Staring into the eyes of the interloper, Kosar felt his heart pound and the whole world seemed to fall away. The rage that had filled him at seeing an uncleared human allowed into the room of what was perhaps the most precious piece of technology the Dragon Empire possessed wasn't gone, but it was pushed back and down. Buried under a wave of recognition as he looked into the eyes of his mate.

Don't be ridiculous, he tried to tell himself. She can't be my mate, that's not possible.

But whatever he thought, it was impossible to doubt the reaction of his body. He could feel his pulse speed, his wings flex, his breathing quicken as the dragon inside him saw the one woman he was destined for.

Dr. Cooper was talking, but Kosar paid him no attention. The human was an annoying irrelevance. Nothing mattered except the woman. The emotions flickering across her face told him that she, too, felt the pull between them. Though as a human, she might not recognize what she felt.

"—Ashley Warren, our new 'expert' from Earth," Dr. Cooper said, finally saying something that Kosar cared about. "You weren't available and I was excited to—"

"You should have waited, or shown her the staff facilities," Kosar snapped, doubly angry as he tried to get control of himself. "Not taken her to the most secure room in the Center before her security briefing."

Dr. Cooper took a step backward, paling in the face of Kosar's rage. Stepping into the room, he moved his gaze back to Ashley. It was difficult to keep his focus on his anger when he looked at her. She was beautiful, stunning in a way he'd never imagined a human female could be. Her presence called out to his soul and he wanted to know everything about her.

But that didn't mean that he wasn't going to do his job. Ashley Warren might be his mate, the one woman in all the worlds that his soul craved, but that didn't mean that she wasn't a security risk, and Kosar had a job to do. This salvaged stardrive was the only one of its kind, and nothing was worth taking a risk with it. Without its secrets, there was no telling how long it would take to work out how the ships of the old Empire had traveled between the stars.

The human woman before him looked up, a mix of guilt and defiance in her gaze. She was angry and determined but that wasn't all. There was a hint of fear in the way she held her hands, as though she was trying to keep the hand that had touched the drive hidden from him. Kosar felt a pang of anger at himself as he saw that — this human female had nothing to fear from him, and it hurt to think that he'd scared her.

Unless she is a spy or a saboteur, he reminded himself, then shook his head. The universe couldn't be that cruel, but that didn't mean he could dismiss the possibility. It was his job not to, and he'd made Emperor Verikan a promise. He would take it seriously.

I thought that fighting off those intruders was going to be the toughest thing I had to do today. Now I have to untangle whatever this mess is, too. Kosar sighed. Meeting his mate should be a joyous day, but he was letting his frustrations get the better of him. He tried to smile, to calm himself and get his feelings under control. The pain in his wings was still there, a distant throb that spoke of more damage than he'd admitted to the doctors, and it was clouding his judgment.

"I am pleased to meet you, Ashley Warren," he said, trying to keep his voice calm and even.

"Doesn't look like it," she replied, raising an eyebrow. "Looks more like you want to tear my head off."

Kosar bit back an angry denial and shook his head. Counted to three before answering. "You are in a secure area without permission, and it's my job to stop that from ever happening. Come with me and we'll sort it all out."

"What's the harm?" Ashley put her hands on her hips as she asked, not moving. "I need to be in here to do my job, the job your bosses want me to do. Do we really have to go through the formalities, or can I just get on with it?"

There was something behind the impatience in her gaze, and Kosar frowned. More fear? Guilt? Or just a burning need to dig into the technological secrets of his people? He couldn't tell, and it didn't matter.

Stepping forward, he towered over her and Ashley had to crane her neck to look him in the eyes. He found himself admiring the way she didn't back down, didn't look away or step backward. Most humans he'd encountered wouldn't stand up to a dragon like this.

Close up, her scent was intoxicating. Kosar's wings spread wider, a twinge of pain shooting through his back at the involuntary motion. The urge to sweep the human female up in his arms was overwhelming, almost too strong to resist, and it left him little concentration for his words.

"You will come with me because I tell you to," he heard himself say. "There are things we need to discuss before you begin your work here."

For a moment their gazes were locked, and he wondered what he'd do if she refused. Pick her up and carry her out? That was a dangerously tempting thought. Before he got to that point, though, she nodded and broke eye contact.

"Fine," she said, and he saw the tension leaving her shoulders. Her relaxation was obviously forced, but at least she was making the effort. "Let's get that over with so I can get on with what I came here to do."

Kosar's office was a mess. Usually he didn't care — he had too much going on to bother tidying it, and the only person the mess could bother was Davenport. Now, though, he was acutely aware of Ashley's presence and wished he'd taken some time to clear the desk.

