Chapter 4
Kytrima hadn’t intended to kiss the human.
It made no sense.
She couldn’t possibly trust him enough to let him help her enter the Mesmer. His brother had shot her. And he was determined to find his brother.
If all she’d had to do was sleep with him, that would have been okay. But in order to enter the Mesmer, she had to sync her vital signs with his. Once she’d done that, she’d be entirely at his mercy. The Mesmer sleep was a deep trance, allowing her body to heal, but while it did, she’d been unable to defend herself in any way.
To even be considering it was madness.
Far better to use the phone, as he had suggested, and call her clan.
That was the sensible option. She could tell them Calrian’s chamber was unguarded and get them to send someone out, and they could call on their human resources in Mungaloo to find out where the princess was hiding.
Trouble was, it meant handing this over to someone else.
Someone else would find the princess. Someone else would be guarding the Mesmer chamber. She couldn’t even prove that the princess had been here. She’d just be in disgrace for leaving the prince’s Mesmer chamber unguarded. She’d never make it back to any position of power.
Unless she found the princess…
She put her hands against the human’s chest, and kissed him, giving it everything she had.
If there were some way to bring him over to her side…
His lips were warm and surprisingly soft. Something hard jabbed into her rib cage between them, the object he had been carrying.
He didn’t move it. Keeping it between them, almost as if it could protect him.
But he was kidding himself. He was kissing her back.
If Kytrima could do this, she could return home a hero. If she found the princess, leaving her post unattended would be nothing. The dragons still protected in their Mesmer chambers were useless. All they could do was watch them, like they had for the last three hundred years. Yes, they could attack anyone who tried to wake them. They had, many times.
But none of that got them any closer to winning this war. None of it got Ultrima any closer to his princess.
And if the Rian clan had showed up in force to wake the prince, as they had last time, her presence, her calling the clan, none of that would have helped. Ever since Rian clan had used a human to wake Prince Taurian, the balance of power had shifted. With the human’s help, Rian clan had put up a good fight when they’d turned up to wake Prince Verrian. They might even have won if the fight hadn’t been interrupted.
In three hundred years, even with all their watching and waiting, no one had managed to get hold of one of the Rian princes or princesses. She would be the first. What glory that would bring her.
She just had to convince this human to help her.
As if sensing her determination, the man pulled back, breathless, his eyes searching her face.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
He didn’t look very safe or trusting.
“Is this what you did to Brad?” His eyes widened, as though something had occurred to him. “You’re not the girl he’s had a crush on, are you? Lyrian I think her name was?”
A strong denial hovered on the tip of Kytrima’s tongue. But she paused, trying to figure out how she could use this. If she could convince him to help her…
“No, I’m not,” she admitted. “She’s the one I’m after, actually. Not your brother.” She paused and stared into his eyes, swaying her hips towards him, wishing the hard object he held wasn’t still between them. “She’s bewitched your brother with her… wiles. He needs your help to escape from her.”
The man’s eyes widened, and his expression wavered. She could see the uncertainty in his eyes. “Like you’re doing with me?” He pulled back a little then, shaking his head as though to rid himself of some curse.
He gave her a lopsided grin. As though he wanted her to convince him otherwise.
As though he wanted to believe that by helping her, he’d be helping her brother.
She’d almost won him over, but this was the delicate part. She needed just enough to convince him that she was genuine while still promising him all the excitement that he was hoping for.
Trouble was, this wasn’t something she was doing deliberately. Dragons might have magic, but not to manipulate people like that. She’d intended to straight out seduce him, but something else was going on.
And it was affecting her too.
If it weren’t for the fact that she needed his help so much, she would have pulled out of this now, while she still could.
Instead, she made herself keep just a little distance between them. “You are free to go, if that’s what you really want. I won’t stop you. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding your brother on your own. Be careful of that woman of his though. She’ll cause trouble.”
He didn’t move, of course. He stared at her instead, his expression uncertain.
The story was close enough to believable.
Even he suspected something wasn’t quite normal about Lyrian.
Who wouldn’t? The wind dragon certainly had enough quirks that she would always struggle to fit into the human world. Not like lightning dragons. No one would guess she wasn’t human unless she told them.
“But they have a baby together,” the man said, his voice uncertain. “Or at least, that’s what Brad said…” he trailed off.
Good, he was off balance. Just where she wanted him.
