by Leslie Chase
The thought of leaving stabbed at his heart. That didn't deter him, though. He had to keep moving.
"In that case, can you answer my questions first?" Harry asked hopefully. "I've never gotten to speak to a dragon before, and I don't know if I'll get another chance."
Zardan groaned, but at least it offered a distraction. "Very well. If you'll trade me some answers of my own."
Harry grinned. "Sure! So, uh, what's it like being able to shapeshift? Did you fight lots of knights? Know any princesses? How come you speak English so well? Why—"
"One at a time, one at a time," Zardan said, holding up a hand and chuckling. The young man's enthusiasm was infectious and distracting, just what he needed. "Let me see what I can tell you."
With that, he launched into an explanation of shifting. The discussion was hampered by the lack of words for some of the concepts he needed. but Harry didn't seem to mind. The human listened in awe-struck silence apart from the occasional interruption to add more questions.
In turn, Zardan asked about life on the ice cap and learned more than he'd expected to about the functioning of a human ice farm. The challenges were, he had to admit, interesting. Hunting for water that would be easy to purify, digging it up and selling it so that the human colonies that dotted the Martian desert had water to drink was a worthy task.
But not, it seemed, a profitable one. Harry did his best to hide that part of it, but the longer Zardan listened to him, the clearer it was that the Willis Ice Farm was barely keeping ahead of bankruptcy. That wasn't good news, but there wasn't much that he could do about it.
He wasn't sure how he felt about the farm, anyway. This was his land, or at least his family's — and as far as Zardan knew, he was the sole surviving heir to it. The humans mining it for ice were squatters taking from his legacy. On the other hand, the Willis's were working hard to make a place for themselves on an unforgiving planet. He had to respect that.
Finally, of course, there was the possibility that Gillian was his mate. Did that make this land partly hers? If we were together, of course it would. But we're not, and we're not likely to be. He had to be firm with himself. The spark of hope and light her presence brought him would not last, and he had no place here. He was the Lord of Herendar, a place on another world and far in the past. A place forever out of his reach.
Over the next few days, he recovered slowly. As soon as he was able to walk he let Harry show him to a guest room where he could rest more easily, and they kept up their conversation while Gillian avoided him. Zardan found himself looking forward to Harry's visits despite the endless barrage of questions.
"Where are you going to go once you're better?" Harry asked eventually, his curiosity about the Dragon Empire sated at least for a little while.
"I don't know," Zardan had to admit. "I've not thought that far ahead. I came up here to—"
He cut himself off half-way through the sentence, unwilling to tell the truth. He knew the humans well enough by now to predict that Harry would be offended if Zardan claimed this land as his own. Besides that, he wasn't sure what he wanted to do beyond that. The humans would, quite reasonably, want to know. Better not to start that conversation until he had somewhere to go with it.
But he'd said enough that he had to add something.
"I wanted to see the ice," he finished. "Before the Great Sleep, this was clear land. All this ice has formed in the centuries since then. It sounded like quite a sight."
"I thought it took a lot longer than that," Harry said dubiously. "My science textbook says it took millions of years."
Zardan remembered the small forest that his family had planted here, silver trees shining in the distant sunlight. His smile was bitter-sweet. "Your scientists are wrong. Not without reason, though: our technology shielded the planet and kept it habitable. Once that failed, everything would go to hell quickly and chaotically. No one on Earth could have anticipated that, so human theories are off a bit."
He wasn't as sure about that as he sounded, but then he wasn't a scientist himself. All he knew was that it had happened, and the theories others had hashed out to explain it. Still, however the miles-thick sheet of ice had formed, it was spectacular. If it wasn't burying the only part of his family's estate that he could conceivably reach, he might even have found it beautiful.
Instead, it was a huge weight lying across the only legacy of his house. The thought sapped his strength and he lay back. This recovery was going to take far too long, and Harry's question was preying on his mind now. What would he do once he could move freely again? He had no more places to go.
