Luc and Anya were walking across the grass when her father stepped around the building. Her stomach dropped, and her tongue turned thick. What was she going to tell him?

Immediately, his eyes narrowed in on Luc standing beside her. How could he not recognize him as the dragon he’d nearly detained the day before? And, it had been Anya who’d begged him not to arrest Luc. She swallowed past the anxiety rising in her throat like bile.

Luc nodded in greeting, hands in his pockets as he tried to be the least intimidating he could be. That was hard for the tall and muscle-bound dragon, but he managed with a blank face as he stood several feet behind Anya.

“Good afternoon, Agent Forrest. I’m afraid I had to escort your daughter into town to buy a new pair of shoes after the heel snapped on the basement stairs.” The lie rolled off Luc’s tongue before Anya could even open her mouth to speak.

A knot in her chest eased. It was only one of many, but it helped her look her father in the eye. Could he see how red her lips were from the kiss she and Luc shared on Territory grounds? Could he tell how rumpled her skirt was after being carried by Luc in both human and dragon form?

“Sir?” Luc asked, hesitantly.

Her father’s jaw tightened, lips forming a thin line. Anya did the only thing she could do. She approached her father. She placed her body squarely between her father and Luc so that all her father could see was her. He could see that she was unhurt and there of her own volition. He needed to know that. She needed him not to hurt Luc. It was a pressing need that gripped her heart. She didn’t know what she would do if her father pulled the Taser again didn’t know the ways she would betray her family for the dragon man standing behind her. She didn’t want to figure out just then.

She couldn’t risk him seeing her run to Luc’s side, because she knew she wouldn’t be able to control herself if he was hurt. Luc was a good man. He didn’t deserve the ire that her father and other agents directed at him.

“Father,” she whispered, meeting his eyes.

His gaze flicked to her for only an instant. He was afraid of the dragon behind her. She couldn’t help but let out a small, exasperated laugh. If only her father knew the truth. That wouldn’t matter, Anya reminded herself. Her father would never trust a dragon.

She attempted to spin her father around, not daring to look back at Luc as much as she wanted to. It was almost as if she could feel the tie that fate used to bind them and it tightened with every step she took away.

Agent Forrest reached between them and wrapped his hand around her upper arm, dragging her along as they moved out of the dragon’s sight. She fought the urge to roll her eyes. The man needed to go back to his therapist, Anya thought. He needed to refill his prescriptions or take a damned vacation.

“I think from here on out,” her father began, “you need to stay where I can see you.”

Anya dug her heels in. She came to a halt, throwing a heated glare at her father for the first time. Normally, Anya could hold up a debate with her father, keeping her voice steady and her words reasonable, but today her patience was wearing thin. She would not let him treat her like a child any more.

Her father’s head whipped around, his own glare just as hot. He reclaimed her arm.

“No,” Anya proclaimed as she pulled back. “I won’t let you dictate my life out of your own fears. You know so little about the world you live in or the organization you work for.”

The words slipped out before she could rein them back in. Her heart thundered and her lips slapped shut. Her father’s brows rose in confusion.

She was not a child. She hadn’t been for quite some time now. She would always be his little girl and she couldn’t blame him for wanting to keep her safe, but she was done with this restricted living. He was trying to be a blanket that would smother the life out of her.

“Are you alright, Anya? We’ve been searching everywhere for you.”

A new voice joined the fray and she couldn’t help but throw her hands in the air. Anya turned her heated gaze upon Beauchamp and he had the grace to step back, surprise written across his face. But, that passed and he stepped forward, reaching for her.

“I was replacing a broken heel,” she growled. “That was it. The two of you need to calm down.”

Her father’s gaze moved past her, the muscle in his jaw twitching. “Next time, you ask Beauchamp or me to assist you. Not a damned dragon.”

“You left with one of them?” Beauchamp’s voice was a hiss, like he’d seen something foul.

Anya’s heart clenched. Why was fate so cruel? Why did it tie her, of all people, to a dragon’s heart? There was no way that she wouldn’t have to make a choice, her family or her heart. There was no way that she could win. She would have to live with the pain of the decision she’d made and the empty ache of a life alone.

“This is an Embassy, an olive branch extended by the dragon shifters to humanity. I’m trying to do what this Embassy wants, I’m trying to co-exist with them.”

Nathan Forrest’s fingers jingled the cuffs at his waist as he looked back toward where they’d left Luc standing alone, but he shook his head and turned toward his SUV.

“I think we should call it a day,” he said, his voice going back to a normal timbre. “Get in the car, Anya.”

“I drove myself today.” She stormed toward her old jeep, not looking back.

