DRAGONS OF THE DAWN

By

Angelique Anjou

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Chapter One

There was a full moon tonight, but that only meant deeper shadows for their quarry to hide … or lay in wait for them. MP Cpl. Josephine Benate pressed the button on her radio. “You see him, Murphy?”

Static greeted her when she released the button. “GI piece of shit issue,” she muttered, wondering if her partner had gotten out of range or if the buildings were interfering. She pressed it again. “Murphy? What’s your position?”

“…end of the field. He’s gone over the wire. Heading for the trees.”

“Where’s our backup?” Again, the response was a burst of static. “Murphy. Where’s our backup?”

“I’m on it.”

She could tell from his voice that he was running. She cursed under her breath. “Hold your position, private.”

He didn’t respond. “I say again, hold your position for back up.”

She scanned the perimeter and the field beyond it and caught a glimpse of movement just outside the fence. She knew it had to be Murphy and wondered if he’d called for backup, as he’d been ordered to, before he ditched their jeep. She had a bad feeling he hadn’t. She ought to have known better than to leave it to him. He was too gung ho for his own good. “Stupid rookie,” she ground out and began jogging in his direction, scanning the area between her partner and the edge of the woods.

A shadow detached itself from the ground and bolted for the trees. He wasn’t twenty feet in front of Murphy. Josie ran faster, hoping to avert disaster. She almost ran right past the break in the fence. Skidding to a stop, she doubled back and pushed through the cut wire. The ragged edges scraped across the sleeve of her uniform and snagged, jerking her to a halt. She grabbed the wire with her other hand and gave it a yank to free herself. As she did, she heard a meaty thud behind her. “Damn it!” she growled, pulling against the snag so hard she staggered when she finally came loose.

Whipping her head around, she scanned the clearing and zeroed in on the two men struggling near the edge of the woods. She launched herself into a full out run. She was within a couple of yards of the struggling pair when the report of a pistol almost deafened her.

She didn’t know if Murphy had fired, if the suspect had managed to get Murphy’s pistol, or if both men had a gun, but she didn’t have time to retreat. Without taking time to consider it, she launched herself into the air, diving for them.

As if watching the event in slow motion, she saw Murphy crumpling toward the ground. She saw their suspect’s mouth working in a silent yell and his head turning in her direction, watched as he brought his gun arm up.

Her impact with the suspect stunned both of them. Two seconds after their midair collision, they hit the ground. Josie rolled and came back up on her feet, scrabbling to pull her own weapon from its holster. The suspect, she saw, was on his feet, as well, and no longer armed. He glanced quickly around for his weapon and dove at her instead when he didn’t see it. He hit her so hard the weapon she’d just pulled from her holster went flying off into the darkness. Pinning her to the ground, he shoved his forearm under her chin, pressing against her throat.

A roaring filled her ears. She clawed uselessly at his arm for a moment and then went for his eyes. He jerked his head back beyond her reach, but the movement also relieved the pressure on her throat. She grabbed the arm he was trying to choke her with, pushing up on it and bucked, trying to throw him off of her. Grinning, he grabbed both of her wrists and shoved her hands into the dirt, scooting up far enough he could put a knee of each hand.

She jerked the first hand from beneath his knee while he was trying to secure the other with his opposite knee. This time, instead of going for his eyes, she went for his crotch, grabbing a handful of cods and squeezing them for all she was worth. He let out a high pitched scream and grabbed for her hand with both of his, trying to pry her fingers loose. Balling her freehand into a fist, she drove it upwards with all her strength into his nose. Blood gushed down his face. She managed to buck him off of her while he was distracted and scrambled to her feet, but she’d barely gained her feet when he launched himself at her again.

She leapt to one side, but not far enough or fast enough. He managed to catch hold of the leg of her trousers and jerk her off balance, sending her slamming into the dirt. She drew her knee up and caught him on the side of the head with her boot, stunning him long enough to scramble to her feet.

He was already on his knees by the time she’d regained her feet and whirled to face him again. Something caught her eye as she turned to face her assailant, but it didn’t register in her mind immediately. She was too intent on immobilizing the suspect before he managed to find one of the pistols. Even as she drew back and kicked the man in the ribs with the toe of her steel toed boot, it clicked.

There was a man behind her … and it wasn’t Murphy.

She leapt over her suspect, whirling so that she could see the other man. She only caught a glimpse of a whole lot of naked flesh, however. Despite the cracked rib she knew she’d given him, the man she’d kicked was on his feet almost before she landed on the other side of him. She discovered she’d lost her hat in the scuffle when the man caught a fistful of her hair, nearly pulling it out by the roots as he used it to swing her around.

Ignoring the pain that brought tears to her eyes, Josie used the momentum her assailant had given her to drive her elbow into his cracked rib. Her elbow immediately went numb, but the man released his grip on her hair as he doubled over and spat blood.

She backed off, flexing her fingers to try to get the feeling back. “You’re under arrest, Sergeant Collins,” she said gustily. “Put your hands behind your back, soldier!”

Slowly, he straightened, swaying slightly.

“Get down on the ground and put your hands behind your back.”

“I don’t think so,” Collins ground out, leaping toward her again.

Josie bounded into the air, launching a flying kick at his head. Pain shot through her knee and ankle at the impact, but his head jerked sideways, changing his trajectory. He plowed up the dirt to her left. Josie landed in a half squat, ground her teeth against the pain and pushed herself upright, glancing from Collins to the stranger, who hadn’t so much as moved a muscle. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” she demanded, keeping her eye on Collins, who’d struggled to his knees.

The stranger still didn’t answer. She flicked a glance at him, saw that he still hadn’t moved and strode toward Collins, kicking him hard enough on the ass that he plowed dirt again.

She dared another quick glance at the stranger and finally decided he must be an escaped mental patient. She couldn’t think of any other explanation for his being here stark naked … and as far as she could see, he was.

She didn’t think he could be Collins’ contact, in any case. He seemed unthreatening, for the moment at least. She divided her attention between the two men while she felt around for her handcuffs. The distraction cost her. As she clamped the handcuff on one of Collins’ wrists, he rolled, throwing dirt in her face and pitching her over him. She managed to tuck herself into a roll as the ground zoomed up to meet her. Coming up on her feet again, she whipped around to face Collins.

That was when she discovered he’d managed to get one of the pistols … and he had it aimed at her head. She dove away a split second before he fired, but she had no where to run and she realized she wasn’t going to be able to reach the trees before he put one in her back. She made the attempt anyway. The second bullet caught the edge of her trousers, searing the skin.

The third bullet brought a gurgling yelp from Collins. The sound caught her attention and she whirled to look. The naked stranger had one hand on Collins’ gun arm. Collins’ wrist was dangling at a sickening angle, the pistol hanging from one finger now.

Josie stopped, staring at the two men, wondering how the stranger had managed to cover so much distance so fast. When he released Collins, the sergeant crumpled to the ground, nursing his smoking boot.

After a moment, she moved cautiously toward the two men. “Who are you?” she demanded again.

The stranger, who’d been studying her from the moment she changed directions and headed toward them, spoke for the first time. “Lord Nigel Bloodragon, Duke of Sarcen.”

Josie stopped abruptly in her tracks. She’d been right to begin with. The man had to be a mental patient. The problem was, they were miles from any mental hospital that she knew anything about.

She couldn’t see it in his eyes … but then there wasn’t that much light. Still …. Now that the adrenaline had stopped pumping through her bloodstream and the shock was beginning to wear off, she saw he wasn’t completely naked as she’d thought. He was wearing something like a jock sock--she’d gotten a glimpse of one butt cheek so she knew it was a thong. It looked like the sort of thing a male dancer would wear, particularly in light of the fact that the man had the muscular physic of a body builder. For that matter, his whole getup almost shouted male dancer--or maybe he was some kind of S&M nut? There were epaulettes on his shoulders that looked as if they were made of metal. There were one to two inch spikes poking out from the epaulettes. Some sort of filigreed metal curled around his ribs, joined in from just above the jock sock, and he had one hell of an impressive package tucked into that thing. Either he had the balls of a stud bull, or a cock like one. A dark cape fluttered behind him. He also had about a thirty inch sword tucked into a scabbard at his side, but he’d made no attempt to draw it and she thought it might be just for show.

Who did he think he was, anyway? Super cock?

“Step away from my prisoner.”

He looked down at the man at his feet and finally stepped away from him. She moved toward the men cautiously. That was when she realized ‘super cock’ was somewhere between six and seven feet tall, leaning more toward seven because he was one big son-of-a-bitch.

“Back off,” she ground out, suddenly wishing she had her revolver…or two dozen MPs with automatics at her back. The guy wasn’t just a giant. He moved like greased lightening. She’d been between the two men when Collins started firing, but he’d still managed to close the distance and break Collins’ wrist before Collins got off his third round.

As docile as a lamb, the hulking giant moved a few paces further, but not nearly far enough to suit Josie.

Texas might have been far enough.

Collins screamed when she grabbed his wrist. She ignored him, putting her knee in his back and cuffing the other hand.

“Bitch! My fucking wrist’s broken!” Collins ground out when he managed to catch his breath.

“You’re lucky I don’t break your fucking neck, you son-of-a-bitch! You shot my partner…. Murphy!” she yelled. “Murphy? Are you all right?”

“That one is dead.”

Josie looked at the stranger sharply. He had a strange accent, making it difficult to understand him. Russian, she wondered? “Did you do it?”

He shook his head, pointing to Collins. “That one.”

She picked up the pistol that lay in the dirt. “What are you doing here? This area is restricted.”

“I came to look for someone to aid me in a just cause. I need a female.”

Josie was taken aback. She didn’t have another pair of handcuffs though. Holding the pistol leveled at the stranger, she moved to Murphy and checked him for a pulse. There wasn’t one. She’d feared as much. He hadn’t made a sound since he’d gone down. Shoving the pistol into her holster, she rolled him over. His chest was soaked with blood. Collins had caught him in the heart. She swallowed against the knot that welled in her throat, but it was some consolation to know that he hadn’t lay dying while she was busy trying to subdue Collins.

She was liable to be facing a Court Martial, though.

“You’re going to fry for this one, Collins,” she ground out.

Pulling Murphy’s cuffs from his belt, she stood once more and studied the stranger. “You’re not going to give me a hard time, are you?”

His brows rose questioningly.

“I’m going to have to take you in, too,” she said steadily.

“Why?”

“This is a government facility, and it’s restricted. I’ll have to take you in for questioning … If nothing else, you’re a witness.”

He frowned thoughtfully. “How much time will this take?”

Josie gave him a look. “A few hours … maybe a few days.”

“I do not have time … now. When we return, I will do so.”

Josie’s heart skipped a few beats. “What are you talking about?”

“You are a soldier, yes?”

Josie nodded. “Military police, sir. Your cooperation will be appreciated.”

He shook his head. “This is a strange world. I could scarcely believe you were a female and still a warrior, and yet I have seen your prowess as a fighter.”

Josie stared at him in dismay. Just when she’d decided he wasn’t a mental patient! Where the hell was her backup? Even if Murphy hadn’t made the call, somebody should have heard the shots that had been fired. The damn place should be crawling with MPs by now. “All righty, then. Let’s just take this slowly. Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

“Quit dicking around with the lunatic, bitch! I need a medic. I’m bleeding to death here.”

Josie slid a glance toward Collins. “Shut up, asshole. Don’t worry about it. I’m not going to let you die. I want to watch when they execute your sorry ass.”

When she returned her attention to the stranger, she saw he hadn’t moved.

“I should explain,” he said slowly. “Our future queen is in peril. We dare not take her to Caracaren, for the traitors await her there and they have already made one attempt on her life. I need a female to pose as the princess while we ferret out the traitors. Be assured that I will protect you from harm and you will be richly rewarded for your efforts for the queen.”

“I really don’t want to shoot you, sir, but I’m going to have to if you don’t turn around and put your hands behind your back … right now.”

He tipped his head to one side. “I do not believe that … pistol? Will operate.”

“I figure I’ve still got at least three bullets. It might not bring a hulking brute like you down, but it’ll sure as hell fuck up your day.”

“The end is bent,” he pointed out almost apologetically.

Josie’s gaze flickered down at the gun. “Shit!” Tossing it aside, she sprang into the air, aiming a flying kick at his head. He caught her foot with one hand. It was like hitting a brick wall, immovable. A jolt went through her entire body. She landed on the ground so hard it knocked the breath from her lungs and rattled her brains against her skull. Before she could do more than grunt, he’d scooped her off the ground.

“Are you injured?”

Besides scrambling her brains and breaking every bone in her body? She lifted her head with an effort, trying to focus her eyes … which seemed to be rolling around independently of each other. “Jus.. fine,” she managed to say in a slurred voice.

He caught her lolling head and studied her in frowning silence for a moment.

Dimly, Josie heard the sounds of vehicles skidding to an abrupt stop, voices in the distance. Lights flooded the area.

“This is the military police!” a male voice shouted. “Release the woman! Now!”

The stranger flicked a glance in the direction of the shout. “You are only stunned. We should go now. I will explain all when we reach Atar.”

As if that settled the matter, he cradled her tightly against his chest and took off at a run. Josie bit her tongue at the first jolt and tasted blood. She clenched her teeth together after that. She’d just begun to feel some of the pain easing off when they suddenly went airborne. Before she could do more than gasp in a single breath of air, she felt something cold and slimy crawl over her skin, felt a cessation of movement, and sound. Gelatin?

Panic washed over her, freezing the blood in her veins. Abruptly, they fell through whatever it was that had surrounded them and movement, sound, and air rushed over her. He absorbed most of the impact of their landing and Josie still felt several bones along her spine crackle.

She hadn’t realized that she’d squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for impact, until they jolted to a stop. Opening her eyes warily, she lifted her head from his shoulder and looked around at the strange landscape and then up at the sky when she realized nothing looked familiar.

In the night sky above them, three moons, one full and two half moons, were lined up like the lights on a runway.

Chapter Two

A disturbing sense of disorientation swept over Josie. She had not been unconscious. She knew she hadn’t, which meant that no more than a few minutes had passed since super cock had grabbed her up and run with her. She should still be able to see familiar terrain.

Her vision was screwy, though, no doubt from the rough landing when she’d tried to take the weirdo prisoner. The fall had rattled her brain against her skull, and now she was seeing a moon with ghosted images beside it--not exactly seeing double, but she had a feeling something worse was going on.

“What the fuck just happened?” she finally managed.

The loony looked down at her. There was little light with nothing more than the glow of stars and, if she could believe her eyes, three moons, to brighten the landscape, but Josie had the sense that super cock was almost as confused right now as she was. He allowed her to slide slowly to the ground as he looked around, a frown drawing his dark brows together. “We passed through the portal,” he responded almost absently.

“What portal?” Josie demanded, looking around for anything that looked like a door even though she knew damned well there couldn’t be one. They were standing in the middle of what looked like a desert landscape. As far as she could see, there didn’t seem to be anything around them but sand, rock, and scrubby vegetation--which only increased her confusion. Her base wasn’t anywhere near this kind of terrain. It was smack in the middle of a sub tropical region and surrounded by the thick vegetation and swampy areas typical of that area.

That thought spawned another.

She should be hearing crickets, frogs, alligators--noises from the base.

It wasn’t just her vision that was screwy.

Tamping the twinge of hysteria twisting a knot in her belly, Josie eyed the stranger suspiciously. “Did you give me something?”

His look of surprise seemed genuine as the question brought his focus to her upturned face. He frowned after a moment, apparently considering the question carefully. “Not that I recall.”

Josie plunked her hands on her hips. “Look. I’m not crazy.”

He studied her with interest.

“Where the hell is my base?”

Understanding dawned. “Beyond the portal.”

“What fucking portal, damn it? We’re in the middle of a desert.”

He looked around almost uneasily then. “I know. I had not expected this.”

Something about the way he said it made Josie nervous. Or maybe it was just the fact that he’d admitted he hadn’t been expecting to find himself here either?

She didn’t know why that would concern her when she’d already deduced the guy was off his rocker. “Are you saying … uh … what are you saying?”

Instead of answering at once, he lifted his head and sniffed the air. “This is no safe place to linger.”

Instinctively, Josie followed suit, wondering even as she turned her head in first one direction and then another, sniffing deeply, exactly what it was that he’d smelled that had spelled trouble. She felt foolish almost as soon as she’d done it and gave him a hard look, wondering if he was just that nuts or if he was amusing himself at her expense. Before she could call him on it, something heavy landed on the ground behind her. She whirled even as the man calling himself Lord Nigel Bloodragon, Duke of Sarcen picked her up and set her to one side.

Something horrible had landed in the sand below an outcropping of rock not twenty feet from where they stood. Josie felt her jaw go slack with surprise even as an adrenaline rush of pure terror went through her.

The thing had the barrel chest of a bull, but neither of the two heads protruding at the ends of the snake-like necks looked bull like. One looked like some sort of prehistoric cat, the other vaguely resembled a dog. Both heads sported wide, slathering jaws full of long, spiky teeth.

“Oh my fucking god! What the fuck is that?”

Instead of answering, Nigel drew his sword, uttered something that sounded like a war cry and raced toward it.

Too stunned even to consider moving in any direction, Josie merely watched, her sense of unreality growing by leaps and bounds as the horrible vision reared up on its hind legs and charged forward to meet Nigel with a sword of its own. The ring of metal on metal as they made contact jolted Josie out of her stupor.

Her mind was in turmoil, but there was nothing wrong with her instincts. She was unarmed and no match for the likes of that thing without a weapon. After glancing around to assess the situation, she went into full retreat.

She didn’t know where she was or what direction might represent safety, but she had no desire to hang around and find out which of the two would come out the victor in their contest.

There was no sign of anything that even vaguely resembled a doorway. She headed away from the combatants along the path of least resistance. As level as the ground was, though, the sand was loose and shifting. In a very few moments she was gasping for breath and sweating from the effort of running and the land had begun to slope upward. Behind her, she could hear the grunts of effort and clanging of sword against sword slowly dimming with distance. Halfway up the incline, she lost her balance. Fortunately, she fell forward instead of rolling back down the slope and into the middle of the battle. Scrambling on her hands and knees now, she focused on reaching the summit.

A dark shape swarmed over the crest of the dune before she could reach it and slammed into her. The impact sent both her and her attacker rolling to the bottom. Dizzy from the roll, Josie scrambled to her feet when she stopped moving and tried to brace herself for attack. The thing--which she saw was another of the nightmare creatures, seemed less disoriented than she. It grabbed her, wrapping two massive arms around her in a bear hug and lifting her from the ground. Its grip was awkward, pinning one arm to her side. She managed to wriggle the other arm free and slammed her fist at it blindly, kicking her steal toed boots at the same time. Her fist connected with something meaty and moist at almost the same moment the steal toe of her boot found soft flesh.

She couldn’t believe she’d inflicted much pain, but undoubtedly she’d caught the thing by surprise. Its grip loosened enough that she slipped to the ground. She twisted away, swung around in a circle and launched a kick at the thing. She was too close, though, and her calf, not her boot, connected with it. Her blow sent her off balance and she sprawled in the sand. Before she could roll away, the thing landed on her, knocking the breath from her.

Undoubtedly she’d inflicted enough pain to piss the beast off. Two great hands clamped around her throat before she could find the leverage she needed to buck the nightmare creature off. Blood pounded in her skull as the hands tightened. An internal darkness swirled around her mind as she fought to drag air past the binding hands and into her burning lungs.

A jolt traveled through the creature and into her as it was struck. Something heavy slammed into her face and then a warm liquid flowed over her, almost drowning her as the hands went abruptly slack and she gasped.

