Dragon felt both Valerian and Lars stiffen behind him. Unfurling from his crouched position, he stood, towering over the assassin, and couldn’t help but smile at her shocked expression.

“I’m sure you’ll find your accommodation to your liking,” he said before hauling her on his shoulder and walking straight to his bed where he deposited her on the firm mattress.

Deftly, he untied her wrists only to raise them over her head and secure them to the headboard with leather bindings. Those soft restraints usually kept willing women entertained for hours, and surely none of his companions ever regarded him with fiery black eyes that burned with hatred.

“No matter how hard you try, the leather won’t yield. You’ll only hurt yourself.” The words never failed to make the woman subjected to his ministrations squirm and giggle. Not this time. The assassin didn’t move a muscle, her eyes fixed on him. The white swirls on her exposed skin shone brightly under the blue illumination in the room. His gaze followed one of the fine curlicues disappearing under her leather vest.

He repeated the operation with her lower extremities, freeing her legs before parting them and strapping her ankles tightly to each side of the footboard.

The assassin’s nostrils flared as her face paled and her chest rose and fell fast.

Her distress touched a chord deep inside Dragon, and he felt compelled to reassure her. “You won’t be touched.” That was a first. No woman had ever heard such words uttered in his bedroom. “I promised you.” Dragon brought his right fist to his chest; then he turned and headed toward the terrace, needing fresh air to clarify his thoughts.

The sight of that proud woman tied to his bedposts, helpless and scared, provoked in him a surge of emotions he couldn’t understand. He felt protective of her when she was the one he needed protection from.

His friends followed him outside into the terrace but waited until the sliding door closed to speak.

“What are you doing?” Valerian’s voice was deceptively low and calm.

“She wasn’t going to say anything useful. Neither fist nor caress can break a woman like that.” Dragon remembered her from a moment before, kneeling but as regal as a queen.

“You admire her,” Lars said, turning his gaze to the assassin as well. “She’s plotting to kill you and us at this very moment, but you don’t want to hurt her.”

“Inflicting pain upon her won’t give me the names of the people who hired the Academy.” It also didn’t please Dragon to see her hurt.

“I cringe at the idea of using violence on a woman, but she is an assassin.” Lars sighed. “You can’t just wait for her to decide to talk.”

Valerian stepped in front of Dragon. “I don’t like the idea of striking a prisoner either. The sensible solution would be to call the Fifth Moon Confederation and let them deal with her.”

“You don’t want to consign her to the authorities, do you?” Lars asked Dragon. “What do you plan to do with her?”

What Dragon wanted to do with her he wouldn’t confess to his friends.

“I need her alive. If the Academy gets hold of her, we’ll never know who’s behind the attacks.” It was the truth, but beneath all his rational excuses, he was looking for reasons to spend more time with the assassin, and couldn’t bear the idea of what the Academy’s torturers would do to her. It was pure insanity that he wanted to give her pleasure, not pain—not that he liked to hurt people in the first place. But he couldn’t make sense of his wayward thoughts and strong, carnal impulses, and it exasperated and scared him.

“It’s the Front Pro Humanity all over again,” Valerian said. “The Lupinian Revolution didn’t die with Balenus. The insurgence is widespread and reaching the far ends of the Fifth Moon System to involve the Outer Belts in their schemes. They want to eliminate immortals, shifters and vampires alike, and now they are after you.”

“That’s what I think, but we need proof.” Dragon’s eyes lingered on the woman on his bed. She lay still, barely breathing.

“We have cells in the basements to safely contain criminals like her,” Lars commented.

“And the assassin sent to kill her expects her to be there. Plus, my quarters are the safest place in the entire palace, and you’ll direct ten of your best men to guard my bedroom and the terrace.” Again, Dragon spoke the truth, and yet, he stretched it to his advantage.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Valerian began pacing. “What happened to the Dragon I knew? I barely recognize you nowadays.”

Dragon had planned to have this conversation later. From the look of it, it was happening now. The tension between them would only create a hostile environment when he needed clarity of mind to deal with his confusing emotions and the assassin. “Both of you have something to say to me. Go ahead, don’t mince words.”

