“That’s stupid woman,” I hissed.

I was still reeling from watching Zaruv shift but there was no time to dwell on that now. Courtney had done the worst possible thing. She’d dragged in the militia. There was no way for us to escape, and even if we did, there was nowhere for us to run. It was an impossible situation. I would need to talk to the men, try and reason with them before Zaruv or Ragal made things worse. I’d seen enough of their tempers to know it wouldn’t end well.

“What are you doing?” Zaruv asked, shifting back into human form. “They are going to arrest you if you go out there.”

“They are going to arrest all of us and probably worse if I don’t try and talk some sense into them. You two just stay put.”

“You want us to stay in here while you go out there unprotected?” Zaruv asked.

He shook his head vigorously, “No. Absolutely not.”

I rolled my eyes, “Oh please. They aren’t going to hurt me. There wouldn’t be anyone to sew them back together after a bar fight.”

Without waiting for another argument, I went to the door and jerked it open. Raising my hands up in the air I looked for whoever was in charge. Shit. I would recognize the stocky build of our militias sergeant. He was the last person that I wanted to see. Sergeant Lee Johnson stormed closer to me, his finger dangerously close to the trigger. He was one of the most paranoid men on the force. If you asked him, he would tell you it was to stop the murderous aliens that slaughtered his parents.

“Hey, Sergeant, I think there has been a big misunderstanding. You know how excited Courtney gets over nothing,” I said as I glared at Courtney.

He shook his head, “Any other time I’d be with you on this, Jennifer. She seems pretty sure about it though. Why not just let us in to take a look around? Then we can put this whole thing behind us.”

“Well,” I said, shifting uneasily on the porch. “I have friends in from a few outposts over. They aren’t really social. Can’t you overlook it just this once?”

Lee shook his head and glanced past me. I knew what he was seeing, the massive shape of Zaruv’s human form appearing behind me. I could feel his heat and smell the lightly charred edges of his clothing. He’d shifted back quickly. My cheeks flushed red as the realization that they weren’t humans dawned on Lee. He quickly backed away from me, raising his weapon and pointing it at Zaruv’s chest.

“What the hell are you thinking, Jennifer!” he bellowed at me.

“Please, sir, give me a chance to explain. We do not mean any of you harm,” Zaruv interjected.

I rolled my eyes at how rehearsed he sounded. “Lee, they aren’t like the others okay? They aren’t like the ones who killed your parents. Their ship crashed and they are just looking for the other members of their party.”

Lee shifted uneasily as he weighed my words. In that time, the other members of the militia came closer, with Courtney hot on their heels. I was still enraged with her but there was nothing that I could do about it. Calling her out would only make us look angry like I was trying to start a fight. It wasn’t unheard of, Infernians coming and forcing locals into joining their cause. I wasn’t that type of woman, I just wished the others would see that.

“Come on Lee, you’ve known me for years. Do you really think I would help them if I didn’t think that we could trust them? You know me better than that.”

“Don’t listen to her, I saw her kissing one of them! Can you believe that? She should be tossed in jail with the both of them,” Courtney whispered.

I glared at her, “Then who would help you treat your sores every month Courtney? Or look after half the men here when they drank too much? What about when the kids get sick like they do every harvest? Do you really plan on taking over my duties?”

“Now, Jennifer,” offered Lee, trying to broker peace. “Courtney was just looking out for the entire outpost. Accidents happen, we all make mistakes. You don’t have to worry about facing any repercussions, but the two aliens are going to need to come with us, just until we can sort this all out.”

“Then what? You lock them away for the rest of their lives?” I screamed at him.

Lee tensed. So, did the other members of his guards. At first, I thought it was because of my screaming but then I saw Ragal make an appearance from the corner of my eye. If one of the stunning princes wasn’t enough to make any human man feel a little insecure, then two would get the job done. I felt far more confident than any sane woman should feel as I stood between the two men.

“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” Lee said. “You aliens are trespassing on outpost sixty-two of the Vaxivia militia. By the power decreed in the treaty of forty-seventeen, we are placing you under arrest until a panel of officers can determine your fate.”

“We could take them, brother,” Ragal whispered

I was standing a few feet in front of them, separating the militia and the aliens. There was no way Lee could hear what they were saying. Still, my heart raced as I watched Lee and tried to listen in on the princes’ conversation. Lee was preoccupied with the other members of the guard; dragging out heavy and outdated handcuffs and shackles. Though, I doubted if the heavy iron would hold the Dragselians.

“Copper,” Zaruv whispered, ignoring Ragal’s comment.

“What?” Ragal asked

“The restraints are all made of copper. They think we are Infernians!”

I huffed, “Of course they do. They don’t know the difference between any of you! Now I suggest you both shut up and cooperate.”