Rolling onto her side as the creature fell off of her, Josie rubbed her neck, choking as she dragged air past her bruised throat. When she’d finally caught her breath, she opened her eyes and found herself staring into the dead eyes of one of the creature’s heads. Uttering a sharp cry, she shoved away from it even as two hands grasped her and hauled her to her feet.

Her gaze flew upward from the bodiless head on the ground to the man who held her. There was some relief when she recognized Nigel, but only in the sense that he wasn’t the thing she’d been tangling with.

She looked around stupidly, trying to jog her shocked mind into assimilating what had happened.

Two beasts lay in pieces. Dark puddles formed around both. Nigel was spattered with a wet sticky substance and so was she.

He’d beheaded the creature that was trying to choke her to death.

“We need to go,” he said grimly.

That comment penetrated her stupor and made sense instantly--except for the ‘we’ part. She tried to jerk free from his grip as he turned and began jogging from the scene of the fight, tugging her along with him. He didn’t seem to notice at first. Finally, he paused and looked her over. “This is no place for either of us,” he said, his voice terse.

“We are in the land of the Baklen. The one you fought managed to get out an alarm. We must get across the border before more come.”

If he hadn’t pointed that out, Josie would have argued with him about his assumption that she would willingly go anywhere with him. She wasn’t afraid of Nigel, however, even though she knew he was a nut case and she probably should be. But (a) in spite of the beheadings and the fact that he’d snapped Collins’ wrist like a twig, he’d seemed very passive and non-aggressive toward her, and (b) he wasn’t a Baklen and that was enough to make him infinitely more appealing as a companion.

Those things--well, she was either losing her mind, too, or there was something really horrible in behind her and she was in just as much of a hurry to put some distance between herself and those things as Nigel seemed to be.

Snatching her wrist free from his grip, she led the way for several moments.

Obviously Nigel grasped that she didn’t welcome his touch, however impersonal. Instead of grabbing her again when he caught up with her, he blocked her path and pointed in another direction. “The border is there. You will end up in a Baklen village if you continue.”

“And you know this?” Josie demanded.

“This is my world. Yes.”

“Well, you seemed a little confused to me!” Josie pointed out as she turned reluctantly and followed the route he’d suggested.

He sent her a frowning glance. “This area is … not as I remember,” he continued after a significant pause.

“That sounds like ‘I’m lost’ to me.”

“I know where we are. We are in the land of the Baklen, enemies of the people of Atar,” he said testily. “And you will give away our position if you continue to chatter.”

“I could’ve figured that out and nothing about this place is familiar to me!” The chastisement hit fertile soil, however, and she lapsed into silence, partly because she knew he was right and partly because she was becoming breathless from trying to run and talk at the same time.

It couldn’t really be said that the sense of unreality dimmed a great deal, but there was nothing dream like about the attack, her sore throat, or her screaming muscles and laboring lungs as she slogged through the loose sand. The sensations of physical misery couldn’t be nothing more than the product of her mind and if that part was real then everything else was, however difficult it was to explain or even to completely grasp.

She wasn’t ‘home’, that was for damn sure.

It occurred to her as weariness began to overcome her fear of running into one of the things Nigel had called Baklen again that they were moving further and further from the ‘portal’ Nigel told her he’d used to bring her to this godforsaken place. She didn’t like it, but since she’d never actually seen it she wasn’t certain that it existed at all or that she would’ve been able to find it if she’d stayed where she was.

It seemed an indisputable fact that as much as she would’ve liked to ditch her kidnapper, he was her only hope of finding her way back through the portal.

When they finally stopped to catch their breath, taking shelter in the lee of stones that formed a cup and gave them some cover she gave him a deadly glance. “Where the hell am I? And how did you get me here?” she demanded, her voice low and fierce.

He studied her assessingly for several moments before he spoke. “I brought you through the portal that joins my world to yours.”

“I didn’t see a damned portal!” Josie growled.

His lips tightened. “You felt it, though, did you not?”

That was inarguable. “Alright. So why?”

“I explained my plan to save my queen. Her enemies will do all that they can to keep her from ascending the throne.”

“As in ‘assassinate’ I assume?” Josie demanded angrily.

Despite the dimness, she could see his skin darken. “You are a soldier--as I am. You understand the way of the sword. Our queen has no notion of how to protect herself and in any case, it is my place and that of her loyal subjects to protect her … with our lives if necessary.”

“Your queen!” Josie growled, not just furious because she’d been dragged into something she hadn’t agreed to, but, for some reason she didn’t really want to examine, angry because he assumed she was ‘tough enough’ to defend herself against his enemies. She had no desire to be considered useless, but she wanted her femininity acknowledged. She wasn’t ‘one of the boys’, damn it! “The way of the sword, my ass! I use a gun, in case it escaped your attention! And I’ve got no interest in saving your queen so you can just take me back right now!”

His gaze was assessing. “You are a soldier. You must understand the situation.”

“Will you stop harping on that, damn it? Obviously you’re laboring under the misconception that war is my life, or something like that. It’s a job. I’m proud to be serving my country, but the key word here is my country. Get it? I don’t get my rocks off fighting. And I’m not going to get all fired up about your queen, I don’t care how just your cause is. The only thing I’m interested in is getting back home.”

He looked taken aback. “You have no sense of honor? No desire to fight for glory?”

Josie felt her own face redden, mostly with anger. “If it was my president … wait a minute. OK, well maybe. I’m duty bound to uphold the office, whatever I happen to think about the man that holds it at the moment and I’m perfectly willing to do what I’m required to do. But there’s no glory in war, and none in fighting. The only thing glorious about it is coming through a battle in one piece. I’m sorry about your queen, but I honestly couldn’t care less whether she gets on the throne or not.”

His eyes narrowed. “She would bestow great riches upon you.”

“Which wouldn’t do me a bit of good if I was dead,” Josie retorted.

His lips tightened, but he pushed himself to his feet. “We need to keep moving.”

“Why don’t you just point me toward the damned portal? I’ll find my own way back home!”

He pointed out the route from which they’d just come and headed out in the opposite direction at a loping run.

Josie glared at his back, turned to study the dark landscape where the two headed beasts lay for several moments and then started after him. Even without packs the trek was worse than any obstacle course she’d run. Her leg muscles and buttocks were screaming with the burn of running up and then down the dunes, climbing over rocks and slogging through the shifting sands.

The sky had begun to lighten with approaching dawn when the landscape began to change, subtly at first. The scrubby vegetation became more plentiful and then less stunted and more lush. The sand gave way to a firmer mixture of clay and sand and pebbles. The rocks became formations and finally a barrier that wasn’t quite a mountain but too tall to be considered a little hill.

Nigel began climbing. Josie sat down to rest and catch her breath.

She was dying of thirst but she was still too angry despite her weariness to complain about it. Besides, he was the next thing to naked. He certainly didn’t have any place to hide a canteen of water.

He slowed when he realized she wasn’t following any longer and finally stopped and turned to look back at her. After hesitating for several moments, he sat down to rest, as well.

Josie did her best to ignore him.

It wasn’t easy. The sun, nearing the horizon, gleamed off of his sweat dampened skin, highlighting the beauty of it. As accustomed as she was to seeing men fit from working out to stay in tip top shape, this one outshone any that she could bring to mind. He looked more like a body builder than just well honed, his muscles bulging and very well defined, except not exaggerated to the point of protruding veins and tendons, which she didn’t find particularly appealing.

She’d liked it better when she’d been able to think of him only as a nut case. With everything that had just gone down and her certainty that he was crazy she’d been able to dismiss even a spark of interest. Her weariness now left her wide open to notice things she would’ve preferred to remain immune to and it went beyond admiration of his perfectly sculpted body.

His strength and stamina were almost as amazing as his physical beauty, which, unfortunately for her peace of mind, was not limited to a very appealing body. Without so much as a trace of boyishness about his harsh features, he was disturbingly handsome and even the long, raven black hair that should’ve looked girlish or just plain silly didn’t detract from his good looks or his masculinity.

The package under that thong he was wearing was just icing on the cake and way more intriguing to her than it should have been.

Irritation filled her.

The man had kidnapped her and brought her to some strange world to play moving target to protect his queen, for crying out loud! She’d gone soft in the head to admire anything about him!

“We are near the border of Atar now,” he said, interrupting her thoughts and jolting her to the awareness that he’d risen and approached her.

She’d been gazing into the distance in meditation, but she saw that his approach had brought him into her line of sight. More accurately, her gaze had settled on the package she’d been thinking of only moments before. Reddening, she lifted her gaze to his face. “How far?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps a mile in your measurements. I will find a place where it will be safe for you to sleep for a few hours.”

She didn’t miss the fact that he’d said she could sleep. She supposed that meant that he was volunteering to stand guard. The belated consideration for her femininity irritated her almost as much as his complete disregard for it earlier.

She supposed it was unreasonable to be pissed off at him when he treated her like a soldier and also be angry when he treated her like ‘the weaker sex’, but she felt insulted all the same.

Then again, she was just plain angry all the way around. She hadn’t volunteered for duty and he’d had no right thinking she would be agreeable just because she was a soldier. “And then what?” she asked tersely.

He tilted his head to one side, studying her for a long moment before he responded. “And then we will discuss what to do next.”

Chapter Three

The shelter Nigel found was a cave. Josie was outraged and she made no attempt to hide it. Field duty in a battle situation might have put her in the way of such miserable conditions to contend with, but she hadn’t done field duty--and she wasn’t actually on field duty at the moment. At the very least, she felt like she ought to be able to expect the sort of bare minimum comforts of a fully equipped soldier.

A hut would’ve been better.

She was expected to sleep on a rocky cave floor without even a frigging blanket?

Nigel disappeared, leaving her in the mouth of the cave staring at the black hole that was the back and wondering what sort of creatures might be hiding there. A few minutes later he returned bearing a crudely fashioned torch and led the way inside. When he’d examined the place thoroughly, he wedged the torch into a crevice and pointed out the water that was trickling down the wall and into a naturally formed basin just above the floor of the cave.

Josie wasn’t certain she wanted to test the purity of the water. Shrugging, he helped himself and headed out of the cave once more. When he didn’t collapse on the way out, Josie moved to the basin and sniffed the water. There was no chemical smell to it. Scooping some into her hands, she tested it on her tongue and finally decided that it was safe to drink.

She would’ve been much happier if she’d had a kit to test the water, but she didn’t, and she was nearly dehydrated already. She couldn’t afford to be too picky. Having drunk her fill, she pulled off her utility belt and dropped it to the floor of the cave, then tugged her tunic from her trousers.

It was unfortunate that she didn’t have a change of clothes, but she saw no reason to endure the stickiness on her skin from the long trek even if she would be stuck with putting on the same clothes. She discovered when she’d stripped to her underwear that the cave was a lot chillier than she’d thought.

The water was icy, especially in contrast to her overheated skin. It took her breath for several moments after she’d splashed it on her face and neck. Shivering, she gritted her teeth and scrubbed the frigid water along her arms, belly, and the upper slopes of her breasts anyway, ignoring the sounds behind her as Nigel strode into the cave, dropped something, hesitated for several moments, and retreated again without a word. After sloughing off as much of the excess water as she could, she picked her shirt up again and shrugged into it.

Turning as she buttoned it, she saw Nigel coming in again, bearing an armload of kindling. His gaze flickered over her briefly. Frowning, he dropped the wood to the floor of the cave and squatted down to arrange it.

Abruptly self-conscious, Josie put her back to him and finished buttoning the shirt. When she turned again, she saw that he already had a fire started. More than a little surprised, she stared at him for several moments, wondering what he’d used to light it, but finally shrugged it off and moved closer to chase the chill from her ‘bath’. “It’s too much to hope for food, I suppose?” she muttered.

He frowned. “I believe there is a village a few miles from here. Would you prefer to move on now? Or rest first?”

She felt weak from too much exertion and no food or water. She wanted food now, but she didn’t think she could face another mile of hiking without sleep much less several. “Rest,” she said gustily.

He nodded. After a moment, he rose and left the cave again.

Josie stared at the fire, thinking about her partner, Murphy. She hadn’t been particularly fond of him. In fact, she’d hardly known him. The few times she’d worked with him she’d found him more than a little annoying, but it made her angry all over again to think about the kid dying like that. It was such a damned waste and so unnecessary!

They would’ve found him by now and, her prisoner, as well, alive or dead. It would be better for her if he was still alive when they found him but otherwise she didn’t have any particular feelings about it one way or the other as long as they got the bastard.

They would be looking for her. She was anxious about how the investigation was going to go without her there to make her statement. As long as they realized the man she’d left in cuffs was the perp, she wasn’t particularly worried about what would happen to him once they had him in custody, or whether he’d be blamed for having done something to her, as well. He’d killed Private Murphy. He deserved whatever happened next.

She was going to be in for it when she got back, though, and she dreaded the inquisition she was going to have to face.

She certainly couldn’t tell them what had really happened and she had a feeling they were going to see through any lie she could think up. In fact, try though she might, she couldn’t think of a single scenario at the moment that would explain her disappearance. If she said she’d been grabbed by his cohorts, she was going to have to explain how she’d gotten away and they were going to want to know where she’d been taken, what sort of vehicle had been used, what the men looked like, how many there were.

It was almost enough to give her nightmares even to consider that possibility.

So where did that leave her?

Up shit creek without a damned paddle!

Damn it!

A rustle of sound caught her attention and she turned to see Nigel returning with his arms laden with some sort of vegetation. He dropped it on the rock floor opposite the fire and fluffed it into a mound. Straightening, he removed his cloak from his shoulders and held it out to her.

Josie simply stared at the heavy cloak.

“It is all that I have to offer for your comfort.”

Nice gesture. Josie was almost pleased. She was too suspicious to be overly pleased about it, though. As tired as she was she didn’t think she could just lie down and sleep with this stranger hovering over her. True, he hadn’t offered her any harm beyond kidnapping her, but she didn’t like the idea of leaving herself completely vulnerable. “You rest. I’ll take the first watch.”

He lowered the offering, studying her for several moments in silence. “You are in no danger from me.”

“Except for the small matter of you kidnapping me, you mean?” She supposed she could see how he would get the idea that she was alright with the situation. She had followed him all the way to the cave, but he had to also realize that there were extenuating circumstances--the two headed kind.

He frowned, obviously not at all pleased with the implications. “You are not a prisoner. I did not take you by force.”

Josie blinked at him in disbelief. “I was stunned and you took advantage of that--and don’t tell me you didn’t realize I wasn’t in any condition to object when you picked me up and dove through the portal!”

He reddened. “I enlisted your aid for the sake of my queen.”

“No, you didn’t! Enlisted implies that I agreed. You know damned well I never agreed. England tried that, too, a long time ago, but knocking somebody out and dragging them off does not constitute volunteering for service!”

“I did not knock you out!” he growled.

This time Josie reddened. He hadn’t done anything but stand still and let her beat herself up trying to best him, but that was beside the point. “Maybe not, but you knew I was barely conscious--certainly not in any condition to argue with you.”

“I did not drag you here--to this place,” he pointed out, gesturing around at the cave.

“Some damned choice! Like I would choose to play tag with the two headed monsters when I don’t even have a damned weapon! At least you’re human!”

He started to say something but stopped abruptly, his expression arrested. “I am not of Earth,” he muttered finally, his gaze sliding away from hers. “I am a dragon.”

Josie was taken aback, but dismissed it as he settled on the mound of vegetation himself and wrapped his cloak around himself. “I don’t really care what you people call yourselves, it was still a case of better the devil you know! Those things were monsters and that’s the only reason I came--that and the fact that I don’t know how to get home! I couldn’t see this portal you keep talking about. I don’t know how you know where the thing is, but you do and I need you to show me how to get back.”

He studied her in tightlipped silence for some moments. She had the feeling that he was holding something back, that he was wrestling with some dilemma, and it occurred to her after a few moments that she might have made a serious error in judgment. What if he didn’t actually know where the portal was himself? What if he’d just happened upon it and he didn’t know any more about it than she did?

“You can take me back?” she asked uneasily.

His gaze moved from her to the fire. He stared at it almost angrily for so long that she thought he wouldn’t answer her at all. “I will find a way to give you want you want if you will give me what I want,” he said finally.

Josie’s jaw dropped. For several moments, visions danced through her head of their naked bodies writhing together in the firelight. Blood surged into her cheeks as it finally dawned on her that she’d completely misinterpreted the comment--wishful thinking because she did find the man sexy as hell despite the situation--when he’d still been focused on his goal.

“I help you save the queen and then, if I live through it, you’ll consider taking me home?” she demanded angrily.

“I will not allow harm to come to you. I give you my word as a Bloodragon.”

“Well, I don’t mean to insult you, but that doesn’t mean a hell of a lot to me! You might be a hell of a fighter, but all you have is one frigging sword. If there’s a conspiracy against your queen, that means a lot of enemies and not even necessarily out in the open. Either way, whatever your oath, you aren’t going to be able to protect me. If you could, you’d just protect your queen!”

Instead of responding, he lay down on the pallet he’d made and rolled onto his back, staring up at the black ceiling of the cave.

When Josie saw he didn’t intend to continue the ‘discussion’, she got up and stalked to the mouth of the cave, leaning one shoulder against the stone wall and glaring angrily out at the night.

If she ignored the fact that there were three moons in the sky, it was almost like being home. The night felt the same. The sounds of the insects didn’t differ greatly. A disorienting sense of unreality washed over her again. This was not Earth and it was real, not a dream, not a hallucination.

But how could it be real? How could she be going about her life on Earth one second and be on a totally different world in the next?

She’d always been a science and technology buff and in a way she could make sense of the situation, but she’d never heard of anything but theory and speculation in so far as other dimensions, or even other worlds that had intelligent life.

Nigel knew about Earth. It hadn’t been a fluke that he’d shown up there, or some kind of freakish accident. He’d indicated that he’d come with a purpose and she had the sense from what he’d said that this was no great secret to anyone from his world. It might not be common knowledge, but there were obviously more than one or two here with the knowledge of Earth and the passage to get there.

But no one on Earth seemed to know about this place.

She was certain of that. If the government had known, they would be in a blind panic to board up the portal and guard it.

Under other circumstances, she would probably have been thrilled with the opportunity to explore a different world.

Despite everything, she couldn’t help but be intrigued, particularly with the natives. If Nigel was anything to go by, they must really be impressive.

She couldn’t afford to be lured by the intriguing possibility of exploring a new world or a different culture, though. She’d left a man down in the field, her partner. She’d left a suspect, wounded and in handcuffs, lying next to him. The longer she was gone, the worse it was going to be for her.

Maybe, she thought suddenly, instead of trying to lie her way out of the mess Nigel had gotten her in to, she should consider finding something to take back with her to prove her story?

Pushing away from the rock she’d been leaning against, she turned to look at Nigel where he lay next to the fire. He had his back to her. She couldn’t see whether his eyes were closed or not, but there was no tension in his body as far as she could see.

He might be asleep.

He’d placed his sword and scabbard beside the pallet he’d made. She would’ve far preferred an assault rifle for self defense, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Besides, the sword would be evidence. Along the way, she could collect a few sprigs of plants, rocks, maybe even a bug of some kind. When she got back and handed them over they’d be able to see right off that no matter how wild her story sounded she wasn’t crazy and she wasn’t lying.

The problem was she wasn’t confident she could take Nigel. In fact, she was pretty certain she couldn’t.

She leaned against the cave wall again, this time facing Nigel, playing out scenarios in her mind. It would’ve been a lot easier to figure something out if he hadn’t been wrapped in the damned cloak. She couldn’t see where his hands were and if she had to grope him to locate his wrists, she thought the chances were probably pretty slim that she could get him bound up before he could react, even if he was asleep when she jumped him.

As far as she could see, she only had two options. She could grab a rock and beat his head in or she could try to ‘lift’ his sword without waking him.

