Chapter One
Sarra
Everything was going swimmingly. Which, for me, probably meant something was about to go wrong.
That was life’s inevitable curse on me. I studied to become a reporter, and I ended up in diplomatic relations. I was finally making enough money to take care of my father, then he passed away. Such is life.
The good luck I was referencing this day was the choosing ceremony. Each year, partial alien shifters called WereDragons would come to Earth to claim female mates. This used to be a more savage practice until Earth’s government decided to make a trade. They would line up the best possible breeders for the men to choose from, and in return, we could send scientists and research teams back to their planet Udora on year-long expeditions.
It was a mutually beneficial partnership between their government, “The Koth,” and Earth. I work for Riddell, a space station and organization in charge of unifying Earth and Udora. I worked directly under their chief director, Zaphira Reneau. We operated not only the choosing ceremonies, but diplomatic visits to Udora to retain our preferred conditions of peace.
Today, though, I was on the other side of the process. Today, I was chosen.
“You are going to lose your mind,” came the squeaky voice of Anita Conlin. She was the chief agent for sending couples back to Udora after the choosing ceremonies. Basically, this was just a fancy title for passport control. Also, she was my best friend.
“You’re going to be out of control for the first time ever, and it’s going to make you crazy,” she reiterated as she leaned against the check-in counter, swiping identity cards along with no interest as excited couples approached the partition.
She looked over at me with her light brown hair and large brown eyes. She had the darkest, most enviable eyelashes I had ever seen. Her hair was crafted into an intricate bun, and her wide lips smiled with a chiding grin as she continued, “Admit it!”
“Oh stop,” I grumbled with a half-hearted smile as I watched her work with little enthusiasm. I twirled my lanyard around my fingers and lost eye contact with her for just a moment. “It’s going to be fine.”
“And you get to keep your job then, or is this it? Should I just say my goodbyes now and call it quits for this friendship?”
A white dragon with long, elegant wings and deep black eyes stood at the counter with a gorgeous nurse on his muscular arm. He had spots of black and gold throughout his coloring, which was an unusual sight. He had just claimed the woman next to him an hour earlier. She had a blunt pixie cut and couldn’t seem to keep her hands off the shifter. She whispered in his ear and ran her hand down his body as he looked on with growing impatience with Anita.
He held his official documents out in front of him, but Anita didn’t notice.
“Good to know I’m that easy to forget!” I laughed.
“That’s five years down the drain, I hope you know,” she chattered with mock indignity.
“Shh,” I instructed in a whisper. “I’m keeping my job, okay? I’ll probably be back in a month or two.”
“Whew!” She wiped her hand along her forehead.
The white dragon huffed loudly and dropped his papers on the counter before turning back to glance at the growing line of couples, all anxious to get back on the shuttle and do some… coupling.
“Anita,” I lectured and darted my eyes toward the queue.
The couple behind the blonde pixie and her white dragon had gone from light pecking to full on petting and groping.
“I guess I’d better get this moving before it starts getting X-rated in here,” she said and quickly grabbed the papers off the desk. She looked the documents over before hammering a digital stamp down on the papers and sending the couple on their way, proving once again how efficient she was at her job. When she paid attention.
Anita stamped the next couple’s papers, but they didn’t seem to notice. Embroiled in their passions, Anita slammed the stamp down again and cleared her throat. “Honey!” she called out firmly. “Either give us a peep show or move along!”
The couple, embarrassed, shuffled off while the rest of the room filled with hushed laughter at their expense.
“Sluts,” she whispered with a roll of her eyes. “That’s so gonna be you, by the way.”
“Hey!”
“Hey, what? Oh, and have we mentioned that this is like a match made in heaven? You work with the space station, and he is a dignitary!”
“I know.” I chuckled. “And here I thought my trips to Udora would always be full of meetings and check-ins.”
She looked down at my match’s papers, already waiting at the desk for her to stamp through. Dignitaries got special treatment like that. She held his photo up and looked absolutely beguiled. “Does it bother you that he can’t show you around now?”
“Around Udora?” I clarified and felt increasingly puzzled by the question. “No, why should it?”
“That’s part of the fun!” she insisted. “Fun for him and for you. They love showing the ladies all the moss and the mountains, you know, as though we’ve never seen a blade of grass before. Then we swoon, and they feel proud,” she said with embellished gestures.
“Hopefully that’s not all he wants to show me,” I said suggestively with a quick raise of my brows.
“Or all you’ll be swooning about!” she added and we both burst into laughter usually reserved for women who were sharing a dirty secret.
“It’s all very manly,” she continued. “Gets their tails wagging, if you know what I mean?”
“You seem to have a lot of authority on this subject for someone who’s never actually been in a choosing ceremony.”
“I’m with Christopher!” she said, incensed. “Besides, just because I’ve never been chosen doesn’t mean I’ve never jumped between the sheets with a shifter.” She snickered and my face flushed at the sentiment. Then she looked horrified. “Please don’t tell Zaphira,” she said through gritted teeth; her eyes wide. “She would kill me. Figuratively. Maybe.”
I giggled and waved her off. “No worries. Speaking of Zaphira, though, she really didn’t seem too jazzed about all this.”
“Does she ever? Zaphira was the one who started this whole thing to begin with, so she’ll really have a lot of nerve saying anything about it.”
“She’s down on the whole process, all the time, every time,” I snapped. “Do you know she actually took me aside and told me not to take my ‘reporters cap’ off?”
Anita gave me a blank stare before her brows furrowed up into confusion. “What does that mean?”
“Who knows?”
“She’s probably just scared you’ll fall madly in love with sexy shifter Haden and spill all her dirty little secrets.”
