11. Chapter 10

Jasmine raced back to the Keep, but she couldn’t calm her thoughts. What in the name of heaven did she just see? She saw Rocor and Warku turn into dragons. That might have shocked her, but it certainly didn’t shock Gao and Callan. They stood back and watched the fight. They knew all along the two men would change into dragons.

This could mean only one thing. The Krataks were dragons. Nothing else made sense. In fact, it made so much sense Jasmine wondered why she didn’t figure it out before. What else could explain the color patterns under their skin? What else could explain the tapestries, the mystical designs in the Krataks’ clothing, their ornaments—in everything?

Everything she experienced since she landed on this planet crowded into her mind. One memory after another demanded her attention. No wonder Rocor blamed Fawks for the shuttle crash. Fawks was the white dragon who attacked them. So why did he save them after the fact? Maybe Rocor could explain that, too.

Rocor! How could she ever look at him again? How could she stand to be around any of these people again? She had to get out of here. She had to get off this crazy planet, and fast.

How could she do that without telling her teammates where she was going? She couldn’t get off the planet at all. General Duncan told her point blank they would be stuck here if they didn’t leave with her when they had the chance.

She hurried down the passage. She kept control of herself just enough to avoid breaking into a run. Where could she take refuge while she figured out exactly what she should do? Only one place in this place offered her any solace. She found her way back to her room. It looked exactly the same as it did when Freya first showed it to her. She hadn’t even slept in the bed. She spent last night with Rocor in his secret den.

She slammed the door and bolted it against the world. She still couldn’t get her mind to function. Every instinct told her to scream and run, but she had nowhere to run to. She had to confide in somebody, but who?

She had to tell her teammates. They came here to study the Krataks. She couldn’t keep this to herself. She tore the door off its hinges getting out of that room—and stopped. Right outside her room, with his hand raised to knock, stood Rex.

Jasmine stiffened. She narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you want? I thought I told you to stay away from me.”

He gave her his crooked grin and sauntered into the room. “I was going to invite you to take a walk with me outside. You said you wanted to collect samples. Why not combine that will a nice walk in the park?”

She snorted. “I have enough samples, thank you very much, and I’m not going anywhere with you. Now get out of my room.”

He nodded over his shoulder. “I thought I heard somebody running. Was that you? Were you in some kind of hurry?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He eyed her, but he wouldn’t stop smiling. He stepped closer. “Give a guy a break, Jasmine. Give me a chance to make it up to you.”

“Make it up to me! You lied and humiliated me in front of everybody, and now you want to make it up to me? How do you propose to do that?”

He slung his arm over her shoulder. “I just told you. Take a walk with me outside. You know you’ll feel better.”

She marched away from him to stare out the window. “I’m not going outside. I was just out there.”

He frowned. “You were? Oh.”

She spun around to yell at him again when she paused. Should she tell him what she knew? He was a member of this team, wasn’t he? She couldn’t exactly tell the others without telling him, too. What would he do if he found out? She didn’t have to ask. He would tell the Allied Command. That was his job.

He leaned against the bed and set his hands on his hips. “Let me guess. You were out there with Rocor, weren’t you? You’ve gotten awfully close to him lately. Is there something you want to tell me?”

Jasmine gulped. “Rocor?”

“Yes, Rocor,” he breezed. “You’ve been keeping some big secret from me. I thought you trusted me enough to tell me anything.”

Jasmine thought fast. Was he trying to trap her into revealing something? What if he already knew about the Krataks? Was this his creepy way of testing her loyalty?

He pushed himself off the bed and sidled up to her again. He bent over to kiss her, but she couldn’t respond, even to push him away. She could only stare at him with her mind in a ferment. She trusted him when she revealed her doubts about the Allies. He already knew about that. Maybe she could trust him with this, too. If anyone could help her, he could.

Out of nowhere, she became aware of his lips touching hers. A shiver ran down her body, and she shuddered all over. She found herself staring into his blue eyes at close range. How different he looked from Rocor! How sallow and empty his skin looked without those designs and shapes competing for real estate all over his face.

He misunderstood her reaction. He put his arms around her and clasped her against his puny body. He couldn’t hold a candle to Rocor in sheer masculine power and magnetic attraction. What did she ever see in him? Even his kiss disgusted her.