Neither scenario really appealed to her. He’d kidnapped her, plain and simple, but there’d been no aggression, no assault, no treats--and, try as she might, she couldn’t look upon him as an enemy or a threat to her, which meant her stomach simply tied itself into a knot as the image of splitting his skull flickered through her mind.

There was no way she could simply knock him unconscious without seriously injuring him and she knew it.

Stealth seemed an unlikely scenario. He didn’t appear to be aware of any danger. He seemed to be totally relaxed and asleep. But he was a soldier and she had the sense that he was a seasoned warrior, which meant he wouldn’t be sleeping nearly as soundly as he appeared to be--might not be sleeping at all.

Pushing away from the rock abruptly, Josie went outside to find a place to relieve herself and consider the situation. When she’d taken care of her needs, she settled on a boulder near the cave entrance and tried to consider her situation calmly.

He’d said if she helped him to save his queen he’d take her back, but that wasn’t even something she could consider if she wanted to go back. Helping him could take weeks, months--god only knew how long and by the time she got back she’d just be looking at spending time in jail. No explanation would do her any good.

That was definitely out. Waiting until morning didn’t seem like a good idea either. He wasn’t going to take her back to where they’d come through the portal. She was going to have to find her own way back and if she waited until he was awake, he might decide not to just let her go.

As far as she could see, her only chance was to try to take his weapon and go now. If she moved quickly and quietly, she might be able to avoid running in to one of those horrible two headed things, but she didn’t want to have to try to defend herself with her bare hands if she did run into one, or more.

She needed that weapon.

Rising, she moved quietly, but not stealthily, back into the cave. She sensed that if he was conscious of her movements at all an attempt at stealth would just alert him to her intentions.

He didn’t move as she approached the fire. She couldn’t see any sign that he tensed either.

He must be asleep.

He was still wrapped in the cloak and she thought his arms were probably drawn close to his chest but she decided to just try to slip the sword, which was lying on the ground between him and the fire. There was a sizeable rock close enough to him that she thought she could grab it and bash him on the head with it if necessary.

Strategically, he was in a very defensible position, asleep or not. She couldn’t reach the sword without leaning over him, which would put her off balance and at a distinct disadvantage. Bracing one foot on either side of him wouldn’t be much more of an advantage to her, but at least she wouldn’t be completely off balance if he woke, she decided.

Stepping over him, she bent at the waist, leaning down to grab the sword.

His hand closed around her wrist even as her fingers curled around the sword, so swiftly that she didn’t even have time to assimilate the fact that he’d caught her before he gave her arm a yank, sweeping her feet out from under her at the same moment.

She sprawled across him awkwardly. Her head swam as he rolled at almost the same instant she made painful contact with him.

By the time her head had stopped swimming, she was pinned flat of her back on the ground by Nigel’s body and he was staring down at her, his face carefully devoid of expression.

Chapter Four

“For generations this sword has been carried by the Duke of Sarcen. It has been used to defend the kingdom of Atar through many battles and it has never passed into the hands of an enemy. It would bring great shame to the House of Bloodragon if it were used to slay the head of our clan.”

It took a few moments for those comments to sink in. Fear and anger surged through Josie as she assimilated the meaning. “If I’d meant you any harm, I’d have bashed your head in and taken the damned sword!”

“Tried,” he retorted grimly.

Josie blinked. “What?”

His gaze flickered over her face as if he was seeing her for the first time, examining her features in the flickering light of the fire one by one with a slow thoroughness that she found distinctly unsettling, particularly when his gaze lit finally upon her lips. They tingled, almost as if he touched them, and she became abruptly aware of the warm caress of his breath against her face, the heat and hardness of his body pressed ruthlessly against her own so that she could feel him over virtually every inch of her body.

When his gaze met hers again, he was frowning. He looked--aroused and both confused and annoyed that he was.

He felt aroused too, unless he was carrying a metal pipe she hadn’t notice before.

The realization seemed to punch the air from her lungs.

“What was your intention, then?” he asked, almost mildly.

Again, Josie blinked in confusion. She’d been so wrapped up in her own inexplicable response to his arousal that she’d completely lost track of how she’d come to be in this position to start with.

“You reached for my sword,” he prodded.

Blood surged into Josie’s cheeks. “I didn’t want to meet up with one of those two headed monsters without any kind of weapon.”

His lips tightened. After a moment, he shook his head, however. “You have no notion of what the Baklen are capable of or you would not even consider facing them alone, with or without a sword. I brought you here. You are my responsibility and I am honor bound to protect you from harm to the best of my abilities.”

Josie’s anger surged to the forefront. “You seemed willing enough to let me go back to look for the portal by myself before!”

“Because I did not think you lack witted enough to try it,” he retorted.

Josie’s eyes narrowed. “So now I’m stupid?”

He struggled for patience. “You are ignorant of my world. I do not believe you are lacking in skill as a warrior, or bravery, or intelligence, but you know nothing about this world. You must stay with me. I will take you back.”

“When the mood strikes you?”

“It is not whim! The world moves and so, too, do the portals.”

Josie wasn’t sure she believed him, but he seemed sincere enough, and if what he said was true she might never find the portal on her own.

It was probably a very bad idea to get on his wrong side anyway.

“Do you think we could have this discussion without you on top of me? You weigh a ton. Parts of my body are starting to go numb from lack of circulation.”

He pushed himself up on his arms, but he was frowning. Finally, he merely shifted the bulk of his weight to the ground beside her. Josie was so surprised when he curled his arms around her and dragged her against his chest, throwing one leg over her hips that she didn’t even struggle.

“What are you doing?” she demanded finally.

“We can sleep like this, or I can tie you up. Which would you prefer?”

Josie stared at him in disbelief for a moment before outrage surfaced. “Neither!”

“You do not have that option. I need rest even if you do not and I can not sleep when I must stay on guard to prevent you from crushing my skull with a rock.”

“And you can sleep without any problem, wallowing all over me?”

“Yes.”

Pulling one arm free, Josie curled her fingers tightly around the engorged cock digging into her belly. “Well I can’t sleep when I have a loaded weapon pointed at me,” she growled.

A jolt of surprise went through him when she grabbed his cock. Josie was disappointed to see that he didn’t look the least bit alarmed, merely somewhat taken aback. “That is my problem, not yours. Even if I were not honor bound to protect you, you are human and I am Lord of the Bloodragons.”

Josie had the feeling she’d just been insulted. She had more than half suspected he would try to press his attentions upon her, which would give her an advantage over him. Her smugness about her outrageous gesture and his reaction to it subsided. “If you’re trying to say you don’t find me attractive, save it.”

“It is a natural enough reaction--for a bull dragon anyway--particularly one who has not mated, nor even been close to a female of any kind in a while. I could not speak for your own kind, but you are in no danger that I will lose my head, or lose my self-control,” he responded calmly. “I am very aware of the honor due my position.”

Josie thought she detected condescension in his voice. It irritated the hell out of her.

It also embarrassed her.

“As long as you realize it wouldn’t be welcome,” she snapped, releasing her grip on his ‘weapon’ and struggling against his hold until she managed to roll over and put her back to him. It wasn’t much more comfortable. She could feel his erection wedged against the cleft of her buttocks, even through her uniform. She could feel his heat, the hardness of his muscles. His leg, firmly planted along her hip, and the arm across her midsection made the nerves all over her body jump and spark with awareness. The warmth of his breath along the side of her neck as he settled behind her and composed himself for sleep aroused a flock of goose bumps that made her nipples pucker and stand erect.

Releasing a huff of irritation, Josie closed her eyes, trying to close off her mind to the sensations. She was tired. She didn’t find him that damned attractive, if it came to that. She was embarrassed that her attempt to use her femininity to her advantage had been so soundly snubbed, but her ego would recover. Deep down, she hadn’t really expected any fireworks. She certainly hadn’t wanted him to do anything.

What he’d said was true for her, too. She just hadn’t been with a man in a long time and certainly not around one as physically appealing to her.

She just wished she hadn’t thought of it at all. The tension was slow to leave her, despite her efforts. Finally, her determination was rewarded and her weariness overcame her arousal.

It was still dark when she was awakened by Nigel’s movements as he released her and stood, leaving the cave. Her eyelids felt as if they’d been glued shut when she tried to open them, though, and she knew she couldn’t have slept more than a few hours. Dismissing her faint sense of alarm, she curled up more tightly and drifted, trying to go back to sleep.

An explosion of noise jolted her awake a little later. Galvanized, Josie jerked upright in alarm, seeking the source of threat. When she saw that Nigel had dropped a small armload of wood beside the fire, anger replaced her alarm. With an effort, she opened her eyes enough to glare at him.

He lifted his head as her movements caught his attention. He looked as haggard as she felt, she saw, and in just as foul a mood, for he was glaring back at her. “What?” she demanded grumpily.

His frown deepened, his expression becoming faintly puzzled. “I did not speak.”

“You didn’t have to. What are you glaring at me for?” she demanded, scrubbing her hands over her face and struggling to push the grogginess from her mind.

Apparently he decided to ignore the question. “It is dawn. We will go into the nearest village for supplies and then I will take you back to your world. It was a mistake to bring you here.”

Now she was a mistake? Josie’s anger topped out, but she was just too damned tired to act on it or to give him the sharp edge of her tongue. It took an effort of will even to get to her feet and she had to concentrate to stay there once she had. Weaving drunkenly toward the water source, she braced her hands against the natural basin for several moments to get her balance and finally began scooping water into her hands and splashing it on her face. The water was bracing, but she wasn’t a great deal more alert when she’d finished. Pushed to the limit of her endurance the night before, her muscles protested every movement.

She didn’t realize that she’d been unconsciously grunting, groaning, and hissing under her breath until the ‘mad Duke’ spoke.

“There is a mineral spring near here that will ease the discomfort.”

Josie glanced toward him in surprise, but discovered his attention was focused upon the ashes from the campfire he’d built the night before. He was scowling, stirring the coals with one of the thin branches he’d brought in, but she couldn’t see that he was making any real attempt to get the fire going again.

Which was just as well. She felt like hell, but she was anxious to get moving.

The suggestion of the spring was tempting, though. It wasn’t just that she was sore as hell, and dirty. She wasn’t really keen on the idea of showing up in a town with blood all over her. She was already in trouble back home. She didn’t need to make any waves in this strange place.

It would be better, she decided, all the way around if she took him up on the offer. It was a good judgment call, not self-indulgence at a time when she couldn’t afford it. Maybe it was a nice little plus that it would make her feel better, but that was incidental.

“Thanks,” she said finally. “If you really don’t mind stopping, I’d love to take you up on a hot bath right now.”

Nodding, he pushed himself to his feet, dropped the stick and snatched his cloak from the makeshift bed, shaking the debris from it before he whipped it around his shoulders and secured it.

It was obvious to Josie within a few moments that whatever his motive had been for offering the temptation of a hot bath, it wasn’t because of any particular anxiety about her discomfort. He stalked from the cave and set off to the east at a brisk pace, apparently without any concern of whether or not she followed, or could keep up. She was huffing for breath by the time she managed to catch up to him.

He slid a speculative frown down at her. “You have not much stamina for a warrior.”

If Josie had been thinking charitable thoughts toward him--which she wasn’t--that remark would still have set her back up. “I haven’t been on a forced march for a while,” she snapped, “But it’s usually a march, not a run. Is there any particular reason you’re stomping along like your coattail’s on fire? I am shorter than you, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I had noticed,” he said dryly. “You are … small for a warrior. It will be noticed by all.”

Josie ground her teeth. He’d said small, but she knew from the way he’d hesitated before he said it that he’d been thinking something more derogatory. As if it was her fault she’d found herself in a land of giants! She was five six and that was average all day long, and she was the right weight range for her height. In point of fact, she had a higher than average muscle to fat ratio than a typical female, which certainly didn’t constitute ‘puny’. “Obviously you’ve mistaken me for somebody who gives a fuck what you think,” she said sweetly.

He glanced at her again, slowed slightly. His dark brows rose, but she thought she detected a hint of amusement in his gaze. “I think I am not as well versed in your native tongue as I had thought. You are fond of this word, fuck. What is the meaning of it?”

Josie reddened, but she wasn’t about to let him make her feel ‘unworthy’ of his magnificence--the stuck up prick! “It’s actually really versatile--that’s why I’m so fond of it,” she said sweetly. “For instance, running across monsters like those two headed things I saw last night a person could say ‘what the fuck was that?’ And then again, if you meet up with somebody that’s a real jerk--you understand jerk?--then you could say they were a fucking asshole and it would describe them perfectly.”

The amusement, if she’d actually seen it, vanished. His skin darkened with anger and the scowl he’d been wearing before reappeared.

She hadn’t realized she was actually spoiling for a fight until, instead of commenting on her insult, he went back to ignoring her.

Irritated that she’d hadn’t managed to get a rise out of him, but convinced that he’d not only understood her but felt the shaft hit the mark, she decided to simply treat him to a cold shoulder.

In any case, the terrain grew increasingly more difficult to negotiate and she found she needed to focus on staying upright and keeping up with him. She felt like hell. She’d thought the weariness and discomfort were enough to dull whatever interest might arise about her surroundings, but in spite of all the misery, she found herself taking note of every ‘strange’ thing that came within her view--plants, insects--flying ‘what the fucks?’.

She didn’t stop, but she slowed to look each time she spied something exotic, and then had to hurry to catch up to Nigel again because she was beginning to think he would be just as happy to look back and discover his ‘problem’ had magically disappeared.

She had long passed the need to stop and rest before he finally did, but she was too irritated with him to consider asking him to let her rest, particularly after the snide remark about her being puny and out of shape.

She quickly discovered, though, that he had only paused.

“The spring is there.”

Josie followed the direction he’d indicated. At first, she saw nothing at all but more rocks and scrubby brush. Then, faintly, she saw a drift of what she’d thought was fog. Steam? Just how fucking hot was the water, she wondered angrily?

She hadn’t considered, before, that the suggestion was some sort of malicious prank on his part. Now she had to wonder if she’d struggled all this way only to find a volcano vent filled with boiling water, or worse, molten lava.

After the brief pause, though, he began to make his way up the rock carefully. She watched him for several moments, but finally followed, deciding if she got to the top and saw it was what she suspected she was going to shove the bastard in.

When she finally reached a spot where she could actually see more than steam, she found that the rock had formed a basin perhaps twenty by thirty feet. It was filled with water, which did not seem to be boiling, but it was hard to determine whether it was safe to go in or not. She thought they were at a fairly high altitude and the air was cool, which could explain the fog--if it was fog. “You sure this is safe?” she asked a little doubtfully.

He set her a long piercing look and finally shrugged. Dropping his cape to the rocks, he dove in before Josie had entirely realized his intention. She felt her stomach clench as he disappeared beneath the surface, as if it was her own skin being burned from the bone. Too shocked to think what to do if the mad duke had dove into a volcanic steam vent, she simply stared at the spot where he’d disappeared beneath the surface, feeling her heart slam painfully against her chest wall in slow thuds while she waited to see if his body would float to the surface.

His inky black hair was slicked to his scalp and shoulders when his head broke the surface. He gave her a questioning look.

Still not entirely convinced, Josie carefully picked her way to the edge, knelt down and poked the tip of one finger into the water to test the temperature. When it didn’t burn her, she pushed her entire hand in. Her skin was faintly pinkened from the heat when she withdrew it, but she didn’t think the water was dangerously hot.

Deciding she could risk it and get out again if it was just too hot, she settled on the rocky rim and began undressing, ignoring Nigel as he swam laps back and forth across the small pool. When she’d stripped down to her skivvies, she settled her clothing near the edge within reach, braced her palms against the rock to lever herself up slightly, and eased into the pool until her feet and legs were submerged and the water was lapping her hips.

The water was hot. It took her several moments to decide whether this was something she wanted to do after all. She was still debating when she noticed the splashing had ceased and looked up.

Nigel, the mad duke, had stopped doing laps and was either standing on the bottom of the pool, or treading water. She saw no sign of movement, though, and finally decided that the pool just wasn’t nearly as deep as she’d thought and that he must be standing.

The water lapped against his chest, though, which meant it would be lapping her throat--or maybe her nose. She wasn’t entirely certain of where she came to on him.

That thought brought her gaze to his face.

His expression was--unreadable, but he was staring straight at her and Josie felt her heart execute an uncomfortable little gallop. Before she could decide exactly what that penetrating stare might mean, he seemed to come to himself and looked away. Turning, he moved to the edge of the pool on the opposite side from where she stood and climbed out.

He hadn’t removed anything before jumping in except his cape and the fabric covering his genitals was now plastered to him well enough she could see he was indeed hung like a horse. Her mouth went dry.

Dragging her gaze from him before he realized she’d been staring, she looked down at her own clothing--which was when she discovered that her briefs were soaked and now virtually transparent. From her viewpoint, she couldn’t see much more than a dark patch at the apex of her thighs, but she had a feeling he’d gotten a really good look.

No wonder he’d been staring. The jolt that went through her when she saw how exposed she was made Josie loose her precarious balance.

She sucked in a sharp gasp as she went in and managed to suck water into her lungs. By the time she’d gotten her coughing under control and looked around, Nigel had disappeared.

Frowning uneasily, Josie turned in a circle, scanning the rocks for any sign of Nigel and finally saw a couple of wet footprints leading over a rocky rise. Shrugging off the thought that he might have abandoned her, she moved to the edge of the pool, picked her shirt up and began trying to wash the dried blood from it.

Hot water and no soap, she quickly discovered, equaled no progress. She did manage to get the stickiness off, though, and the smell.

More accurately, she exchanged the smell of blood for the smell of the water. Nigel hadn’t been exaggerating. It was a mineral pool alright. It didn’t stink--exactly, but it wasn’t a particularly pleasant odor emanating from the water either.

Mentally, she shrugged philosophically. The main objective, she reminded herself, was to not arrive in the village Nigel had spoken of looking like she’d just murdered somebody.

When she got home, she could soak in rose petal oil.

If she got home.

She dismissed that unpleasant though abruptly, realizing it had been nagging at the back of her mind ever since she’d accepted that she wasn’t home anymore. She would cross that bridge when and if she had to. In the meanwhile she meant to think positive and hope for the best.

Food, she felt sure, would lighten her outlook. Her metabolism was fairly high due to her muscle to fat ratio and she wasn’t accustomed to going so long without anything to eat. She thought that probably accounted not only for her unaccustomed lack of strength and stamina, but likely her ‘spaciness’, as well.

Maybe it also accounted for her preoccupation with the man meat?

Ordinarily, she wasn’t inclined to go all weak and brainless over a man, be he ever so lovely to look at. And while it was true that she considered Nigel a really exceptional example, she still wasn’t comfortable with her fixation with the guy.

He was too pretty and too well endowed to be worth a shit in bed anyway. Guys like Nigel figured they were so fabulous a woman ought to get off just looking at them. They didn’t figure they actually had to work on pleasing a woman and focused on their own pleasure.

Deciding she’d done what she could with her tunic and that she’d soaked as long as she ought to in the hot water, Josie squeezed as much water from the shirt as she could and tossed it up onto the rocks. It wasn’t until she tried to haul herself out that she realized she was in deep shit.

Chapter Five

The water might not be dangerously hot in the sense that it burned her, but Josie discovered one threat she hadn’t considered. The water had relaxed her sore muscles to the point that she was as weak as--well, water. Even worse, the pool was a rocky basin, as if something had blasted a hole in the face of the mountain. The sides were steep and the rock beneath the surface of the water as slick as glass, giving her feet no purchase to push her bottom out while she pulled upward with her arms.

She struggled for several minutes to pull herself out and finally turned and surveyed the circumference of the pool.

Unfortunately, the area where she’d gone in seemed to be the lowest point.