Beauchamp caught up with her. “Would you like a passenger? Agent Forrest invited me over for dinner tonight, so we’re both headed in the same direction.”

Oh joy, Anya thought. A few spaces away, Anya heard the engine of her father’s SUV roar to life. He wouldn’t hear what she was about to say.

“No,” Anya said as she spun to face him. For a second, his face lit up, thinking she meant no, I wouldn’t mind a passenger. He was about to really see what she meant. “No. I don’t want you in my car or anywhere near me. I find you repulsive and ignorant and I don’t want anything like that in my life. Ever. I do not want to cash in your rain check because I don’t want to even think about dating someone as ignorant and mean as yourself.”

Beauchamp’s face fell. She expected defeat and disappointment, but it was anger that flashed across his features. It wrinkled his nose and turned the corners of his mouth into a snarl. Before she knew it, her back hit the Jeep. His arm was barred across her chest. She could barely breathe as his face descended upon hers. His breath was hot, only inches away from her cheek.

“You don’t have a choice,” Beauchamp growled, his voice low enough that only she could hear.

Anya hated herself for the way her knees shook beneath her. She put on a brave face, but she didn’t know how to get out of this. Beauchamp held her in a grip she couldn’t break.

“I’m the only option you have, Anya, and you better get used to it. We will go on that dinner date, I will propose someday, and you will say yes. After you do, you’re not heading off to DC. You’re going to stay where I can see you so that I know you never whisper secrets to a dragon again.”

Beauchamp knew. He knew what she’d done, that she’d learned GOE secrets and ran to the dragons to tell them of the horrors.

Her heart pounded so hard she wasn’t sure she could hear anything else. Anya should have expected this. She should have known Beauchamp would show his true colors soon. He was so vile in the way he talked about dragons, insisting on clipping their wings being the least of it in her time around him. She should have known that vile nature would extend toward humanity, too, and then to herself. She closed her eyes and waited for him to back away.

In her mind, she formulated what she would do once he moved. She would scramble for her car door and lock herself inside. Would her father believe her if she told him what Beauchamp did? Couldn’t her father see what Beauchamp was doing?

Would Beauchamp tell her father what she’d done? Would he tell him how she’d accessed GOE secrets and shared them with the dragons? Of course he would. Anya was trapped.

Suddenly, Beauchamp disappeared. The pressure on her chest from his arm released and fresh air kissed her face. Her eyes few open to find Beauchamp crashing and rolling across the pavement. Luc stood before her, tall and immovable while he fumed with anger. Relief was a cold wash over her body. She fought to stay where she was and not tuck herself into the safety of his arms.

After a moment of watching Luc steady his own breathing, she dared a glance at Beauchamp. The weasel of a man was picking himself up off the pavement, slowly. She felt a surge of happiness. He deserved it.

“Stand back,” Agent Forrest growled as he leveled the GOE issued gun at Luc. “Back away from my daughter.”

Really? Anya thought with exasperation. A fellow agent attacks your daughter and this is what you choose to see?

Her father had poured out of the SUV and now stood with his feet spread apart and a gun leveled at Luc. Anya’s heart leapt in her throat. When had GOE issued them guns? Last, she’d known, GOE only wanted the agents to have Tasers while they worked at the Embassy. Anya knew down to the crashing wave in her gut that the clip would be loaded with silver bullets. It was the only thing that leveled the battlefield for GOE agents as it locked dragon shifters in their human form. Why would GOE issue the guns now?

Anya felt her own anger rise. It was a force that wanted to explode in every direction. She whipped toward her father.

“Howard Beauchamp is the one that hurt me!” She screamed this across the parking lot, not caring who heard her. “He pinned me to my own car and said the worst things I’ve ever heard in my life. This man saves me and you want to shoot him?”

Her father’s gaze wavered, the gun in his hand lowering a fraction. He should have trusted his own blood, but she knew that it would not be that way. Beauchamp’s words were going to overpower her own the same way he’d overpowered her a moment ago.

“Get in the car, Luc,” she ordered him.

He gave her a surprised glance. A shot rang out. The pavement near Luc’s feet exploded. He didn’t flinch, only turned his gaze back to Agent Forrest. But, it’d been Beauchamp that fired. Anya saw him now, one knee on the pavement as he aimed his gun in their direction. That was the last thing that man needed, she thought, this maniac wielding a silver loaded gun.

They needed to leave. Getting Luc to safety was all that mattered to her in that moment. Beauchamp had failed her in catastrophic ways. She would never be able to look at him again, not that she could stand him before this happened. Her father… she looked back at him, eyes pleading.