I backed against the counter behind me and hoisted myself on top of the desk. She wasn’t wrong. I’d been accompanying Zaphira on meetings to Udora for six years now, ever since my 22nd birthday. I knew firsthand the relationship between Earth and the Koth. I knew the struggles they’d overcome to make the choosing ceremonies continue; the scandals.
I would have thought of myself as her confidant, of sorts, if Zaphira was the type to confide. Still, I knew how she liked her coffee and eventually knew how to run her operation just the way she liked it.
It was Zaphira’s job as the ambassador of Riddell, the organization put in place to maintain peace with Udora, to ensure everything ran smoothly between our planets. It was my job to do frequent journeys and monthly call-ins with the Koth to make sure Udora was still a safe space for humans to breed.
Funny. I’d used that term hundreds of times in the past. ‘Breeders.' That expression seemed so cold now that I was considered one of the breeders.
“So, are you coming with?” I asked, now desperate to change the subject.
“To your lovemaking swoon fest?” She winked. “I’ll pass.”
“No, idiot, to Udora.”
“Oh thaaat,” she said while drawing out her vowels. “Yes dear, of course. Why?” she asked suddenly, rushing my bag through security and then tossing it back over to me. “You itching for a chaperone?”
“Oh yes, that is me.”
“So, you ever met prince charming before?”
I shook my head. I’d met enough dignitaries by now to have forged a few friendship on the mountainous planet, but never Haden.
I’d been a reporter before Zaphira brought me into Riddell. She’d read several of my pieces regarding a different planet and its geopolitical drama and decided to scoop me up into her fold. I’d gladly accepted, of course. I wasn’t the only woman, nor reporter, who wanted to jump at the chance to meet the Koth.
There had even been several occasions where I’d flirted with the higher ups in passing. Partially to stroke my ego, partially to pass the time, and partially because they were so incredibly sexy.
“Seriously, though,” Anita huffed, jostling me away from my thoughts as she spun in her black leather office chair. “Please don’t be one of those girls who runs off and sleeps with the shifter on the first day. Those couples are never happy.”
“I think it’s kind of romantic,” I said.
“It’s not,” she responded bluntly, stamping the last couple through and pointing them to the nearest exit to the shuttle platform. “It’s just trashy.”
“Aww, they’re just excited.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”
The sooner a breeder could get pregnant, the more favorably she was looked on by the Koth.
“Here comes Prince Charming now,” she suddenly blurted, spinning back in her chair and watching my match walk through the blue tinted glass doors. Anita stood from her desk as he approached and nodded her hello to the black dragon. “Hello, Mr. Commissioner.”
“What a greeting,” he said in the most charming way possible; his eyes darting behind her to catch my attention. I slid off the desk and straightened my blazer out, suddenly all too aware of how handsome he was.
He had a deep, beautiful skin tone with black scales that seemed to He had short brown hair that was cut to a small fuzz that made him appear even more athletic and fierce, and blazing blue eyes that sat in his strong, square face. There were small patches of crystal shards patched in with his broad scales that I had never seen before on a shifter. These details made me want to get to know him even more.
“Hello again,” I said and tried not to smile like a teenager.
“Hello, Sarra. And may I said how incredibly charmed I am by your accent,” he responded.
Normally I hated when people said this. I’m English, and everyone thinks it’s a compliment to tell me how refined I sound when I speak or how fetching my accent is when, to me, they’re the ones who have the accent. Anita knows my irritation with this and offers a giggle as she buries her head in her hands.
Usually, I’d have some kind of sarcastic quip ready to defend myself with, but instead, I said, “I hope that isn’t all you’ll be charmed by.”
“Something tells me it won’t be,” he said with a smile.
“Ooh!” Anita gasped. “She must like you!”
“So,” he began, turning around for a moment to make sure there were no more couples waiting in the oversized room. “Are we able to leave together, or do you have some business to attend to?”
“No, no,” I said quickly. “I’m ready now. I wouldn’t want to keep my handsome shifter waiting.”
“Handsome, she says,” he said with a wry smile, looking over at Anita with an expression that said he was impressed.
“Oh, you like that, do you?” I asked flirtatiously.
“Sure,” he said with a shrug. “I mean, striking, powerful, and hilarious aren’t bad adjectives either. But handsome will have to do for now, as you’ve yet to know my handful of other pleasing qualities.”
“Pleasing, you say?” I smiled. “I will hold you to that.”
“I wouldn’t expect any less from a diplomat,” he said.
“And what’s up with men and their need to be funny?” I asked and looked to Anita, who gave me an equally passive, confused stare.
Haden’s brows raised far up his forehead and he shifted his arm above his head to scratch his back with a hint of clumsiness. “Is it wrong to want to make a lady laugh?” he asked nervously.
“No, but it’s like that’s the first thing they want us to think,” Anita interrupted. “It’s like once you get in a room with a woman, you all turn into a bunch of comedians.”
“Well, I assure you both my hilarious styling will speak for itself, thank you very much.”
Anita and I giggled amongst ourselves, and then I walked out from behind the counter. He took my hand and kissed it gently, his scales glowing ever so slightly as he made contact with my skin. He wore a blue blazer that perfectly complemented his eyes and black slacks. He was dressed like a gentleman.
“Just don’t think you can sweep her off her feet by giving her the ole’ tour of Udora,” Anita warned, grabbing a stack of papers with one hand while wagging her finger in his direction with her free hand. “She’s seen it!”
“Hello!” I began to laugh. “I can speak for myself, here!”
“I’m not worried,” he said coolly. “I can think of other ways to sweep her off her feet.”