“Uh--Duke! Hey! A little help here!”

When she didn’t get a response, she tried really hard not to panic, but she knew very well that she wasn’t going to get any stronger by staying in the hot water longer.

Frightened, but also embarrassed, it took an effort of will to make herself call out for help again. After struggling to inch her way up the side and pull herself out several times, though, she knew she had no choice.

“Bloodragon!”

To her relief, he appeared a moment later, leaping down from a rock on the other side of the pool where he’d disappeared earlier.

“If you continue to bellow like that, you may draw attention you do not care for,” he growled. “These are uncertain times.”

Josie glared at him. “If you’d answered the first time I wouldn’t have bellowed. I need a hand, not a fucking lecture,” she snapped.

He rounded the edge of the pool and stared down at her, his hands on his hips. “Why do you want a hand?”

Josie blinked in surprise, but realized almost at once that he obliviously had a little problem with some English phrases. Despite his accent, and the comment he’d made earlier, he spoke her language so well that she supposed she hadn’t really believed he didn’t understand, and speak it, as well as she did.

“I can’t get out,” she admitted irritably.

He looked surprised, but he leaned down at once and held out his hands. When she grasped them, expecting him to simply tug as she chugged, he snatched her out of the water as if she weighed nothing.

She didn’t feel like she weighed nothing. She felt like she weighed a ton, and her ass heaviest of all. It felt as if every vertebra in her back popped as she came out of the water. Worse, her legs were like cooked noodles and when he set her own her feet, her knees refused to lock, her legs wobbled, and she slammed cheek first against his chest and began to slide toward the ground.

Looking both confused and alarmed, he caught her and allowed her to wilt limply to the rocky surface and finally to lie flat. “Are you ill?”

Josie dragged in a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Weak. The water was too hot and I haven’t eaten in hours and hours. I think my blood sugar’s low.”

“Your what?”

Josie cracked an eye open and looked up at him. “Never mind. Just give me a few minutes, ok?”

“You are not burned.”

“No,” Josie murmured, her voice slightly slurred with fatigue. “The good news is my muscles aren’t sore anymore.”

“Your clothing is wet.”

She’d forgotten about the transparent underclothes, but she couldn’t rouse any care about it at the moment. “They’ll dry.”

“You need to rest,” he murmured, almost thoughtfully.

“I need food more,” she retorted. “Just a few minutes and I’ll be ok and we can head for the village.”

She thought at first when she felt his arms tugging at her that he was trying to make her stand up. Instead, he pushed one arm beneath her knees and one beneath her shoulder blades and stood up with her.

“I will carry you. We can not linger here.”

Josie’s eyes snapped open. “You’re not serious?”

He shook his head slightly. “I am serious. I did not want to alarm you, but we are being followed.”

Josie instantly tensed all over. “Well thank you for not alarming me!” she exclaimed, struggling to get down. “Who, or what, is following us?”

His arms tightened around her for a moment, but then, almost reluctantly, he allowed her to slide to the ground. “I am not certain. The scent is vague.”

Josie frowned at him in disbelief. What did he think he was anyway? A fucking bloodhound?

Maybe she’d been right to begin with and the guy really was a nut case?

Shaking her head, she looked around for her tunic and finally moved to it. The cloth was still dripping and she was beginning to feel chilled as the heat from the water began to dissipate from her body. After wringing as much excess water from the fabric as she could, she struggled into it. Wet or not, it kept the cool air off of her skin and she felt better.

After a very brief consideration, she pulled her panties off, wrung them out and then tucked them into her shirt pocket. Her trousers were still dry. She wasn’t about to put them on over wet panties.

Nigel, she saw when she’d managed to pull the pants over her damp buttocks, was staring at her crotch with a glazed look in his eyes. “I thought you weren’t interested,” she muttered.

The comment pierced his absorption with the curling thatch of dark hair poking through the gaping fly of her trousers. He met her gaze for a long moment, looking vaguely befuddled. “I beg your pardon?”

Despite the fact that she still felt more than a little woozy, Josie felt a smile tugging at her lips. He was always so very stiff and proper, even when he’d been gawking at her mound like a horny teenager. “It’s a little late to be so formal, don’t you think, duke?”

He looked irritated. “You may call me Nigel.”

“May I?” Josie asked, fluttering her lashes at him provocatively. “Don’t you want me to call you duke?”

He gave her a look. “Your grace, if you prefer formality,” he said dryly. “I am referred to as the Duke of Sarcen, and addressed as your grace, or Nigel--not duke.”

Josie rolled her eyes and sat down to pull her socks and boots on. “Something I don’t need to know since I won’t be hanging around long,” she muttered, miffed that he was chastising her--again--and vaguely embarrassed to discover he hadn’t suggested she call him Nigel because he was flirting with her but because it grated on him for her to ‘address him incorrectly’. She felt like calling him duke thereafter just to irritate the shit out of him. “Who or what do you think is following us?” she added, changing the subject abruptly.

He frowned. “I do not know.”

“But you do know it’s following us?”

“I detected the scent several times since we left the cave.”

Which meant he didn’t know. He was uneasy, though. She could tell that, so even though she wanted to simply dismiss it as a figment of a troubled mind, she found she couldn’t. “You must have a very acute sense of smell,” she remarked as they set out, heading down the rocky slope they’d climbed to reach the spring.

He seemed to think it over. “Yes, far better than humans, at any rate, but it is not actually a smell--not as you think of smell.”

Josie frowned, wondering why he spoke as if they were two different species of beings when it was plain to her that he was the same as she was, even if he called himself something else and was from another place. The thought made her wonder abruptly why he’d decided she would do as a diversion for his queen.

“I guess I must look similar to her,” she muttered her thoughts aloud.
Nigel glanced at her questioningly.

“Your queen. You said you wanted me to act as a diversion. I must look a lot like her, huh?”

“You look nothing like her.”

It wasn’t a compliment, not the way he said it, but even though she felt the dart of insult, the comment puzzled her more. “But … why would you pick somebody that doesn’t even resemble her?” Josie demanded in disbelief.

“She was an infant when she was sent to Earth for protection from the enemies of her father. No one here knows what she looks like.”

Josie’s bemusement deepened. “But … somebody must! How would you know it was her?”

“I have just said, we know the scent. And there were other ways, the Tears, her resemblance to the royal family …”

“Well that doesn’t even make sense!” Josie said irritably. “Not that I’m convinced your senses are that acute, but supposing they were, then wouldn’t I have to smell like her to confuse anybody? That’s what you’re saying, right? I smell similar to her? Or look similar to the royal family? Or both?”

Nigel glanced at her in irritation. The plain fact of the matter was that he’d had no rational reason for choosing her. He hadn’t even thought beyond the bare basics of his self imposed mission once he’d set eyes on her--find a reasonable facsimile and return with her to bait the enemies of his queen.

The truth was he had been so--stunned, so awed when he’d seen the small warrior fearlessly battling a foe so much larger and stronger than her that he hadn’t really thought at all. He’d reacted to his instincts. He’d been under the control of his urges, not his intellect.

He couldn’t recall consciously thinking anything at all. He’d simply wanted, and he’d taken.

He hadn’t really accepted that that was what he’d done until he’d curled up next to her the night before and found that he could not sleep for the heat of desire pumping through his body and pounding in his brain and groin. He was not entirely certain why she had such an effect on him. He had certainly admired her when he’d come upon her, both for her skill, and her bravery, and her tenacity in battling a foe, and then defeating him, that was so superior to her in size. It had, in fact, taken all he could do to restrain himself from charging in and defending her as long as he had. If he hadn’t been so certain that she would not only not welcome his interference but would be insulted that he thought her incapable of holding her own, he would have dispatched the man immediately.

It was not admiration for her as a warrior, though, that had tormented him throughout the long night. It had been the feel of her body next to his, and her scent in his nostrils and boiling through his blood like acid that had nearly driven him mad. He had heard that the dragon folk found humans dangerously appealing, but he had not really believed it before now.

“There are ways around the scent,” he muttered irritably.

Josie’s brows rose. “Such as?”

“The mineral bath.”

There was something about his tone that made Josie wonder if the comment was simply a ‘for instance’ or if he’d had a specific reason for wanting her to bathe in the mineral springs--to disguise her scent, for example. But she didn’t really believe ‘his’ people had such powerful senses, and she couldn’t think of any reason he might have to want her ‘disguised’, personal or otherwise. He’d said they were only going to the village to find food and he’d suggested that he meant to find the portal and take her back afterwards. “So, what you’re saying is you had no particular reason for picking me except that I’m a female and I also happen to be a soldier and you figured that would be helpful?” she pursued.

He sent her an irritated glance. “You have an--air about you that I thought would help convince them.”

Josie looked at him with interest. “A queenly sort of air?” she asked, feeling pleased.

He frowned. “No.”

Irritation flickered through her. “Confidence?”

“Cockiness.”

Josie glared at him. “I am not cocky.”

“That warrior was twice your weight.”

Josie pursed her lips. “I didn’t take him on because I was cocky,” she said angrily. “I did it because I was trying to help my partner. And I also had no choice but to defend myself once I’d engaged the perp.”

So much for thinking he might say something nice for a change!

They traveled in angry silence for a time, but as Josie’s irritation began to subside, she realized that maybe she was just being too sensitive about the entire situation and that that was because she was attracted to the guy. Rejection was never easy and always insulting, but she needn’t take it so much to heart. He had a mission on his mind. Maybe, under different circumstances he would’ve been different toward her.

And maybe not, but that hardly mattered. As attractive as she found him, she really didn’t want to pursue it. She wanted, needed, to get back home.

“Look,” she said finally. “I can see where you’re coming from--you’ve got a mission to carry out and you hadn’t expected me to be so uncooperative.” It was actually pretty unreasonable in her book that he had expected cooperation under the circumstances, but she didn’t see any sense in pursuing that line of thought.

He glanced at her with a mixture of speculation and something else she couldn’t quite identify, but he said nothing so she continued after a moment.

“I’m not saying I agree with you, but I can see your side of this. The thing is, if you didn’t have a specific reason for picking me and most any female would do, you might be able to find one at the base. I’m not the only female soldier, you know. In point of fact, we have about a half a dozen that are just back from the front. They’ve seen action. They’re seasoned. They’d probably be a lot more useful to your cause than I am. And you might be able to find one who’d be interested in the riches you were talking about.

“It would have to be a big pay check, mind you, because going AWOL would be a serious infraction for a soldier. She’d probably be looking at jail time, maybe a lot of jail time, so it would take a LOT of incentive.

“I shouldn’t be telling you this at all, because I’m military police and it’s my job to stop this sort of thing, but there is a possibility.”

There was a stronger possibility that they’d just think he was a nut case, but they’d certainly be convinced once he brought them through the portal. She felt a little guilty for suggesting it, particularly since part of her reason for doing so was to give him a little added incentive to get her back home, but she did empathize with his dilemma. Excuses weren’t an option when one had a mission to perform. Besides, he seemed to have a strong sense of honor and duty beyond ‘the job’.

“If the reward does not interest you, why would you think it might interest any of the others?”

He didn’t sound angry, or even judgmental, merely curious.

“I like money the same as the next person,” she said with a trace of irritation. “But some people would do a whole lot more for money than I’m willing to. If it was my country, and my queen, or whatever, you wouldn’t even have to offer the reward. I’d do whatever I could regardless, because that would be protecting the place I love. I’m just not mercenary enough to risk all for money---and that’s what I’d be doing because I’m a soldier and if I stay here much longer I can’t go home at all without facing a court martial for abandoning my post.”

She was liable to be facing charges regardless, but she hadn’t given up the hope that she could make it through the obstacle course of lies she was going to have to weave and come through it clean.

Nigel frowned, but more thoughtfully.

Deciding to let him mull over it a while, Josie fell silent again. She wasn’t altogether certain why she’d initiated the conversation, or come up with the suggestion, but she thought it was because she just didn’t want the guy to dislike her or be angry with her. It shouldn’t have mattered. He’d already said he would take her back, so she didn’t have to get on his good side for that reason. And she’d already accepted that not only was he not interested in her on a personal level, but that she should not be interested in him that way because it couldn’t go anywhere even if she wanted it to.

It still helped her feelings to think he might be starting to see things her way.

She shouldn’t even be worried about that much, she thought irritably. He’d kidnapped her. Sure he’d saved her life by preventing that bastard Collins from blowing a hole in her, and she was grateful even though she hadn’t actually thanked him, but dragging her through that damned portal and into this mess sort of offset the good deed as far as she was concerned.

Chapter Six

Dismay was Josie’s first feeling when they came at last to a rise that looked down over the village Nigel had mentioned, not pleased surprise and certainly not awe. Although she had to admit, reluctantly, that there was a certain quaintness about the place, it was distressingly primitive as far as she could see and the visions of stopping by some restaurant to grab a quick bite to eat and then a store for rations died a painful death.

The sense of unreality that had thrown her off kilter from the time she’d looked up in the sky to see moons that shouldn’t be there crashed down on her again. Unfortunately, it wasn’t unreal. It was real.

“We’re fucked,” Josie muttered. “This is what you meant by ‘a village’? Christ, I thought you meant a real town. These people look like something out of the dark ages--or maybe older.”

Nigel’s expression, she noticed, was grim, but she couldn’t decide whether he’d taken her remarks as an insult or if he was as surprised and dismayed as she was.

“There is an inn,” he said finally.

Josie gaped at him. “You’re not seriously considering going in there? We don’t need a place to sleep and anyway, I think the cave was cleaner--and probably just as comfortable.”

“You need food.”

“You think we’ll get some at the inn?” Josie asked doubtfully.

He sent her an indecipherable look. “Stay here. And stay out of sight. I will return soon.”

Josie felt her jaw sag. “By myself?” she demanded, voicing the first thought that ran through her mind. “Assuming I was willing to take orders from you--which I’m not--exactly why is it you think it would be better for me to stay here--alone and unarmed--while you trot off to town?”

His gaze slid down her body to the toes of her boots and up again. “Your clothing will draw far more attention than we may be able to afford.”

Josie’s lips tightened with irritation, mostly because she knew he was right. “So--I’ll strip down to my skivvies and go in half naked like you. Surely the color won’t make that much difference.”

Something gleamed in Nigel’s eyes, but his countenance remained stern. “There is far more that you do not understand about my world than you do.”

That, also, was true and it only irritated Josie more. “I’m not likely to learn a hell of a lot hiding under a bush either,” she retorted caustically.

“You are likely to learn far more than you want to if you go in half naked,” Nigel growled at her. “Females on this world do not dress as males do.”

It took a moment for Josie to recover from that none too subtle threat. “Like I hadn’t already figured out this place is primitive as hell!”

Nigel’s eyes narrowed. “We are not primitive,” he growled, and then reddened faintly when Josie looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “… Ordinarily. This has nothing to do with that anyway.”

“So explain.”

“You are a soldier. You should be accustomed to taking orders,” he said stiffly.

“From my commanding officer, which you aren’t!”

“I wear the garb of a warrior. Females are not warriors. The … uh … skivvies would do if you had veils, but you have none.”

“Veils?” Josie echoed. “You mean those thin little swatches of fabric that you can see through? That kind veils? Well, I do see what you mean. That would make a hell of a difference! And why, if this isn’t a primitive male chauvinist society, would you not have women who were soldiers?”

“They have not the strength or powers of the males.”

“Everything doesn’t take brute strength!” Josie snarled. “Sometimes it’s more helpful to have brains!”

For several moments Nigel struggled with his temper. Finally, he eased the angry tension in his body with obvious effort. “We will both be safer if you will stay here out of sight,” he said almost mildly. “The minerals from the spring you bathed in will prevent anyone from catching your scent. If you persist in coming with me then we may end up having to battle our way out of there and, as you pointed out, you have no weapon.”

Josie studied him in silence and finally decided an apology probably wasn’t in the offing. It would have to be enough that she’d demanded to be treated as an equal and he had done so. She nodded. “Any suggestions on what I’m supposed to do if you run into trouble and don’t come back?”

“I will come back. If I am running, you should also,” he murmured, his eyes gleaming now with amusement.

Josie gave him a look but a reluctant smile dawned. “And here I’d thought you had no sense of humor.”

His gaze flickered over her assessingly at that and abruptly Josie felt a blanket of depression settle over her at the reminder that she wasn’t going to get much of a chance to get to know him if things went as they hoped. “Go!” she said. “I’m starving! Bring a lot of whatever you find.”

He hesitated and Josie had the sense of an inner struggle. Finally, however, he merely turned and began to make his way down the slope toward the village. Josie crouched to make herself less visible and watched until he’d reached the foot of the slope then moved away from the edge and looked around for a likely looking spot to take cover. There was a tree ten to fifteen feet away, not a very large one but big enough she thought to support her weight and the foliage at the top of the tree was fairly dense. It wouldn’t conceal her if anyone walked within a few yards of it, but at a distance it should do.

When she’d climbed it, she inched her way along one of the boughs and peered through the foliage towards the village. Nigel, she saw, had reached the main ‘street’, a rutted ribbon of dirt that bisected the village. His progress did not go unremarked. Although he sauntered through as if he was in no particular hurry and glanced from side to side as if with only casual interest, the inhabitants of the village that she could see studied him with unabashed and unconcealed interest.

It made her uneasy, but she would have been more surprised if no one had paid him any attention. As far as she could see, the tiny hamlet had little to recommend it to travelers, which meant they probably didn’t see many strangers. To top that off, Nigel was a pretty remarkable man. Contrary to what she’d supposed, he seemed to be exceptional for his own people. The men and the women appeared to be, on average, a bit taller than on Earth, but Nigel was still noticeably taller than any of the men she saw along the streets--and broader--and, she suspected, a great deal more handsome.

Those thoughts redirected her attention to the villagers after a few moments and she studied their clothing. Nigel had said that he dressed as a warrior, but she couldn’t see a lot of difference between the strange garb he wore and that of the others. Theirs didn’t look to be made of nearly as fine a materials--their boots looked worn and run down, their cloaks rough and in some cases pretty ragged, and she couldn’t see any sign of the ‘armor’ Nigel wore, but they had leather straps crisscrossing their chests and all of them wore briefs similar to his.

The women wore long flowing fabrics to their ankles but they certainly weren’t gowns. The material was secured at their waists, but exposed their legs on either side from waist to ankle. The tops they wore were made almost identically except that they were secured just below the arms and at the waist. The sides were open, exposing pretty much everything when they moved. The fabric didn’t really look much like veils to her, though. Maybe it was a class thing? Maybe, just as Nigel’s clothing looked richer than the clothing the men wore, women of his class actually did wear veils?

Or maybe they just called them veils?

The temperature of this world, or this particular area of it, seemed mild, and it still seemed odd to her that no one seemed to worry overmuch about overexposing themselves.

Different strokes for different folks, she decided philosophically, scanning the dirt road again for Nigel and discovering that he’d stopped in front of a building that must be the inn he’d mentioned. There was a sign out front, but, not surprisingly, she couldn’t read it.

Actually, she was a little surprised. It wasn’t easy accepting that everything around her was different, that she wasn’t on Earth anymore. Every time it was borne in upon her that nothing was the same because she wasn’t home anymore, she was mildly jolted all over again.

She wasn’t exactly ‘in’ to trees and plants, but the tree she’d climbed was a prime example. The bark had a strange bluish tinge to it and the foliage didn’t look like any leaves she’d ever seen either. It had a trunk, branches and foliage, but it was still wildly exotic compared to anything she’d ever seen.

Her stomach rumbled, then clenched painfully, reminding her that she hadn’t appeased it in hours. She rubbed it, waiting for the discomfort to subside again, but it was almost as if she’d been called to dinner. She knew Nigel had gone in to get food and her stomach was dead on ready and damned impatient.

