Lead Dragon (Dragon Guard of Drakkaris)

by Terry Bolryder

  She was sure Arsenic must have been joking about the sex thing, because men like this could surely have sex whenever they wanted it just by snapping their fingers. She decided to let that one go.

  “So since I’m behind and still working on my breakfast, why don’t you all go around the table and tell me more about yourselves?”

  “Even better,” Cadmium said, eyes rakish. “Why don’t we each introduce the person on our right?”

  Zinc shrugged. “Fine by me. Who wants to go first?”

  “I will,” Lead said. “This is Zinc, of the family of zinc dragons. Defeater of the Altac behemoth, conqueror of Squimoth, and heir to the throne of Drakkaris.”

  Zinc gave Lead a patient look. “Perhaps some more personal aspects would be more relevant to our guest.”

  “Oh, right,” Lead said, running a hand though his thick, dark hair. It looked silky, and she wondered what it would feel like if she put her hands through it. Would he let a girl wrap a hand in it during sex?

  So inappropriate.

  She shoved a strawberry in her mouth and tried to let her mind clear.

  “So, Zinc. Quiet. Keeps to himself. You can find him hiding in his room or occasionally doing dishes or cleaning. He likes… uh. What do you like? I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you enjoying yourself.”

  “Likewise,” Zinc said smoothly, turning to Brittany. “Since you’re on his left, I’ll be the one to introduce Lead.”

  She nodded.

  “Workaholic, as you humans would call it. Warrior, but a complete bore off the battlefield. Great to call on for backup, horrible to watch movies with. Overly protective of people he cares about.” Zinc’s teasing eyes softened. “Loyal. A great friend.”

  “Aw, don’t make me jealous,” Cadmium said sardonically from Zinc’s right. “Besides, you’re supposed to introduce me.”

  Zinc sighed and smiled at Brittany as if to apologize for his friend. “This is Cadmium, royal advisor to the heir, myself, and all around good dragon. My closest friend since childhood. Trustworthy, but more with men than women. He has sort of a… taste for romance.”

  Cadmium met her eyes with a wink, and her jaw dropped slightly.

  “He’s who you might go to for a good time, as long as you specify what you are wanting from him in advance.”

  Another wink, slower this time.

  “Al-all right, I think I get it,” she said.

  “Of course, he’s a warrior like the rest of us, but he worked primarily in the castle amongst the royals of Drakkaris and only left when needed in battles.”

  “I see,” she said. “Drakkaris sounds like a very interesting place.”

  Zinc opened his mouth eagerly, but Cadmium shook his head.

  “Don’t get him started. We’ll be here all day.” He nodded to Cobalt, who was sitting next to him. “This is Cobalt, court librarian and expert on everything Drakkaris and, recently, Earth and its shifter population. If you have questions about us or our mission or shifters in general, go to him. He’s book-sexual, so I think you’d be safe.”

  Lead cleared his throat angrily. “To clarify, you will be safe with anyone because no one is going to touch you without your consent or invitation, unless they want to lose their dragon jewels, if they catch my drift.”

  Cadmium gasped, hands going below the table protectively in a mocking gesture, and Arsenic rolled his eyes.

  “Of course not,” Arsenic said. “We aren’t rapists.”

  “Anyway, as I was saying,” Cadmium said in a relaxed voice. “Cobalt likes books more than people and can be found in our rather extensive library. Get info from him.”

  “I can be interested in other things than books,” Cobalt said, looking up at Brittany with a slight flush on his high cheekbones. “Really, Cadmium.”

  Cadmium shrugged. “Also, Zinc forgot to add that I’m an all-around good time, so if you get tired of these stuffy butts, come and see me, and I’ll cheer you up.”

  “He also watches entirely too much human TV and goes on dating websites to try and learn about human women,” Arsenic muttered.

  Cadmium looked slightly embarrassed but just gave her a chagrined shrug. “Guilty as charged. Which just makes me an expert, right?” He wiggled his eyebrows, and she laughed.

  “I suppose.”