7
Gillian
As the days passed, Gillian's life got back to something that almost looked like normal, if she squinted at it. She could almost forget that she had a dragon living in a spare room, and Gillian liked it like that. Zardan's presence woke strange feelings in her that she had no time for and she left him alone as much as she could. Harry could bring Zardan's meals to him, and Gillian stayed out of the way and ignored him.
Her conscious mind did, anyway. At night, though, her subconscious had other ideas. In her sleep, Gillian couldn't escape her thoughts of the handsome giant. Every time she closed her eyes, there he was. Gorgeous. Powerful. Naked.
She stood on a glassy plain of ice, watching the stars wheel above her. In her dream, there was no need for a helmet, and her view of the stars was unobstructed.
Above her, Zardan hung suspended in the air, his great wings spread, and his body bare. Gillian felt her heart race, pulse deafening in her ears as she looked up at him. She'd never looked at him that closely while awake, but it seemed like her mind had stored every glimpse of him that she'd had, to pore over when she was asleep.
And he was well worth looking at. His powerful body was thick with muscles, perfectly defined in a way she'd never seen on a human. Her eyes traced down across his abs to the vee that led her gaze between his legs.
Even in a dream, she blushed and looked away. And when she looked up again, Zardan was swooping down at her with a blinding speed that made her shriek and duck. Not in fear, not exactly, but she couldn't name the feelings that flooded her as she turned to run. As she fled she could hear his wings catch the air, feel the heat of his breath on the back of her neck, and though she ran as fast as she could she knew she wouldn't escape him.
And she didn't want to.
Zardan's arms caught her around the waist and she lifted from the ice in a soaring arc that ended with the two of them tumbling into the snow. They rolled over and over, the heat of his body sending plumes of steam rising into the air. Somehow Gillian's suit came apart as they rolled, parts flying this way and that until she was naked, her body pinned between the heat of Zardan above and the cold ice below. The contrast made her gasp, and she could feel his dick harden against her as he growled above her.
Short of breath and aching for him, she moaned and reached down to guide him into her—
—And then the alarm buzzed.
Gillian's eyes flicked open, the dream fading despite her effort to hold onto it. For a bleary moment she wasn't sure what was real and what was dream, and she scrambled for her suit only to tumble from her bunk, sheets wrapped around her legs. Crashing to the floor she cursed, struggling to focus.
He's not here, she thought. The mix of relief and disappointment that woke in her was confusing and she put it aside to pull herself to her feet and slap the alarm panel. It was still an hour before she was due to wake up, she realized, glaring at the screen and wondering why the computer had decided to wake her.
Ah. A high priority call was coming through. That was enough to override her privacy settings. Seeing who the call was from drove the last traces of sleep from her mind. An urgent call from the bank was unlikely to be good news, but they might have heard from her father.
I can't answer it like this, she thought, looking down at herself. "Put the call through to the main console and tell them I'll be there in a minute," she told the co
mputer. A beep of acknowledgment and the alarm died down. Hoping that the banker would wait for her, she rushed through the shower and pulled on a fresh pair of overalls. That would have to do, and if they wanted to see her dressed better they ought to call at a more civilized hour.
Stamping her feet into her boots and tying back her hair, Gillian made her way through into the living area to the main household communicator. It was a central feature of the farm, their only real contact with the outside world, so the family had spent a lot on it when they first moved to Mars. Sometimes Gillian wondered if it wouldn't have been better to do without: when was a call from civilization worth taking?
The screen lit up and suddenly she was face to face with an annoyed looking man in an expensive suit. He glowered into the camera, dark eyes narrowed, and his tight lips were pursed. He most emphatically didn't look pleased to see her.
"Finally," the man growled. His voice didn't seem to fit a banker, hard and rough as it was. For that matter, he didn't look like Gillian's mental image of a banker either. He was built more like a fighter than an office worker, his suit seeming strained over his muscular arms. A few days ago, he would have looked impressively strong. Now, though, Gillian had Zardan to compare him to.
