Protected by the Dragon (Banished Dragons)

by Leela Ash

  What the hell was up with this guy?

  Mia didn’t have much chance to think about it before the next man was ushered to her table and she found herself lost in a new, but brief, conversation, her thoughts all the while lingering on Rhett.

  4.

  Rhett sighed and glanced at his watch as the woman across from him went on and on about herself. He couldn’t keep his gaze from lingering back to table three, where Mia was sitting and talking to a man who made Rhett look like an Olympic athlete. He tried to downplay his impressive dragon shifter physique, but the women of Earth were still on to him. The attention he was being paid by every woman at this event was making him feel rather uncomfortable. They all looked at him as if he were a tall, cool glass of water and they had been wandering in the desert for far too long.

  And although some of them may have been the potential descendants, he still couldn’t see himself with anybody there. Anybody except…

  The buzzer sounded, and Rhett saw Mia startle. He felt an irrational sense of rage toward the object that made her go from content to afraid. Why was he feeling so protective of her all of a sudden? They had only just met. And when he had scanned her from across the room, there hadn’t been any indication from the device that she was part descendant. What was it about her that made him want to protect her so deeply?

  “It’s time to move on to the next activity,” the host said into the microphone. Mia’s gaze shifted from the man across from her to the woman with the microphone and Rhett’s hackles lowered. He didn’t have any real reason to feel so angry with the buzzer. He was just being over-protective. The human was fine.

  “All the men should stay right in their seats and let the lovely ladies come to them this time. They will each grab a questionnaire from the table beside me and ask each man a different series of questions. This will help to ensure that each of you are learning valuable information about each other that can contribute to a genuinely compatible match. It’s very important that you seek someone that is similar to yourself in the answers to these questions. They are core values. They create the most rewarding union. So, if everybody is ready, when the buzzer sounds we will begin!”

  Rhett sighed as all the women got to their feet and did as the men had done; grabbing their papers and then taking a few steps to the left to change tables. He was tiring quickly of this event, his attention drawn only to one person there. And that person wasn’t even a descendant. What was the point in sticking around?

  He shifted uncomfortably, absently answering the first woman’s questions. He was about to say fuck it and get to his feet to leave when suddenly, a sense of calm washed over him. When he looked up, he realized that Mia had sat down across from him, and she was smiling wryly at him.

  “Thinking about going somewhere?” she asked, raising a brow. She leaned in conspiratorially. “If you do, can I go with you? The guys in here are kind of unbelievable. Present company definitely included.”

  “What, you don’t like Herbert over there?” Rhett asked, glancing to the man that had just been speaking with Mia. He hadn’t been able to help but notice him. The eager way he sat with his knees too close to hers, and the predatory gaze in his eye. He was pretty assertive for the president of a chess club.

  “We don’t really share a lot of interests,” Mia said, pursing her lips.

  “Shocking,” Rhett stated, quirking his brow at her. “Don’t you have some sort of questions for me or something?”

  Mia shrugged and looked down at her paper. “Do I really care what type of dental floss you use?” She asked with a light smile. “I could go the rest of my life without knowing something like that. How do they think that qualifies as a core value? I want to know other things. Like what is your mission in this world? Your purpose? And if you say bringing the chess club to glory, I am standing up and walking out of this room right now. You won’t even have a chance to stop me.”

  “I have no interest in chess,” Rhett said quietly. “My interests lie beyond this plane. What I have always wanted is a chance to just…”

  He stopped himself before he blurted out that he had always wanted to climb the ranks on his home planet of Fiora so that he might one day manage a position of great significance within his planet’s engineering system. Theirs was some of the most advanced technology in the universe and he had always had a good grasp of the way things worked. He and one of the other dragon shifters that had been banished with him were both interested in human technology and engineering. The difference was that while his friend was better at things like electricity and currents of energy, Rhett had a fondness for the intimate way things were put together and each part worked as a cohesive whole. Human technology was rather primitive, but it was fascinating all the same.

  “To just what?” Mia asked, her beautiful eyes boring into his. He found himself shifting uncomfortably. But why should he? He was an alpha among the others after all. On his planet, he was feared and respected. Or at least, he had been before the false accusations had tainted his name and reputation and he had been forced to leave; banished to Earth and left to suffer alone with just a few others of his kind for support. He had been a strapping, respected man. How could he be feeling so affected by a mere earthling of all sorts? And a female to boot?

  “I just want to…” Rhett let out an exasperated sigh. He wasn’t supposed to reference the fact that he was a mover anymore. They had begun to realize that women on Earth were interested in status, and apparently, being a mover wasn’t a particularly impressive status to some of the women of this planet. Instead, he was supposed to have an aspiration, and Gavin had enrolled each of them into the local university for the fall semester. “I want to earn my degree in engineering and make the world a more beautiful place.”

  Well, at least it wasn’t a total lie.

  Mia’s eyes brightened at Rhett’s answer and she studied him for a brief moment, the depths of them captivating him in a way he had never experienced before.