  She heard a low growl from Lead, but when she looked over, he appeared normal, and she thought maybe she’d imagined it.

  “This is Chromium,” Cobalt said. “My cousin and dearest friend. The personal bodyguard of the royals of Drakkaris and specialist in difficult missions. What he lacks in verbosity he makes up for in strength, compassion, and worthiness on the battlefield. His accomplishments could fill several books, and I personally think it’s a good quality of his that he would never regale you with them.”

  Chromium looked down, a bashful grimace on his face. Then he gave Cobalt a nod that looked like some kind of thanks.

  “Additionally, he loves video games, so if you are a human that likes that sort of thing, I’m sure he would love to play them with you.”

  She eyed him, unable to imagine the huge, beautiful warrior doing anything so… geeky.

  Chromium looked around the table as if asking what he should do, then glanced at her nervously. Then he straightened up, looking into her eyes.

  “This is Brittany. She is pretty and sexy. I would like to mate her and—”

  He stopped when Cobalt grabbed his arm and stood. “Well, that’s enough breakfast for us. Cadmium, you want to go play Mortal Kombat with Chromium?”

  Cadmium nodded quickly, walking over to slap Chromium on the back. “Let’s go, buddy.”

  Chromium pulled away, looking stubbornly at Brittany. “What did I do wrong this time?” He looked at the others. “You don’t have to coddle me.”

  “Wow, that’s more words than I’ve ever heard from him,” Cadmium said in awe.

  Chromium glared darkly. “Some of us only talk when we have something to say.” He held his spot next to Brittany and looked at her with clear, sea-green eyes. “I meant what I said. You’re beautiful. Sexy. We’d all like to mate you.” Then he stood and walked out of the room, pausing at the doorway with a grin. “Funny how I’m the silent one, yet only I’m willing to state the truth.”

  The room went quiet, and then Cadmium scraped the ground as he pushed his chair out and stood to follow Chromium. He gave Brittany a deep bow and a smile and then disappeared from the room, leaving the rest of them in awkward silence.

  She looked around the table, her eyes resting on Arsenic, who seemed to be bluntest. “Is that true?”

  Arsenic looked at Lead, and she realized that even though she saw Arsenic as a loose cannon, he clearly respected Lead as his leader. “Well…”

  “No one is going to mate you,” Lead said. “We were not given that as our mission.”

  “But what does Chromium mean? And why would men like you want to mate me?”

  “Are you kidding?” Arsenic said, leaning back with folded arms. “I hope that’s a joke, because you can’t be that stupid.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not stupid. Rude.”

  “Sorry,” Lead said. “Arsenic is too sharp-tongued for his own good.”

  “He simply means why would a beautiful woman like yourself doubt that we could desire you?” Zinc asked.

  She bit her lip. “Well, Fifi, the wolf who helped me, did say that dragons sometimes mated with human women. But what about the women on your planet? I’m sure you had your pick.”

  Zinc and Lead exchanged cryptic glances.

  “Well,” Zinc said. “We sort of have… not enough females on our planet. And we are closely related to the dragons here, who have successfully mated with humans, so…”

  “But that isn’t our mission right now,” Lead said quickly. “So you don’t need to worry about it. Right now, you just need to recover and let us protect you.”

  She sighed. “So I’m just supposed to relax and have fun?” She was glad she
hadn’t really left anyone behind, because at this point, they’d be really worried about her.

  “As much as you can. And you know, help us understand human women, if you want to.”

  She thought about it for a second. “Sure. I mean, I still owe you all.”

  Cobalt stood. “I’m headed down to the library. If you have more questions, I’m happy to answer them.” He smiled. “Plus, I would love to see you.”

  “There you go,” Zinc said. “Your first outing. I’ll do the dishes with Lead.”

  Arsenic gave a shrug and, with a short nod at Brittany, exited the room.

  Brittany looked at Lead, who just stared back silently.

  “Um, I guess I’ll be going, then,” she said, standing and setting her napkin aside. “Are you sure you don’t want help cleaning up?”

