19. Zara

It was the smell of the aliens that haunted me. Even sleeping, I could remember how the air tasted on my parched tongue. Air had a taste. I wouldn't be forgetting that anytime soon.

Was I back on the ship? I was cold. So much colder than I'd ever been. It was like the air had tendrils and it seemed to reach inside of me and run through my veins, stealing every last bit of heat within me.

I couldn't go back. I wouldn't. I wanted to move, but I couldn't. There was nothing here and no one around to help. Why couldn't I run? I couldn't even yell. Even my tears forgot how to flow.

My mind felt so murky, and my memories were hard to retrieve, like I had to swim through my own mind to find the ledge of anything helpful.

Had it all just been a beautiful dream? A beautiful man with green eyes I'd chosen to get lost in and arms that held me so tightly I'd truly believed he could shield me from pain.

"Zara?"

The sound was soft, but it was my name. None of the aliens had cared who was who. We were all just cattle. Or prizes if what the one girl had said was true. She wasn't anything like a human, but she spoke English rather well. Or well enough that we'd gathered some of what was going on.

I tried to move my arms again. Something seemed wrong.

"Zara?"

There was that voice again. I didn't understand it, but I wanted to follow it. I just couldn't. I couldn't move.

"Zara, come back to me."

A warmth spread over my neck and down my arm. What was that?

Slowly, something started to clear. The strange fog lifted in slow threads, being pulled away. I wanted to follow that heat. The safe feeling. I wanted that.

"Zara, open your eyes."

Open my eyes? They were open. Weren't they?

The same comforting heat traced my face, but nothing touched me.

I needed to breathe. I sucked in the air and realized that the taste and smell I'd thought remained around me never choked me.

In fact, the scent filled me and, along with it, a delicious sense of hope.

Something was very wrong.

Wake up. Open my eyes.

The heat of a familiar feeling against my lips did exactly what every fairytale said, and I gasped awake.

What the hell happened?

My eyes fluttered open and slowly Tarek's familiar face came into view. I wanted to throw my arms around him and hug him, but something that followed me from my nightmare was the weight preventing me from moving.

"What is wrong with me?"

Tarek's finger ran through my hair.

"Vengeance of a resistance that has no place here."

Resistance?

"You mean to tell me I get abducted just to fly a million light years away, and you have the same stupid issues we have on Earth? Dumbass humans who want to overthrow the government?"

Tarek studied me. Or maybe he just didn't want to look away, and I liked it. I liked thinking he saw every bit of me. Every little quaking part of me.

"It is not a million light years, however, it is further than the human mind could comprehend on their own. As to the second question, what planet does not have its problems?"

The sheet under my finger was smooth and familiar.

"I'm struggling to move my finger, and you're telling me I just got caught up in a power struggle, and I don't even live here?"

Tarek's eyes shifted between man and dragon.

"You do live here," he said.

That deserved an eye roll.

"Do I? I don't remember sending out a change of address card to anyone."

I don't know why, but everything in me felt itchy, like I needed to move or scream or crawl out of my skin. I really didn't miss home. That was evident. But I also didn't want to be caught up in something I had no understanding of and had no idea of how it started.

"Calm yourself, Zara."

He pulled me into his lap and held me tightly. The incessant thundering of my heart, my chorus I'd grown used to over the years, it had almost become part of me. Medication didn't help. Therapy didn't help.

The safe, strong embrace of a dragon though? This wasn't a treatment I'd get a prescription for back on Earth.

And it worked.

Breathe in. Breathe out. That was actual bullshit that never worked. But between the breathing and the foreign heat of Tarek enveloping me? I allowed my head to rest on his chest and accepted the calm that was Tarek.

The hard muscles of him were hard to ignore.

I was breathing now, taking in deep breaths. My lungs no longer fought to strangle me.

"You really are magic."

There was that sound vibrating through him again, the one I thought of as almost a purr.

That might have been the most calming sound I'd ever heard. Better than any white noise. It was contentment, and I really wanted to be content.

"Okay, big guy. You can let go a little."

He didn't.

"Tarek, it's really hard to look you in the face if you don't."

He loosened his embrace just a bit, but it was enough that I could shift and straddle him.