Her stomach turned and she waited for him to raise his gun again. But, his eyes were on Luc’s. Her father studied Luc for a long moment before his gun lowered to aim at the ground.

“Drop your weapon, Agent Beauchamp.”

Anya’s heart soared.

“That dragon attacked me, sir.” Beauchamp shouted his argument.

“Gun down, Agent,” her father growled as he stomped toward the junior agent.

What had her father seen that made him change his mind?

None of that mattered, because Beauchamp refused to lower his weapon, even as her father approached him. The younger agent’s eyes were dark. He was about to lose and he knew it. Anya didn’t trust the man. She knew he was about to do something stupid.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another figure approach them. It was the local leader’s mate, the Ambassador. She had a stern look in her eye, one that said she was about to become an immovable force. Anya knew that look because she wore it, too, from time to time.

“You need to leave,” she barked at Anya and Luc before her dragon form erupted. 

 

***

 

Luc swept his mate into his arms and spun on his heel. He was not taking another chance, letting her out of his sight. He was never letting her get far from him again. The moment Agent Beauchamp had appeared, Luc knew something was wrong. Using one hand, he whipped open the jeep’s door and pushed Anya inside before sliding into the seat beside her.

The agent’s face was too well guarded. Where Agent Forrest had shown true fear for his daughter’s safety, Agent Beauchamp had managed to restrain his expressions. The man was up to something and all Luc could do earlier was linger behind them as they dragged his mate away.

He’d been furious when he saw Beauchamp pin his mate to her car. Luc knew he’d made the right decision in helping her, no matter the outcome for him. He would have sacrificed anything for Anya, a fact he’d already come to terms with. She was his mate, his one and only no matter what she said.

When she stood her ground to protect him, his heart had leapt with hope. Maybe she wouldn’t turn him away after all. Maybe there was a chance she would come to love him.

They would never find out if either of them died in a fire fight with GOE agents. Luckily, Liana had caught on and intervened. Luc heard shots ring out behind them, but none of them hit the car. The agents wouldn’t risk Anya like that and, for that, he was grateful.

Anya squirmed in her seat, clearly wanting to get out of the Jeep and make another attempt to talk sense into her father. Luc’s heart clenched. Would he be able to stop her from putting herself in danger’s way? Or, would it feel like Beauchamp’s assault all over again? He wouldn’t put her through that.

“She can’t hurt my father,” Anya snapped, one hand hesitating on the door handle. “I won’t let her.”

Damn, this woman was a brave one, Luc thought. “Liana isn’t going to hurt anyone. Look.”

Outside the windshield, they saw a black dragon form swooping over the pavement. It’s small body zig zagged through the air, careful to create a barrier between the agents and Anya’s Jeep. Liana had no intentions of hurting anyone. If anything, he knew she would have a hell of a time dealing with them after Luc and Anya left.

Luc turned the key in the ignition. They couldn’t stay here forever, though. He knew that as well as Anya did. Everything about this looked like a kidnapping. It would only be a matter of time before GOE arrived to take the human woman back by force.

He turned back to his mate. Anya stared at the men outside the windshield, an ocean of emotion swimming behind her gaze. Beauchamp picked himself up on the ground, brushing off his pants and holstering his gun for the time being. Luc watched as Anya’s father reached out and grabbed the junior agent by the front of his shirt and dragged him into spittle range to yell at him.

“Beauchamp knows,” Anya said, her voice low inside the cabin of the jeep. “He knows that I accessed the encrypted files and told the dragons what I found out. He was going to use the information to keep me… silent.”

Luc nodded. Words were more and more difficult around Anya. Fear for her safety made his throat clench. Anger over Agent Beauchamp’s assault made him burn the way he imagined Liana’s fire bound beast burned. The winds his feathers summoned were nothing compared to that burning rage. All he could do was put the Jeep into gear and gun it out of the parking lot. He had no idea where he could go. His first instinct was to go back to the Territory for safety, but even that sat uneasy in his stomach.

“This is all my fault.” Anya pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them tight as she stared blankly out the window ahead of her.

What could Luc say? He couldn’t tell her that she should have kept out of the files because it was the first real break he’d gotten in searching for his parents in decades. He couldn’t tell her she should have kept the secret to herself. She did the right thing.

They drove around the town for fifteen minutes, aimlessly wandering while Anya pulled herself together and the shock of what just happened faded. Luc didn’t know where to take them. Going to the Territory would eventually bring the Guardians down upon his family’s heads and Luc didn’t want to risk the people he loved. They’d done so much for him, put up with all of his immature pranks, and still loved him.

After a while, Anya took notice of his indecision. She studied him, glancing around every now and then as she put two and two together.