  Zinc stood, rolling up his sleeves. “We’ll be just fine,” he said. “Go see Cobalt and get whatever information you might need. The library is downstairs, first door on the left.”

  She sighed. “Okay. Thanks again.” She looked at Lead. “I’ll see you later?”

  “Sure,” he agreed.

  So she left the room, heading for the stairs down to Cobalt.

  Chapter 6

  The library was as extravagant and beautiful as the rest of the mansion, but a little more old-world feeling with its mahogany shelves and bronze accents.

  Cobalt was standing on a ladder, holding a book open as he thumbed through it, looking intensely focused on whatever he was researching.

  He hadn’t even heard her come in.

  Had he?

  Just then, his eyes flitted to her and he held up a finger. “One second, almost there. Can’t stop yet…” He scanned a final page and then nodded, a grin of satisfaction lighting his face. Then he set the book back and, to her surprise, jumped down from the ladder and landed with a thundering thud on the ground in front of her.

  He might be an intellectual, but physically, he was still all dragon.

  She nearly stumbled in shock, and he reached out, catching her by the arms with gentle, elegant hands with long fingers. She looked up at him, flushing, as she couldn’t seem to avoid doing around these dragon-men.

  She composed herself and stood up, pulling away from him so she could walk slowly around the library, looking at the high shelves filled with what looked like thousands of books.

  “How do you keep track of where everything is?” she asked.

  He scoffed. “I’m royal librarian on my planet. If I couldn’t manage such a paltry library as this, what would I be doing here?”

  “Ah, I see,” she said. While they all had different interests, they all seemed to take a great deal of pride in what they did. “Well, it looks beautiful. One of the nicest libraries I’ve ever seen.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t say much for your Earth libraries.” But she could tell he was pleased by the compliment as he looked around at the shelves.

  “But you know, have you thought of getting an e-reader?”

  “A what?”

  “An e-reader. You can read on your phone or a different device, electronically.”

  “Ah,” he said. “You mean human books. Shifter tomes are not kept online. That would be far too dangerous.” He waved a hand at the books all around him. “These books hold the shifter history of Earth, as well as some information I brought from Drakkaris. So feel free to ask me anything, human.”

  She walked to a comfy chair with red cushions that was set next to another in the corner. “Why do the dragons want to mate me?”

  Cobalt stuttered for a second, clearly taken off guard. She patted the chair next to her, and he came hesitantly over. Even when he sat, he felt so much bigger than her.

  He ran a hand through his short, grayish-blue hair, making it stand up in all directions in kind of an adorable way. As adorable as a six-foot, intimidatingly smart dragon could be. “Well. That’s because of the dearth of females on our planet, but that’s about all I can tell you.”

  “Why me?”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be you. But we are here to mate human females, and you are the first we have met. You have to understand, when there is a potential mate on our planet, we hold huge competitions to try and win her favor, so it’s hard not to fall into that habit again with a woman here we would all want.”

  “Why would you want me?” she asked. “I mean, I’m not down on myself. I like how I am. But you guys could have anyone.”

  “You are the only one we’ve met,” he said. “We haven’t yet been allowed to interact with regular human women. Not a bad thing, considering how little research the others have been willing to do.”

  “So I’m just the only option right now?”

  “I don’t know if you even are an option,” Cobalt said nervously. “We were told to rescue you, not mate you. Still, I think most of us were taken back by the force of our attraction to you. Perhaps we would feel that around most human women, but not having met any, I can see why the others are already making intentions clear.”

  “Chromium is so interesting,” she said.

  “I’m glad you think so. Some people misread him, think him simple. There could be nothing further from the truth. He’s sharp and smart, and he sees things in situations that everyone else misses. And yes, he’s a little odd, but aren’t we all?

  She nodded. “I like him.”

  “And you aren’t angry about this morning?”

  “Angry? No. I mean, he shouldn’t do that with other human women because some might find it traumatizing, depending on what they’ve been through, but once I realized he was only taking his shirt off, I thought it was hot.”