"Maybe if you'd called during the day, I wouldn't have kept you waiting," she said, immediately regretting her tone. No matter why he was calling, making him angry wouldn't help anything. "Sorry. I'm only just waking up."
The man's lips twitched into something approximating a smile, but there was nothing friendly about his expression. It made Gillian think of a shark scenting blood in the water, and it wasn't the cold that made her shiver. "My apologies for the inconvenient hour, then. I presume you are Gillian Willis, daughter of Gareth Willis? My name is Brooker Danforth from the Ardashev Bank, and I'm calling about your family's loan."
Gillian gritted her teeth, trying to make herself smile back. "My father should have seen you about that, Mr. Danforth."
"Should he?" Danforth's 'smile' widened, showing teeth. "I'm afraid that I haven't seen him. In fact, I was hoping to speak to him, since he's missed our review meeting. And I'm afraid to have to tell you that your farm is dangerously behind on its payments."
Gillian felt her cheek twitch at that. Dad, where the fuck have you gotten to? Sorting this out was the whole point of your trip into town. "I'm sure my father will be able to sort that out when he arrives."
"That won't be possible, I'm afraid. Mr. Willis is already overdue by three days, and the loan is due to default. If you don't have the funds to make payment now, we have no alternative but to take possession of the collateral. That is to say, the Willis Ice Farm and its equipment."
Her heart almost stopped at that. "You can't—"
"I can and I will," Danforth interrupted. His smile now seemed to show genuine pleasure, a sadistic glee at her distress. "I have the paperwork on my desk, duly annotated. I suppose you could appeal it to an arbitrator — and I have to offer you that option — but less than five percent of appeals are successful in cases like these."
The video feed shrank to a quarter of the screen, and documents filled the rest. Complicated legalese scrolled past too quickly for Gillian to read, but she knew it wouldn't make any difference. She didn't know how to make sense of it anyway, and there was no money to hire a lawyer. But something was wrong here, she knew that much. There had to be a way out of this.
It doesn't make sense, why spring this on us so suddenly? It's like they don't want our money. Gillian felt her heart sink. Unless this isn't sudden, and Dad's been hiding how badly business has been going?
That would be only too believable, unfortunately. Gareth Willis hadn't talked much about anything since Gillian's mother had passed away.
"Give me some time to look at the accounts," she said, trying to sound more in control than she felt. "I'm sure that we can turn this around and pay what we owe."
"You've had too long already," Danforth replied. There wasn't even a hint of sympathy in the banker's voice. "We will be taking possession of the property in a week, you have that long to vacate it or you will be removed."
Gillian rocked back as though he'd slapped her. A week? That's no time at all. "That's completely—"
"Ms. Willis, be gone when we get there," Danforth said, raising his voice to talk over her. The shark-like smile had spread across his face and he leaned forward over the desk, clearly enjoying himself. "If you are not, you will regret it."
Something in his eyes promised more than merely legal consequences, and Gillian shivered at the implication. Anyone who came out here to repossess the farm would be far from any prying eyes, and she wondered how far Danforth's thugs would go. Not that it mattered. The farm was all her family had, and she wasn't going to give that up. If she had to face down the bank's men with a shotgun, she'd do it.
The question was, could she do anything more effective than that? Lost for words she stared into the screen, trying to keep her temper under control and think of something practical to say when all she wanted to do was shout abuse at him. Before she could think of an answer, the moment was taken out of her hands.
"You will not threaten Gillian Willis," Zardan snarled as he stepped into the room. Gillian spun around to look at him, shocked at his sudden arrival. Ignoring her, he strode towards the screen, eyes blazing with a rage that made her suddenly glad that she wasn't the one who'd angered him. He moved with a grace and careful purpose that only made him look more dangerous as he advanced on her desk.
Danforth's eyes widened and his face paled as Zardan came into view. Even across the distance between them, Zardan clearly intimidated the banker, but he wasn't willing to back down so easily.