“I know a place we can go,” she informed him. “Take the third right up ahead.”

Luc looked sidelong at her, surprised that she’d gathered herself together enough to straighten her spine and raise her chin.

***

 

Anya hadn’t been to the cottage in years. There was a For Sale sign in the lawn that never seemed to attract any attention. She slid out of the Jeep’s passenger seat and yanked it out of the lawn, taking it with her as she headed for the side entrance. Her parents had bought the vacation home, a sprawling ranch on the waterfront, when they were placed near the dragon Territory for her father’s work. The house was filled with memories, good ones when her father could manage to tear himself away from his work. As the years went on, it became harder and harder to get him to herself. He always claimed the Guardians didn’t sanction his leave requests. She didn’t know if that was the truth, or if he lied to keep working.

A year ago, her parents finally gave up and put the house up for sale. Since then, Anya had visited once or twice and her mother sometimes came to finish her novels in silence. It’d been a long time since the cottage had seen a happy family and it didn’t seem like another happy family wanted it. Anya knelt and yanked a rock from the ground, revealing the small pill bottle glued to bottom.

Luc raised an eyebrow. Anya shrugged and pulled the key from the little bottle. The door swung open for her and she let herself shuffle toward the threadbare couch in the den. She threw herself down and turned her head to stare at the water crashing outside the window. Luc hesitated in the entryway. This was not his world. Anya knew she should invite him further into the house, should pull him in and let him know this was a safe place for them to hide, but she couldn’t find it in herself.

She was hiding from her own family.

Luc wandered closer until he could fall to his knees before her. The view of the lake was obscured by bronze skin and dark eyes. She reached out, her hand brushing the strong line of his jaw before she realized what she was doing. His hand moved to cover hers and hold it there.

“None of this was your fault,” he told her, his gaze holding hers even as her eyes began to water. “It is GOE’s fault for having to create the files you saw. It is their fault that they hurt dragons. You just happened to find it. It is not your fault that the junior agent is a twat.”

Anya laughed at his noun for Beauchamp. Twat didn’t seem to cover it, but it was a small satisfaction to call him one. Beauchamp was a slimy piece of trash that she wished she could toss in the incinerator. Was that a bit violent? Perhaps.

Anya pushed herself up. Her stomach growled. When was the last time she bothered to eat anything? Was the chai all she’d had today? It was hard to imagine that just that morning she’d been at the GOE facility, transferring files to the Embassy server. So much had happened since. She’d uncovered secrets, found herself a dragon man mate, and betrayed her family.

“Let’s think about all of this later,” Anya suggested. “Let’s see what the cottage has for food.”

Luc nodded, springing up from the floor. “I’m an amazing cook.”

She cast a sidelong glance at him, one eyebrow raised. Luc looked like he should have been swaggering out of a fraternity, the kind where men existed on the sustenance of beer and packaged ramen alone. It was hard to imagine this man knew how to cook.

“You don’t believe me?” He slapped a hand over his heart as if mortally wounded by her words while his eyes danced with amusement. He held up one finger. “Just you wait. I’ll prove you wrong if it’s the last thing I do.”

A smile touched her mouth, something she didn’t think possible after the day she’d had. “As long as you don’t hide something weird in the bottom of my bowl, I’m okay with letting you try to cook.”

Luc smiled wide, revealing small dimples in his cheeks. Anya felt a stab through her heart. The urge to run her fingers along the strong line of his square jaw and pull his face to hers was overwhelming. She still could not afford to let him in. When this was over, she would have to go back to the life she’d had before. She would have to take her father’s side and live a dragon-less life.

Luc sensed her hesitation, the moment that her thoughts took over again. Maybe her smile faltered. Maybe there was a tremble in her hands. He closed the space between them and wrapped her in his arms, holding her gently against his chest and petting her hair while sobs rose and threatened to take her over.

There might not even be a chance for her to go back to the life she’d had before. If Beauchamp knew what she did he might tell others, might tell Andrea Backus. They would have her in cuffs. She might have already betrayed her father by leaving with Luc. She’d proven that their differences were insurmountable. Her father would always side with humanity’s prejudices against dragons.

Anya sobbed into Luc’s shirt. It was ugly and messy and she couldn’t stop. All this over a file, a bit of intangible, digital information.

No, that was a lie. The file was only a part of it. Beauchamp would have hurt her eventually and Luc would have been there to stop him no matter what. That was an inevitability she couldn’t avoid. Luc was her mate, a man bound to protect and love her because fate said so. She laughed through her sob. Doing things because fate said so seemed silly in that moment. Luc followed it so blindly, but she felt caught in its crosshairs and couldn’t find her way out without hurting someone.