  “Hot?” Cobalt asked.

  “Attractive. I’m not sure if you realize this, but every man in here is like… a hundred times more attractive than an average man. I’ve never met even one like you, so having six around is a little overwhelming for this human, personally.”

  “I see,” Cobalt said, crossing one leg over the other and stroking his jaw thoughtfully. “I hadn’t thought about it that way. This is how dragons look on my world, though the ones I have studied on this world are also what you might consider ideal, if this is your type.”

  She swallowed. “Um. Tall, strong, and handsome is everyone’s type.”

  “I see,” Cobalt said, leaning forward. He looked deeply into her eyes, as if studying her, and then scooted his chair forward until they were almost knee to knee. “What is your reaction to me, then? For purely scientific purposes.”

  “Uh,” she said, feeling heat flood her cheeks.

  “There is that interesting reaction again. Apparently, human women flush just as much as dragons.”

  She put a hand up to cover her face. “Oh dear.”

  He caught her wrist and held it up gently in one hand. “You’re warmer, too. Are you embarrassed?” His other hand came up to lightly rest on the pulse in her neck. “Your heartbeat is increased. Fear or arousal?”

  His face was so beautiful, those deep-blue eyes boring into hers, so intelligent it felt there were galaxies of knowledge inside them. His body was muscular, radiating heat as he was this close, and she could scent something icy and spicy at the same time, his own unique scent.

  She was about to jerk away, because this was the most awkwardly hot thing she had ever encountered, when she heard footsteps enter the room.

  “Let her go,” Lead said, striding toward them.

  Cobalt pulled back instantly, no longer touching her at all. “I was simply studying her. That’s all.”

  Lead walked forward, grabbed her hand, and jerked her out of the chair. “She isn’t a science project.”

  Brittany pulled her hand back gently, and Lead let her go, looking confused. “He wasn’t doing anything terrible,” she said. “And I’m sure he would have stopped if I asked him to. I did say I would help you learn about human women.”

  Cobalt looked from Lead to the door, a surprised expression on his fac
e. “Were you… spying on us? Lead, I’m hurt.” But his expression was teasing.

  “You know what I’m saying. Keep your damn hands off her,” he said.

  Cobalt leaned back in the chair lazily. “Fine. I got the information I needed anyway.” His blue eyes glowed slightly. “Apparently, we have quite an effect on human women. At least I do anyway.”

  Lead’s face reddened, and he looked, if possible, even angrier. “I am supposed to protect you…”

  “I know,” Brittany said. “I appreciate it. But I really should get to know the others if I’m going to fit in here. So for now…”

  Lead nodded sharply. “I understand. I will give you more space.” Then he turned on his heel and stiffly strode out the door.

  “Wow,” Cobalt said. “He’s even more tense than usual. I hope he’s going to the gym. Usually, he’s too obsessed with it, but I think the release of endorphins would be beneficial to him at this particular moment.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Brittany said. “I hope I didn’t upset him.”

  “No,” Cobalt said. “Lead is a man of routine, and everything lately has been change for him. He’s adjusting as well as he can. We all are. But if you did ask him to protect you, then he is probably taking that seriously. Don’t be too hard on him.”

  “Was I?”

  “Oh no,” Cobalt said, standing up and going back to his ladder. “But I doubt this is the last time today he will try your patience in that way.” He gave her a warm smile. “Thanks for coming down. I’m here to answer questions anytime.”

  She guessed that was her cue to leave, and honestly, after that awkward moment between them, she was ready to go cool off and see someone else.

  But maybe she’d check on Lead first, make sure he was all right. She did owe him a lot, after all.

  Lead pulled off his shirt after his warm-up, knowing this workout was going to be a big one.

  He’d been surprised by the strength of his response when he’d seen Cobalt touching Brittany.

  He shouldn’t have interfered. He knew that now. She hadn’t been making any signal that she didn’t want Cobalt touching her, and Lead had no reason to think the touch was anything but clinical, knowing Cobalt.