need to think. Stay here. They will bring you a meal if you need it.” With a peculiar tension in his limbs, he walked to a window and launched himself out.
Ruby ran to the window and looked down at the cliff that formed the back of the castle. A huge blue dragon was flying away, his wings beating heavily to gain altitude.
Mother?
Yes, sweetling?
Why is he freaking out?
Because your father might not be pleased to know that his daughters are running free. I am here not only so that you can close the punctures that the humans are creating, but also to give you a chance to choose the mates that you will have for your very long lives.
You were pregnant.
I was. I had foreseen it. I had to wait until everything was right before I could cross the barriers and hide my trail. The fabric between dimensions is so torn around this world, Draven could not find me if he wanted to.
Draven is my father?
Yes, child. King of dragons. Now hush, your male is returning and he may be sensitive to this kind of communication. He was too surprised by your apperance to hear us earlier.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ruby watched the dragon approach and get larger. His head was huge, the eyes the same blue as his other form. He seemed to be dive-bombing the castle, but he shifted back to his other form a second before he would have struck stone.
“I decided to return before you left. It was not a risk I should have taken.” He held out his hand and she looked at it in confusion.
“What is that for?”
“You take my hand and I take to you visit Evian.”
“Oh.” She took the large, masculine hand with her own and when he tightened his grip lightly, a strange shivering started in her belly.
“How long have you been travelling between worlds?” He kept his voice light.
“This is my third assignment.”
“Assignment?”
“Yes, when the humans built their machines, they punched through instead of doing what we do and easing the fibers of space apart. Their bodies are carrying traces of those torn energy fibers and they need to return home to fix the problem. Their world is shaking itself apart.”
“I notice you said they again. Is there anything binding you to that world?” His words were too casual and she picked up the meaning almost immediately.
“Yes. I have an implant in my leg that will start causing me excruciating pain after I have been here more than my allotted five days.”
His grip on her tightened for a moment before resuming its casual warmth. “They put an implant inside you?”
She rubbed the spot on her thigh with her free hand. “Right there. It was thought that without some kind of negative response, we would run free.”
He nodded again, but a muscle was ticking in his jaw. “Who is we?”
“My sisters and I.”
That got his interest going in a different vein. “How many sisters?”
“Nineteen.”
He dropped her hand and turned her to face him. “What? How many?”
“Nineteen. There were four egg clusters originally, but when they experimented, each cluster turned into five sisters. The weird thing is that we all have different-colored eyes in each set of five.”
“That is impossible.”
“Then why am I wearing a bracelet with twenty strands in it? One is for each of my siblings.” She lifted her hand and shook her fist in his face, her torn sleeve flapping on her forearm.
He grabbed her wrist and touched her bracelet. His hypnotic blue eyes closed for a moment and then he let out a soft curse in a hissing language. “I apologize. You do indeed have that many siblings. It is just that I have never heard of such a large collection of females. It startled me.”
She tried to pull her hand back, but he held her wrist and pressed his palm against hers. His eyes went to half-mast again and he opened them with a grin. “The doctor is this way.”
He tucked her arm in the crook of his elbow and she walked with him to something that resembled a schoolroom.
A human woman was in earnest discussion with a villager and she looked up with a smile that faded when she saw Ruby. “Oton, I don’t believe I have been introduced to this female.”
“Evian, this is Ruby. She has been sent by your government to retrieve you.”
The woman sat back with an easy grin. “I am not going.”
Ruby grinned and she knew it was not a nice grin, “Yes, you are. Dead or alive.”
“What? You can’t. When I went through the gateway, they said I could stay here indefinitely.”
“They lied. Their machines damaged the very fabric of space and your planet is being torn apart by the dimensional rifts that are being held open by your presence here.”
Ruby cocked her head. The woman was upset by something beyond being sent home. She kept looking at Ruby’s arm in Oton’s and frowning. Ruby tried to step away from the male, but he followed her with an arm around her waist.
The pressure of his thigh against her hip was distracting, so she frowned up at him. He simply gave her an angelic smile and squeezed her a little.
Evian wasn’t standing for that. She stood and oozed her way to Oton’s other side. “You won’t let her take me back, will you?”
“No. She will send you back and she will stay here.” He shook free of her and Ruby suddenly realized what she was witnessing.
“Oh. You have a sexual relationship.”
Evian turned a hot scarlet and Oton looked appalled. “No. She has made advances, but no human is suitable as a bed partner unless I hold back and where is the fun in that.”
Shame was staining Evian’s features as she realized that her ploy to get Ruby jealous was futile.
Ruby smiled as gently as she could. “I am sorry. It must be frustrating to be denied something you want.”
