Jade heard the princess lashing out at Dragon. The woman’s voice was high and slipped under the door, reaching her ears.

Dragon would marry those two women and have kids with them. That was the way of the dragon shifters. The intergalactic voyage from Earth to the Fifth Moon System had altered the shifters’ physiology, making it impossible for them to shift at will. Only when in life-threatening situations did their dragons come out to heal them as Jade had the rare opportunity to witness. Another consequence of prolonged exposure to cosmic rays was that shifters couldn’t procreate any longer. Special brides were engineered to bear them progeny. In the case of the dragon shifters, two princesses were created to increase the chances of a successful pregnancy, because dragon children were difficult to conceive. It was public knowledge, and until a day or two ago, it had meant nothing to Jade. The man shouldn’t have survived meeting her.

But now, she had tasted his passion, and the notion that he would kiss and touch another woman like he had kissed and touched her, coiled inside her like a malignant cancer. She pressed her palms against her stomach to lessen the dark twist causing her unbearable pain because it wasn’t physical. The emotion was raw and unexpected, and it wounded her the more she thought of what Dragon would do with his brides. They would be doing much more than kissing and touching.

A sad laugh escaped her lips. What was she thinking? How could she so easily forget she was an assassin sent to kill him? There was no future that included the two of them together. And she wasn’t going to live much longer anyway. Because, if it was true that she didn’t have a death wish, she most assuredly was an idiot and had squandered her one opportunity to make amends with the Academy.

She was a breathing corpse.

Jade had come to terms with the fact that she wouldn’t kill Dragon—she just couldn’t accept a reality without him—but the Academy would never leave her alone. No amount of wishful thinking would create an alternate reality where she would get the man and live long enough to tell the tale.

Her fingers traced the white marks on her arm. She shivered and grabbed the sheet that smelled of Dragon.

The woman, Lauren, gave Dragon an ultimatum, then the click of wooden heels resonated fainter and fainter until it stopped, leaving only silence behind.

The door of the bedroom opened, and Dragon’s frame filled the entrance.

Jade clutched the sheet in her hands, covering her breasts. She had never been conscious of her body before—in the Academy, men and women lived in shared quarters—but her earlier wanton reaction to him had upset her deeply.

She wasn’t a virgin, and satisfying carnal pleasure wasn’t a priority for her. Men or women had never awakened in her more than a passing fancy, an itch easily gratified in a dark corner. A few minutes later, they would part ways and forget all about it. But her lips still tingled and her skin burned where Dragon touched her. There would be no forgetting where he was concerned.

And there was his tenderness. That quality of his was Jade’s downfall. She could handle violence and cruelty, but wasn’t equipped to withstand his soft, goodhearted side. During mind-blowing passion, Dragon still took care not to hurt her, even though she had just attempted to kill him. She couldn’t help but wonder why, when he could have any woman in the entire Fifth Moon System, he wanted her.

From the door, Dragon looked at her, his bright blue eyes devouring her in a slow gaze that started at her head and finished at her toes peeking from under the sheet.

She wanted him to jump on the bed and kiss her senseless. She couldn’t say yes to him, but wanted him nevertheless. It didn’t make any sense and it infuriated her.

“Did you say the truth before?” he asked. His voice was a low purr. “When you said you can’t kill me.”

She nodded. There was no reason to lie.

Satisfied, he nodded and said, “Are you going to collaborate and tell me what you know?”

She shook her head.

He left the door and was at her side before the panel closed. “I need a reason to keep you here.”

She looked at him, dying to raise her hand and caress his face. “I can’t tell you anything.” What would it be like to feel him inside her? To be one with a man like him? Her heart ached at the loss of something she would never experience.

Dragon’s hand reached her leg but didn’t touch her. Instead, he lowered it to the bed, a few centimeters from her. “Listen, I don’t want you to be my whore.”

Her heart thumped loud in her chest. What did he mean?

He continued, “There are forces at play, and it’s complicated, but I want you at my side.”

He was proposing to her, but it wasn’t the kind of offer she would ever be interested in. A courtesan, that’s what he meant. Even if he were free, Jade’s low station in life would never grant her more than a mistress position. And she was still an assassin. That hadn’t changed in the last five minutes.

“You must have faith in me—”

A sudden roar from outside drowned the rest of his words. They both turned to look at the terrace where Carellian lay on the floor, half of his body dangling from the edge, blood pouring from his wing and chest. Contessa surged in the air, her wings splayed as she protected the fallen draglet.

Dragon jumped off the bed and dashed toward the terrace. Reacting on pure instinct, Jade followed him, and only when the breeze and the rain battered her naked skin did she realize she wore nothing.

Carellian cried in pain. Dragon ran to his side as Jade hurried to the edge. She followed Contessa’s fierce gaze. The attacker remained hidden from Jade’s mortal sight, but the draglet hissed and roared at a precise point over the bridge connecting the palace to the satellite dwellings of the court, indicating that she could see the assassin.

She looked at Dragon who was passing his hand over Carellian’s wing, checking his injuries as the rain washed away the blood seeping from one of the wounds. Hurried steps resonated from his bedroom, and his friends burst onto the terrace. Jade turned back to the she-draglet.

A plan hastily hatched.

She whistled to draw Contessa’s attention. “Here,” she called when the draglet swung her long neck toward her. “Come.” She gestured for the winged mare to hover down toward the terrace. It was a wild gamble. Draglets were loyal creatures and independent thinkers; they decided their rider.

Contessa’s nostrils huffed long puffs of white smoke, but she angled her body for Jade, who reached for the lowered wing and vaulted on the draglet’s back before the creature changed her mind.

Dragon called after her, but Jade was already spurring her borrowed steed toward the suspended bridge. Valerian’s loud curses echoed after her, but fortunately, Contessa decided not to heed her master’s commands.

She didn’t have much experience with riding draglets—at the Academy, clockwork gear was preferred because it was more practical. “Easy, beautiful girl,” she whispered while soothing the unpredictable mare with a few strokes between the ridges on her neck.

Something moved ahead of them. Black wings flapped against the dark canvas of the night sky. Who was her next opponent? It didn’t matter. She would kill the assassin, and this time make sure to steal the clockwork wings and fly away, sending Contessa back to her master. Her secret stash waited for her in her hideout, and she would use it to book a flight to one of the Outer Belt planets. It was a long stretch and a merely-rectified version of her earlier plan that failed miserably, but she didn’t have much going on for her at the moment.