by Jenny Foster
“Where is your transmitter?” he asked. Sally hesitated, lifted her hair up and took the tiny earring off. Jack had given it to her. Zavir studied it for a second. “You have to …,” Sally began, but Zavir interrupted her.
“You have to activate it first. I know,” he said. “I am going to turn it over to our technicians. Maybe it can be of use to us.” Was there anything he didn’t know? If she wanted his help saving her mother, then she needed to find a way to be of use to him!
“Their conversation was about me and that I had made contact with you, and that we …” She felt the heat spreading through her body.
“None of that is news to me,” Zavir said. “I told you, you should sleep with me, so your scientists could get my semen.” He paused. Sally was convinced she was fighting a losing battle. “Do you know who the woman is, and what she is planning next?”
Now they were at the point that worried Sally the most. If she had understood the conversation correctly, then Zavir’s first officer was working with Captain Jack and the woman. But would Zavir believe her? She had no proof. She would have to play her cards very wisely now, or just be completely honest with him. Which was the better choice? “She didn’t say anything about what would happen next, but I did hear something that may have escaped your notice.”
“What would that be?” She could see he didn’t believe her, but he was too clever and experienced to reject the idea altogether.
“One of your men is cooperating with the enemy behind your back.” There, she had said it – and had completely forgotten to demand a reward in exchange for the truth. Her gut felt as if it was turning to liquid and the relief was so great that she didn’t recognize the feeling at first.
His jaw tightened, but that was the only sign of his inner turmoil.
“She said that your first officer,” she closed her eyes, recalling the scene in her head, so she could repeat the exact words to him. “She said that she had ensured that the first officer would adhere to their agreement.”
He couldn’t sit still any longer. Sally watched him pace back and forth like an impatient predator. At some point, he stopped and looked at her. “Fine. That makes things a little more complicated.” He clenched his teeth and Sally had the impression that he was looking forward to the confrontation. The scales, which were so prominent on his upper body, rustled. “In that case, it will be my great pleasure to prove to your Captain Jack, and to my first officer, that you cannot cross Zavir without paying a price. Come here.” He said the last words in guttural voice that was used to giving orders. Sally realized the hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end. She stood up and went over to him. He looked down at her from his impressive height. “I owe you a favor, Sally Smith. What do you want in exchange for your tip?”
Sally’s throat tightened. For some strange reason, it hurt that he had reduced their relationship, or whatever it was, to a businesslike exchange of service and reward. “I need help to get my mother away from Earth. She will turn fifty in a few days and that means certain death for her.”
He snorted scornfully. “I will never understand humans. I had heard that you liquidate your elders to make more room for young people, but I will never understand why you do it.”
“Because there is no other way,” Sally responded automatically with what she had heard for years. “There isn’t enough to eat, and living space is limited, as well.”
“Nonsense!” he hissed. The fury, which had been simmering just below the surface, ever since he had found out about his officer’s betrayal, finally spilled over. “There is a time for being young, conquering the world and for fighting. And there is a time when the old ones stand by the young whippersnappers, offering counsel and wisdom. No wonder your development is stagnated.
“It is how it is, and I can hardly do anything about it,” Sally countered. She felt like she was being pushed into a corner. Too much had happened in a short time, and she was tired to the bone. “So will you help me or not?”
“I will try,” he said, finally. “I cannot promise more than that. Where is your mother, and where do you want to go with her if you are not going to stay on Earth?”
Sally hadn’t thought about that part yet. “I don’t know,” she said, discouraged. When had her life entered this downward spiral of trouble?
“Fine. We will take it one step at a time. You …,” he tilted his head to the side, “will stay in my quarters, for now. Do you understand? I will take care of the woman and Virtis.” That must have been the first officer’s name. “Then we’ll go from there.” He took his pants off and pulled out a freshly ironed uniform from his armoire. She didn’t know if she should laugh, because he had just left his clothing lying on the floor where he had taken it off, or if she should keep staring furtively at his firm and muscular ass.
“Do you like what you see?” Embarrassed, she drew her hungry eyes from his sexy behind and met his eyes in the mirror on the inside of the armoire door. “One more thing,” he added, as his fingers deftly working the buttons on the high collar of his jacket. “If I say that you need to stay here, then I mean it. No expeditions. Do you understand?”
She nodded and wondered how she was going to survive until he returned. Patience had never been her strong suit.
Chapter 5
The Truth
She was just dreaming about her mother, who was being picked up by the workers from the ministry, when a determined knock woke her from her dream with a start. “Come in,” she croaked and sat up. Her tongue felt like sandpaper, and her eyelids were sticky.
The door opened. It took a moment for Sally to recognize the woman who was coming in, as Melanie. She had spoken to her briefly last night. She had fainted, Sally remembered, and the dragon man who had been assigned to her had carried her off. Had that really only happened a few hours ago?
“I just wanted to see how you are doing,” Melanie said shyly and came a little closer. “May I come in?” Without waiting for an answer, she had already crossed half the distance to the bed. The doors closed with a soft hiss.