  “You’re an engineer?”

  “Well… an aspiring one,” Rhett said, shrugging lightly. “I will be officially once I have the degree. But, until then, I just tinker around and figure things out without a little piece of paper telling me I am good at it.”

  Mia smiled gently. “Oh, I like that,” she said, her beautiful face alight. Rhett gazed at her involuntarily, his heart surging with an emotion he had never allowed himself to feel before. What the hell was this?

  Rhett felt confused by the strange surge of elation from hearing that Mia was pleased, then quickly narrowed his eyes. What the hell did it matter if this human girl cared or didn’t care about what he was doing? He shouldn’t even be interested in her in the first place. That wasn’t a good thing for him to be invested in. He was just going to end up getting himself into trouble.

  “It doesn’t even matter,” he said gruffly. “It’s not like you would ever even understand.”

  It was true. She was a human. She wasn’t a descendant. At least, not according to the machine. He had scanned everybody in the room before entering, which was part of why he had been late in the first place to this stupid event. No matter how much he liked her, she would never be able to understand where he had come from, the world that he had been banished from, the loneliness and sheer pain he felt being trapped on Earth with people who would never be able to understand his situation.

  “You think I’m too stupid to get technology?” Mia asked, immediately changing her energy to an ice cold sheen of agitation. Her beautiful eyes looked intently at him, boring through his every defense and leaving him feeling as if he had just made the biggest mistake of his life by simply speaking his mind.

  “No! I just….”

  Before he could manage to speak again, a buzzer sounded once more, and Rhett sighed in exasperation. Mia stood, eyeing him with her dazzling but fierce eyes, before leaving to a different table, gripping her sheet of questions tightly in a white-knuckled fist. Well, damn.

  “Hi! I was wa
iting for another chance to talk to you!”

  Rhett sighed inwardly as one of the several overeager women sat down across from him and tried to catch his gaze. But all he could do was stare at Mia, who was sitting down across from another man and reaching over the table to shake his hand. She glanced over at Rhett and caught his eye, and her eyes narrowed at him warningly. He snapped his gaze away and looked back at the woman at his own table, his heart hammering hard in his chest. What in the hell was going on? He had led the army on Fiora to victory in many battles, faced unknown threats and come out victorious, and had been admired as one of the most renowned dragon shifter warriors on his planet. And this was what struck fear into his heart? That this little human girl might not like him?

  It was silly.

  Rhett shook his head and scoffed, then, still laughing at himself, smiled at the human across from him.

  “Let’s get this over with,” he said as pleasantly as he could, then turned his gaze subtly back to Mia as the woman across from him prepared herself for more questioning.

  5.

  “Now that the event is over, it’s time to begin thinking about who we had the greatest connection with. Everyone is going to receive a sheet of paper with a list of participants and their numbers on them. Honestly rank your interest and rate your attraction between a one and a ten. We will get in touch with them on your behalf and arrange a potential meeting time if you are both mutually interested. If not, that is okay too. There are many fish in the sea and we all have individual needs when it comes to romantic interest. Nothing we do is the be all that ends all in our love lives. There is always a second chance to meet someone who may be better for you than you could ever imagine. So, let’s get this started! Hand in your papers to the host at the door as you leave. Be honest and have fun with it! This is dating, after all, not the end of the world.”

  Mia glanced from Cindy to her paper, then back to the host and sighed. None of the men had caught her interest. Not really. She had already known several of them, and those she hadn’t were a bit too full of themselves or just too incompatible seeming. She was about to write that on her paper, but her hand paused, and she looked up at Rhett. Why was she wavering? He was clearly a sexist ass who didn’t think that a woman with her brain could ever possibly be able to comprehend the types of things he did. She didn’t want to be attracted to him.

  Not only that but he wasn’t even punctual. What kind of future could they possibly have at that point?

  Still, something deep within her was crying out, telling her to mark him down. Nobody else there had been interesting enough. At the very least, she had been attracted to him. Just like every other sane woman in the room with good eyesight. There was just something incredibly handsome about him. He stood out in a strange, almost otherworldly way, and she was lying to pretend that she had no attraction to him whatsoever.

  Although the idea of having another conversation with him made her a little irate already, she jotted down his number, with a side note that said there was attraction but not a lot of compatibility. How could she ever date a man who made women seem inferior to his intelligence? She was raising a daughter, after all. A young woman who knew exactly how much a young woman’s mind and heart were worth. There was no way she was going to just introduce this sexist pig to a young and impressionable girl who was going to approach the world, one day, based on what she had learned from her main influences.

  “Ready to go?” Cindy asked, coming up from behind Mia. Mia startled and grabbed the paper, pressing it against her chest so that her friend wouldn’t be able to read what she had written. For some reason, she was very embarrassed and secretive about her budding attraction to Rhett. Ashamed, maybe, considering she knew what a close-minded jerk he might turn out to be.

  And yet, there was something about him that made it feel impossible for her to overlook the incredible attraction she had felt toward him. As if maybe she was missing something. Maybe she wasn’t getting the whole story.