“Jennifer, if we cooperate we will lose valuable time to find our brothers. We can’t risk breaking out once we get back into town, someone could get hurt.”

“Plus,” Ragal said, “Once word spreads that there are two aliens here, people will start digging.”

“Your people will come to help you? Maybe that’s not such a bad thing at this point. We could use a little diplomatic immunity right about now.”

“Jennifer, it won’t just be our people who come looking,” Zaruv whispered.

“Oh no. You don’t mean?”

“The Infernians. Taking all the crown princes of their sworn enemy would be a huge victory alone. Failing to use us as ransom would mean painfully drawn out deaths for all of us.”

“Why would it fail?”

“Our kingdom does not believe in ransom for princes who have been exiled. The only life that matters now is that of the king and his heirs.”

“Great, so any way you look at it, we are screwed.”

“Jennifer, they are coming.”

I turned to look back at him. Our eyes locked and I knew he was waiting for me to make a decision. He was putting a huge amount of trust in me, wondering which direction to guide them. I could tell them to cooperate and I had no doubt that Zaruv would instruct Ragal to listen. Still, I didn’t like the crazed look in Lee’s eyes or that of the other members of the militia. Courtney was just icing on the cake with her bitter sneer.

“Jennifer?” Zaruv asked again.

“We can’t wait any longer,” muttered Ragal.

My heart was racing, “Do what you need to do.”

I closed my eyes, whether out of fear or excitement I don’t know. I felt the cool whoosh of air as Ragal moved away from me. Zaruv grabbed ahold of me and pulled me back into the cabin just as the gunfire started. I hit the ground hard, but my body was protected by Zaruv’s steel-like skin. I felt the bullets break through the thin flooring all around us and ricochet off his body. We were trapped. Even if he was seemingly invincible, I was still very much human.

“You have to get out of here Zaruv, they won’t hurt me,” I yelled over the noise.

“Maybe not intentionally, but they aren’t very good shots. I doubt most of those kids out there have ever seen action. This isn’t the hot zone that it used to be.”

“Fine!” I screamed, “Then what do you suggest since you seem to know it all? I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to die here!”

“Right,” he muttered.

His arms wrapped around me as he started to shift. They transformed into bronze scales covering massive arms that still cradle me carefully. Instinctively, I closed my eyes when I felt the ground moving away from me. I didn’t want to see what was happening. The wind whipped through my hair and the air grew cold the further up into the sky we moved. When Zaruv changed his grip, I held onto him even tighter.

“Trust me,” came his soothing voice inside my head. “You can open your eyes again, Jennifer. Just hold on, okay?”

“Okay,” I whispered.

I opened my eyes and looked around. I was straddling Zaruv’s back, taking in the entire landscape below us. In the distance, I heard gunfire and immediately crouched down, looking around me for the attackers. It was then that I saw Ragal, his color entirely different from Zaruv’s intoxicating bronze. Ragal looked more like a soldier with his silver scales and pointed snout. Though they looked alike as brothers, their dragons couldn’t have been more different.

“Don’t worry about them, we are too far up for them to actually hit us,” said Zaruv.

“They can still see us though. Shouldn’t we try to fly higher?”

“It’s not worth the risk. The air becomes almost toxic the higher you get. You wouldn’t be able to survive that high. For now, they are just going to follow us.”

“What about resting? Don’t you need to sleep at some point?”

“Yes, but we have a while before that. If they are still following us by sundown, we will have to figure something else out.”

“That sounds like procrastination to me,” I muttered.

Zaruv snorted. “You are more than welcome to start thinking now. I for one though, am going to enjoy the view while we can. The other pods landed a day’s flight from here, we have nothing but time.”

“Zaruv?” I asked coyly. “Why can I hear you in my mind but not Ragal?”

“Because you and I have a bond that goes beyond a friendship. Only those who are intimately intertwined can communicate with a dragon when they are shifted.”

“Hey now, you can tell your dragon mind to cool off. We have not been intimate!”

Zaruv laughed, “It’s not just a physical intimacy. It’s an emotional one. You must feel the bond between us. The physical attraction that burns between us.”

My cheeks flushed and I was grateful that he couldn’t see them. It was true, I had felt it. He drove me wild with everything that he did. I wanted to do things with him that made my body shudder with desire.

“Are you cold? We can move lower if we need to,” he offered.

I grinned, “No, not cold. Just thinking about the, um, bond between us.”

“That is something I would love to explore further with you. You know, if we make it out of this in one piece.”

I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. Even in the face of danger, Zaruv was charming. I could feel the mood starting to lighten. The militia had no effect on us as we sailed through the sky. We were untouchable and it felt amazing.