"Thank you for calming me down. I… uh. Well, I get panic attacks. I don't think I ever used to, but life just gets to you. You know?"

He cocked an eyebrow. Why was it that something so simple made him look even more sexy than I thought he already was? This man exuded masculinity and that should scare me. Everything should scare me.

"Tell me what that man was doing? Can you start from the top? Or at least the top of why he would have come after me?"

Tarek shook his head.

"I don't think I want to waste an entire day talking about the issues that Emberhaven has. One bad human male can do enough damage to take the work of a hundred dragons to undo."

The smooth skin of his cheek slid against my palm as I placed my hands on either side of his face.

"If we have eternity and I am supposed to make this my home with you, maybe you could start telling me something?"

How starved was I that sitting here I suddenly ached to feel and explore him? All of him. His eyes closed as I slid my hands into his hair.

Dragon or man, his hair was still soft. I released the bun it had been wrapped up in and ran my fingers through it.

I'd never truly paid enough attention to notice the sides were shaved close to this head while the rest was kept long. His hair, although a sandy shade, had flecks of color that I truly didn't even know how to describe. It was like his hair captured the galaxy within the highlights if you could look close enough.

"I'm starting to really embrace that nothing here is as it seems," I said. His eyes slowly opened. At some point, his arms had released me, but his hands still roamed my body. The heat of his palms found bare skin along my back.

"Where is the corset? That dress was so expensive, I would hate to think that asshole ruined it."

He slowly shook his head.

"No. It was not ruined. You struggled to breathe. Your heart rate was too weak and slow with the drug in your system. I removed anything unnecessary."

I nodded.

"Uh-huh. Well, as much as I want to think you had an ulterior motive, thank you. Thank you for caring for me."

There it was, the shift of his eyes from man to dragon.

"It is our duty and our pleasure to care for our mate, Zara. I failed you last night. I allowed someone to take what is mine and it would have destroyed us. I will never allow you alone again."

I slid my hands down his shoulders and allowed them to rest against the hard planes of his chest.

"You will have to leave me alone at some point. You have to go be dragony and stuff, don't you?"

His eyes seemed to study me. The feeling that he could see all of me, the me that I wanted to hide from the world, should have had my world closing in around me. I'd been so afraid to show anyone that side of me, but not him.

I couldn't stop myself. I leaned up and kissed him. Not a kiss of desperation or a spicy-dream induced one. Kissed him because something broken in me suddenly seemed a little less.

This time, I know he purred. The sound was deep and near a growl. It sent a thrill through my body. I pulled away.

"I think I understand what you mean about fated mates. But until this moment, I couldn't say that it was my choice. I really do think that I would choose you. No, I know I would choose you. But, for the human side of me, take me on a date?"

A slow smile spread over his lips. The man was fierce, but this smile? It was adorable and showed a boy I'm sure he still hid inside him.

"A date? I do believe I have heard of such human customs. I will do whatever my mate needs."

I pulled myself closer and let my sensitive clit rub over the not-well-hidden bulge beneath his pants. The dress I'd worn had been removed, leaving me in little more than just underwear and a camisole and those fabrics were nearly transparent.

"Anything I need?"

He nodded. "The healer?—"

I cut him off with a finger over his lips.

"I feel alive for the first time in my life. Right now, I just need you."

I closed the distance and didn't let him protest, if he even tried.

I slid my hand between us, untying the leathery strings of his pants, sucking in a breath as his velvety length sprang free. I hoped I would never not be surprised. And right now, I wanted to surprise him.

I let my fingers circle the crown, enjoying the way his breathing hitched at my touch.

"Take me, Tarek. Convince me that you are the right choice for me."

He growled and claimed my lips before pulling away.

"I am your only choice, Zara. I would kill anyone who tried to touch you."

That should have scared me, especially with the way his face darkened, but something about it just gave me a thrill.

"Really? Kill? That seems rather extreme."

This time it was my breathing that shuddered as his hands gripped my thighs, pulled them wider, and forced me to put all my weight on him. The pressure of his rock-solid cock between us? I moaned at the sensation against my already wet core and sensitive clit.

"The man last night? Had he not taken his own life, he would have bled out. He was a dead man the moment he touched you."

A second later, Tarek flipped us. I was under him, powerless and at his mercy.