He hugged her against him and leaned back to pull her toward the bed. She squirmed out of his arms. “Don’t, Rex. I don’t want to be with you like that again. I’m finished with you.”

He snorted and came at her again. “You don’t mean that. You might still be mad at me, but you can’t just end it, just like that. We’ve got too much potential, you and me. Forget about Rocor. Come and lie down in bed with me. You won’t regret it.”

Every nerve went on high alert. “Rocor! What does he have to do with this?”

The grin evaporated off his face. “You never had any problem with me before you met him. You knew I represented the Allies. What did you think I was going to do if you turned against them? Don’t you think Rocor would do the same thing if you turned against him?”

Jasmine crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re jealous of Rocor, aren’t you? That’s what this is all about.”

For the first time since she first met him, Rex Masters actually frowned. “I am not jealous of Rocor. I could never be jealous of a brute like him. I know you’re too much of a woman ever to be attracted to him.”

Jasmine burst out laughing. “If that’s true, why do you keep mentioning him when we’re not even talking about him? I told you I don’t want to have anything more to do with you, Rex, and that has nothing to do with Rocor or anybody else. It has nothing to do with anything except you. I know you better now than I did before. I know you represent the Allies and nothing else. You stick with the Allies and leave me alone.”

He opened his mouth to give her some other nonsense, but she held up her hand. She would never listen to another word he said. She would never tell him what she knew, either. He knew nothing about the Krataks, especially not this, and he would never find out if she didn’t tell him.

She decided then and there she would never tell a living soul what she knew. What was she going to say—that the Krataks were really dragons in disguise? Yeah, right.

She shoved Rex to the door and dragged him through it. He frowned even deeper. “What are you doing, Jasmine? We’re in the middle of a conversation.”

“Not anymore. Go back to whatever you were doing before you heard me running down the passage. I don’t have time to bother with you right now.”

He watched her race away. “But where are you going?”

She waved over her shoulder. “I have to talk to somebody. I’ll see you later.”

Talk to somebody! Man alive, did she need to talk to somebody! She had to get this secret off her chest, and fast. If she didn’t talk to somebody about it now, she would have to tell one of her teammates, and she didn’t want to do that.

She raced down the passage heading for the main hall. She must surely find an Assan there, and it wouldn’t be one of the brothers. Who would it be? She could only guess. She didn’t want to unburden herself to just anybody. She couldn’t think of one person she would feel comfortable unburdening herself to, but she would take what she could get.

The moment she walked into the hall, her spirits soared. She spotted Freya standing in the far corner. Freya! Of course! Jasmine couldn’t have hoped for a better person to spill her guts to. Why hadn’t she thought of Freya in the first place?

Freya stood with her back to Jasmine, but she turned around when Jasmine rushed over. Her face brightened. “Hello there, Jasmine. I’ve been looking for you.”

Jasmine panted, all out of breath. “Have you? I’ve been looking for you, too.”

“Have you? What have you been looking for me for?”

Jasmine looked around. Her heart raced in her chest. They were completely alone. This was the moment of truth, make or break. If Jasmine didn’t get through to Freya now, all hope was lost.

Before she could blurt out the truth, Freya started talking instead. “I talked to Gao about the Keep’s construction, but I haven’t been able to find Sophia to tell her what he said. He said there’s a document in the archives room at Harkniss Keep that describes in detail how the ancestors carved the stones and mixed the mortar to build the….”

“I know all about the dragons, Freya,” Jasmine interrupted. “I saw Rocor and Warku fighting in the forest a few minutes ago. I saw them change into dragons. I know everything about it.”

Freya stopped with her mouth open and stared at her. “You do?”

Jasmine nodded. She couldn’t control her emotions. She didn’t say that very eloquently or as calmly as she wanted to, but at least she got it out in the open.

Freya shut her mouth. “Oh.”

Jasmine held her breath and waited. Freya studied her for such a long, tense minute Jasmine wondered if Freya knew anything about it herself. Maybe the men kept some kind of secret from their own sister. How was that possible?

