Chapter Five

Chloe

"You're awfully calm," he remarked, breaking the silence that had been our only companion for the past several minutes.

I looked over and up at him, glad I'd rehearsed and planned my actions and personality ahead of time. It meant I could give him a response without stumbling or panicking, thinking he'd already caught on to what I was.

If he or any of the dragons knew my mission or discovered what was so very carefully sewn into the seams of my pants and underwear, they wouldn't bother with an elaborate setup. They would kill me on the spot.

"Should I be?" I asked, putting just enough tightness in my voice to make it appear like I was faking the calm to try to appear tough.

The big dragon-man stopped, coming to a halt faster than someone that large should be able to. I filed that away, making a note not to underestimate his speed or agility just because his arms were impressively large.

His eyes, sharp and alert, scanned me from head to toe as we faced one another in the tunnel, the only light a ball of flame he'd conjured into being as we'd left the original cavern. The flickering flames made it hard to tell the color of his irises, but I didn't need that to see the pinching in the corners of his eyes or the slight flaring of his nostrils. Was he testing the air?

I made another mental note to see if I could find out just how sensitive their noses were. How much of their animal side was merged with their human form? We had no idea, but I suspected it was important to know. One of the think-tank nerds back home would figure out something helpful.

"Let's see," he mused, his eyes still running me over from head to toe like some sort of automated machine.

Was it just me, or did his pupils dilate as he did? Again the lack of light made it impossible to see. But it made my heart beat a little bit faster. I frowned internally at that. Why would I care? I shouldn't …

He lifted a finger into the air. "One, you just discovered we can shift into human form. Two"—a second finger went up—"you were plucked from a lineup by a random man, whose name you don't even know, and now you're expected to be my mate for life. Maybe I've misunderstood how humans normally do these things, but yes, I would say you should be a bit nervous."

I grinned at him, deciding to stick with my current personality of choice. Backing down now would probably make him more suspicious. Better to double down and make him think this was just me.

"Dragons wanting human women as mates made no sense," I pointed out to him. "Unless you had a way to use us. Which meant either you had captive human males somewhere. Or you weren't purely dragons. I didn't know the answer, but I knew there had to be one. This is the more surprising of the answers, but it's not a complete shock. To me, at least."

He leaned back, eyes never straying from my face as I spoke. The intensity of his attention was wearing on me … but not in an uncomfortable way. My cheeks grew warm instead. A reaction I didn't need but could no longer control. His sharp, chiseled jaw, perfect cheekbones and strong, straight nose were all fixed on me, and I was staring back.

"Two," I made myself continue speaking, glad I'd planned for this conversation because there was no way my brain would work right now, "I volunteered for this, yes?"

"Supposedly," he agreed.

"I didn't come in blindly. I know what I signed up for," I said. "You dragons wanted us here. That means you had a reason for your ceasefire terms. I refuse to believe that reason is as simple as ‘We're hungry' or some such nonsense. If that were the truth, well, I would have expected the cavern back there to serve as the hunting arena. But you didn't do that. You still haven't done that or anything else. And even if you do, what am I going to do to stop it?"

"So pragmatic," he rumbled.

"Would you prefer I try to act like a meek, scared little girl?" I asked. "I could try if that will help."

The dragon let his head fall back, laughing slowly, the deep rumble echoing off the cavern walls.

"Exactly," I said, stepping forward suddenly, hand extended. "So, we can just accept this is how it's going to be and go from there. By the way, my name is Chloe."

He stiffened as I moved toward him but quickly calmed as he realized what I was doing. His eyes lingered on my hand for a moment before he reached up and took it.

I think he gave me his name. I couldn't remember. A buzzing intensified as his hand neared mine, drowning out the sound coming from his lips. My eyes were drawn sharply down as a tingle zipped up my arm the instant his palm touched mine. The buzzing became an outright roar like the pounding of the surf on steroids. I blinked rapidly, trying to push it down without shaking my head. I didn't want to give away that something was wrong. What the hell was going on with me?

The tingle reached my shoulder, where it exploded into pieces. Some lingered in my arm. Others reached up through my spine and into my brain, driving their fingers deep into unidentified parts. Still more flooded my upper body, moving straight to my nipples like homing missiles, immediately turning the skin there stiff and erected, while more bursts ricocheted through my crotch, leaving my clit throbbing and my underwear forced to absorb a rapid dampness.

Muscles constricted around my lungs, tightening down, leaving me short of air, even as my leg muscles weakened and threatened to lose control.