She ran her hand up and down his arm, trying to ignore the fact that the caress sent goosebumps up her arm.
She could convince him to help her. There was only one problem. For this to work, she was going to have to admit the truth to him.
Well, she wouldn’t be the first one to do that.
“She isn’t human,” she said solemnly. “She’s a dragon.”
He laughed at that, but the laugh was uncertain, wavering. “Come on, you don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”
But his protest was half hearted.
He already knew, in his heart. His brain just had to catch up.
Kytrima let her eyes transform again, and stared solemnly into his, not saying anything.
His breath hitched, and he swallowed. “You are too, aren’t you? Is that why Brad shot you?”
He was taking it well, for a human.
“I am,” Kytrima agreed. “And I was in dragon form when your brother shot at me. I wasn’t expecting to see him. It is my job to find Lyrian, and bring her to my clan for discipline. She has meddled in too many human affairs for us to let her continue. But to do that, and to rescue your brother, I need your help.”
She made up a story willy-nilly, no care for how believable it was.
If he could believe she was a dragon so readily, he’d swallow anything.
Yet he was frowning. “Wait a sec. Does my brother have a baby with her, or not?”
She could see the loyalty flashing in his eyes, and for a moment, she felt a little jealous. This man truly did love his brother. He wanted the best for him.
He’d probably even risk his life for him.
But she had that with her clan. That was why she was here. Why did she feel jealous of a human’s loyalty? It made no sense. Kytrima pushed the feeling away.
“Of course it’s not his. Dragons and humans can’t produce offspring,” she lied. “She’s trying to pass the baby off as his so that he’ll protect her from us. And he’ll do his best to. I don’t want to hurt your brother, he’s not who I’m after. He’s been hoodwinked by this dragon. If you help me, I can get her away without him being hurt.”
Still the human hesitated. “He’s going to be so disappointed,” he said quietly. “I thought this might be it, that he’d finally found someone who could pull him out of his self-absorption.”
Kytrima tried to curb her impatience. “He’s going to be far more hurt the longer it takes for him to find out the truth,” she pointed out. “But maybe he’ll learn a lesson from it anyway.”
She’d only added the last bit as a throwaway comment, but she could see the man’s eyes narrow.
“If I help you, you’ll see that he isn’t hurt, right? You promise me?”
For some reason, Kytrima hesitated. She didn’t care about either of the humans. If she had to sacrifice his brother to bring the princess home, it meant nothing to her. She wasn’t sure why she suddenly felt bad about that. Why should she put some human’s safety over the goals of her clan?
She’d already lied to this human, why did she feel so bad making a promise she didn’t intend to keep?
Why did she need to make a promise anyway? His body was close to hers, and his promise held a desperate note. He was already won over. He just didn’t know it yet.
“I can’t promise that,” she said firmly. “I will do everything I can to see that he isn’t hurt, but I can’t control her. Nor can I sacrifice the safety of your people and mine to protect him. You understand that, right?”
The man stared at her, a hopeless expression on his face. “I understand,” he said slowly. “But please, try to keep him safe.”
“I’ll try,” Kytrima agreed.
And for some reason, she meant it.
Well, it wasn’t like the human meant anything to her. So long as she got the princess and her baby, that was all she needed. The human could go free. She could give both of them enough of a scare that they’d never mention this story to anyone.
Not that anyone would believe them if they did.
The Trima clan had connected with more humans than the Rian clan. Until they’d chosen a human to wake Taurian, those crazy Rian dragons had kept to the rule of not talking to humans, despite how much the world had changed in the last three hundred years.
Their loss. Though it did seem they were trying to make up for it now.
It was possibly to use humans and still keep the secret, though with the way things were going with the Rian dragons hiding amongst the humans, and the Trima dragons searching for them, perhaps their secret wouldn’t last another three hundred years.
That wasn’t Kytrima’s worry.
Lyrian was. She stared into the human’s eyes, trying to guess if he was going to agree to help her. Trying to judge if she could trust him enough to let him help her enter the Mesmer.
He stared back.
Electricity sparked between them, causing Kytrima’s breathing to hitch. Warmth flooded through her, concentrating in intense pools everywhere he touched her. Her world tilted on its axis, and she was having trouble remembering why she was doing this.
It wasn’t supposed to feel this good.
What was going on? She was using this human, not falling for him. That wasn’t part of her plan. Not at all.