After a long while of making a mess of Luc’s shirt, she eventually untangled from his arms. There were mascara and lipstick stains smeared across the front of his shirt, but he played it off like it was nothing, like he hadn’t just held a sobbing woman for ten minutes. He led her into the kitchen like he knew where he was going and started rummaging through the mostly empty cabinets.

The fridge was unplugged and they learned quickly to keep it closed at all times. The cupboards, on the other hand, contained an assortment of boxed and canned dinners. Their hips were inches away from one another as they rifled through the cupboards’ contents.

“I don’t know if the gas is turned on,” Anya said, preparing her joke as she searched a soup can for an expiration date. “But, you can just heat the pot with your fire if it comes to that.”

“Actually,” Luc began as he set aside a box of mac and cheese. “My kind don’t have flames. There aren’t many in the U.S. that do, actually.”

Anya paused, looking up at her mate. It was still so odd to know that this man was her mate. The universe crafted them for each other and she could barely take her eyes off the line of his broad shoulders or stop thinking about his lips when they were in such close proximity to one another. If she turned to the side, her breasts would brush against his arm. It was a tempting thought, one that made her forget about her lingering hunger.

No, she reminded herself. She could not get involved with a dragon. She would wait for everything to sort itself out, then she would move on with her life, in a direction that was decidedly away from Luc Avila.

But, her body had other ideas, apparently. It leaned in a direction that was decidedly toward Luc Avila, throwing her balance off until she toppled over. Her body felt strange, her head light. Luc spun, catching her in his rock steady arms while her head spun. The room danced back and forth beyond Luc’s head. He looked down at her with soft concern.

“I think you should sit down. When was the last time you ate anything?”

“All I’ve had today was a travel mug of tea.”

Luc’s brows shot toward the ceiling. “Well, no wonder you’re falling over. You’ve had one hell of a day and no solid food. Sit. I’ll make you something to eat.”

Luc led her toward a kitchen chair, his hands leaving warm trails of fire, even through her clothing. She leaned into him, against her better judgement. She was sad to feel his warmth leave when her rear hit the chair seat. He turned back to the task, a renewed vigor now that he knew his mate needed sustenance.

“You never told me what elemental gift your dragon has,” Anya reminded him. She thought of the feathered beast she’d met earlier in the day and it’s iridescent, rainbow scales. It was a kind of beauty she never thought existed in the world.

Luc glanced over his shoulders, eyes crinkled with familiar humor. Anya wondered if that humor was ever brought to the bedroom and shook her head to dispel such thoughts.

Control yourself.

“My brother and I are two of the last Quetzalcoatl in existence. We hail from a valley in South America, our mythology stemming from the Aztecs and Mayans.” Luc dug a leather cord out from beneath his shirt to reveal a small shell that was tied around his neck. “Our people have a small control over the winds, like the god that bore us. I can’t summon a tornado to decimate my enemies, but I can definitely trash your living room.”

Anya laughed. “And you can’t heat up our dinner with wind.”

The stove clicked as Luc turned the knob and flame burst from the burner. “Thankfully, we won’t have to call Liana to cook our dinner.”

Anya tilted her head, she thought back to the Welsh woman who had caused a distraction long enough for them to escape the showdown in the Embassy parking lot. What a mess that had been.

“But, Liana’s dragon was black. I thought only the red Welsh dragons had fire. I mean, the elements are kind of color coded over in Europe.”

Luc nodded. “I don’t know if it is my tale to tell, but I’ll give you some of the details. A dragon has a specific color or set of markings until they experience a large amount of trauma, usually physical trauma. Then, the beast inside of us… probably needs therapy, but aside from that our magic starts to blacken our scales. It’s an odd phenomenon that we don’t quite understand. We don’t know if that’s meant to show a raise in status because a dragon survived, or if it’s meant to indicate a lower status because they were hurt. I don’t think anyone really cares anymore. Our mythologies are so far spread apart and few that we can’t seem to make sense of any of it.”

Anya was going to have to have a talk with her dragon history professors. They were woefully misinformed. So much of what she’d been taught felt like it was slightly off, slightly changed or watered down. Anya let out a sigh. Perhaps that was her country’s prejudice talking.

“You alright back there?” Luc glanced back at her.

He had several boxes lined up on the counter and plethora of spice jars hanging between his fingers. She was interested to see what he was going to make from the cans of beans and vegetables. With a smile touching her lips, she nodded.

It turned out, Luc had a gift in the kitchen. He managed to whip up a hearty vegan chili and slid a giant bowl of it in front of Anya. Her stomach rumbled its thanks before she could voice it. Luc laughed and slid across from her.