In an effort to redirect her mind, she resurrected the argument they’d had before he left and it dawned on her that he was absolutely right. These people really didn’t look different than her, but her clothes sure as hell set her apart as ‘not from here’.

After studying the villagers speculatively for a few minutes, she shimmied down the tree. Crouching low, she moved stealthily toward the brow of the hill to study the layout of the village until she saw a woman coming out of one of the ramshackle huts with a load of laundry in her arms.

“Washday,” Josie murmured, feeling a smile begin to curl her lips upward as she noticed garments fluttering from lines behind several of the cottages.

They were poor as dirt. They were bound to notice if anything went missing, would certainly recognize any article of clothing that was unique in color, style or fabric, but most of them seemed to be wearing dull colors--brown or white, or mostly white.

Moving carefully down the hill from bush to boulder to tree, Josie crept up on the hamlet as stealthily as she could manage until she reached an area that was clear of anything to hide behind for several yards. After calculating the distance several times, she fell to studying the inhabitants until she was certain none were looking in her direction and then she darted across, flattening herself against the wall of one of the cottages.

The adrenaline pumping through her veins had her heart hammering so loudly in her ears that it took a few moments to steady her pulse. When she’d calmed herself, she inched along the side of the cottage until she reached a window. Nothing but wooden shutters covered it and those were open to allow a breeze through the structure. When she heard no sound that indicated anyone was inside, she eased up to the window and peered in cautiously.

It was unoccupied as far as she could see, but she wasn’t certain if that was a good thing or a bad thing. The lady of the house might be standing in the backyard. She rather preferred the idea of stealing from the laundry line than actually going into any of the cottages, however, so she continued on her way until she reached the rear corner. After several quick peeks revealed a rear yard devoid of habitation, she nerved herself for a better look. Clothing fluttered from several lines, but she didn’t see anyone.

After taking several deep breaths to steady her nerves again, she moved quickly across the yard to the clothes and down one line until she saw one of the skirt-like garments, a dull tan in color, and snatched it from the line and headed toward the hedgerow that separated the cottage yard from the one beside it.

There were two women seated on a wooden bench by the door of the cottage. Josie had the feeling she’d just found the owner of the skirt she’d filched. After several moments’ indecision, she decided to go back the way she’d come. She hadn’t wanted to snatch both pieces from the same person, but there seemed no hope for it since she didn’t think she could get by the two women without being noticed.

Some luck still held, though, because she managed to snag a top to go with the skirt and duck around the corner of the cottage without being spotted.

Deciding the cottage offered about as much cover as she could hope for short of climbing inside to change, Josie examined the skirt until she was fairly certain she knew how to put it on then knelt to untie her boots and shoved them off and peeled her trousers down.

She’d forgotten she was bare assed beneath the damned pants! Dragging her crumpled panties from the pocket of her shirt, she stepped into them and pulled them up and then shimmied into the skirt. It didn’t tie. It had something like elastic at the waist.

The top, she discovered, was similarly constructed.

Peculiar that they had something like that when they seemed so primitive, but she’d heard somewhere that necessity was the mother of invention and supposed there must have been some compelling reason for such a development.

Not that she could imagine what that might be.

She didn’t want to pull her sports bra off to put the top on, but she saw very quickly that there was no way she would be able to hide it beneath the thing. Shrugging, she dropped her shirt and yanked the top over her head and then peeled the sports bra off from underneath.

The boots presented a problem she hadn’t actually anticipated. The natives wore boots, but they looked nothing like hers. Going barefoot when they had domesticated animals wandering freely and pooping all over the place didn’t appeal to her, though.

Deciding the skirt, which hung almost to her ankles, would hide the difference, she pulled them on again. When she’d finished tying them, she straightened her uniform the best she could and rolled the shirt and trousers together into a tube. Tucking the tube under one arm, she headed out of the village as casually as Nigel had entered it. She didn’t look back until she’d climbed the hill once more and put enough brush between herself and village that she was fairly certain she couldn’t be seen.

When she peered back at the village, she saw a man had stopped in the street and was looking directly toward her, but after a moment he seemed to dismiss her and continued on his way. Letting out a breath of relief, Josie settled to await Nigel’s return. It occurred to her about the time her heart ceased to palpitate that it seemed that Nigel had been gone quite a while.

She had to wonder if it was only nerves that made it seem so, but after she’d mentally recounted her own activities she was certain she wasn’t mistaken. He had been gone at least an hour and maybe more because she knew it had to have taken her at bare minimum of thirty minutes to sneak into the village, and she hadn’t gone at once. Add to that the time she’d taken to steal the clothes and change and then walk back and she knew that had to add up to a bare minimum of thirty more minutes.

Ordinarily, she wasn’t an alarmist. She thought she could claim pretty steady nerves. After all, she’d been an MP for several years now and, although the work was boring more often than not, the incident with Collins wasn’t the only dangerous situation she’d had to handle.

Nigel was the only one who could get her home, however, and although she hadn’t previously given that too much consideration, it alarmed her to realize just how dependent she was upon him to survive in his world and get back to her own.

After fighting her growing anxiety for another twenty or thirty minutes, she couldn’t stand it anymore. She had to know if something had gone wrong.

The question was, how to go about finding out? Was her disguise good enough that she could just walk boldly in as Nigel had? Or would they take one look at her and know she was an alien here? She hadn’t considered getting up close and personal with anyone and allowing them to really examine her. She’d just figured it would be safer to look as much like a native as possible.

She discovered it wasn’t much of a debate. As uneasy as she was about walking into what might be a trap, she was pretty sure she was going to be a basket case before much longer if she didn’t find out what was going on.

It might be nothing, she reminded herself.

Maybe he’d ordered food and it was just taking a while to get it?

If nothing was going on but the wait for food, it couldn’t hurt to go in, could it?

Remembering abruptly that most of the women she’d seen had worn their hair loose and flowing, she pulled the hair clips and stretch band from her hair and allowed the dark mass to drop around her shoulders. After finger combing her hair to put it in order, she stashed her uniform in the crook of the tree she’d climbed earlier and then straightened her clothes and headed back toward the village, this time as casually and openly as Nigel had when he’d gone in.

It wasn’t easy behaving as if she was completely unconcerned. Long before she got to the edge of town she discovered she’d attracted a lot more attention than she’d anticipated. It was too late to turn back, though, so she tried to brazen it out, heading straight towards the building she’d seen Nigel go in.

A cold sweat broke from her pores, though, as she progressed, because she could hear the people around her talking. The problem was she didn’t have a clue of what they were saying because it sure as hell wasn’t English they were speaking.

Chapter Seven

The interior of the tavern was gloomy and Josie paused to allow her eyes to adjust, but there was no doubt in her mind that this was indeed a tavern. Nigel was standing next to the bar, a mug in one hand halfway to his mouth when she stepped inside. He froze, staring at her for several moments as if he’d never seen her before in his life--really as if he didn’t know who she was.

Or maybe it was just disbelief.

She knew the very moment recognition dawned because his countenance was transformed within seconds from slack jawed appreciation to barely controlled rage. Shoving away from the bar abruptly, he strode toward her, planted a hand the size of a dinner plate in the middle of her back and half guided, half shoved her toward a row of tables and benches along the wall opposite the bar.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he demanded in a harsh under voice as he settled beside her, a smile that looked more like a snarl curling his lips.

She sent him a resentful glance, but she wasn’t so angry that she wasn’t acutely aware of the attention of the other patrons. “I see you’ve mastered the use of my favorite word,” she hissed. “You were gone so long I thought you might be in trouble. I see you were only exercising your drinking arm, though.”

He wrestled with his temper and won. “You can not speak and you can not hear,” he said harshly as a woman approached the table.

Josie gaped at him blankly, but the moment the woman began to chatter at Nigel she realized the comment was a warning to pretend to be deaf and dumb. She might as well have been because, not surprisingly, she couldn’t understand anything the woman said or Nigel’s reply to her.

The woman disappeared again and Josie slid a speculative glance at Nigel. A muscle was working in his jaw, as if he was grinding his teeth, but he was leaning against her, one arm draped over the back of the bench. His fingers trailed along her shoulder in an almost idle caress, sending a shiver through her.

Sending him a brittle smile, Josie wrestled with the dozens of questions that were burning a hole in her tongue, but the moment she opened her mouth to whisper the one foremost in her mind, Nigel dropped his other hand to her lap and squeezed her thigh warningly.

She tried hand signals.

He pretended he didn’t understand what she meant by pretending to eat. “Not hungry?” he asked pleasantly. “I will call the servant back and inform her that you will not be eating after all.”

Josie glared at him and shook her head, rubbing her stomach.

He frowned in mock sympathy. “Ill?”

Josie gave him a look and leaned closer. When he tipped his ear in her direction, she bit down on his ear lobe hard enough he flinched. “Damn it, duke …!”

Before she could say more he caught her jaw with one hand and plastered his mouth over hers, thrusting his tongue forcefully between her lips and plundering the tender inner surfaces like a marauder. The jolt that went through Josie as he filled her senses with himself felt like an electric current. For several moments she wondered if the dizziness that assailed her was a direct result of the beverage he’d consumed which she tasted on his lips and tongue, but there was no mistaking the heat of desire that exploded inside of her. She struggled for a moment to free herself without attracting more attention, but short of clubbing him up side of the head there was no escape. Yielding instead, she gave him a taste of his own medicine, kissing him back so feverishly that he was shaking and breathing heavily by the time he finally released her and drew back.

As shaken as she was by the kiss there was no doubt in her mind that Nigel hadn’t come off the encounter unscathed. His eyes gleamed like fire as he studied her and she could see that he was struggling with the urge to kiss her again.

She wanted him to, so much her mouth went dry with need. Every nerve ending in her body was clamoring for much more than another kiss.

As disordered as her mind was from the encounter, one thing was crystal clear. Nobody had ever had that kind of effect on her with one little kiss.

She was oh so tempted to close the distance that separated them, to demand more, but the serving wench returned at that inconsiderate moment and plunked two plates down on the table in front of them.

As hungry as Josie had been before she walked into the tavern, she stared down at the food without a great deal of interest. Slowly, it dawned upon her that Nigel had undoubtedly only been waiting for the food he’d told her he would bring. No way could the servant have taken the order and filled it this fast otherwise.

Feeling guilty abruptly that she’d misjudged him, Josie refused to look at him. Instead, she picked up the wooden spoon she’d been given to eat with and focused on her food. Instead of following suit, Nigel detained the servant in conversation. She had no idea what the conversation entailed, but Nigel looked faintly ill when the woman left.

Alarmed, Josie had to fight the urge to demand to know what news he’d gathered from the woman---that had to be it, she knew. He’d learned something about his queen maybe? Maybe she was already dead? Assassinated by her enemies? Maybe the realm was at war?

It took discipline to hold her tongue and focus on her food, but she was a soldier, and she managed to contain herself and, she thought, eat with every appearance of having nothing on her mind but eating. The food was hot and filling and like nothing she’d ever tasted in her life, but she thought she liked it. She might have been more certain if her mind wasn’t wrestling with questions and anxieties, but at least she managed to appease the gnawing hunger and weakness that had been plaguing her ever since she’d arrived.

Nigel seemed to have lost his appetite altogether and she knew the news must be bad. He ate, but mechanically, as if his mind was far away.

Before they’d finished their meal, the serving wench arrived again, this time with a basket covered by a cloth.

Traveling food!

Feeling guiltier than ever, Josie tried to catch Nigel’s eye as he fished a coin from the small pouch bag at his waist and handed it to the woman. The woman stared at the coin for several moments as if awed by it and finally smiled, bobbed a curtsey, and left.

Nigel glanced at her when the woman left. “Finished?”

Josie nodded, anxious to leave the town so that she could find out the news Nigel had gleaned. Rising, he took the basket in one hand and, to Josie’s surprise, held out a hand to help her from her seat.

His hand was warm, big, and strong as it closed over hers and despite the questions running through her mind, his touch distracted her, brought a renewed budding of warmth to life. Struggling to ignore it, she pulled free of his hold the moment she got up, but since he immediately placed his hand in the small of her back as he had before it demolished her attempt to focus her mind away from him physically and on whatever problem had arisen.

Contrary to her hopes, he did not immediately head out of town. Instead, he directed her toward another building along the street. She saw when they went inside that it was some sort of store--nothing like a department store, but definitely a source for supplies. After selecting a couple of blanket rolls, Nigel hesitated and then selected a pot and a pan and what she assumed was dried foods in bags, or maybe coffee.

Uneasy when she saw that he was gathering the sort of supplies that indicated a prolonged camping trip, she looked at him questioningly. He ignored the look, paid for the supplies and ushered her out again.

“What is going on?” Josie demanded as soon as they’d cleared the village and were out of hearing range of the villagers.

Nigel sent her a speculative glance. “Not here.”

Frowning, Josie followed him up the hill. Instead of stopping when he reached the other side, he kept going, though.

“Are you going to tell me what that woman said?”

He stopped, studied her for a long moment and then looked back toward the village, as if he was watching to make certain they hadn’t been followed. “How did you put it? We are fucked.”

“That is so not even funny, duke!” Josie finally managed to say after gaping at him for a full minute in stunned disbelief.

He wrestled with his temper, something Josie couldn’t help but notice he was doing more and more since she’d been with him. Maybe she should try a little harder not to annoy him?

“Nigel,” he ground out.

“Ok, already! Nigel--what do you mean ‘we’re fucked’?”

Nigel scrubbed a hand over his face tiredly. “We need to keep moving. I doubt the clothing you appropriated fooled anyone. We will be lucky if no one recognized it as belonging to one of the village women.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Aside from the fact that it was stolen?”

“Borrowed,” Josie snapped. “I have no intention of keeping it. I just figured it would help me blend in with the natives. You said I stuck out.”

“If you had stayed where I asked you to stay it would not have been an issue.”

“What? This place is so deserted you don’t think we’ll run into anybody else?”

He grimaced. “We only came to the village because you had needs,” he pointed out. “And I had need to learn …. But that is beside the point and will not be a problem if we avoid the villages. I did not particularly care for the way the males were studying you.”

“I was worried about you!” she snapped. “You were gone so long I thought something must have happened.”

He looked more than a little taken aback, cautiously pleased, and then irritated all over again because he was pleased. “I am grateful for your concern, but you should not have risked it. You must give me your word you will not do so again.”

Josie studied him in surprise while a half dozen questions collided in her mind. Deciding after a moment to ignore the issue of his demanding she swear an oath to ignore both her training and her instincts, and the insult to her prowess as a soldier, she went straight for the main problem. “You’re starting to scare the hell out of me, duke! What did you hear back there? Why are you talking like you expect the two of us to be together a long time?”

His skin darkened. “The time is wrong.”

Josie stared at him blankly. “The time is wrong?” she echoed, trying to wrap her mind around the statement and figure out why he thought it was so significant. She couldn’t figure out what he meant by it, though. She could plainly see, though, that he was greatly distressed by it. “Could you be a little more cryptic? Otherwise I might figure out what the hell you’re talking about!”

“This is my world, but it is not my time,” he said tightly. “I had not anticipated such a situation. The portals are notoriously unstable, which is why no one is greatly tempted to use them, but to be thrown back to the dawn of our civilization ….”

“Wait!” Josie demanded, holding up one hand. “Let me see if I understand you ---you passed through this portal, snatched me, and dove back through, and now you’re saying you, we, landed in a different time? How is that even possible? What am I saying?” she asked, slapping a hand to her forehead. “How much crazier is it to go from time to time than from world to world?”

Abruptly all of Josie’s fear and anger came to a head and exploded. Balling up her fist, she swung at him, narrowly missing his jaw when he jerked his head out of the way. “You bastard! You low down, rotten son-of-a-bitch! Now I know why you bought all of those supplies. You think we’re stuck here, don’t you?”

He caught her wrist as her fist flew by his face, using his grip on her arm to twirl her around so that her back was to him and then imprisoned her with his arms.

“Let me go you son-of-a-bitch!” Josie snarled trying to wrench her arms free so that she could swing at him again.

“Not until you calm down, for you will cause yourself an injury,” Nigel said grimly.

“I will cause you an injury,” Josie growled, lifting one boot shod foot and slamming the heel into his shin hard enough he let out a hiss of pain. His hold on her slackened. The moment it did, Josie burst free and whirled on him, throwing a half dozen kicks and punches at him in rapid succession. He made no attempt to block them, merely rocked with them and watched her movements steadily. Growing certain that he was watching and waiting for the chance to grab her foot and pitch her off balance, she ceased kicking and struck him in the ribs and belly with her balled fists instead.

He grabbed her upper arms. When he did, Josie dropped, intending to use her weight to pull him off balance and then her legs to pitch him when he fell on her. It didn’t work out quite the way she’d envisioned it in her head. She dropped. She took him off balance and both of them crashed heavily to the ground. Nigel was far heavier than she’d anticipated, however, and he merely flattened her when he fell on top of her, knocking the wind from her lungs.

He grasped her wrists, manacling them to the ground on either side of her head as he levered himself upward to stare down at her face. “Why did you do that?” he demanded, far angrier now than he had been when she’d been using him for a punching bag.

“Sheer stupidity,” Josie gasped, struggling to catch her breath and snatch her arms free.

He shifted his weight to one arm, settled one hip onto the ground beside her and released his grip on one wrist. Placing his palm along her mid-section, he carefully examined her ribs. “I can not feel a break.”

Josie relaxed fractionally as the pain eased from her chest and she could draw a decent breath. “It just knocked the wind out of me,” she muttered, closing her eyes wearily.

“That was … infinitely foolish!” he growled. “You are fortunate you did not sustain serious injury.”

Josie opened her eyes to glare at him resentfully. She saw, though, that he was staring at her intently now, hungrily, his anger forgotten as desire rose to take its place and her body responded instantly to the call, moist heat gathering inside of her in a tidal wave of excitement. Her mouth went dry as the memory of his kiss filled her mind, intoxicated her.

He began to drift closer, slowly closing the distance that separated them as if the movement was not conscious, not premeditated, but rather more as if they were two magnetized objects pulling one another inexorably closer.

Chapter Eight

Josie held her breath, watching the descent of his mouth towards hers intently, feeling the heat inside of her surge upwards like a sunflower following the heat of the sun. As the tip of his nose touched hers, brushed it, she sucked in a lungful of air, tasted him on her tongue, felt his scent fill her lungs and then flow through her blood like a drug that sent her senses spiraling.

When he hesitated, breathing raggedly, she lifted her lips to his, closing her eyes to relish the heady sensations that assailed her as the sensitive surface of her lips encountered his with a fresh assault to her senses. A shudder went through him as her lips brushed lightly against his, barely touching. He swallowed audibly, hesitated for many moments, as if at war with himself, and finally began to draw away.

Disappointment filled Josie. Embarrassment and irritation followed it as he studied her for a long moment and finally got up, pulling her to her feet as he stood.

He captured her face with one hand as she looked away. “I deeply regret my unconscionable behavior. On my honor as a Bloodragon, I will do all that I can to make this right, to undo the harm I have done you.”

Unconscionable? As in trying to kiss her when he’d rejected her before on the grounds that she wasn’t good enough for a duke? Before she could embarrass herself worse by informing him that she hadn’t wanted him to kiss her anyway, he released his hold and stepped away from her. “I should have considered the instability of the portal, but I have never known of anyone to pass through and travel so far through time.”

Josie stared at him, struggling to change gears as the realization hit her that he had no intention of even addressing the fact that they’d been within inches of rolling around on the ground and humping like a couple of rabbits. He meant to pretend it hadn’t even happened! Her lips tightened. “Maybe because they never came back?” she muttered angrily.

He glanced at her sharply. After a moment, though, a thoughtful expression settled over his features. “It was written,” he said abruptly.

