Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
“How did a human girl escape you three?” a familiar voice asked.
“She jumped out of a window from five stories up and landed without injury. I don’t think she’s human,” another familiar voice responded.
Oh. Crap.
The Dragonkin.
I was on the ship with the Dragonkin.
I held perfectly still, slowing my breathing and my heart rate as much as I could. My cloaking device was active, but Dragonkin were one of the handful of beings who could see through it.
“Why were you so adamant about catching her anyway? The poor thing was terrified after being drugged and taken to be forced to marry that Bolsan,” the giant asked.
“Did none of you smell her?” one of them asked.
“No,” the giant one replied.
“You think she was—”
Whatever he was about to say died on his lips when he opened the door to the cupboard and saw me. His mouth dropped open and I lunged between his spread legs, headed for the door.
Unfortunately, there were three more Dragonkin in my way who moved faster than the first to block me.
The giant one wrapped his arms around my waist and lifted me up off of the ground.
“Put me down, Giant!” I yelled at him and struggled in his hold.
“How did you get on our ship?” the Dragonkin who’d saved me from the Bolsan, the one with grey eyes reminiscent of a storm cloud, asked.
“Why are you on our ship?” Giant asked at the same time.
“Scout—”
Giant wrapped his hand around my mouth. “No way. I’m not letting you use that weird little disc thing again.”
I thrashed my head around, but his grip on my mouth didn’t loosen. I licked his hand and he dropped me to wipe it off.
I tried to run, but the one who’d saved me grabbed my arm and stopped me.
“Easy. We’re not going to hurt you,” he said softly.
“Yuck,” Giant grumbled and wiped his hand on his leg.
“What do you want?” I snarled as I looked between the group. They were all focused on me, but hadn’t drawn a weapon or moved to do more than stop me from fleeing.
“Why are you here?” the one with pretty blue eyes, one of the two from the alley, asked.
“I hopped on the ship leaving Lothantai the soonest. I didn’t know it was yours,” I explained. Maybe some honesty would ensure they didn’t eject me out of the airlock. I could survive a lot of things, but space was not one of them.
“Where are you headed?” Giant asked, his shaggy hair falling forward and into his face for a moment before he shook it back.
“I don’t have a destination,” I said, half true.
“So, you jumped on the easiest escape and planned to get off wherever they landed?” my savior asked. His pearly grey eyes held amusement as he looked at me and he had the most sensuous lips I’d ever seen on a male of any species before.
I jerked my eyes away from his lips and up to his face. “Yeah.”
“So, even if we landed in the Port of Porantine, you’d still get off there?” he asked, a smirk forming on one side of his mouth.
Porantine was a rough port town on a planet with only letters and numbers as a name, known for its high rate of unsolved murders and missing persons. I had lived there for two years and almost been an unsolved missing person.
“Yeah. I have a house there I could stay in for a bit,” I answered truthfully.
Green eyes, the other one from the alley, walked over, picked up my hair, and inhaled. His eyelashes fluttered a moment, then he dropped my hair and backed away like I’d kicked him. “Frak.”
What the heck was wrong with him? Did my hair smell bad? It had been a bit since I’d had a bath, but I had used dry shampoo and scented spray just yesterday.
The four of them were ridiculously attractive and though their features were each different, they all had horns on their heads that were roughly the same size.
I might be able to take one Dragonkin on in a fight, but there was no way that I could defeat four of them without resorting to using Scout and potentially killing them.
Plus, the large one would definitely be an issue due to his much larger frame and heavier weight.
“I can pay you for letting me stay on your ship,” I told them, trying to find a way to stay alive. “Just name your price.”
“Take her to an empty room,” my savior ordered one of them.
Green eyes pushed open the door and waited for me. “Come on.”
“If you think you’re going to kill me, it won’t work,” I told my savior.
All of them smiled.
“We aren’t going to hurt you … what’s your name?” stormy eyes asked.
“You can call me Diamond,” I said.
“We aren’t going to hurt you, Diamond. We just need some time to talk alone and figure out what our next plan is going to be,” he explained. “I wouldn’t have saved you from the Bolsan just to hurt you.”
I nodded and followed green eyes out of the kitchen and down the hallway. He glanced at me periodically, but kept his mouth closed.
“What?” I asked him with a sigh.
“You’re human?”
“Basically.”
“And what else?”
“None ya.”
“So, you’re not a human, since you said, ‘basically,’ but you won’t admit what else you are. No way you’re human,” he argued. “No human could have survived that fall.”