"I don't know who you are or what interest you think you have here," Danforth said, almost managing to hide the fear in his voice. "It doesn't matter though. My business is with Ms. Willis and her family, not with you. Please leave the conversation."
"If your business is with her, it's with me too," Zardan growled. Gillian backed away, getting out from between the dragon shifter and the screen. Her heart raced at the sight of him stepping in to protect her, and she felt short of breath. Zardan's presence made it hard to think.
She started to say something, anything, but the two men weren't paying any attention to her. Both were now leaning in to glower at each other, though Gillian was sure that Danforth wouldn't have been so aggressive if he'd been in Zardan's physical presence. Over the screen, though, he was able to put on a brave face.
"The land that the ice farm is built on will belong to the bank when the loan comes due," the banker snarled, voice low and threatening. "Anyone who's there when we arrive to take possession will be trespassing and treated as such. Human, dragon, it doesn't matter to me."
Only because you won't be there in person, Gillian wanted to say. But before she could speak Zardan answered, and his words shocked her into silence.
"This land is mine by ancient right," he told Danforth, his voice a dangerous growl. "I am the scion of the House of Herendar, heir to the estate that now lies beneath the ice. Whatever claim you might have under human law doesn't matter — my claim is over a thousand years old. Come here and I will judge you trespassers, and deal with you as dragons do anyone who enters a lair uninvited."
Danforth blinked, paling further as the threat sank in. He opened his mouth as though to reply, then shut it again. For a long second, the two men glared at each other. Gillian glared too, in as much shock as Danforth. That couldn't be right, could it? This land belonged to her father.
But the dragons were here a thousand years ago, she reminded herself. Maybe it is true. Maybe Zardan's family did own this place then. What does that even mean?
The Dragon Empire claimed all of Mars, but they were happy enough to let human settlements stand. Gillian had never heard of a situation like this, though, and had no idea how the competing claims might be resolved.
It was a small comfort that Danforth didn't, either. His mouth moved a
s though he was trying to speak but no words came out. Narrowing his eyes, he took a deep breath.
"That's irrelevant," he said finally. "The land is ours, now, and the courts of Olympus Colony will rule in our favor. Get off it or we'll kick you off. And my people won't be gentle."
"I am Dragon Lord and a warrior of the Immortal Dragon Guard," Zardan said, wings flexing slightly. "I have flown the void between the stars and crushed the armies of the Empire's enemies. I have held the lives of entire planets in my talons, and my kin have ruled solar systems. Your human minions don't frighten me, and if they value their lives they will not attempt to fight me over this."
"We'll see about that," Danforth hissed, and with a swipe of his hand he cut the contact.
As soon as the screen blanked out, Zardan slumped forward, his arms and legs giving out. It was as though he'd only been held up by sheer willpower, and without an enemy to face down that had left him.
Gillian was at his side in an instant, trying to support him, but it was futile. He weighed far too much for her and his knees hit the floor with a crash that shook the room. Standing over him, Gillian felt a flood of anger run through her veins as she looked down at him.
"You idiot," she snapped, letting go of him to put her hands on her hips. "What the hell are you doing here? You should be resting in bed."
"I heard you arguing with someone," he said, struggling to keep himself upright without her support. "You sounded upset."
"Upset?" Gillian tried to calm down, but it wasn't easy. There were so many emotions competing for space in her head right now. "You think I was upset then? And you thought you were helping?"
A wounded look crossed his face almost too fast for her to see before he managed to cover it with an emotionless expression. Gillian took a deep breath and continued.
"You threatened them, you idiot. They're a bank, they've got the law on their side, and now they've got every excuse to come in here and arrest us or force us out. If you hadn't threatened them maybe we could have negotiated. Maybe Dad would have turned up with the money we owe them. Maybe something would have turned up to make it right. But now, now they'll be looking for any excuse to start trouble."