“I am not leaving and that is all there is to it.” Evian tried to run from the room, her feet pattering quickly.
It took all of Ruby’s concentration not to chase her quarry. Instead, she lifted the dart gun and fired.
The good doctor slid along the floor as she came to a halt in a heap.
Sighing, she latched her dart gun back onto her belt and tried to walk to her prey. Oton held her to him.
“I need to check on her.”
“I meant what I said. You aren’t leaving here with her.”
“It is either that or a life in pain. It is a very distracting feeling, I can promise you that.”
“We will find a way to remove it.” He turned her and in a moment, she was in the most desirable of positions. A hug.
He surrounded her and pressed her into the muscled wall of his chest. She smelled leather, a light sheen of sweat and a musk that made her knees weak. The warm wrap from his arms and the feeling of security brought pricks of tears to her eyes. As if a light had been turned on, she now understood why children ran to their parents for comfort. She felt safe for the first time in her life.
For this moment, there were no tests, exams, medicals, politicians or assignments. There was only Ruby and Oton. The rest of the worlds could burn and she wouldn’t notice.
Slowly, her arms crept around his torso to return the hug. The position brought parts of her into contact with him that were not expected and a whole new aspect to the hug took over. Ruby tried to jerk back in surprise, but he held her firm.
“I was not lying when I spoke to Evian, she will return, but you will remain here with me.”
“That is impossible. I have to go home or the beacon won’t be deactivated.” Her words were muffled against his chest, but he heard her anyway.
“Why would you want to bring me here?”
“To give you a life, Ruby. To let you begin to taste the air of freedom and all of its benefits.” His hands were starting a slow path up and down the leather of her suit.
Her mouth was dry, “Benefits?”
He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Benefits.” He pressed his lips under her ear and did it again and again until he reached her lips.
Kissing! He was kissing her! Her eyes were as wide as they would go, but she stood and tried to analyze the feelings overwhelming her. His scent was growing stronger, but so was hers.
When he raised his head from the pressure on her lips, she blinked up at him. “Did I do that right?”
His smile warmed her in a way that no other expression ever had on any of the faces she had seen in her life. “It was perfect, but when I have brought you back here, you are welcome to practice with me as much as you wish.”
He loosened his grip but kept her within his embrace.
“Will you take me flying?”
His pupils dilated in a fascinating way. “If you wish it. I believe you would enjoy it immensely.”
She looked out over the edge of the window at the sweeping ledge beyond, open sky as far as the eye could see. A dreamy sense of what she could see if she was able to fly on her own took over. “I think I would like that very much.”
Oton grinned. “Then shall we send our doctor home so that you can begin to enjoy a life that holds more freedoms.”
Freedom, it sounded wonderful. “I don’t know if I can leave my sisters.”
Go with him, Ruby, or I will thaw myself and kick your butt. The girls will be fine. I am watching over them, just as I have been watching over you. Now go, take your chance at freedom. If you don’t want Oton, you can always just walk through another dimensional gate, but I think he will be good for you.
Thank you, Mother.
Be well, daughter. We shall not speak again this way. You will need to live your life before I see you in person for the first time.
Be well, Mother.
I always am. I love you, Ruby.
The connection between them went silent for the first time Ruby could remember. A tear tracked down her face. “Freedom it is then. Help me get the dart out of Evian’s butt.”
Oton looked confused by her tears, but he stepped in to assist her regardless.
“They want her research. As much of it as I can carry.”
He nodded and set about filling duffels with the research notebooks. A few he set aside.
“What are those?”
“Documentation of dragon information and hierarchy. When she was going to remain here, it was not an issue, but if she is going back, they stay here. You might find them useful.” He closed the bag with buckles and clasps. “We had better go to your entrance point. It will be easier for me to track you if there are two gates. Just don’t seal the gate behind you. That will make it easier.”
She took the duffel and he carried Evian.
With his people waving and calling out greetings, it was a far different path than she had taken to get to the castle. The street was the same, but there was a connection to it that she had been missing before. If they accepted him, could they accept her as well?
CHAPTER EIGHT
“You understand what I will do?” Oton was helping her settle the duffel on one shoulder and the doctor on the other.
“Yes, you will follow me through the gate in less than five minutes. What will you do then?” The doctor was starting to stir. It was time to go.
“Then you will be abducted via the open pathway.”
“What if a security team hauls me away?” It could happen. It was part of their protocols if they came through carrying a ready-to-fire weapon.
“I will find you, Ruby. Don’t doubt it.” He kissed her again, his lips on hers starting a chain reaction in her stomach that made her feel hot and flustered at the same time.
Blinking at him for a moment, she memorized his features before turning away and opening a portal immediately next to the one that had carried her here. It was time to go home, whether she wanted to or not.