Your mate isn't going to judge you on the basis of your office, he told himself firmly as he sat down and waved Ashley to the visitor's chair. She certainly didn't look like she cared about it, throwing herself into the seat and crossing her arms as she glared at him across the desk. It was an expensive luxury, imported hardwood from Earth — a gift from one of the human corporations. Kosar didn't care that much about the material, no matter how rare or expensive. It was well made and served its purpose and the rest meant nothing to him.

For a long moment he and Ashley stared at each other. Looking away from her wasn't easy, and neither was speaking. Just being in Ashley's presence robbed him of his poise and made it hard to focus on anything other than her. Her powerful gaze, her soft lips, the hint of a blush on her cheeks, all of her seemed designed to throw him off his guard.

It was Ashley who eventually broke the silence. "Did you bring me here to talk to me or stare at me?"

Kosar felt his hands tighten at the challenge in her tone. But he couldn't deny that she made a fair point, and rather than growling at her, he forced himself to focus on what she needed to know. It wasn't easy to put his feelings aside, and he promised himself that he'd deal with them, but first he had to do his job.

A quick touch on the holographic screen above his desk brought up her file again. He'd read it before, of course, and not been impressed. It described Ashley Warren as a scavenger, making her living hunting and restoring technology in the ruins of Earth's fallen cities. An impressive scavenger, perhaps — according to the records she'd salvaged everything from twentieth-century automobiles to the remains of a supercomputer. That suggested that she was good at what she did.

But it was still scavenging in the ruins. Kosar didn't like the fact that this was what his people had to turn to in order to get their own technology working. Even getting human scientists involved was bad enough.

Now that the scientists were admitting defeat, though, all they were left with were desperate ideas.

The file also gave biometric markers to identify her by. Ashley Warren's retina scans were there, and a camera above his shoulder checked them discretely, confirming that she was the right human. He breathed a little easier at that — the mess it would have caused if Cooper had let the wrong person into the drive room would have been epic. Almost as bad as if his mate had turned out to be a thief trying to get in with stolen ID papers.

He'd seen that story a few times as a holodrama, and they made for fun viewing but he wouldn't want to live through it. Letting out a breath he hadn't known he was holding, Kosar launched into his briefing.

"The stardrive you're here to study is unique," he said. "Every other ship we've found has been too badly damaged to salvage. Fortunately for us, the Grace of Herendar was preserved under the polar ice and there is much we can learn from it. That doesn't mean it's easy. The ship's badly damaged and we have neither the repair manuals nor anyone with the relevant skills to fix it."

"Why not?" Ashley interrupted, breaking his flow. "You could have saved some of the technicians, surely?"

Kosar ground his teeth. That was a constant irritation to everyone at the Imperial Research Center, and he wished he had a better answer for her. "When Mars was attacked, we didn't know how bad the rebellion against the Empire was. All we knew was that the planet was falling, and our job as Dragon Guards was to save Prince Verikan. No one thought we'd have to rebuild our civilization from scratch after we woke, or that we'd be in suspended animation for a thousand years."

His jaw clenched at the memory, and he tried to breathe deeply. To keep himself under control. Remembering the frantic dash to save what they could as the rebels' bombardment took out the shields that kept a breathable atmosphere around the planet. The panic as he and the rest of the Dragon Guard looked for something, anything, they could do. And Askelon, the scientist with a mad plan to save the prince and his guards — but no time to save anyone else. Now even Askelon was dead, along with all the others who might have understood the technology of their people.

Almost everyone on the planet died in those terrible hours, leaving only a few hundred survivors in hibernation. And that sleep would have lasted forever if a human hadn't disturbed them. A thousand years passed with no one from the rest of the Empire coming to check on them, to rescue the prince.

That cold, vast expanse of time had to mean that the Empire had fallen. And that the rebels had failed to replace it, or they'd have come to check their handiwork. For all that the dragons of Mars knew, they were the only survivors of their species. They couldn't be sure, though. The only way to find out was to build their own ship and go looking, and for that they needed to understand the stardrive.

"Hello?" Ashley waved a hand in front of Kosar's face and he realized he'd let the pause go on far too long. With an effort he relaxed, his hands unclenching from his chair. The metal had twisted under his fingers, warped by his anger.

Covering his embarrassment with a snarl, he nodded quickly. "I'm fine. This isn't easy to talk about, that's all."

A shadow passed over her face, and he saw that she understood at least a little. No human could really grasp the enormity of his loss, but it looked like Ashley was willing to try. That was more than many humans would do. Kosar cleared his throat.