“Fine,” Valerian said, halting his nervous walk and training his dark eyes on Dragon. “You sent me away from Lupine when you needed me the most.”

“You were needed here,” Dragon said. “I was perfectly safe at Valentine’s.”

“You were safe—” Opening his arms to the side, Valerian gave him an incredulous look, his eyes narrowing. “Your good friend Lobo challenged you to a duel.”

Dragon shrugged. “Yes, Valentine did, but at the moment, he had good reasons.”

The memory of the night when Valentine burst into Dragon’s bedroom and found Mirella, his newly-wedded bride, lying with him would be forever etched in Dragon’s mind. Later, Valentine discovered that Mirella and Dragon were innocent, and that there was a plot to separate him and Mirella.

“I would’ve done the same in his position.” Dragon turned to face Contessa, who was basking under the pink light of Coral while she kept a vigilant eye on Dragon’s prisoner, and at the same time, she checked on her master.

“He could’ve killed you over a lie,” Valerian said.

“But he didn’t.” As much as he tried, Dragon’s heart wasn’t in this conversation.

“Because his wife stopped him!” Valerian shouted, surprising Dragon.

“Valerian—” Lars’s eyes widened in surprise at their friend’s outburst.

“It’s okay.” Dragon waved his hand, signaling for Valerian to calm down.

It was a rare sight to witness the usually stoic Valerian lose his temper so many times in such a short period of time. But when Dragon thought better of it, he realized that the calm Valerian he remembered belonged to a time before he left Solaria to visit Valentine. The new Valerian he had met once back home was moody and prone to speak his mind at every turn.

“Nothing happened,” Dragon said as Contessa raised her long neck and pushed her slender body up on her short legs.

The fresh breeze of the afternoon thermals ruffled Dragon’s mane. After a year, his blond locks had reached shoulder length once again. During the ceremonial preparation for the duel with Valentine, he followed the Lupinian tradition that required shaving his head and branding his initials on his forearm, so that he would never forget.

Closing his eyes and tilting his chin up, Dragon filled his lungs with the bouquet of the wild flowers growing on the impervious rocks below. In Dragon’s mind, those colorful buds represented the sweet scent of his homeland, and he had missed them. He had missed the little things.

Contessa’s padded steps brought Dragon back to the present.

“Why did you send me back here?” Valerian repeated his question. His voice was clipped.

With a high whine, Contessa reached Valerian and lowered her head for her master to pat it.

Dragon waited for the animal’s calming therapeutic effect to work on Valerian before answering. “You were needed here.”

Valerian’s chest inflated and his expression hardened, but he didn’t stop petting his draglet. “There’s an interplanetary plot to kill shapeshifters, for Sol’s sake!”

“The Front Pro Humanity’s aim is to eradicate our species, and the way to do it is to kill our brides. Without them, we can’t procreate. On Lupine, medicus have been exterminating Blessed Brides for centuries without anyone being the wiser. The princesses needed protection, and I sent you home to keep them safe. I couldn’t afford to make a mistake where my future brides were concerned. I trust you and Lars with my life and the lives of my children. Without Lauren and Gilda, there won’t be new dragon shifters, and our race will die with us,” Dragon said.

Valerian brought his free hand to his jaw, then shook his head. “And you thought that being at the very center of that mess would help.”

Dragon walked to the end of the jutting platform that formed the terrace. There, he lowered himself to the warm tiles and sat at the edge, his feet dangling into the void.

He couldn’t help but compare Lupine’s architecture with Solaria’s. Whereas on Valentine’s planet buildings were closed entities, on Solaria constructions were open, blending with the landscape. Heavily influenced by the dragon shifters who first colonized the green planet, dwellings on Solaria accommodated for the needs of a once-airborne society. Even the locations of the cities attested to that necessity, perched on top of ridges overlooking luscious valleys, rivers, and lakes.

“Exactly.” Dragon followed the flight of two wild draglets. “If I wanted to find anything useful about that plot, that was the place to be. And I would never leave a friend to fend for himself when I can lend a hand.” He stood. “Now, I need a shower and something to eat, because I have a blasted ball to attend.”