I ignored him and he let the conversation die. At a doorway about fifty feet from the kitchen, he pressed a code into the door and it opened to reveal a bedroom with sparse furnishings, but lots of open space.
“You’ll stay here,” he said.
“Thanks,” I whispered and walked in.
He paused in the doorway. “The Bolsan, how did he get you?”
“His cronies drugged me. The drugs took a bit of time to work and I’d passed out in my room before they did. They broke in, grabbed me, and took me to the church. Once the drugs were out of my system, I escaped,” I explained.
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
I shrugged and smiled. “I got away, so it’s not a big deal.”
He chuckled and shut the door, but I still heard him say, “Weird girl.”
I had pretty good instincts, and they were telling me that I could trust the Dragonkin.
So, I went to the bathroom attached to my bedroom and took a long, hot shower.
Leaving Scout to keep an eye out, just in case.
While I might trust them a bit, I never trusted anyone fully. That was the only way I stayed alive.
Finally feeling more like myself after the shower, I changed into some bright purple and magenta leggings, a black tank top, and slipped on some sandals. Tying my hair back, I put on some eye makeup, mainly to hide the circles beneath my eyes and the bruise on my cheek.
The door to my room chimed.
“Who is it?” I called, checking my appearance one last time.
“Zeke,” the giant’s voice called.
“I don’t know who Zeke is,” I said, but opened the door. “Ah, Giant.”
He frowned and said, “I’m not a giant.” His eyes roved up and down my body as he took in my new clothing. I would be lying if I said it didn’t make my heart flutter just a bit for him to check me out.
“You’re the largest Dragonkin I’ve ever seen and much larger than me,” I said with a shrug.
“My name is Zeke,” he said again.
“Hi, Zeke.”
“We’re going to eat dinner and wanted to see if you would like to eat with us,” he said, his eyes fixed over my head at something.
“What are you looking at?” I asked, turning around.
“You put on concealer,” he said softly. “What are you hiding?”
Very perceptive.
“Dark circles under my eyes,” I informed him.
His scowl showed he didn’t believe me. “Are you going to eat with us?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
He stepped back from the door to let me out, then led the way to the dining room. The door to the dining room opened at our approach, revealing a long wooden table where the other Dragonkin were seated already. Beyond them, on the far wall, a round, window showed our surroundings.
I rushed to it, looking at the stars and planets I could see us sailing past. The planet to the far left had a rosy red hue to it.
“Aluron?” I asked out loud.
“Good eye,” Zeke commented.
“Where are we headed to?” I asked.
“Porantine,” my savior said. I really needed to find out his name.
Porantine was a good stop. I could pick up some things from my house before moving on to the next destination.
“What are your names?” I asked, turning away from the window.
All four were standing and facing me. Why were they standing?
“I’m Preston,” my savior with the grey eyes said and bowed to me.
“Gage,” green eyes answered.
“Wayne,” blue eyes answered.
“Brothers?” I asked.
They shook their heads.
“Friends,” Zeke answered.
“Partners,” Wayne added.
“Thank you, for stopping the Bolsan, Preston,” I said and bowed to him.
“Please, sit,” Gage said and pulled out a chair for me across from Wayne, beside Preston.
I sat and let him push my chair in. Being around males raised with manners was nice. Most places I went, I ended up ducking thrown chairs more than sitting in them.
“Dietary restrictions?” Zeke asked. He stood by a wall with a touchscreen panel on it, his hand poised to use it.
“None,” I replied.
He nodded and began selecting options on the menu too fast for me to see.
“Why were you on Lothantai?” Preston asked.
“Planet hopping,” I explained. “The ship I’d hopped on from my last destination took me there.”
“So, you just wander around hopping on and off ships with no purpose or reason?” Wayne asked.
“No,” I said, looking down. “I’m looking for something.”
“What?” Preston asked.
“It’s personal,” I whispered, my hands tightening into fists in my lap.
Silence.
“Food,” Zeke said, breaking the silence. He set plates of steaming food in front of each person, then himself.
“Scout,” I called softly.
Scout zipped out and hovered in front of my face. I glanced down and Scout chirped, dropped to hover just above my food, then a green light from its body covered my food. Scout chirped again and returned behind my ear.
“Did you just scan the food for poison?” Zeke asked.
“Poison or drugs,” I answered, then picked up my fork and took a big bite. I moaned as the flavors exploded on my tongue. “This is delicious.”
“We wouldn’t have saved you from the Bolsan just to poison or drug you,” Preston said.