Josie’s jaw dropped. “What was written?” she demanded.

“I had not thought of it before now,” he continued thoughtfully.

“Thought of what, damn it?”

“This must be the age of Kalib Goldenwing.”

“Who the hell is Kalib Goldenwing and what would he have to do with our situation?”

“The chronicler who first made mention of the portals,” Nigel responded absently. “It was long after his time before anyone actually explored the possibility that his writings recorded a real phenomena, rather than mere myth. And I confess I had no particular interest in his work, so I did not study it as I probably should have, but I am almost certain that this must be his time.”

Josie glanced a little vaguely around the clearing where they stood and finally marched over to a boulder and planted her ass on it. The chill from the stone immediately began to permeate through her buttocks and seemed to work its way through the rest of her body in short order. She shivered, and wrapped her arms around herself to hug her warmth to her. “What you’re saying is I’m not going home, right?”

After studying her a long moment, he knelt before her and tried to take her hand. She refused to give it up and he desisted. “I will make this right. I have given you my oath that I will do all that is within my power to correct the wrong.”

Josie set her jaw, struggling against the urge to simply fall apart. She sniffed. “That just makes it all better. You’ll try your best. Now I can just put it out of my little head and relax, right? Let super cock handle everything? Except super cock doesn’t know when the hell this is, or even if this guy exists at the moment. And even if he does and isn’t already dead or not born yet, maybe he knows something about the damned portals and maybe he don’t. Because, maybe, we’re here because we were the ones that told him about the damned portal in the first place.

“That’s what you were thinking, right? That we landed here because ‘it was written’ and we were supposed to? I don’t suppose he chronicled what happened to the two morons that ended up in the wrong fucking place and time, did he?

“Oh! I forgot. You skipped that lesson!”

She could see that he was struggling for patience, but she didn’t care. It seemed to her that there was no way in hell he could fix this mess, whatever his promise. He might get her home, and he might not. Even if he did get her home it seemed to her that it was going to take days, weeks, or months to track down another portal that was going her way and since they weren’t in his ‘present’ then she couldn’t be sure she would end up in her ‘present’ on the return trip.

“Look--it’s only been one day since we came through that thing. Can’t we just go back to that one and go through? I mean, you said it moved with the movement of the planet, but if we go to the same place at the same time we came through it should be in that spot, right?”

Nigel shrugged. “The same general vicinity. It would not be too hard to find--unless we are being chased by Baklen while we are searching.”

Josie shivered again. Those things were the most horrible creatures she’d seen outside her nightmares. Actually, she was pretty sure she’d never seen anything that bad in her nightmares. Regardless, she wanted to go home. If she had to wade through those sons-of-bitches to get there, she was willing. “Just get me a weapon. I can handle hand to hand if my opponent doesn’t outweigh me by more than fifty or sixty pounds, but I don’t think I can handle one of those things barehanded.”

He gave her a look that was a mixture of surprise, admiration, and doubt. “You could handle a sword?”

“I don’t think so. I know how to use a knife. I’d rather have a pistol, an automatic rifle, or an elephant gun, because I don’t mind telling you I don’t like the idea of getting up close and personal with one of them, but I couldn’t help but notice you don’t seem to have that sort of thing around here.”

He frowned thoughtfully. “What you are suggesting would be risky. I used that portal to enter your world, and yet when we returned, it had shifted toward this era. It may also have shifted on the other side now.”

Josie frowned. “I’d thought of that. You think, maybe, it was because one went and two came back?”

Nigel stood up. “I could speculate, but I am not certain that would be much help.” He had a bad feeling, though, that it might have been destabilized by the fact that one of those who passed through did not belong in his world. Or maybe she was right and it was the fact that two had passed through and at the same time. The princess had returned alone.

Only Kalib Goldenwing knew the secrets of the portals--and he could not be certain that this was his time, or even if that was so, that it was a time when he had learned the secrets of the portals.

“I guess you’re pretty positive this isn’t your time?”

Nigel glanced at her. “The village we just left is one that exists in my time, but not as it appears now. I know the village well, because it is a part of my holdings--No, this is not my time.”

“It’s that different? I mean, how can you be sure, or even guess, that this must be the time of that guy you were talking about?”

“I asked the serving woman. I had made up a tale that we were traveling to see the Duke of Sarcen to offer service. She told me that ‘old Eachyn’ was not looking for mercenaries at this time.”

Josie felt a surge of amusement. “You’re certain she wasn’t talking about you?”

His lips thinned. “She would have recognized me--but, yes. Eachyn Bloodragon was my grandfather, the first duke of Sarcen.”

Josie frowned. “I thought you said we were way off the mark? You mean like great grandfather, or great great grandfather?”

He hesitated, but a look of irritation crossed his features. “A decade would be too much,” he muttered.

“Yes, but--never mind. I don’t suppose it matters unless we get through the portal and discover I’m in the wrong time. And then, if we had to come back, we could be in a different time than now. God! This just gets worse and worse!”

He studied her thoughtfully for several moments. “Perhaps it would be best not to risk it at all. We should find out what we can of Goldenwing. If this is indeed his time, it would be less risky to go to him for guidance than to simply experiment and perhaps land in a time when we could not seek him out for help.”

A wave of coldness and nausea washed over Josie at that. She’d thought the worst case scenario would be running afoul of those horrible Baklens and then passing through only to discover she was not in her own time. Nigel had unerringly pinpointed the very worst case scenario, though--up shit creek without a paddle.

He could still be wrong about this Goldenwing guy, of course, but if they made the attempt to cross over without checking first, they would never know, which meant she might be giving up her only real hope of making it home and salvaging her military career.

She didn’t really want to think about it, but it had been teasing the back of her mind almost from the time she’d realized she wasn’t on her own world anymore. Maybe, instead of trying to ignore it, she needed to simply face the possibility and figure out what she could do if worst came to worst and she either couldn’t get back at all, couldn’t get back in the right time, or did get back, but was facing charges because she’d been missing without leave so long?

Nigel crouched in front of her again, tapping the tip of one finger to her temple. “Your thoughts are clouded, but I sense worry. What thoughts tumble through your mind?”

Josie stared at him in surprise, but she saw no reason not to share her thoughts if he was interested. “I was just wondering what I was going to do if we couldn’t get out of this mess.”

“Do not allow it to weigh too heavily on your mind just yet. We are not out of options. For now, we need to find shelter. And then I think I must leave you a bit and gather more supplies and see what I can discover about Goldenwing.”

Josie immediately tensed. It was disgusting the way she felt so clingy about the guy. She could take care of herself. Even if he did go off and didn’t come back, she could figure something out. “I don’t especially care for the idea of being left alone.”

He motioned for her to follow him. “We will return to the springs. The minerals will make it difficult for any to catch your scent and I give you my word that I will be gone no longer than necessary.”

Josie glanced at him sharply. “That’s the real reason you took me there in the first place, isn’t it?”

“In part. But also because I knew that bathing in the springs would make you feel better.”

Josie thought it over and lifted her arm, sniffing the back of her hand. She couldn’t actually smell anything except the faint odor of soil from when she’d fallen on the ground, maybe a faint whiff of foliage and bark from the tree she’d climbed. She couldn’t even detect a lingering scent from the food they ate. “Your sense of smell really is that acute?”

He shrugged. “It is a sense. I am not altogether certain that it would truly qualify as smell--not the way that you mean it. It is more a detection of specific chemicals within a body that identify it with a particular host.”

She frowned. “It’s only been a few hours--not even a full day. You’re saying the masking of those minerals is already wearing off?” She realized as soon as she asked, though, that she couldn’t detect the pungent scent of the mineral water on her skin anymore. But was that because she’d grown accustomed to the smell? Or because it really had worn off?

Nigel slid a speculative glance at her. He smelled woman, a heady chemical imprint that he knew as Josie, but he was trying very hard to keep his mind off of that. In any case, since she did not, and could not, fully understand a sense she did not possess, he thought it likely she would be insulted if he told her so.

The suggestion that he ‘test’ could not be ignored, however. He found himself dragging in a deep breath instinctively in response. Her scent still lingered in his nostrils from before, tantalizing him, but the deep inhalation produced a wave of scent that sent a heady rush directly to his head and his groin and totally disordered his thoughts for several moments.

The taste and feel of her mouth when he had so imprudently kissed her to silence her swarmed through him, creating a haze of need as fresh and powerful as if he had just touched her. Desire formed a knot in his throat when he tried to speak. He cleared it, swallowed several times and then had to search his mind for the thread of the conversation. “It is a safe guard. You are unique in this world, even beyond being an individual, because you are not from this world. No matter how acute the senses of the dragon folk, they would not ordinarily be able to trace the scent at any distance, but we can not rule out the possibility that there are those searching specifically for y … us that know the signature as well as I do.”

“You meant me--not us.”

Nigel struggled with his annoyance at the slip. “I meant us. We trespassed beyond the border, slew guards--the Baklen will want to know what our purpose was for being there. They will want to avenge the deaths.

“There will have been villagers, also, who are … curious because we did not seem to belong. It is possible they will attempt to track us from the village to see what we are about. The rough terrain will make that difficult, but not impossible. The minerals from the spring will throw them off our scent if there are any trying to follow.”

Josie frowned. “The Baklen?” she exclaimed. “They seemed like little more than animals. I wouldn’t have thought they were any more than animals except for the swords. It’s hard to think of them as intelligent enough to reason through that, much less carry a vendetta about the fight.”

Nigel’s lips twisted wryly. “The stupid can be far more persistent than those who are more intelligent for the simple reason that they are not as easily diverted. They are single minded, and vicious, and tenacious.”

Josie considered that, trying to ignore the nervous knot his speculations formed in her belly. “You think that’s what was trailing us before?”

“Possibly. If I had been certain, I would have said so.”

Her lips tightened. “It seems to me that that’s all the more reason for us not to split up. I can’t see that it would be in my best interest anyway. I’m dressed like a native now. Why can’t I go with you?”

Nigel released an impatient breath. “Contrary to what you believe, you look like a foreigner wearing native garb, not like a native,” he said dryly.

Josie looked down at herself. “The boots are that noticeable?”

“It is not only the boots. It is that thing you wear on your wrist. It is the way you wear your hair. It is the way you wear the veils.”

Josie looked at her watch self-consciously. It had stopped when she’d come through the portal. She hadn’t discarded it because she was so accustomed to wearing it she’d forgotten she had it on. She didn’t see his point about her hair or the costume, though. “You can show me how to do it,” she pointed out as she took off her watch and tucked it into the center of the roll she’d made of her uniform. “And then you won’t need to leave me. It’ll take less time anyway if you don’t have to go back and forth.”

He stopped and turned to study her. “I will only agree if you will give me your word that you will do as I tell you.”

Resentment immediately descended, but Josie shrugged it off. Taking orders from him was better than being left in a cave to wonder if he was ever going to come back or if he’d decided to simply cut her loose and put his ‘mistakes’ behind him. “Fine! I’ll follow your orders.”

He eyed her assessingly for several moments. “Swear it on your honor!”

Josie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I, Cpl. Josephine Benate, do solemnly swear, that I will follow your orders.”

He lifted his dark brows.

“On my honor as a soldier of the United States of America,” she added through gritted teeth.

Chapter Nine

Josie eyed the mineral springs warily when they reached it at last. She hadn’t forgotten her last encounter and decided to survey the circumference of the pool for a place where she might more easily climb out before she got in. Nigel did as he had before, dropping only his cape to the rocky ledge and diving in in his ‘uniform’ or armor or whatever he called his garb.

On the opposite side from where she’d gone in before, the drop to the water was further, but when she’d examined it she saw that the sides weren’t quite as slick and sheer. Hoping that meant she would be able to find hand and foot holds to climb out again, she set her bundle of clothing on a rock and sat down to pull her boots and socks off.

A wave of unaccustomed self-consciousness washed over her when she stood to remove the ‘veils’. Military life didn’t exactly encourage modesty. By the time she’d made it through boot camp she’d pretty much lost what little shyness and discomfort she’d felt to begin with about dressing, undressing and/or bathing around others--which wasn’t that much.

There was no real reason that she could see to suddenly feel awkward about undressing in front of anyone, let alone Nigel, who seemed to be ignoring her.

Shrugging it off, she removed the clothing, folded it and placed it carefully on top of her uniform and, after staring down at the water a moment, simply jumped in. Warm as she was from the climb up to the pool and the march from the village, the water didn’t seem that much hotter than her skin already was.

She knew that was deceptive, though. It was still hot enough to raise her body temperature fairly quickly and once it did she would feel as weak as a kitten, not just feel weak. She would be weak.

Soreness still lingered from her unaccustomed exercise, but that did not tempt her to linger. Instead, she sucked in a deep breath and ducked beneath the water at once. When she surfaced, she swiped the water from her face with her hands and lay back to float on the surface while she ran her fingers through her hair to cleanse it the best she could and also to make certain it was thoroughly saturated all the way to her scalp.

Satisfied at last, she sat up, allowing her lower body to sink beneath the water and began to splash water up her arms to her neck, rubbing the water into her skin. She glanced at Nigel as she repeated the process over her breasts.

He was seated on the ledge where she’d gone in before, staring pointedly into the distance. Frowning, wondering if he actually was so deeply in thought that he was unaware of her, or if he was looking away because he was aware of her and didn’t want to be, Josie quickly finished scrubbing herself and moved to the edge to struggle out. She’d made it a little over halfway up the side when she lost her grip and fell back in with a splash, sinking to the bottom.

A hand touched her waist as she struggled up, gripped it. Startled, Josie jerked all over as she felt Nigel’s other hand settle on her waist. Instinctively, she grabbed for a hold on him as she felt him lift her upward. Cool air caressed her skin, made her flesh pebble as she was hoisted above the water. She was still struggling to blink the water from her eyes when she felt her bottom settle on the hard ledge. Steadying herself with one hand on his shoulder, she lifted her other hand to wipe the excess water from her eyes to look at him.

What seemed almost an avalanche of raw attraction washed through her as she met his steady gaze. In a flash, she became keenly aware of the heat of his body, the hardness of the muscles beneath her palm. Uncomfortable with her heightened physical awareness of him, an uneasy chuckle escaped her. “You startled me.”

His hands, which nearly encircled her waist, tightened fractionally. Almost reluctantly, as if he had to mentally command his hands to loosen their grip, he released her. “My apologies. You seemed to be having difficulties,” he muttered after a moment. Turning, he moved a little further along the edge of the spring as Josie self-consciously released her grip on him and hoisted himself out.

“I wasn’t complaining. I was just startled, that’s all. Thanks.”

Nodding, he got to his feet, using his hands to slough the excess water from his body and then gathered his hair into his hands and twisted the dark mass to wring the water from it.

Averting her gaze from the fascinating play of muscles in his arms and chest as he did so, Josie followed suit, wondering why she found his long, black hair so attractive--found him attractive. She was used to GI cuts. She should have been put off by the long hair if nothing else. Instead, it seemed to add a good deal to his overall appeal, seemed almost to soften the harshness of his strong boned face and the lethalness of his build and cold demeanor just enough to make him seem more approachable.

‘Seem’ was the key word, though. She couldn’t precisely put her finger on what it was about him that made her feel distanced, but there was no getting around the fact that she felt like she was being held at arm’s length even when she was plastered against him.

She supposed that was mostly because even though she’d caught him looking at her more than once with pure male interest, he held himself firmly in check. She didn’t delude herself into thinking it had been a ‘slip’ that he’d kissed her when they were in the tavern. That had been deliberate and for the sole purpose of shutting her up as quickly and efficiently as possible.

She thought he’d like it, though. The problem was, she’d been so wrapped up in the way it made her feel she hadn’t been in any condition to notice whether it had effected him even nearly as much as it had her.

Not that it mattered, she told herself sternly. He was off limits. Even if it wasn’t for the fact that he’d made no bones about his sense of what was due his station, she didn’t think a quick fling with somebody from a different world would be a good idea for her. He was just too damned attractive to her. She would be mooning over him for months, she knew, even as it was, probably comparing every man she ran across to him and definitely finding them lacking. Tasting the forbidden was bound to make things worse.

She needed to focus on getting home anyway--and staying alive until she could get back. And how to get out of the mess she was in once she did get back.

Had much time passed since she had disappeared, she wondered as she moved to the pile of clothes and lifted the top to examine it? Or could it possibly transpire that this time thing would work on her side? That she could make it back to within minutes of when she’d disappeared?

Nigel startled her again by grasping the top as she tugged it over her head and adjusting it himself. Frowning, trying to ignore the effect his nearness had on her, Josie looked down at the top when he’d finished. She couldn’t see that he had arranged it that differently than she had, though.

When she looked up from examining the top, she saw that Nigel had leaned down and snatched the skirt up. He knelt, holding it open for her to step in. Feeling self-conscious about the fact that his face was almost on a level with her mound, Josie braced her palms on his shoulders and stepped into the skirt. He moved it up her legs and settled the waistband around her hips.

Ok, so it went around the hips rather than the waist, she thought irritably, reaching for her panties.

Nigel plucked them from her and dropped them back onto the bundle. “Not those.”

Josie gaped at him. “But--I feel naked without them!” It was bad enough going braless when she was used to wearing one, but no panties?

He swallowed, audibly, but his expression was stony. “You are covered.”

“Until a breeze flips the skirt over my head!” Josie retorted.

“This is the way the natives wear the veils,” he said tightly.

“And I suppose I would look more like the natives without the boots?” she asked challengingly.

He considered it for a moment. “Yes.”

Glaring at him, Josie plopped down on her rolled clothes and grabbed her socks. “Well, I don’t give a damn! I’m not walking barefoot over the damned rocks!”

He didn’t argue with her. Instead he returned to where he’d dropped his cloak and snatched it up, securing it at his shoulders. She sent him a resentful glare as she reached for her boots and discovered that he was studying her through narrowed his, his gaze fixed somewhere below her belly button. Or maybe above the belly button? She shook her breasts. His gaze followed the sway.

Biting her lip, she ducked her head and focused on pulling her boots on and tying them. She stood up when she’d finished. “What now?”

He blinked, slowly, dragged his gaze up her body until he met her gaze. For several moments he merely stared at her as if he hadn’t heard the question. Finally, he moved past her and stood staring down at the terrain below them. “There,” he said, pointing. “See that stream? It flows into the great river Mirata and leads eventually to Caracaren where King Caracus’ primary castle lies. Goldenwing was advisor to King Caracus. We should find him there.”

Josie followed the direction of his pointing finger and squinted, but to save her life she couldn’t see so much as a glint of water. “Beyond the village?”

“Yes. We do not want to pass too near it, I am thinking, and we have supplies enough for several days. In my time, there is a village where the tributary joins with Mirata. If it exists now, then we will be able to stop there for supplies.”

She still couldn’t see the stream he was talking about and wondered if he could, or if it was only that he knew it was there. She decided she didn’t want to tell him she couldn’t see it, though. He already had a superior attitude.

Giving up the effort to see the stream he’d pointed out, she glanced at him dryly. “And if it doesn’t exist in this time?”

“There will be other villages.”

Dusk had fallen by the time they reached the edge of the forest Nigel had pointed out from the hill top. Josie was more than ready to call it a day, but she certainly wasn’t going to complain about Nigel rushing toward her ‘salvation’. The sooner they got to the king’s castle and talked to Goldenwing, the better as far as she was concerned.

It was dim beneath the trees, however, and by the time they’d walked another hour, as black as the inside of a cave. Josie stayed as close to Nigel’s back as she dared since he didn’t seem to be having the same trouble negotiating the dark woods that she was, but after tripping over something for the umpteenth time, she lost her temper.

“Don’t tell me--you can see in the dark, too, right?”