“What time is it, anyway? I didn’t sleep half the night,” Sally said and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
“Me, neither,” Melanie grinned and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. Damn, that’s not how Sally had meant it. “How are you? I mean, after you collapsed at the table yesterday, I really wanted to come check on you, but …”
“You were probably otherwise occupied. I understand.” She winked. “Was he as good as they say he is?”
Sally blinked. The woman who was sitting down at the edge of the bed in such a confidential manner, had nothing in common with the young girl who had fainted from fear yesterday. A change like that didn’t just happen overnight, even if the night of lovemaking had been a revelation to Melanie.
Something wasn’t quite right here.
Then she noticed it. Melanie was wearing small, round earrings that were exactly like hers. Without thinking, she put her hand up to her left ear, but, of course, the earring wasn’t there anymore. She had given it to Zavir so his people could take a look at it.
Melanie was Hornet.
But before Sally could react, a satisfied smile spread across the woman’s face. “I see you understand, sister,” she said in an acrid tone, under which there seemed to be perverse enjoyment. “So it was you who was eavesdropping last night.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. “I thought maybe I was mistaken, but well – that’s life.”
“What are you talking about? What do you want from me?”
Melanie was still sitting calmly on the edge of the bed, as if they were having a nice little chat about the weather. “I want you to come with me, you idiot, before total chaos breaks out here.” She glanced at her chronometer. “I want to take you to safety. Trust me.”
“You must be out of your mind,” Sally said, and inconspicuously scooted an inch to the other side of the bed. “Jack assigned you to me, to bring me back – that much I got. What will happen t
o me down there?”
“Calm down,” Melanie said. “I admit it wasn’t smart of Jack not to tell you anything about me. But I am definitely not here to just drop you off on Earth like a package and leave you to your fate. Quite the opposite, in fact. Jack impressed on me a hundred times that I need to keep a careful eye on you. He is fond of you. Surely you know that.”
“Of course,” Sally said and didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “He didn’t tell me the truth about the real reason for this mission, because he cares about me so much.”
“You know how men are,” Melanie said, and brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. She looked so young and innocent. “They think they know what is best for us women, and overlook that we have more sense than they do.”
Sally looked at her, doubtfully. It would have been so easy to take Melanie’s outstretched hand and just go with her. “Come,” Melanie repeated again. There was a hint of impatience in her voice. “We need to hurry if we are going to get out of here in time. How long has it been since you had intercourse with Zavir?” There was something about that last question – maybe it was the factual, almost clinical wording – that told Sally there was more on the line here than met the eye.
“About six hours,” she answered carefully. “Why?” Then she understood. There was only a slim chance that she was pregnant – and if not, then Jack and Melanie wanted to be sure that Zavir’s sperm were still alive when the doctors extracted them from her.
No. She would not go with her. She had enough of being used and of being pushed back and forth like a marionette without a will of its own.
Something in her face must have given her away, because the next thing she saw was a small and extremely fierce-looking laser pistol in Melanie’s hand.
How had she managed to smuggle it on board? “You will get up now, get dressed and come with me,” she ordered calmly, and pressed the barrel of the weapon up against Sally’s unprotected throat for a moment. It felt cold against Sally’s skin.
She stood up slowly. “Hurry up,” Melanie ordered, when she saw Sally dawdling. “Don’t think I will hesitate to injure you, if it will make you hurry up. I promised to deliver the dragon lord’s semen, but nobody told me I couldn’t damage the vessel.”
One look at Melanie’s face was enough for Sally to know that her opponent was serious. “Why are you doing this?” she asked, as she pulled her clothes on.
“You aren’t trying to distract me, are you, by getting me to talk?” She laughed, but then turned serious. “For the same reason you are. But in my case, it is not my mother, but my father I am trying to save.” Sally froze. The prospect of saving her mother’s life didn’t exist anymore. “Contrary to you, I was clever enough to insist on the contract being fulfilled before I went to work.”
All of a sudden, her fingers trembled and she seemed to be twice as clumsy. There was a dark joy behind the woman’s words, and it scared Sally. She fastened the last button through its intended hole and looked at Melanie.
Her mother was dead. Or, if she wasn’t dead yet, she would be soon, because Jack had no intention of keeping his part of the bargain. He had just as little intention of keeping Sally alive, once she had fulfilled her purpose. That purpose was one thing: to deliver breeding material for a new race of half human, half dragon-like warriors. She could see it in Melanie’s mean smile, and in her eyes that were looking down at Sally in scorn, even though she was barely taller than she was.
Something clicked in Sally’s head. Jack, Melanie, Zavir – now the time had come when she had to decide who she really was. Was she still the Sally Smith who believed everything she heard and did as she was told? She put her hand in her pants’ pocket and raised her head defiantly. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go.” She walked past Melanie to the door, which opened on its own.
“I am warning you,” the woman said right behind her. A careful glance behind her told her that Melanie was holding the pistol in her hand, cleverly concealed in the loose sleeve of her sweater. “We are going straight to the hangar. One move to try to run away or to signal to someone that you need help – and you are dead. Do you understand?”