  It was a strange and confusing mixture of emotion, so she wasn’t very keen on sharing her feelings with her friend, despite the fact that they usually talked about everything. She knew they were probably going to dish all the way back to her mother’s house to pick up Jewel, but, for now, she wanted a chance to keep her feelings to herself and sort them out.

  Even if she wanted to take back what she had written, it was too late now. She wasn’t about to set it down so that Cindy could see it and ask her questions. What if they liked the same men? That would make things really awkward. Or what if Cindy had hated that sexist pig as much as Mia had, and would judge her for having him on her list at all? Sure, they were best friends, but something about this felt extremely personal. Mia just wanted to keep it to herself.

  “I’m ready,” Mia lied. Her hands were twitching with the desire to take back what she had written down about Rhett. The last thing she needed was to be contacted in the future to find that they had some sort of date set up that, of course, was optional. She didn’t have to go. But being matched up after the fact would surely clue him in on the fact that she had been interested in him. But was she really? Maybe he was just the most interesting guy there out of the narrow selection she had had to choose from. Surely, he wouldn’t take it too personally, would he?

  Who could know. And, anyway, it was too late now.

  “Okay, come on. It’s getting late. And I kind of want to get out of here. See that guy over there?” Cindy pointed to a tall man with an angular nose who was staring intently at the two of them. “He’s been looking at us for the entire time we were here. I don’t know what his problem is, but it’s really starting to creep me out. Let’s go before anything weird happens with this guy.”

  “Right,” Mia said quietly, stepping away from the table she had been working at and following her friend toward the door. She would stay quiet and calm and leave without making a fuss about her stupid choice of putting Rhett down on her list. It was better than the creepy guy in the corner. “I got a weird vibe from him when we were talking earlier. He seemed nice enough but there was something about him I didn’t like. I couldn’t put my finger on why.”

  “Maybe because of those major stalker vibes,” Cindy said, raising her brow and nodding toward the doorway. “Don’t give him any more attention than you have to. Those stalkery types live for that kind of shit. Let’s just get the hell out of here and pick up your daughter.”

  “Sounds good,” Mia said.

  “So, what did the two of you think of our event?” the host at the door asked, snatching their papers away before Mia had a chance to hide it or correct her mistake.

  “It was very interesting, I can tell you that much,” she said, smiling back at the host, trying not to let on to her discomfort.

  “I am glad that you think so,” the woman said, her eyes boring deeply into Mia’s. “Did you find anyone you can imagine a future with?”

  Mia was startled by the question and her eyes involuntarily searched the room for Rhett. She couldn’t find him and instead locked onto the intense gaze of the creepy man Cindy had pointed out. She nearly yelped in surprise and concern but managed to hold it in and turned back to the host.

  “I guess we’ll see,” she said, laughing nervously.

  “Thanks for everything,” Cindy said, gripping Mia by the elbow. “But we have to get going now. Have a little girl to get home and tuck in.”

  “I understand,” the host said cheerfully. “Have a great night and thanks for coming!”

  When they were out the door, Cindy turned to Mia and shook her head. “You made eye contact with creepy guy! You know, if they match you up with him, he is going to think that you are soulmates or something like that. Good luck.”

  “I really don’t think it would be that bad, would it?” Mia asked, though the nervous butterflies in her stomach were telling her otherwise. “We didn’t really have all that much to talk about.”

  “That’s probably because he was too busy staring a
t you,” Cindy mumbled. She got into the car and sighed. “I swear, we attract such losers sometimes.”

  Mia thought of Rhett; handsome, charming, intelligent, jackass… and quickly agreed with her friend’s statement. “I think you are right about that,” she said whole-heartedly.

  Before Mia got into the car though, a jolt of fear surged through her as a hand gripped her shoulder.

  “What the…”

  When she turned her head to glance over her shoulder, Mia cried out in fear.

  “What are you doing?”

  It was the man that had been staring at her inside.

  “I think you and I have a lot of potential, baby,” he said, his voice slurred and the scent of alcohol heavy on his breath. “I want you to come home with me tonight and you will see exactly what I mean.”

  “Please get your hand off of me. I am flattered, really, but I have somewhere I need to be.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” he said, his eyes growing cold. He whipped her around, so she was facing him and came far too close to her face. “I want you to come home with me. You and I are going to make things work. That’s the only place you have to go.”

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Suddenly, the man was no longer holding onto Mia’s shoulder and his back was pinned sharply against Cindy’s car. Mia stepped away quickly, her mind spinning as she tried to take in the scene before her. Rhett had appeared out of nowhere and was glaring hard at the man that had attempted to attack her.

  “This isn’t any of your business, asshole. The little lady and I were just having a talk. She’s interested in me, you know.”

  “The ‘little lady’ asked you to get your hands off of her,” Rhett said, his voice low and menacing. “Or did you miss that part?”

  He glared at the man, who gazed murkily back at Rhett, his eyes clearly having a hard time focusing.