Chapter 3

3

T here had clearly been a miscommunication somewhere.

The human, Neve, had been muttering to herself for several minutes as Pine directed her to the transport vehicle and drove them up to the manor. He thought he'd been clear with the matchmaker. She had suggested a human, but why would she send one with no knowledge of dragons?

"This can't be real." Neve gasped, and Pine followed her gaze to see an unfamiliar looping through the sky in the distance. "It's fake."

He had to fix this.

Fast.

The Yule Ball was coming up soon, and there wasn't time for the matchmaker to find him another human. It shouldn't matter. If he had a speck of decency, he'd turn the transport around and take Neve back to the hangar to send her home so that she could pretend this whole thing had never happened.

But decency was hard to cling to when he was desperate.

He turned the transport down a path away from the manor and towards the cliffs that bordered the lake on the edge of the estate. This human didn't believe in dragons? It was time to see if an example might be enough to snap her out of her daze.

They came to a stop, and Neve jolted. "What's going on? Where are we?" She sprang out of her side of the transport. There were no doors, and he hadn't thought to mention the safety restraint she should have had buckled over her hips. "What do you want with me?" She had her hands up, whether to ward off an attack or jab out a punch, he wasn't sure.

He kept his distance all the same.

Pine undid his safety restraint and powered down the transport before slowly walking around until he was closer to Neve, but still several feet away. "I'm sorry that we got off on the wrong foot. I thought I would … well, perhaps a demonstration is for the best."

He turned around and started sprinting. Neve yelled after him, but her words were swallowed by the wind.

Pine launched himself off the edge of the cliff and let the transformation take him over, body shifting and expanding from one form to the other in the blink of an eye. He spread out his blue wings and let the wind take him, soaring out over the lake and flying higher and higher until Neve was little more than a speck on the ground.

He let out a burst of fire, more to show off than anything else.

Joy lifted him even higher, his worries and grief falling down to the surface. There was nothing but the simplicity and complexity of flight up here. He wasn't carrying the mantle of a new title. He wasn't missing a father taken too soon. He wasn't concerned at whatever the future held for his sister.

He was just a dragon riding the wind.

He glided down slowly, circling around and around, catching site of Neve, who seemed to be mirroring his circles, her eyes never leaving his form. He shifted again, landing on two feet as a man just to see the shock on her face. He couldn't have stopped the grin that pulled at his lips if he tried.

"What do you think?"

Neve's mouth was hanging open, and she had to close it to gulp. He could see her throat working as she processed what she'd seen. "That's impossible."

"Not here." He gestured around. "You're on Vemion now, a planet ruled by dragons."

Her tongue darted out to lick her lips. "Can I see you again?"

* * *

Neve had gone off the deep end, and for some reason she wasn't desperately reaching for a life preserver. If this was going crazy, at least it was the coolest thing she'd ever seen.

She could worry about sanity later.

Pine's lips quirked up into a gentle smile, something that made a funny clench in her chest. Oh no. It was one thing to believe the guy could impossibly change from man to dragon, it was something completely else to be attracted to him. She would only allow her break with reality to go so far.

Instead of jumping off a cliff and trying to give her another heart attack, Pine took a few steps back, breathed deep, and the air around him shimmered for an instant before a giant blue beast stood before her.

She let out a breath and reached out a hand, her fingers trembling. The dragon lowered its head, and Neve touched the smooth scales, the heat of it making her gasp.

It felt so real. Like it couldn't be a dream.

But it had to be fake.

His blue scales shimmered in the sunlight, dragging her eyes towards the massive wings that he held tight to his body.

"I'm losing my mind," she whispered.

Then he lowered one wing, and she could swear she heard a voice in her head saying might as well go for a ride . It sounded like a stray thought, not like someone was trying to talk to her. And it sounded like Pine's voice.

More proof she was crazy.

But if this wasn't real, shouldn't she enjoy it?

Neve climbed his wing carefully, marveling at just how real it all felt. Scales and muscle moved under her feet, and it was an unsteady climb to the center of his back. He moved under her, and she nearly fell before finding her seat and clutching at a lump of scaly skin at the top of his back.

