Chapter One
Rosalyn
“Rosalyn Westfall!” came the stern call of the Riddell organization’s leader.
Riddell was the human organization run by a strong, well-respected, and well-feared woman named Zaphira Reneau. The organization had provided peace between planet Earth and the alien planet Udora by means of “Choosing Ceremonies.”
During these rituals, twelve females called forth to join in the yearly ritual performed as an alliance between Earth and Udora.
Udora was a planet approximately 3 weeks from Earth at light speed. The planet contained alien Weredragons known as shifters. Half man, half dragon. Spattered with fine physiques and beautiful scaling, the winged men would come and choose mates to bring back to their cold planet to breed with and continue their dragon race.
The choosing ceremony was a respected service that was a great honor for the women involved. This year, I was to be chosen.
Me. Rosalyn Westfall.
I stared into the mirror as the program coordinator called for me once more from the hallway. My long, mousey-brown hair was curled and styled, and I had packed on as much mascara as was humanly possible to make sure when I batted my lashes at my shifter-to-be, he could actually see them.
I pursed my lips and shrugged helplessly at my reflection. I wanted so badly to be one of those girls who was effortlessly sexy and desired, but I was just the girl next door. Simple. Educated as hell, sure. Funny? I’d say so. But not a ‘take me now’ kind of gal.
With a sigh and one last adjustment to my pinstriped skirt suit, I decided I was done fussing over my appearance.
“Coming!” I yelled, grabbed my purse, and took to the hallway.
Outside my door stood the program coordinator’s assistant, Amelia. This woman was one of Zapphira’s two right-hand women, the other being a prodigy named Sarra Hayes. Both women had started out as low-level assistants, and both ended up in high positions of power, married to shifters themselves and both having given birth several times now.
“You all ready?” came Amelia’s sweet-yet-formal tone. She looked me over once and made no expression. That in itself made me feel nervous in a way, like I’d done something wrong.
I wasn’t the usual type that Riddell chose as a potential shifter mate. I wasn’t in government, I didn’t have a particularly great job, just part-time nursing, and I wasn’t strikingly beautiful. Yet, when the obligatory call came out for the choosing ceremony contenders, I was chosen.
Tugging at the collar of my shirt, I noticed that the buttons around my bust were pulling, as they always did. This was the cross we large-chested women had to bear. No button-up shirts, no low-necked shirts… in fact, shirts in general just weren’t our friends.
I wanted to ask Amelia if I was dressed alright but the sudden look of annoyance she shot my way reminded me how many times she must get such questions.
As one of the potential choosings, I had spent weeks living at the Riddell space station headquarters to receive training for life on another planet.
Walking with Amelia, we began to collect other girls from their rooms, all of us having been informed this morning that we had a matter of hours to get ready before the choosing ceremony would finally begin.
“The Weredragons have already arrived,” she said happily as she walked us toward the shuttle grounds. The building was vast and white; sterile and stylish was the joke the girls and I had come up with. The hallways were long and mostly made of glass, with bright white lights that lit up every inch of the station.
The panes of glass gave us a direct glance out toward the dragon shifters, who were all standing in a row, eagerly awaiting their potential mates. Awaiting us. My stomach suddenly began to flip as I realized this was real. This wasn’t training anymore.
While I tried not to be nosey, I could see in my peripheral that nearly all the girls were looking over at the dragons. Some were cool and collected, while others began to shake and seemed unable to participate in Amelia’s small talk any longer.
As a blue shifter dragon outstretched his wings in the distance one of the girls behind me fell to the floor.
“Stephanie!” one of the girls shouted and rushed to the redhead’s side.
“Clear the way,” Amelia said, shuffling us away from the tall and beautiful ginger who had collapsed before our very eyes. We followed her direction and watched as our director knelt down beside the girl, all business.
Reaching down to a tablet, Amelia made a few keystrokes with her fingers and then called for medical. We waited for just a few minutes before they arrived to resuscitate the girl.
My eyes went wide as I made contact with an icy blonde named Carolina.
“I swear they do that on purpose,” she said with a feminine droll.
“What?” I asked as Amelia began leading us out of the hallway and away from our friend. “Make people pass out?”
Carolina gave me a perplexed look and scoffed a small laugh. “No, Rosalyn. Those windows,” she gestured back to the hall with her eyes before snapping them forward and pretending to listen to Amelia. “They just want us to get a glimpse of the men,” she whispered. “See how we’ll react.”
“Wow. That’s kind of like a weird survival of the fittest,” I shrugged.
Carolina laughed and grabbed my hand; she could tell through my sarcasm that I was upset. “Something like that. I think they either want us to get the fear and shock out of our systems before we meet them in person or they want to get our panties wet.”
“Uh, right,” I said awkwardly, hoping desperately that my face didn’t betray how disgusted I was with her phrasing.
I wasn’t a prude, exactly. But as I looked her over—finger-waves of ice-blonde hair, bright blue eyes, lashes for miles and a respectable blue dress that covered her perfect body—I just couldn’t imagine that someone who looked so respectable would say something like that without so much as a flinch.
“So, are they?” she asked, leaning into my face with a devilish grin.