Freya took a breath. “Well, if you know, you know. That’s all there is to it. So, you know. What are you going to do now? I suppose you’ll tell your friends and your Command. That will be the end of our secret—and our advantage.”

Jasmine gasped. “Your what?”

Freya straightened up. “I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out for yourself. Didn’t you know? When the Allies first contacted our people about sending your so-called research mission to this planet, our patriarchs all got together to discuss the situation. They agreed to keep our dragon nature a secret. They realized pretty early on your Allies weren’t the benevolent democracy you claimed to be. They suspected the Allies wanted to invade us, and this research mission was just a ruse to get their people inside our Keeps.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying all along!” Jasmine cried.

Freya nodded. “You haven’t said anything we didn’t already know. We kept our dragon nature a secret, so that when the Allies did decide to invade, we would have some advantage over them. Now you’ll shoot your mouth off to your friends, and that advantage will be gone.”

Jasmine stared at her. “I would never do that. I’ve done everything to convince your brothers to take the Allies threat seriously. I couldn’t tell my friends. Any one of them could pass the information to the Allies.”

“I might agree with you, but how are you going to keep it a secret? You would have to lie to your own teammates.”

“I just lied to Rex—at least, I didn’t tell him the truth. They’ll never find out if I don’t tell them.”

Freya frowned. “I guess not.”

“Your brothers pose a much bigger threat than I do,” Jasmine went on. “Isn’t there any way we can convince them to leave the Ulasso alone?”

“I don’t see how,” Freya replied. “The Ulasso are our oldest enemies. We understand how to fight them. No one knows the first thing about the Allies.”

“I do,” Jasmine countered. “I don’t know anything about the Ulasso, except what I saw from Fawks, and that certainly didn’t make him my enemy.”

“He attacked your shuttle,” Freya pointed out. “He tried to kill you, and his people could do a lot worse if we let this incursion pass. They’re extremely dangerous.”

“What makes them so dangerous? Why do you keep insisting they’re so evil when they’re just another Clan?”

“They have advanced technology.” Freya compressed her lips. “There. I said it. Now you have two secrets to keep instead of just one.”

Jasmine’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious? What kind of technology are we talking about?”

Freya counted off on her fingers. “Space flight. Weapons capable of shooting down large space ships. Interstellar travel and communication. Political relations with other worlds in the galaxy. Advanced methods of producing large amounts of food. They live in vast underground cities under the deserts to the south. They are far more than just another Clan. One of their cities houses millions of people, and they have hundreds of cities. They could easily over ruin the rest of us if they chose to do so.”

A broken cry escaped Jasmine’s throat. “This is wonderful! Don’t you see! If what you say is true, the Ulasso could defeat the Allies.”

Freya nodded. “They could defeat the Allies with ease, and with no help from the rest of us.”

Jasmine grabbed Freya by the shoulders. “Don’t you understand? We have to make peace with the Ulasso, not attack them. We have to get them fighting for us. They can protect the rest of the planet from any Allies invasion. We have to send them a message. We have to sue for peace. We have to convince Rocor and the others to drop this silly attack.”

Freya held up both hands. “Slow down. You don’t know what you’re asking. My brothers will never make peace with the Ulasso, much less fight alongside them against a common foe.”

“The Allies will destroy your whole planet if they don’t.”

Freya nodded. “They would probably accept that rather than approach the Ulasso with a message of peace.”

Jasmine chopped the air. “We can’t let them. We can’t let them drag the whole planet down over some ridiculous conflict. If the Ulasso can stand up to the Allies, we have to get them working with us. We have to alert them and convince them to stand with us, no matter what it takes.”

Freya squeezed her arm. “I might agree with you, but you don’t understand these men. They will never take a suggestion from a woman about what they should do. As long as you keep pushing for this, they’ll do the opposite.”

Jasmine humphed. “There must be some way to get them to change their minds.”

Freya chuckled. “I’ve known them all my life, and they haven’t changed their minds yet.”

Jasmine turned away. “I can’t give up that easily.”

“Well, if you want help with anything, you let me know.”

Jasmine turned back to smile at her. “Actually, just having someone to talk to about this helps a lot.”

Freya grinned. “I wondered how long it would take one of you people to catch on. I’m glad it’s you.”