“Of course,” Sally said. Her heart was not beating nearly as fast or loud as she had expected. Instead, she felt a strange calm. Her fingers felt Zavir’s dragon scale, still in her pocket. Too bad she wouldn’t be close enough to Melanie to injure her with the sharp little thing.
The turned into the hallway leading directly to the hangar with the rescue pods. They ran into a few men along the way, but all of them just nodded to them in greeting. Except for one. “Miss Smith? Shouldn’t you be in the Captain’s quarters?” The man had frowned, as if he couldn’t reconcile what he was seeing with the way things were.
Sally was sweating and her heart started to race as she searched for an answer that would put the dragon shifter at ease. Melanie beat her to it. “Sally isn’t feeling well,” she explained in a voice filled with a sweet smile. “She needs to move a little, to clear her head. Please don’t worry. I will make sure nothing happens to the Captain’s new companion.”
Liar.
“Okay,” the man said, and continued on, without giving them a second look. There went her last hope of being able to stop Melanie, after all. “Captain’s companion? Didn’t you exaggerate a little?” Anything that helped her postpone the inevitable was good.
“You really are naïve. I cannot believe Jack chose you and not me for this assignment,” her tormentor remarked. “Didn’t you do even a little bit of research about what happens when you mate with a dragon shifter?”
No. She had trusted blindly that Captain Jack would tell her anything she needed to know. Not only was she a lousy spy, she had also been far too trusting. “You are right,” she admitted and slowed down a little. Would it be too obvious if she tripped and tried to pull Melanie to the ground so she could take the pistol from her? Forget it, a voice of reason said in her head. The voice was probably right. Melanie seemed to be thoroughly trained. She had thought it was malnourishment, but in reality, she just had a wiry build. “I was naïve. But now you have the chance to clue me in. What does it mean to be the wife of a dragon shifter?”
“Not wife, but companion,” Melanie corrected. They turned left. Only a few more feet and they would be passing the alcove where Sally had hidden last night. They hadn’t run into anyone else in the last few minutes. Where were all of the men who lived on this ship? Didn’t they have any maintenance technicians, or engineers who needed to be working on something here?
Obviously not.
“Zavir Tharok comes from a strange line of dragon shifters who can only mate and procreate with a few women. Their scales, and to a lesser degree, their blood, contains a substance that is deadly – except to the woman they take as their companion. You can count yourself lucky that he held himself back during sex. One small wound, and you would be dead.”
Sally’s thoughts raced around in her head. She closed her hand around the scale and thought about the pain that had gripped her and then left again. If what Melanie was telling her was true, then Zavir Tharok had chosen her to be his companion.
That knowledge burned like fire in her heart. She had survived the dragon lord’s poison. She and Zavir were connected in a way that went beyond the physical attraction she felt. Someone – no, not just anyone, but one of the mightiest dragon shifters in the universe – had chosen her to bear his children. To grow old with him. To live at his side.
What did Zavir see in her that she had never seen in herself?
It didn’t matter anymore.
They arrived at the entrance to the hangar. Melanie pressed the pistol into her back. “Why are you so quiet suddenly?” She sounded suspicious. Damn it! Hopefully, she wouldn’t realize what Sally had realized.
A small amount of the dragon lord’s poison was flowing in her veins. As such, she was more than just a vessel for the scientists from Earth. They would subject her to any test they could t
hink of, and produce some kind of horrific weapon from her blood.
On the other hand, … Sally turned around and ignored Melanie’s hissed warning. She fished the scale from her pocket and held it up in front of Melanie’s face.
Melanie took a step back instinctively.
She squinted. When she realized what Sally was holding in her hand, she whistled softly.
“You overlooked something,” Sally said calmly. “Jack is a bastard. He ordered me to steal a scale from Zavir. He didn’t tell you anything about that, now, did he?” She forced her mouth into a sneering smile. “He put my life on the line, that bastard. He planned everything so carefully. But,” she laid all her cards on the table and stepped closer to Melanie, “he didn’t think of one thing, meaning the fact that his plan might work too well.”
The satisfaction of seeing all the color drain from Melanie’s face was enormous. But Sally hadn’t arrived at the end of her improvised speech yet. “Do you finally get what has happened? Do you understand who is standing in front of you, and whose life you are endangering with your ridiculously tiny laser pistol?” She stuck the dragon scale into her wrist intentionally.
A small red dot appeared, and then the wound closed again.
“That can’t be,” Melanie stammered. She blinked. “Let me see. You … that isn’t possible.”
“That isn’t possible,” Sally mimicked with a high, child-like voice. “If I were you, I would get out of here. Now. You really don’t think Zavir will let you leave here unharmed if you lay a single finger on his companion or his child, do you?”
Melanie lowered the weapon and gave Sally a hate-filled look, but Sally didn’t care. She knew she had won.
Chapter 6
The Way
Sally stepped to the side. “Get out of here,” she said, nodding at the hangar door. “Please give Jack my love, and tell him that I will be visiting him very soon.” She could hardly believe that such a clear threat was coming out of her mouth.