“He fainted.”

Men didn’t faint. Tomas merely kept his eyes closed, mostly because he didn’t want to deal with reality.

Because reality sucked.

It kicked a man in the balls and then choked him of all breath.

Reality hurt his chest.

Hurt so badly.

It couldn’t be true. Chandra, pregnant? Impossible. They had just slept together. Women did not get pregnant that quickly.

And, yes, he knew how pregnancy worked. He knew he could have inseminated her that first time they were fully intimate. But really, what were the chances it happened then? After that, he’d been careful. Always spilling outside her. Conscious even during pure bliss of how easy it would be to slip.

I should have used a condom.

He should have, but thoughts about a condom wouldn’t erase the fact that Chandra was pregnant, pregnant long enough for her to exude a certain scent that the dragoness noticed, which meant there was no way the baby could be his. Because she’d always smelled that way to him.

Upset at the thought—the lies, she lied to me!—Tomas brushed past everyone in his way.

Chandra reached out to him. “I didn’t know. I swear. I didn’t. This can’t be happening.”

The pain in her voice almost sent him to his knees. Showed that he cared.

Never. The pain did serve to remind him, though, of why he had his rules. Caring always hurt.

“Leave me alone!” he barked as he strode away from her. Leave me alone to my pain.

Tomas stomped out of there, ignoring her soft sobs, wanting to sob himself as he tried to make sense of the fact that Chandra was pregnant.

But how? She was a virgin. He’d swear to it. He’d been the first to claim her as a man claimed a woman.

He stripped down as he pondered. Stripped and changed before taking to the skies with an ululating shriek.

Was the whole virgin thing fake? It seemed so improbable. After all, who went so far though as to have skin and blood implanted to fool him into thinking she was a virgin? He didn’t care if she was, so why pretend?

It was real. And he was being ridiculous. Chandra had never been penetrated by a man before him. He’d swear it.

Then how could she carry a child? There had to be a logical answer.

Before being captured, she’d claimed to work long hours at Lytropia Institute. Then, once Parker got his hands on her, she was kept sequestered in the hidden lab. But how long was she kept hidden?

He still recalled her surprise when they escaped and she realized more time had passed than she’d guessed. A few days, at least. So many things could have happened during that time. Parker had shown he would do anything to anyone. Had he experimented on Chandra?

Did the result lie in Chandra’s womb?

It was possible. All it would take was artificial insemination. Parker wouldn’t have hesitated to do such a thing, and wasn’t it Ishaan who had said Parker had groomed Chandra as a host for babies?

The woman he’d claimed, the woman he’d been obsessed with since meeting, the woman who unleashed the protective lover in him, was pregnant by a madman, and he’d left her alone.

Alone and crying.

In a house full of dragons—who sometimes had strange cravings.

He’d left her with strangers to protect her.

Left her alone, knowing that this D’Ore fellow seemed capable of disappearing at will. And he did it in broad daylight. Tomas could only use shadows to conceal himself.

I am a fucking moron. He’d let the initial painful shock send him fleeing. Such a big, bad dragon. Not.

Time to man up and stop running.

He banked and turned around, pumping his wings hard to bring him back to the Silvergrace mansion.

He’d no sooner landed than Deka jogged up to greet him. “There you are. I figured you’d come back soon. It worked.”

“What worked?” he asked as he yanked back on the pants he’d hastily discarded.

“Your hissy fit. As soon as you stomped off, acting as if she’d done some horrible thing, the doctor asked us a few times if we were sure. Babette managed to procure a stick to pee on—which sent her mother into a fit because, hello, what does Babette need a pregnancy test for? Anyhow, the doctor peed on it and proved she was definitely preggers. I mean that stick lit up so quickly, Aunt Yolanda thinks it might be twins.”

The chattering only served to irritate. “I get it. She’s pregnant.”

“Yes, and she’s not happy about it. According to Aunt Waida, she said something rude in Swahili and then took off.”

“Took off? How?”

“She called a cab and took off. Without even saying goodbye.” Deka shook her head. “Humans can be so rude. But then again, it probably was for the best.”

No, it was not for the best, because Chandra wasn’t here. “Where did she go? I have to find her before Parker does.”

“Too late for that.” Deka pointed to her phone. “He got her like a few miles down the road. But don’t worry, he hasn’t removed the chip.”

Ah, yes, the chips they’d had installed while they were on the plane just in case someone thought to steal them again. Except, when they’d had it done, Tomas expected to be the bait taken, not Chandra.

Beep. Beep. Beep. The little dot pulsed red on the map, moving away from him.

Taking Chandra away from him. His blood pressure rose.

“Want to bet this is going to lead us right to Parker?”

Who cared about Parker? Tomas needed Chandra back. Now, before he unleashed his dragon and laid waste to the world.