She never drove her car without a seat belt. This? This was going to get her killed.

But before she could call it off and jump for safety, Pine moved. There were none of the tricks she'd seen him pull a few minutes ago. Now he just walked gently towards the cliff and started pumping his wings, lifting off from the ground and soaring like it was nothing.

Neve pressed herself flat to his back and clenched her legs, hoping for more grip, the whole of his body unsteady under her.

Wind butted her face, her hair whipping around her and trying to lash her but only getting caught in her mouth.

This was real. It was all too real.

Neve screamed.

But somewhere in the middle of the desperate cry, it turned to laughter. How had this happened to her? She'd known it was impossible to win some winter getaway, but never could have imagined ending up on another planet . And yet, there she was. There was no way anyone could demand she go to her parents' vapid party if she wasn't even in the same solar system .

By the time Pine landed, she couldn't stop smiling.

This was the craziest thing that would ever happen to her. She had no idea how it was even possible. But it was as real as the bills piling up in her mailbox back home.

She'd just ridden a dragon.

She was on an alien planet.

She was going to enjoy it.

Scrambling off Pine's back was just as tricky as getting on, and she could already tell just how much her muscles were going to hurt in a day or two. It might have seemed like she was sitting still, but riding a dragon was a workout.

Pine shifted back to his human form, and he was smiling just as broadly as she was. "Thank you," he said.

"Thank me ? Why?" She tried combing her hair back into some semblance of order with her fingers but found they were shaking. She balled them into fists to try and tamp down the adrenaline.

"I had forgotten how fun it can be to just fly for the joy of it. I have been busy these last few months." The smile slid away, and whatever worries he was facing seemed to come back.

Neve wasn't sure what to say to that. "Why did you bring me here, Pine—should I call you Lord Pine? What's that all about?" The closest she'd come to any kind of lord was watching that show on Netflix. She was pretty sure it didn't count.

"Just Pine will do." He nodded towards the golf cart looking vehicle they'd ridden in. "Come, I'll explain as we drive to the house."

"How can I even understand you?" She wasn't going to question the evolution of it all. That was way too much for her fragile brain to handle at the moment. But even if two human-like species had managed to evolve on totally separate planets, there was no way they'd both developed English as a language.

Pine gestured behind his ear. "Feel around there. You should have been outfitted with a translator."

She did as instructed and felt several bumps right behind her ear. Touching them tickled, and she flinched, pulling her hand away. "How? This can't be real."

But it was.

They climbed back into the dragon golf cart, and Pine started driving. "You were brought here by the Intergalactic Dating Agency," he said out of nowhere.

"The what-ting agency?" Sure, she'd been on Tinder, but there hadn't been any dragons that she remembered.

"I'm not looking for a bride, I assure you."

"So you flew me a bajillion light years away to tell me you don't want to date? Do they not have texting on your planet?" Not that she wanted to date him , but no girl liked getting rejected.

"I'm not explaining this properly. King Venin is throwing his annual Yule Ball soon. I have just risen to my father's title, and as new head of the family must attend. The king is often in a matchmaking mood, and that is one complication I am hoping to avoid. So I asked the Royal Matchmaker to find me a date. That's where you come in."

Neve opened her mouth but couldn't find the right words to ask him why there were no eligible women on his own planet.

He took her silence as an invitation to keep speaking. "The party is nonsense, simply a time for the king to show off and the lords and ladies to dance around and be seen. I simply need to cement my position … Are you alright?"

She was frowning. She'd fled one vapid Christmas party and landed on a whole other planet, invited to one that was even worse. "Surely there was some woman on Vemion who could go? You didn't have to take me."

"I am sorry for that. Shade was not exactly clear on the process. I thought you would know all about this. Once the ball is done, I promise to send you home in the height of luxury. Don't you want to see how dragons party?"

It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Today was already an impossible day.

And what choice did she really have? She didn't know how to get home, and she doubted any spaceship she found would take Visa.

They crested a hill, and a giant manor house came into view.

Lord Pine was loaded.

But was he as good as his word?

"When's the party? I can't wait."