I blinked, choked. “Wet?”
She giggled under her breath and shook her head, getting a pointed stare of reprimand from Amelia.
“Scary,” she corrected, though I suspected she really did mean wet.
“No,” I raised my brows and inhaled slowly. “On both counts.”
That’s what I’d said anyway, but the truth was the shifters were an absolute source of fascination for me and had been ever since I’d hit my teens. They were so built: well chiseled and each so unique to their dragon species. I read that their different colors represented different specialties. I’d also heard that they could tell which human they would bond with based solely on whether their scales glowed when they approached her.
Were they scary? Sure. Were they handsome? Yes.
I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be close to one. I’d never seen one before and the idea that not only would I be interacting with him on a daily basis, but also sleeping with him quite immediately left me flabbergasted, excited, fearful, and full of anticipation.
Carolina stared at me, hard, as we walked. Finally, her lips curled up into a secret grin, and she nearly laughed as she whispered, “Liar.”
My face flushed red, and I offered her a playful wink. I’d connected with Carolina most of all during my time at Riddell, though I couldn’t fathom why. She was nearly my exact opposite. She was fiercely sexual, outspoken to the point of obnoxious, and she had studied political science for space relations.
I’d taken art and nursing in college. I’d studied them both and, despite my part-time position at a local hospital, I didn’t have a diploma for either. My sister would say I was diverse. My parents would say I was fickle.
My sister Mara died five years ago from the flu. I remember hearing the news and thinking… who dies from the flu? The shock allowed me to laugh at the comment, but everything after that moment came in waves of shattering emotions. She had always been the fire that I was lacking; my biggest supporter in everything. Maybe that’s why I was drawn to Carolina. She was that same kind of outspoken-yet-sweet girl that Mara was.
The girls all headed out into the early evening light, the sun casting warmth around everything in sight. As we aligned ourselves in one uniform row before the shifters, the air suddenly began to change. There was electricity and a sexual energy that somehow managed to fill even the massive space station.
As if signaled by an invisible cue, the elegant shifters with beautiful scales began to depart from their stations and make contact with the women who would be their mates.
There was a flood of wind as their wings forced them to rush to the girls and, one by one, there became fewer girls on the tarmac. Carolina was chosen by an orange shaded shifter with oval scales and shimmering wings with see-through patagium. He looked fierce and strong and picked her up, playfully spinning her before taking her back to his standing.
I stared down at my white heels and crossed one foot over the other, maintaining my balance as a flush started to creep up my face. Nobody likes being chosen last, and now I didn’t even have girls close enough to me to make awkward conversation with.
I knew that there were two fewer girls than there were dragons. These scientists would be escorted back to Udora with the rest of us, but as researchers, not breeders. This was a different kind of honor; to go and study a new planet and see what this new world had to offer planet Earth. But, it wasn’t exactly what the women who signed up for this were hoping for.
A sudden burst of wind interrupted my thoughts, and I looked up to find a beautiful white dragon standing before me. He was pale and exotic looking, with narrow shoulders and long white hair coming down his back and through the crest of his wings.
I felt my heart jump to my throat as he offered me a smile. His eyes were a pale blue, the same tone that reflected in his nearly transparent scales.
I felt a rush of goosebumps run up my spine and I offered the man a genuine smile.
“Hello,” I said shyly, allowing him to take my hand in his.
“Hello,” he responded with a nod. “My name is Galsthenn, the white dragon.”
“I see that,” I giggled and he kissed my hand. “Rosalyn Westfall,” I offered.
“Rosalyn,” he stood, towering up an intimidating six and a half feet. I stood a mere five foot three. Boy, were we going to be a funny looking pair. “I love your name,” he said and tucked my hand on his bicep, looping our arms through one another.
I smiled.
I looked back over and saw the program's director, Zaphira, appear before the crowd and greet one of the Weredragon diplomats before exchanging what appeared to be very formal words. They shook hands, and Zaphira regarded the rest of us, congratulating us on our new mates and the unimaginable joy that our new lives would bring once we reached Udora.
That’s when it hit me: this was real.
I looked up again at the Weredragon beside me once more and felt his cold skin against mine. I brushed my thumb back and forth against the scales on his hand absentmindedly, and he jerked his hand but never let go of mine.
I never make good impressions.
“Sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sure I’ll get this you-me thing down soon. I hope you’re not disappointed.”
His forehead creased and he chuckled, almost confused, as he stared down at me. “I chose you,” he stated, as though that should clear everything up between us. “I could never be disappointed.”
I raised my brows matter-of-factly and smiled his way. “Get back to me once we hit Udora and I’ll ask you again.”
I felt an immediate power being in the presence of him. I was in awe in a way that I hoped wouldn’t show on my face. I didn’t know if he would consider my fascination with his appearance to be rude or preferred.
Rude or not… it was true what they all said about shifters. They were enchantingly handsome. I could feel the sex appeal from the other shifters as they came and went, but this one seemed so refined in his immediate seduction. I wanted to say ‘and you chose me?’ and ask him what possessed him to take my hand out of the line of other beautiful women, but instead, I just said: “Thank you.”