The light of the pathway sparked in her eyes as she took the steps between worlds. The energy traces that the good doctor had on her were being returned to the dimensional cohesion of her home world. At least Ruby had concluded that part of her assignment.
“Janus, what a surprise. Can you take the good doctor or her research off my hands?” Her least-favorite tech waited and snapped to attention as she walked onto the return pad. “Seriously, do you spend your days here?”
“When I have an operative out, yes. Are you sure that’s Dr. Raughl?” Janus was staring at the woman’s ass and it cracked Ruby up.
So, the terror of the techs and the pain in her side had active hormones after all.
A security team came to remove the woman and her research.
“What happened to your uniform?” Janus placed the probe over her thigh and deactivated her beacon.
“Oh, I just ran into two children who tried to tackle me and eat my body. It was horrible, really.” Keeping a straight face was difficult.
“Report to medical. You know the drill by now.” Janus had his back to her in an instant.
She slowly walked toward the hall, waiting for the tingle of energy that would tell her he was coming. Nothing.
Tears spiked her lashes as she walked toward medical, blindly walking straight into the body that wrapped her in strong arms and pulled her to another world.
Ruby was swept through a rift, carried in the arms of her dragon.
The moment they were through the portal, he bent his legs and launched them into the air, his body rippling around her until the bulk of the dragon was over her and she dangled from his claws wrapped around each bicep.
After her initial surprise at the flight, her enthusiasm began to build.
“This is amazing!”
Flying through the air with Oton was exhilarating! Never had she imagined what it would be like to be so free, the world open around her. She didn’t dare. How could one dream of freedom when they had so little of it in their life?
Ruby squealed when Oton made a sharp dive to the left. Though she was certain he wouldn’t drop her, she still felt a trill of fear at being so high in the air. Oton held her tight against his chest. The two strong forelegs of her dragon wrapped securely around her. The flight was intoxicating, but not so much so that she didn’t think of the risk of falling so far to the ground.
She watched with fascination as the world sped by below them. The shadow of the huge dragon he’d become darkened the landscape below. His wings flapped occasionally causing a slight dip and lift as they glided through the air.
They passed a small settlement below them on the edge of a huge lake that spanned for miles. His world was huge and beautiful, no walls and no endless hallways. What more could she ask than to have this man free her to live amongst his kind the way she was meant to live?
The lush, green grass and trees were little more than a blur. The puffy white clouds above them seemed close enough to touch. Her eyes filled with tears at such beauty. Wind whipped through her hair as they sped through the skies and Ruby tasted something she never dared dreamed to taste.
Freedom.
When Oton tilted his head up and flapped his powerful wings, they climbed higher and higher until they reached the clouds. Mist surrounded them as they continued toward the city. Never had she dreamed she would fly through the clouds like this.
Ruby cried out for the joy of it. Nothing could compare to this, even jumping through a dimensional rift made a poor second to this flight with Oton. If only she could sprout wings and fly through the skies like this.
The ground rapidly approached as O
ton came in for a landing. He set her down gently in a beautiful flower garden before changing back to his other form.
Ruby watched with fascination as the muscles rippled beneath his skin while he approached. Her stomach muscles tensed as he stood looking down at her. What did he want other than the obvious? She licked her lips and nervously looked away. “What now?”
“Now you live free.” Oton waved toward his home and smiled. “Come. I will show you to your room where you may change into something a bit more comfortable and infinitely more attractive.” He leaned down to whisper against her neck. “Just so you know, I love when a woman wears a dress.”
Ruby’s face heated as she looked down at herself. The torn leathers did little for her appearance. Still, her wardrobe was hardly her doing. She raised her chin, prepared to stare him down. He may have taken her from the lab, but he had no right to judge her.
“Do not fret so, lady.” He leaned down and whispered against her lips, “I am certain you are beautiful in whatever you wear and even lovelier in nothing at all.”
Why did he have to go and say something like that when she had just managed to work up a good mad? She glowered at him for bursting her bubble of anger.
Smiling as though he knew her very thoughts, Oton held out his arm and waited for her to take it. “Come, lady, and I will take you to your rooms where you may rest.”
After Ruby changed her clothes, dressing in a red shimmering dress that matched her eyes perfectly, she made her way down to where Oton sat holding court. He looked so handsome sitting there, looking out over the people he protected. A rush of…something filled her as she stood watching him for a moment. Was it pride? She frowned. Why should she feel pride for a man she had just met?
A man stood before him with two women. One was older and plump. The tired look in her eyes, as the three little ones around her tugged on her skirts, told Ruby the woman must be their mother. The scene tugged on her heart. If only she had known the love and touch of her mother at such a tender age.
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