I shrugged. “I’ve been drugged once this week. I’d like to avoid anything else happening.”
“What is that thing?” Gage asked, looking at Scout behind my ear.
“It’s a personal assistant,” I said with a smirk.
“What can it do?” Preston asked.
“A lot. You’ve already seen it scan for poisons and drugs and emit high frequency sounds to break glass and immobilize those with sensitive hearing,” I reminded them.
“Break glass? What?” Preston asked.
I smirked. “Oh, right. You weren’t there for that.” Instead of explaining, I shoveled a huge bite of food into my mouth.
“Anyone care to enlighten me?” Preston asked after several moments of silence.
“When we cornered her in her hotel room, she ran into the bedroom and used that thing to break a window and almost burst our eardrums,” Wayne said.
“Then she leapt out the window and somehow landed without breaking a single bone,” Gage added.
“Are you human? You smell human,” Preston asked, looking at me.
Why were they so concerned with what I was?
“Are you mixed?” Wayne asked.
“Nope,” I replied.
“No ordinary human could survive that fall,” Gage argued.
“I never said I was ordinary,” I said with a wink at him.
“Enhanced?” Zeke asked.
Damn, the big one was pretty smart after all.
I nodded.
“Government?” Wayne asked.
I shook my head. No, the government hadn’t done it. An insane scientist had. They’d experimented on me for years. Unfortunately for them, their enhancements worked and I was able to escape.
“Your expression makes it seem like it wasn’t voluntary,” Zeke said.
“No, it wasn’t voluntary,” I replied. I finished eating the food and stood. “Thank you for the food.”
None of them tried to stop me as I left, and I was glad for that. Thinking about the time spent in that laboratory always made me sad and want to just curl up on a bed and take a nap.
Half an hour after I’d left the dining room, there was a knock on my door.
“Who is it?” I asked, my arm slung over my eyes as I slouched in one of the chairs.
“Zeke,” he called softly through the door.
“Come in,” I said.
The door opened and I heard him walk in.
“Are you ill?” he asked.
“No,” I said and sat up with a sigh. “What’s up?”
He held out a plate with a piece of what looked like chocolate cake on it. “You left before dessert,” he said with a smile.
“Why are you four being so nice? I ran from you. I stowed away on your ship. Most would have just killed me.”
Not being killed made me immensely happy, but it also made me a bit nervous. I knew the intentions of those who tried to kill me. I didn’t like not knowing someone’s intentions.
He set the plate on the table beside me and sat down cross-legged on the floor, which still kept us at eye level. “What are you searching for?” he asked.
“It’s personal,” I whispered, my fingers reaching up to touch the necklace beneath my shirt.
“Well, we’re searching for something, too,” he said. “Maybe we can help each other.”
“You’re being too nice. I feel like I’m going to wake up with organs removed that you’ll sell,” I mumbled. “Scout.”
Scout zipped out and scanned the cake and gave me a chirp.
Zeke didn’t say anything, but I saw a muscle in his jaw twitch.
I picked up the cake and took a bite. It was chocolate and amazing.
“The cake is good, right?” Zeke asked.
I nodded, taking another bite.
“What do you know about Dragonkin?” he asked.
“You can shift into dragons or shift your wings out of your back. You can breathe fire and are immune to fire. You have a high rate of male births and as such, spend most of your life searching for a mate. Which confuses me about you guys being together. How can you search for a mate if you’re all together? ”
“What enhanced abilities do you have?” he asked.
“I don’t want to talk about that,” I said, shoveling another piece of cake into my mouth.
“Okay. Well, how about this? Let’s make a deal. You join us and help us find what we’re looking for and we will try to help you find what you’re looking for at the same time,” he said.
“How does this benefit you guys?” I asked.
“We can always use another person to watch our backs. Plus, I have a feeling that our fates are entwined,” he said.
“I don’t believe in fate,” I mumbled.
I didn’t, but having Dragonkin at my back would make searching for my objective much easier.
“I want a contract. One that states you can’t harm me and will protect me from others trying to harm me,” I said.
Something dangerous flashed in his eyes, but he simply nodded and said, “Okay.”
“And, I want to have free meals and board,” I added quickly.
The right side of his mouth lifted in a half-smirk. “Obviously.”
In my life I had made sure to listen to my gut and it was telling me that I could trust these Dragonkin. As nervous as trusting someone else made me, I felt like I was due for a break. Perhaps this was the universe’s apology for the shit hand I’d been dealt over the past decade.
“Fine. We’ve got a deal,” I said and held out my hand.