Nigel halted and turned to look at her. She knew he had because she could just catch a faint glint of light across his features as opposed to the pitch black hair she’d been looking at for miles. Besides, she heard him stop and turn.

“You are having difficulties?”

There was surprise in his voice and for some reason that just ticked her off more, maybe because it indicated that he’d been completely oblivious to her difficulties? “Whatever would give you that idea?” she asked sweetly. “Don’t tell me! It was when I plowed up the dirt back there because I tripped over a fucking root that you stepped over! Dead give away, right?”

“You wish to stop?” he asked, sounding as irritated as she was by now.

“Well hell no! I thought we were going to just keep walking until we got there! Never mind I have to pee and I haven’t stopped to rest in three frigging hours!”

She sensed rather than saw his gesture with his arm. “Relieve yourself. I will wait. I want to reach the stream before we make camp, however.”

Josie gave him a look. She suspected it was wasted on him since she couldn’t see his expression and doubted he could see hers. “Not until I know just how damned well you can see!”

She jumped when he touched the tip of her nose with his finger. “Well enough to see that you are standing by a tree. Step behind it. I will turn my back if it makes you more comfortable.”

She lifted a hand and felt around blindly, discovering that he was right. It didn’t make her feel any better, because she hadn’t realized she was standing so close to a tree.

She heard him take a few steps as she felt her way around the tree. “Nigel?”

“Yes.”

His voice didn’t sound that far away. “Can you see me?”

“Yes.”

There was amusement in his voice now and Josie ground her teeth, inching around the trunk. “Now?”

“What?”

“Oh you are so funny. Can you see me?”

“If you can not see me, why do you care?”

“Nigel!” she growled threateningly.

He chuckled. “My back is to you.”

She wasn’t certain she believed him, but she was afraid if she moved any further around the tree she would certainly be well within his view. Moving carefully, she squatted.

“Be careful of the skirt.”

“You asshole!” she exclaimed surging to her feet. She hadn’t gathered the skirt, yet, but the only way he would know that was if he was watching.

He began to laugh. It was a surprisingly pleasant sound. She just wasn’t entirely certain she appreciated it at the moment.

“I was only guessing, Josephine Benate.”

He sounded like he was on the other side of the tree, but she still wasn’t certain. “Swear?”

“On my honor.”

There was laughter in his voice and she still wasn’t certain she believed him, but she had to go. “How much further to the stream?” she asked as she settled again and carefully gathered the skirt front and back. Fortunately, she had prior experience with pissing in the woods. She still hated it, but she could manage it without too much mess or trouble.

“Perhaps twenty paces.”

Josie straightened and moved around the tree before she dropped her skirts. “Are you serious? Or are you just saying that to annoy the hell out of me?”

“Yes,” Nigel said.

She heard the tromp of his feet through the crackling leaves on the forest floor but she wasn’t certain whether he was moving away from her or toward her until she felt his hand slip along her arm and grip it just above the bend of her elbow. “Which?” she asked suspiciously.

“Both. Your rear veil is tucked into the waistband.”

“It is no….” Josie broke off as she swiped her hand across her buttocks to check and discovered the damned thing was indeed hitched up, exposing one cheek of her ass.

“You were not so shy when we were bathing in the spring,” he pointed out.

“I’m a soldier. I’m used to not having a lot of privacy, but I want a little. Anyway, you were bathing, too. You weren’t watching me.”

“You are so certain?” he asked dryly.

Deciding not to comment on his observation, she changed the subject abruptly as he led her through the darkness. “Mine or yours?”

“Pardon?”

“The paces. Mine or yours?”

“It is only a guess, Josephine.”

“I tell you what--don’t call me Josephine and I won’t call you duke anymore.”

She sensed the movement as he glanced down at her. “You do not like to be called Josephine?”

“Josie is OK. Jo if you want something shorter.”

“You are short enough.”

“Funny! Ha Ha.”

He said nothing for several moments as he led her to one side, avoiding a tree. “I like the name Josephine Benate. It has the sound of a female of good family.”

Josie snorted derisively. “It’s plain old American middle class, which I’m perfectly comfortable with--we don’t have lords and ladies where I’m from, just rich, poor and in between--and I like Josie better.”

He paused pulling her to a halt. She heard the rustling sound of foliage as he used his back and one arm to push a bushy shrub aside and light abruptly spilled over them. Surprised, Josie moved past him at his urging and found herself standing on the bank of a waterway. It might be his idea of a stream, she thought, but it looked like a river to her.

One of the moons, the one that had been full, was just cresting the tops of the trees to the east, spilling light over the landscape and making the water sparkle.

“We are far enough from the village now that it should be safe to have a small fire.”

Nodding, Josie dropped her roll and began searching the ground for sticks to build a fire with. She could see, but she couldn’t see well and bent over to peer at every stick she saw intently to make sure it wasn’t moving before she reached down to pick it up. There wasn’t much to find along the banks, even searching the edge of the tree line, but she didn’t dare push her way back into the forest. She couldn’t see anyway, so there seemed little logic in risking getting herself lost.

She discovered when she turned and headed back, though, that Nigel already had a small fire started. Joining him, she dropped her meager offering beside him, looked around and finally settled on the ground across from him, crossing her legs Indian style.

“You’re pretty handy at this. I wouldn’t think a duke would get much practice at roughing it. Or do you have a handy little fire starter in that pouch of yours?”

He sent her a sharp glance. “I have earned my title, many times over. I am a seasoned warrior, Josephine Benate. I have fought in many campaigns--more, I will warrant, than you have years to claim.”

Josie stared at him, disconcerted that his mood had shifted so quickly. She supposed, though, after a moment, that it was her own fault. He had been teasing before. She had liked it--maybe too much--and she’d been testy, more because of that that from her weariness.

She didn’t want to like him. It was one thing to lust after him. She could put that down to pure animal attraction, which was ok because he certainly wasn’t the first man she’d found physically appealing and he wouldn’t be the last. Liking him took her one step further in the wrong direction and she didn’t want to go there.

“If you’ll recall, I never claimed to have battle experience. And you aren’t that much older than me, so don’t go all ‘I’m older and wiser and more experienced’ on me!”

His lips tightened, his dark brows drawing together in a frown, but he merely averted his gaze, staring at the fire as he broke more branches and fed them to the greedy flames. “I did not intend to insult you.”

Josie felt her own lips tighten in anger. She surged to her feet. “Yes, you did. You’ve been harping on your dukedom and your title since we got here and what you ‘owed your family name’--as if I give a good damn! I’m an American, by damn! And that means I don’t have to have a title to be as good as anybody.”

Nigel surged to his feet, as well. “You have been harping on it! You thought that I would take advantage of you. I wanted to make you understand that you were safe with me, but you would not have believed me if I had only said that I would not.”

Josie narrowed her eyes at him. “Like hell! There are only two reasons I can think of for you to make such a snide remark--either to insult me, or to remind yourself that you’re too good for ordinary folk like me, but probably both.”

Nigel stepped across the fire that separated them, grasped her upper arms and hauled her against his chest. “Two days, and you think you know me?” he growled. “Can you read my mind, then?”

Surprised but unintimidated, Josie glared at him. “I don’t have to when you keep looking at me like a starving man that’s spied a particularly tasty looking piece of meat that he’s afraid to touch for fear it’s poisoned!”

Even in the dim light Josie could see his face flush darkly. “Only a moment ago, you said that you thought I had not watched you bathe.”

It was Josie’s turn to blush. “I was talking about other times,” she muttered.

“You were not. Were you testing me? Or teasing?”

“It was your idea to bathe in the springs to start with!” she reminded him, avoiding the uncomfortable questions. The plain truth was Josie wasn’t certain of the answer herself. Maybe she had wanted to know if he was as immune to her as he claimed.

Or maybe she’d hoped to push him past his control?

Maybe it was both?

He shook his head slightly and released her. “This is a dangerous game you are playing, youngling. I am not what you think. I have told you, but I see that you do not understand. Regardless, I am still a male. And I find you--infinitely desirable. If you continue to tempt me we will both have much to regret.”

Josie felt her irritation rise. She knew she ought to just let it go. She had already realized that yielding to her desire for the man was the worst idea she’d ever had. She didn’t need him to tell her that she was going to regret it if she kept pushing until she succeeded in breaking through the barrier he’d wedged between them.

It wasn’t just that, though. If he had just behaved as if he wasn’t interested at all, she supposed she could’ve dealt with it. It was the suggestion that she wasn’t good enough that really goaded her. Like she was going to taint his bloodlines!

She wasn’t volunteering to be the mother of his damned child anyway!

“I am dragon,” Nigel said quietly. “Not human, Josephine Benate. We are more different than you can imagine. And I can not risk a joining because I can say with absolute certainty that I would not be able to resist the urge to plant my seed in your belly.

“If you do not want to be the mother of my brood, then do not test me.”

Chapter Ten

Josie sent him a startled look.

Frowning, more as if he was irritated with himself than her, Nigel moved away, as if he felt the need to put some distance between them. Settling on the opposite side of the fire, he flipped the covering off the basket of food he’d gotten earlier and examined the contents. After several stunned moments, Josie sank weakly to the ground, watching him absently as he took a small round loaf of bread from the basket, tore it in half and held a piece out for her to take.

She took it, staring at it blankly. “You read minds.”

He glanced at her and then returned his attention to the basket. “Your mind is clouded to mine. It is only one of the many ways we differ.”

Josie frowned. “That’s not the first time you … plucked a thought right out of my head,” she said almost accusingly.

He shrugged. “At times you are open to me. Mostly, you are not.”

“That’s so comforting,” Josie retorted sarcastically as she took the pieces of meat and cheese he handed her. “When am I ‘open’ and when am I not?”

He considered that thoughtfully for some time. “I think it is only when you are near me, but not always even then.”

She couldn’t be sure herself when he had seemed to know what she was thinking because it hadn’t occurred to her before that there was even a possibility that he might, so she decided after a little consideration that he was being as honest as he could. She frowned when she realized how easily she’d found it to accept that he was telling the truth. True, she did tend to be a little too trusting. She had to work hard to keep her guard up and stay on her toes, but wearing the uniform of an MP was usually enough of a reminder to her.

Except she wasn’t wearing it anymore. Had she relaxed her guard when she’d shed the uniform? Or could she actually trust her instincts?

He was right. She didn’t know him. They’d been in almost constant proximity since they’d come through the portal, which made it pretty impossible not to get to know somebody really well really quickly, but it was still only a couple of days.

He’d been pretty honest with her, though, occasionally downright brutally honest. She was certain he was as capable of lying as the next person, or just plain omitting things he should have told her--and he had certainly done that--but he had seemed to be at pains to be as straightforward with her as possible, even when what he had to say wasn’t particularly pleasant.

Mentally, she shrugged. She supposed it wasn’t any harder to accept that he was a mind reader, or maybe a telepath, than the other things she’d accepted because she couldn’t dispute them. She didn’t like having her private thoughts known, but, mostly, she didn’t particularly care if he knew what was going through her mind or not.

She’d just make damned sure she didn’t think anything she didn’t want him to know if he was anywhere near her!

The sandwich she’d put together from the food he’d given her was bone dry. By the time she’d eaten a few mouthfuls she was having difficulty swallowing. Either Nigel noticed her difficulty or …. No, she wasn’t going to go there!

He pulled an odd looking bladder from the basket and passed it to her.

“What is it?”

“Sachtian--to drink to wash down the food.”

Josie pulled the stopper from the end and sniffed it. The aroma alone told her it was pretty heady stuff. She didn’t bother to ask if it was alcoholic. She knew it had to be. After a brief internal debate, she took a cautious sip. It scalded her mouth and throat and settled in the pit of her stomach like fire. Feeling vaguely dizzy from just the one sip, she handed it back to Nigel, ignoring the amused look on his face. “I believe I’ll just have water,” she said a little hoarsely. “Unless …. The water is fit to drink?”

Nigel looked at her in surprise. “Of course.”

Josie frowned, wondering as she nibbled at her food if he was surprised because there was no such thing as polluted water on his world, or if he was surprised because they were just so backwards they hadn’t discovered yet that they were polluting their environment.

This wasn’t his time, but she supposed if the water wasn’t filled with toxins in his time, it was bound to be clean enough to drink now.

She decided to try not to think about it. She had to have water or she was going to die of dehydration a lot faster than most anything in the water could kill her. She just wished she had a field kit with her to test the water.

Nigel handed the skin back to her after a few more bites. After hesitating for several moments, Josie decided to give it one more try. She took a larger sip that time and nearly choked as the liquid fire clawed its way down her throat and set fire to her stomach. When she caught her breath, she shoved the stopper into the neck and handed it back. “The water might kill me,” she muttered, “but that shit definitely will.”

After taking another bite of her sandwich, she got to her feet and tossed the remains into the woods and then turned and headed a little unsteadily down the bank to the water. The slope was steeper than she’d expected and she wasn’t nearly as steady on her feet as usual. She let out a yelp as she slipped little more than half way down, skidding right into the edge of the stream.

“Josephine?”

“What?” she growled crossly.

“Are you all right?”

Letting out a huff of irritation, she sat backwards onto the bank. “Fine. Just dandy.” Her boots and socks were wet though. After struggling with the wet laces she managed to pull the boots off, poured the water out of them and then took her socks off. She was about to toss them down when it occurred to her that it was the only damned pair of socks she had to her name and she’d been wearing them for two frigging days.

Deciding she might as well wash them the best she could while she was at it, she sloshed them up and down in the water a few times and scrubbed them with her hands and the sand on the bank. She was about ready to kill for a little soap.

Something landed on the ground beside her. She nearly jumped out of her skin, whirling and looking wildly around to see what it was.

“Soap.”

Josie stared at the glob for several moments, looked at Nigel, then looked at the soap again. “Damn it! You said you couldn’t read my mind unless you were close!”

“You were washing your garments,” he said tersely.

Josie blinked. “Oh.” She hadn’t noticed him getting soap when he’d gotten the supplies. Picking it up, she sniffed the soap. It smelled about like the mineral springs, but that was better than sweaty socks any day. “Thanks!” she added belatedly, dismissing him and returning her attention to her laundry.

She should wash her uniform while she was at it.

She was tired as hell, though, and she hadn’t really worn it since she’d washed the tunic in the springs. Tomorrow, she decided, maybe.

When she was satisfied she had cleaned her socks the best she could, she set the soap aside and climbed back up the bank to find a place to hang them to dry. Nigel, she saw when she turned to see what he was doing, was busy gathering brush to make a pallet by the fire. Since he was occupied, she decided he couldn’t accuse her of trying to tempt him if she went back for a bath. Almost as an afterthought, she grabbed her rolled up uniform and carried it with her.

The water was cold. Somehow she thought the flimsy veils she was wearing just wasn’t going to cut it once she’d frolicked in that cold stream.

Dragging the top off, she laid it carefully on top of the rock where she’d settled her uniform and then shimmied out of the skirt. Still feeling more than a little lightheaded from the what-ever-that-was that Nigel had given her to drink, she decided not to brave going very far into the water. Instead, she squatted near the edge where the water was barely deep enough to cover her feet and buttocks and sloshed water all over herself and then soaped her hands and used her soapy hands to lather her body. She didn’t particularly want to wash her hair with the soap, but she didn’t have a lot of options.

Inching a little further into the water, she rinsed the soap from her body and washed her hair.

She was shivering from the cool night air and the cooler water by the time she came out again, but she felt really clean for the first time in days. Grabbing the outfit up that she’d filched from the village, she used the thin cloth to towel herself dry and then quickly dressed in her own clothes.

Nigel was sitting on the pallet he’d made for himself when she finally reached the fire once more. He studied her broodingly as she hung up the veils to dry. Ignoring him, although she wondered why he was so moody, she looked around until she found a couple of fairly sturdy sticks, drove them into the soil near the fire and carefully tipped her boots over them so that any moisture that lingered would, hopefully, drip out during the night so that the boots would dry fully.

She didn’t really think there was much chance of it. She’s soaked them pretty thoroughly, but it was the best she could think to do about it. Wet boots, or even damp boots, were going to be hell to march in.

Sometime during the process Nigel rose and departed the circle of light and warmth the fire was giving off. She heard a splash and realized he’d gone to bathe.

Shrugging off the temptation that immediately assailed her to think up some excuse to follow him to the river, Josie looked around for the blankets Nigel had bought, snatched one off of the pallet he’d made of brush and, after examining the ground on the opposite side of the fire for sticks and stones, curled up in the blanket and tried to compose herself for sleep.

As tired as she was it wasn’t easy. The ground was ungodly hard and unyielding. She was still trying to decide whether it would be worth the effort to get up and gather her own brush to make a pallet when Nigel returned. She tensed as he stood over her for several moments, staring down at her. Finally, though, he moved to the pallet he’d made, wrapped himself in the blanket she’d left and apparently dropped almost instantly to sleep.

The ease with which a man could fall asleep never failed to amaze Josie. She stared at his back resentfully for some time before she felt herself beginning to drift toward her rest. She was awakened almost as soon as she’d dropped over the edge of consciousness, or so it seemed, by a touch. Instinct for danger kicked in. Unfortunately, between her state of unconsciousness and the residual effects of the alcoholic beverage she’d drank, her reflexes were somewhat less than lightning. Groggily, she groped for her pistol. “Nige?”

“It is all right.”

“Wha? Wha’s goin’ on?”

“You will be more comfortable on the pallet.”

“Oh,” she murmured, relaxing against him as he lifted her, carried her a short distance, and then lowered her again. She heard a quiet rustling noise at the same time as she felt a slight give beneath her weight.

She frowned. It wasn’t much more comfortable as far as she could tell, but once Nigel settled behind her and dragged her back until she was nestled against his belly, she decided it was somewhat better. At least the ground didn’t feel quite as hard, and Nigel’s warmth was better than the thin blanket she’d been rolled in.

Yawning, she snuggled more tightly against him and sought oblivion again. “Weird dream,” she muttered just before she fell over the edge of consciousness once more.

Weak light had barely begun to trickle over the horizon when Josie was awakened by the loss of her heater. Dragged abruptly to awareness, she struggled to open her eyes. Her eyelids felt as if they’d been glued shut, however, and after a brief struggle, she desisted, reaching out with her other senses instead to ferret out the disturbance.

She heard movement as Nigel knelt by the fire and began stirring the coals. An odd noise, like the rush of compressed air from a spray can followed and then the crackle of fire as the kindling caught flame. Frowning, Josie struggled with her eyelids again and managed to pry them open a crack as Nigel straightened and strode toward the woods.

Her eyes felt as if someone had lifted each lid carefully and stuffed sand underneath. Pushing herself upright with an effort, she rubbed her eyes and finally managed to open them wide enough she could look around. Confusion filled her when she discovered she was lying on the pallet Nigel had made the night before, but she decided she was just too tired to try to figure out what she was doing on his pallet.

Lying back, she closed her eyes again, trying to prod her mind awake. The only thing that kept running through her brain, however, was the suggestion that she just roll over and go back to sleep.

She was still considering it when Nigel returned. She sensed his gaze on her as he stopped close by and tensed, but apparently he decided not to disturb her. He moved off again. Groaning, she pushed herself upright once more. Every muscle in her body protested, but she managed to roll onto her knees and climb to her feet. Swaying slightly, she got her bearings and headed into the woods to relieve herself.

Nigel had set the pot he’d bought at the supply store in the edge of the fire when she returned and an aroma strongly reminiscent of coffee wafted to her.

It wasn’t coffee. Even as sluggish as her brain was, she knew it couldn’t be, but she could pretend it was, she decided. Bypassing him, she headed for the stream to wash her face and scrub her teeth the best she could with her finger. It wasn’t even close to satisfactory grooming as far as she was concerned, but at least she managed to rid herself of the rough feeling on her teeth and freshen her breath.