"Anyway, you're going to be working with one of the greatest treasures of the Dragon Empire, so you will need to be vetted carefully," he continued, trying to put his emotions behind him. They were a chaotic mess and he didn't have the time to separate them out. "Most of that has been done, of course, or you wouldn't be on the planet, let alone in the Center. But I need to make certain you understand the rules and will abide by them."

Ashley sat back and Kosar could see a tension in her. Fear showed in her eyes. It probably didn't mean anything — humans all tended to be intimidated by dragon shifters. Still, this time it stuck in his mind. Perhaps because she's my mate, he thought. I don't want her to be afraid of me.

That was something they were going to have to talk about at some point. Soon. Kosar knew that he couldn't work near his mate if she didn't know what she meant to him. But first, the rules. That was what they were here for.

"You will not remove anything from the room," he told her. "All the work has to be done there. All the data and samples will stay there unless their removal is cleared by me and Dr. Cooper, or someone that we both approve. No records of any kind will leave the Center. To make certain of that, we block all communications in and out of the Center, and everyone leaving is scanned for unauthorized data storage. It's an inconvenience, I know, but a necessary one."

"Wouldn't this go quicker if we could share the research with other scientists?" Ashley asked. Kosar narrowed his eyes.

"Probably," he agreed reluctantly, "but those scientists would be on Earth, and they would work for human corporations. The starship we're building is a collaborative effort, and for that to work the Dragon Empire needs to maintain control of our secrets. This is a delicate balancing act; both the Empire and the Consortium need to profit from the research, or it will break down.

"Also, the technology is extremely dangerous. Stardrives, improperly used, are weapons of great power. We dragons may not have any scientists who understand the principles left amongst us, but we know more about the dangers than humans do."

He could see that Ashley didn't like his answer. None of the humans did, but that didn't — couldn't — matter. Mistakes with this technology had wrecked continents, and if he could do anything to prevent that happening to Earth he would.

Ashley didn't voice her objections, though. That was a relief, he'd had enough of that argument for ten lifetimes with the human scientists. Instead, she nodded reluctantly.

"Fine, so everything I do stays here," she said, pulling a face as though the words had a sour taste. "But how does that keep things safe, if the engine is that dangerous? You do understand I'm going to have to turn it on, right?"

"And when you do, I'll be standing right next to you to make sure it goes well," Kosar assured her. "I won't risk anything bad happening to you."

Ashley's jaw tightened visibly, and she glowered at him. "I don't need your protection."

"Perhaps not," Kosar said. Trying to soothe her worries only seemed to annoy his mate, so he tried another tack. "The working stardrive isn't the problem, though since it's damaged there is a risk. But someone experimenting with the basic principles could do a lot of damage. The Empire put its shipyards on barren planets after the first accident we had with one."

He met her gaze, trying to impress on her the importance of keeping this secret here. It wouldn't be possible for long, he knew. Once they'd rediscovered the secret of making new stardrives, keeping it quiet would be impossible. The human corporations would get their hands on it one way or another — but that wasn't the issue. Working stardrives were dangerous but controllable. His job was to stop humans messing around with non-working ones.

If a human corporation got hold of the Center's research now, the temptation to forge ahead as fast as possible would be irresistible to them. Whoever had a starship first would get a jump on colonizing the galaxy, and that meant incredible profit. But only if they didn't destroy their planet doing the experiments needed to reinvent the technology. That was far too likely for Kosar's taste.

The deal between the Consortium and the Dragon Empire would get them all the answers at the same time, and that way no one would have an advantage. In theory that would keep anyone from any too-dangerous experiments.

Looking into Ashley's eyes, though, Kosar found all thoughts of safety protocols and security washed from his mind. The burning passion in her gaze, a mix of emotions that he couldn't quite identify, rocked him to his core. A flame of passion kindled in his heart, growing to a roaring inferno that made rational thought impossible. His dragon soul simply wanted to snatch her up and carry her off, to forget about science and secrets and spies for as long as they could.

"Hey! Back off, mister!" Ashley's voice was sharp, and he felt her hand on his chest. Without realizing it, he'd stood and walked around his desk to tower over her. She looked up at him and the feel of her skin on his made his heart race. The fear in her gaze wasn't fear of him. No, it was fear of herself, of what she might do if she gave in to her feelings.

I'm not going to push her, he told himself, over the roar of his dragon soul. She has to know that she's safe with me.

Mastering himself with difficulty, he took a step away from her and the loss of contact was almost painful. Taking a deep breath he forced control on himself, trying to keep himself at least vaguely professional.

"I do not mean to frighten you," he said slowly. "That is the last thing I would ever want to do to my mate."