4.

 

 

Rhett sighed and glanced at his watch as the woman across from him went on and on about herself. He couldn’t keep his gaze from lingering back to table three, where Mia was sitting and talking to a man who made Rhett look like an Olympic athlete. He tried to downplay his impressive dragon shifter physique, but the women of Earth were still on to him. The attention he was being paid by every woman at this event was making him feel rather uncomfortable. They all looked at him as if he were a tall, cool glass of water and they had been wandering in the desert for far too long.

And although some of them may have been the potential descendants, he still couldn’t see himself with anybody there. Anybody except…

The buzzer sounded, and Rhett saw Mia startle. He felt an irrational sense of rage toward the object that made her go from content to afraid. Why was he feeling so protective of her all of a sudden? They had only just met. And when he had scanned her from across the room, there hadn’t been any indication from the device that she was part descendant. What was it about her that made him want to protect her so deeply?

“It’s time to move on to the next activity,” the host said into the microphone. Mia’s gaze shifted from the man across from her to the woman with the microphone and Rhett’s hackles lowered. He didn’t have any real reason to feel so angry with the buzzer. He was just being over-protective. The human was fine.

“All the men should stay right in their seats and let the lovely ladies come to them this time. They will each grab a questionnaire from the table beside me and ask each man a different series of questions. This will help to ensure that each of you are learning valuable information about each other that can contribute to a genuinely compatible match. It’s very important that you seek someone that is similar to yourself in the answers to these questions. They are core values. They create the most rewarding union. So, if everybody is ready, when the buzzer sounds we will begin!”

Rhett sighed as all the women got to their feet and did as the men had done; grabbing their papers and then taking a few steps to the left to change tables.  He was tiring quickly of this event, his attention drawn only to one person there. And that person wasn’t even a descendant. What was the point in sticking around?

He shifted uncomfortably, absently answering the first woman’s questions. He was about to say fuck it and get to his feet to leave when suddenly, a sense of calm washed over him. When he looked up, he realized that Mia had sat down across from him, and she was smiling wryly at him.

“Thinking about going somewhere?” she asked, raising a brow. She leaned in conspiratorially. “If you do, can I go with you? The guys in here are kind of unbelievable. Present company definitely included.”

“What, you don’t like Herbert over there?” Rhett asked, glancing to the man that had just been speaking with Mia. He hadn’t been able to help but notice him. The eager way he sat with his knees too close to hers, and the predatory gaze in his eye. He was pretty assertive for the president of a chess club.

“We don’t really share a lot of interests,” Mia said, pursing her lips.

“Shocking,” Rhett stated, quirking his brow at her. “Don’t you have some sort of questions for me or something?”

Mia shrugged and looked down at her paper. “Do I really care what type of dental floss you use?” She asked with a light smile. “I could go the rest of my life without knowing something like that. How do they think that qualifies as a core value? I want to know other things. Like what is your mission in this world? Your purpose? And if you say bringing the chess club to glory, I am standing up and walking out of this room right now. You won’t even have a chance to stop me.”

“I have no interest in chess,” Rhett said quietly. “My interests lie beyond this plane. What I have always wanted is a chance to just…”

He stopped himself before he blurted out that he had always wanted to climb the ranks on his home planet of Fiora so that he might one day manage a position of great significance within his planet’s engineering system. Theirs was some of the most advanced technology in the universe and he had always had a good grasp of the way things worked. He and one of the other dragon shifters that had been banished with him were both interested in human technology and engineering. The difference was that while his friend was better at things like electricity and currents of energy, Rhett had a fondness for the intimate way things were put together and each part worked as a cohesive whole. Human technology was rather primitive, but it was fascinating all the same.

“To just what?” Mia asked, her beautiful eyes boring into his. He found himself shifting uncomfortably. But why should he? He was an alpha among the others after all. On his planet, he was feared and respected. Or at least, he had been before the false accusations had tainted his name and reputation and he had been forced to leave; banished to Earth and left to suffer alone with just a few others of his kind for support. He had been a strapping, respected man. How could he be feeling so affected by a mere earthling of all sorts? And a female to boot?

“I just want to…” Rhett let out an exasperated sigh. He wasn’t supposed to reference the fact that he was a mover anymore. They had begun to realize that women on Earth were interested in status, and apparently, being a mover wasn’t a particularly impressive status to some of the women of this planet. Instead, he was supposed to have an aspiration, and Gavin had enrolled each of them into the local university for the fall semester. “I want to earn my degree in engineering and make the world a more beautiful place.”

Well, at least it wasn’t a total lie.

Mia’s eyes brightened at Rhett’s answer and she studied him for a brief moment, the depths of them captivating him in a way he had never experienced before.

“You’re an engineer?”

“Well… an aspiring one,” Rhett said, shrugging lightly. “I will be officially once I have the degree. But, until then, I just tinker around and figure things out without a little piece of paper telling me I am good at it.”

Mia smiled gently. “Oh, I like that,” she said, her beautiful face alight. Rhett gazed at her involuntarily, his heart surging with an emotion he had never allowed himself to feel before. What the hell was this?

Rhett felt confused by the strange surge of elation from hearing that Mia was pleased, then quickly narrowed his eyes. What the hell did it matter if this human girl cared or didn’t care about what he was doing? He shouldn’t even be interested in her in the first place. That wasn’t a good thing for him to be invested in. He was just going to end up getting himself into trouble.

“It doesn’t even matter,” he said gruffly. “It’s not like you would ever even understand.”

It was true. She was a human. She wasn’t a descendant. At least, not according to the machine. He had scanned everybody in the room before entering, which was part of why he had been late in the first place to this stupid event. No matter how much he liked her, she would never be able to understand where he had come from, the world that he had been banished from, the loneliness and sheer pain he felt being trapped on Earth with people who would never be able to understand his situation.

“You think I’m too stupid to get technology?” Mia asked, immediately changing her energy to an ice cold sheen of agitation. Her beautiful eyes looked intently at him, boring through his every defense and leaving him feeling as if he had just made the biggest mistake of his life by simply speaking his mind.

“No! I just….”

Before he could manage to speak again, a buzzer sounded once more, and Rhett sighed in exasperation. Mia stood, eyeing him with her dazzling but fierce eyes, before leaving to a different table, gripping her sheet of questions tightly in a white-knuckled fist. Well, damn.

“Hi! I was waiting for another chance to talk to you!”

Rhett sighed inwardly as one of the several overeager women sat down across from him and tried to catch his gaze. But all he could do was stare at Mia, who was sitting down across from another man and reaching over the table to shake his hand. She glanced over at Rhett and caught his eye, and her eyes narrowed at him warningly. He snapped his gaze away and looked back at the woman at his own table, his heart hammering hard in his chest. What in the hell was going on? He had led the army on Fiora to victory in many battles, faced unknown threats and come out victorious, and had been admired as one of the most renowned dragon shifter warriors on his planet. And this was what struck fear into his heart? That this little human girl might not like him?

It was silly.

Rhett shook his head and scoffed, then, still laughing at himself, smiled at the human across from him.

“Let’s get this over with,” he said as pleasantly as he could, then turned his gaze subtly back to Mia as the woman across from him prepared herself for more questioning.