An echo tickled my ears. An echo of a sound cutting through the buzzing.

"Chloe?"

That was my name—I'd chosen to use my real first name on the assignment to make it easier if I truly was stuck for the rest of my life. But who was calling me? Who was saying it?

"Chloe, are you okay? Are you all right?"

I blinked rapidly, a wave of cold washing over me as the contact was broken, puckering any skin that wasn't already that way. Two giant hands gripped my shoulders, giving me a little shake, the ease of moving me re-emphasizing the strength difference between us. Not to mention the size as his fingers and thumb wrapped me in their grip, swallowing most of my shoulder. I had to crane my head back almost as far as it would go to look into his face from that close. He was big.

"Hi," I said, some semblance of control returning to my body, even as scenarios of being grabbed in other ways by those powerful hands ran amok through my head, wreaking all sorts of havoc on my normally controlled processing center.

"You okay? What the hell happened there?"

"I don't know," I said, shaking myself once more, taking a deep breath to reassert myself. "We clasped hands, and that's the last thing I remember."

He quickly pulled his hands off my shoulders. I caught him looking at his right hand and then at me briefly. Had he felt some of that, too?

"Could you repeat your name?" I asked him. "I missed it."

"Silas," he said, declining to re-extend his hand toward me.

I wondered again if I was the only one who'd felt that. He looked somewhat ruffled as well.

"Good to meet you, Silas," I said, determined to never let such a lapse happen again and to regain control of the conversation as well. I needed to find out all I could about the dragons. Not fall apart because one of them touched me.

"You, too." He nodded sharply, his eyes still searching my face to see if I was okay or not.

His concern was cute.

"As I was saying," I said, staring up the tunnel once more, "we're both here. This is the way it's going to be. It's easier to accept it and move on than continue to freak out, right?"

"Right," he agreed with a healthy dose of skepticism in his voice.

I cursed myself mentally. Things had been going well. Now, he was wondering what the hell was wrong with me.

That makes two of us.

We walked in silence to the mouth of the tunnel entrance. At some point, the light from outside became enough, and Silas killed the floating fireball. We stepped out onto a ledge overlooking a vast expanse that flowed away from us for miles before ending in the vast blue that could only be the ocean. It was dozens or perhaps hundreds of miles away. The only reason it could be seen was because of how high up we were on the side of a mountain.

I started cataloging the view, including the large town in the distance. The more information I could give when I reported in—assuming the equipment hidden in my clothing could transmit—the better. There was no guarantee it would work, though. The dragons had never demonstrated any level of technology, but if they could hide an entire island—and it sure seemed like we were on one—then they had to have something, right?

I wandered around the ledge, looking at everything I could see from our vantage point on the mountain. I noted there were no other mountains visible either. Just that one.

"What's that?" I asked, a huge stone building coming into view. It was located in the direction we'd emerged from underground.

"That is the palace," Silas rumbled.

"Do I get a tour?" I asked. The palace sounded important. It was a place I definitely needed to visit and learn about. If we couldn't nuke them, perhaps a big bunker buster into the palace would help rid us of some problems or stall their attacks for a while. Something, anything, to help.

"Uh, I suppose," Silas said. He gestured for me to follow him along a small path that led in the general direction of the palace. It didn't look well used.

"Where are the roads?" I asked as we walked. "It looks like nobody ever comes this way."

Silas chuckled. I watched his face as he stared knowingly at me. In the light, I could see his eyes were a light blue, almost gray like storm clouds. His hair was a mix of salt and pepper, hanging down to his shoulders in free-flowing waves.

"What?" I asked. "Did I say—"

Overhead, a large dragon with blue scales like pristine Caribbean waters soared past, coming in for a gentle landing on the flat roof of the palace. I watched in slight awe at the grace of its actions. That was a side of dragons I wasn't used to. Before, it was all war footage. Fire and flame, death and destruction. It was different.

It also answered my question.

"Right. I suppose you don't really need roads when you can fly, do you?"

"No," he agreed with a chuckle as the path curved up the mountain, depositing us at the base of the palace.

I glanced around. "I don't see an entrance?" It was a half statement, half question.

"The entrance is on the roof," he said, coming close to me.

I fought the urge to back away as he entered my personal space.

"How do we get up there?" My voice was steady but only barely. He towered over me, arms that could snap my bones without a second thought mere inches away.

"Like this," he said, wings sprouting from his back as he wrapped those same arms around my body and leaped into the air with casual ease, taking me with him.