Wordlessly, Nigel handed her a mug when she returned and dropped down on the opposite side of the campfire. She took it, sniffed it and finally took a sip. It was hot, but pretty damned horrible, whatever it was. Setting it aside after a few sips, she collected the things she’d hung to dry the night before. Her socks still felt damp, she realized glumly. Rolling the top and skirt up, she set them aside and took the socks back to the fire, settling again and waving them near the heat one at the time while she sipped the obnoxious brew.

It seemed to have some of the properties of coffee, even if it didn’t have the taste. By the time she’d managed to choke down about a third of it, she was feeling more alert.

Alert enough to begin to feel embarrassment creeping in. After debating whether to say anything about the fact that she’d climbed into his pallet with him or to just pretend it hadn’t happened, she finally decided to just meet it head on. “Sorry,” she muttered, gesturing toward the pallet. “I … uh … sleepwalk sometimes. I guess I got cold.”

Nigel, who looked like he hadn’t slept much better than she had, glanced at the pallet when she pointed and then focused a speculative gaze on her. “You do not recall how you came to share my pallet?”

Josie shrugged. “I know you don’t believe me, but I don’t. I used to do things in my sleep all the time when I was a kid, but I thought I’d outgrown it. Guess not.” She frowned, struggling to pry some memory from her brain but discovered no more than a twinge of recognition, nothing she could actually call a memory. “I guess it’s a good thing I don’t live on base. My commanding officer wouldn’t be too thrilled to discover I have a bad habit of wandering around in my sleep.”

She glanced at his face, trying to decipher what was going through his mind, but found it impossible. “That’s why I haven’t been in combat. I haven’t volunteered because I was afraid it might get me killed,” she added. “It must be because I was so tired and stressed out about everything. I’m sure I haven’t sleepwalked in years.”

Nigel dropped his gaze to the liquid in his mug. “If you are asleep, and you do not remember, then how do you know that you do things in your sleep?”

Josie reddened. She’d known he wouldn’t believe her. “Because of the things I find out when I wake up,” she said defensively. “Like waking up on your pallet. I know I lay down on this side of the fire last night and I don’t remember moving, so I must have gotten up in my sleep and moved.”

“You have done something like that before?”

Josie stared at him blankly for several moments. “Climb into bed with a guy, you mean?” she asked tightly. “No. Not like that. But I did wake up one night in the middle of the woods when I was a kid. I dreamed I was walking to school. There was a shortcut I took through the edge of the woods to get to school. I guess I would have made it all the way there in my nightgown except that I tripped over something and fell down and it woke me up.”

Nigel tossed the last of his drink into the flames. “It is as well that you sleep beside me so that I can protect you then,” he said, surging to his feet. “It would be dangerous for you to wander off.”

Feeling vaguely offended at his abrupt dismissal, Josie took another sip of her own brew and then followed suit, tossing the remainder into the fire and getting to her feet to gather up their belongings. She had little to gather. She’d already rolled up the only clothes she had besides those she was wearing. Taking one of the blankets, she rolled the clothes inside of it and then tied two of the corners together to form a sling for her shoulder.

That done, she glanced around while Nigel retrieved the food he’d stashed high in a tree before he’d sought his pallet the night before. Spying the pot he’d used still in the edges of the fire, she reached the grab the handle unthinkingly. The sizzle and odor of burning flesh reached her nostrils before the pain reached her brain, but both were almost simultaneous. Yelping, she dropped the pot, cupping her injured hand with the uninjured one.

Nigel strode toward her quickly, catching her wrist and turning her palm to examine it.

“That was stupid,” Josie muttered, trying to close her mind to the pain throbbing through her palm. “I didn’t realize it was so hot.”

“I have no salve for this,” Nigel murmured, ignoring the remark.
Josie withdrew her hand. “The water’s cold. That’ll help. I was going to take it down to the stream to wash it anyway.”

“I will wash. You attend your hurt.”

Before she could object or agree, he leaned down, snatched the pot from the ground, gathered the mugs, and headed toward the stream. Josie watched him with her mouth slightly agape, wondering how he could pick up something that hot. The handle couldn’t have cooled that much in the few seconds since she’d dropped it, could it?

Chapter Eleven

The cold water flowing through the stream went a long way toward easing the painful burn. Josie sat trailing her hand through the water until Nigel had gathered everything and cleared the evidence of their campsite. Her hand still throbbed when she pulled it out, but not nearly as badly as before. She had a couple of small blisters on three of her fingers, but the skin of her palm had been thick enough to prevent a deep burn.

It still hurt like hell. She was so focused on her misery that they had tramped back through the woods and found a narrow pathway before she recalled that Nigel had picked the pot up directly from the fire to pour her drink. She frowned when she remembered, trying to think if she’d noticed that he had something in his hand to pad it from the heat.

She couldn’t remember anything, though. That was why she’d so stupidly picked up. It wasn’t just that she was still half asleep and not thinking clearly. She’d seen him pick the pot up and assumed it wasn’t too hot to touch.

We are more different than you can imagine, he’d told her.

She shook that thought off. She’d felt the touch of his hands. His skin felt just like hers, just like everyone else’s skin. She must have missed something. Just because she couldn’t remember him having anything in his hand when he’d picked up the pot that didn’t mean he hadn’t. It just meant she couldn’t remember.

It was almost noon by the time she finally managed to get her mind off of her throbbing hand altogether. When she did, she finally remembered something else.

“You moved me to your pallet,” she said accusingly when they settled near the stream again to eat.

Nigel glanced at her speculatively. “I did not say I did not.”

Josie’s lips tightened. “But you let me think I did it! You didn’t say a thing while I stuttered and stammered trying to explain about sleep walking!”

“It was not true?”

Josie felt her jaw go slack with surprise. “What?”

“That you walk in your sleep?”

She glared at him. “I do. I did. I used to, anyway, but I wasn’t sleepwalking last night!”

“We have established that,” he retorted shortly. “And also that you do not always know what you do in your sleep and that it is better that we share a pallet so that you do not wander off during the night.”

She couldn’t think of anything to say to that. She’d found the incident unsettling to say the least, and embarrassing, but the old doubts and fears had crept in when she’d thought she had gotten up and moved in her sleep. Finding herself in the woods almost a mile from home in the middle of the night had scared the pure hell out of her when she was a kid. She’d been afraid to go to sleep for a long time afterwards, getting up over and over to check her door and window and finally moving a piece of furniture in front of her door before she could relax enough to sleep.

Her mother had finally questioned her about it and when she’d confessed she’d discovered it was a hereditary trait. Her mother had assured her, though, that she would sleep with her door open to listen and would guide her back to bed if she got up again.

She hadn’t lived at home in years. Her mother had convinced her she’d outgrown the tendency, but what if she hadn’t? What if she’d never really stopped? It wasn’t something she did often, never had been.

She dismissed it after a few minutes. If she was stressed enough there was even a possibility that she might wander off, she would far rather sleep next to Nigel where he would know immediately if she tried to get up.

As long as he didn’t think she was just doing it for attention, or looking for an excuse to cuddle, she could live with it.

She still felt awkward when they bedded down that night and it was a very long time before she relaxed enough to fall asleep.

She decided the next morning when they rose to break camp, that Nigel either wasn’t any more of a morning person than she was, or he wasn’t any more accustomed to the march than she was, or maybe both.

His mood was foul.

He had watched her broodingly from the time they had stopped to make camp, this time before darkness had fully overtaken them. After her few attempts to draw him into conversation had been soundly rebuffed by grunts or one word responses, she’d left him alone, but that hadn’t seemed to improve his disposition much.

He had seemed less tense and grumpy by the time they’d both eaten and bathed in the stream, but the ‘mood’ was upon him again by the time they got up the following day and set out again.

When they stopped to eat their mid day meal, which was more of the same of what they’d had since they had left the village and drier than dust by now, he had examined her uniform with disfavor. “Why have you ceased to wear the veils? Do you fear that if you dress as befits a woman that I will not be able to control myself?”

Josie reddened, but more from anger than embarrassment. “What is with you, anyway? Is it your time of the month?” she growled back at him.

He looked taken aback. His skin darkened after that momentary surprise, however. “What has the time of the month to do with anything?” he demanded suspiciously enough she knew he was well aware that he’d been insulted, he just wasn’t sure how.

“Nothing,” Josie snapped, surging to her feet and tossing her half eaten sandwich aside as she headed down to the stream to get water.

“We are nearly out of food. Do you think it wise to waste it?”

Josie didn’t bother to turn around. “What difference does it make if we’ve got food if it’s inedible? Didn’t you say it was only three days to the next village?”

“I could make it in three days--alone.”

Josie, who’d been on the point of scooping up water to drink, straightened and turned. Nigel was standing at the top of the bank glaring at her. Plunking her hands on her hips, she glared back at him. “I have not complained one damned time about the pace!” she growled before she recalled their first march. “… Since we started this trek,” she amended.

He looked like he wanted to argue the matter, but apparently he couldn’t dredge up any memory of her having complained. After several moments, he seemed to force the tension from his stance. “I did not want to push you past your endurance,” he said almost coldly. “You are not as we are. Humans are frail creatures at best.”

Josie’s eyes narrowed. She had to resist the childish impulse to pick up a rock and throw it at his head. “Well I would weep into my pillow over that insult if I had a fucking pillow!” she snarled. “If my breathing is irritating you so damned much, just take a fucking hike for all I care! If you want my opinion, this whole exercise is lame anyway! You don’t even know if this Goldenwing guy will be there, and even if he is, whether he’ll be able to help or not!

“And since you brought it up, we wouldn’t be in this mess at all if you hadn’t kidnapped me!”

“I have acknowledged that the fault is mine and that it is my responsibility to make it right!” he growled.

“Bully for you! It is your fault. But I can take responsibility for myself, thank you very much, if you’re just going to be an asshole about it! I’ll find my own way back. I do have training. I can take care of myself.”

When he made no rebuttal, Josie spun on her heel and began to march along the river bank in the direction from which they’d come. In a few moments, he fell into step behind her. “Where are you going?”

“Back! I know where one of the portals is--close anyway. I’m sure I can find it.”

“While the Baklen chase you around the desert?” Nigel growled, grabbing her arm and jerking her to a halt when she ignored him and kept walking.

Josie turned and slapped at his hand to dislodge it. “That’s not your problem.”

His fingers tightened. “It is my problem. You are my responsibility.”

“I relieve you of responsibility!” Josie snarled. “Go! Find this Goldenwing guy! Save your queen! Just keep in mind that it isn’t my damned fault you got diverted from your mission. That’s what really eating you, isn’t it? You want somebody to blame for the fact that you aren’t where you’re supposed to be and probably in trouble up to your eyeballs! Now, let go of my damned arm!”

Instead of doing so, he grabbed her free arm, hauling her up against his chest. “This has nothing to do with my oath to my queen,” he muttered, lowering his face until he was almost nose to nose with her.

Josie tensed, but her fury was almost instantaneously transformed to raging desire as his essence invaded her senses. Dizzy with the chemicals flooding through her, her mouth went dry with the need to taste him on her tongue, feel his intimate caress, and she lifted her lips infinitesimally closer to his without conscious thought.

He swallowed audibly, but he did not move closer, did not attempt to accept her offering. Instead he hovered for what seemed an eternity, clearly at war within himself. Finally, instead of fitting his lips to hers, he lifted his head fractionally and nuzzled his face against hers, breathing deeply of her scent and then pressed his forehead to hers. “I want what I know I can not have,” he murmured. “There is no more certain torment in life.”

His face was flushed, his eyes glassy, as if with fever when he lifted his head at last and eased away from her, releasing her when he had steadied her. His smile was lopsided and more than a little forced. “My most humble apologies for my graceless behavior. Do not place yourself in danger because of my surliness. Allow me to make restitution for my trespass or I will know no peace.”

Josie merely blinked at him, still too caught up in the rush of desire to fully comprehend anything he had said. The only thing that became crystal clear to her was that he didn’t really want her--desired her, yes--but the wanting was a crock. She had not flung herself at him, but he could not have failed to notice she wanted him, too.

His sense of honor was what he was struggling with, she realized abruptly.

It was ironic that she had always thought that nobility was the most appealing of traits and mourned the fact that so few people had real integrity anymore.

But then she had never expected to find herself on the wrong end of someone’s principles and it hurt to discover someone she found so infinitely appealing considered her unworthy because she wasn’t from his world and she wasn’t born with a title.

Regardless, she shouldn’t have mocked him and ridiculed him for having something she admired, she realized. It was as childish and unattractive as name calling.

She shook her head. “No. You’re right. I’m the hold up. I’m just--not in as good a shape as I thought I was. You should just tell me when we aren’t making as good a time as we need to and I’ll try harder.”

Nigel would not have thought he could possibly feel worse, but he discovered she had a knack for making him feel much worse about his behavior. He fought the urge to excuse his bad behavior by explaining that it was because he had not slept more than a few minutes for days. As much as he would have liked to produce that excuse, then she might well ask why, and he certainly did not want to explain why he could not sleep.

The truth was, though, that he could not sleep unless she was curled against him because he was terrified that something or someone would attack and he would not be quick enough or near enough to protect her otherwise. And he could not sleep if she was curled against him because then the feel of her, her scent, her warmth drove him mad with wanting and his blood pounded through him until he could think of nothing but rolling over her and assuaging his needs.

Doing so would be worse than what he had done already, though. She thought she wanted him. He knew that, but he also knew that it was because she did not fully understand that they were not the same. He could have shown her, should have, but he had discovered that he had a great reluctance to do so. It was sheer idiocy to think that he could return her to her own world without her ever discovering, but he found that he preferred to think of sending her away still longing for him than relieved to have escaped.

He did not want that in the worse sort of way.

He was not at all certain why it bothered him so much, but it did.

He owed it to his line, and to his family name, to produce an heir of pure bloodlines and he knew it, for he was the eldest and his first born would rule his dukedom in time. Beyond that, though, even if he could ignore his duty and take what he wanted, bloodlines be damned, he could not ignore the risks to her. His kind had taken humans for mates before and it almost always ended badly for the human--for the dragon, as well, because they mated for life even if humans did not.

As insulting as she found it when he pointed it out, humans were fragile, far more delicate that dragons. Even if she was strong enough to handle the mating, her chances of delivering his offspring safely into the world without mishap were not good.

He scrubbed a hand over his face at that thought, as if he could erase it from his mind, wondering why in the hell it had even occurred to him when he should not consider it at all, when she had flatly rejected the possibility of being the mother of his offspring.

A dragon knew his mate by the bonding of their minds. He could not merge his mind with hers, could not sense her thoughts or feelings beyond what he saw of her expressions. If not for everything else, that alone was enough to assure him that it was not meant to be, however desirable he found her.

They could not be as one when he could communicate more easily with his brethren than her.

Shaking those thoughts, he focused on what she had said to him and struggled to find a response she would not consider an insult. She could not be what she was not, though. Whatever she said, he could see that she was already trying her best to keep pace with him. He could not push her any harder without risking harm to her, and he could not outrun the demons that were chasing him when he could not leave her. It was like trying to outrun fire when it was already racing up one’s back.

He managed to draw his lips into a facsimile of a smile. “In point of fact, you are doing well enough. It is my patience that is lacking. Time can not be a great concern when we are neither of us in our time and can not say that rushing to Goldenwing will make a hair’s worth of difference.”

Josie frowned. “The supplies are low, though.”

“Hunting could remedy that if necessary. I did not want to delay for a hunt, but it can be done if we need the food. I am fond of a full belly myself and find it hard to maintain strength without sustenance.”

Josie studied him uncomfortably for a moment, but finally nodded. “We should probably get going then. We still have hours before dark. We might still be able to make it to the village.”

“If the village is there,” Nigel murmured, slipping a hand beneath her elbow and helping her up the river bank.

“You think it might not be?”

He shrugged. “I have already confessed that my education is lacking,” he said wryly. “I am now justly punished for having no more interest in history than I did in my careless youth.”

Josie threw him a laughing glance as they gathered their supplies and set out again. “You always talk as if you’re ancient,” she said with chuckle.

He sent her a speculative glance, but smiled faintly in return. “Do I?”

“How old are you?”

His dark brows rose. “How old do you think I am?”

Josie frowned, but her smile lingered. “You aren’t going to tell me?”

“No.”

She studied him assessingly. “Thirty?”

He sent her a startled glance and chuckled, but shook his head.

“I was close though.”

“Not very,” he retorted dryly.

Mildly annoyed that he wouldn’t tell her, Josie fell silent for several moments. “I noticed you didn’t ask me how old I was.”

“Because it does not matter.”

That hurt. Josie was surprised at how much it did, but it crushed her budding good spirits so badly that she couldn’t think of a thing to say. She cleared her throat after a moment. “No, I guess not.”

Nigel released a hiss of annoyance. “I did not mean that the way you took it.”

Josie swallowed her dejection with an effort. “No. You’re right. It really is irrelevant under the circumstances. I know that’s what you meant.”

His expression hardened. “I think the problem is that you do not know what I mean. We speak to one another because I know your language, but we do not always communicate because your mind is clouded to mine and mine to yours. We are from two very different worlds and two very different cultures.”

After digesting that in silence for several moments, it occurred to Josie that, just maybe, she was being a little overly sensitive. Aside from being kidnapped and dragged off to an unfamiliar world, worried about getting home, and how much trouble she would be in when she did, she just couldn’t figure out what her problem was that she seemed on the verge of a hysterical breakdown at every turn. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was my time of the month,” she muttered wryly. “I don’t usually go all weepy/girly over the smallest things.”

“How old are you?”

Josie forced a chuckle as it instantly leapt into her mind to wonder if he was suggesting immaturity. She needed to quit trying to guess what he meant by everything he said, because he was right. She was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, behaving and thinking as if he behaved and thought just like the guys back home, when she already knew he wasn’t like anyone she’d ever known. “I’m not going to tell you now. Why don’t you tell me what you do know about this village?”

He studied her speculatively for several moments but finally allowed the change of subject. “Kalarin? It is a city in my time, wealthy because it is on a prime trade route. In this time, I know it can not have been more than a village, though--if it exists at all.

Chapter Twelve

Josie was so relieved when she saw that Kalarin actually was where Nigel had expected it to be that she felt very emotional about it. She had no idea why, unless it was because they had found something that was familiar to at least one of them--or maybe because it removed the anxiety about what they were going to do if it wasn’t there as Nigel had expected.

He looked almost as relieved as she felt. “It is larger than I had expected.”

“That’s good, though, right?”

His smile faded. “In a way, yes.”

“In what way, no?” Josie asked, immediately feeling anxious again.

He studied her assessingly for several moments and finally turned to study the small, walled city spread out before them on a broad plain of waving, reddish-brown grasses, basking in the light of an early morning sun.

As hard as Josie had pushed the day before, they still had had to make camp without reaching Kalarin, but Josie had risen early and rushed through her morning preparations so that they could get going.

It was only mid-morning. Despite Nigel’s complaint about her slowing him down, she couldn’t have prolonged the trek much.

A dizzying sense of unreality swept over her at that thought that had nothing to do with finding herself staring out at a medieval looking city on an alien world.

She hadn’t even been on this world, with Nigel, a full week and already it seemed they had been together forever and her life before seemed a distant memory, almost as if it had happened to someone else. It was mind boggling to realize how quickly one could grow accustomed to something they would never even have believed before they’d experienced it.

Nigel hooked his palm beneath her chin, forcing it up until she met his gaze. “It will not be safe for me to take you with me.”

Josie frowned, immediately uneasy with the idea of waiting, alone, while Nigel went into the city. Oddly enough, it wasn’t herself she was that worried about. Nigel might belong in this world, but he was as much a stranger in this time as she was.

Well, maybe not quite as much, for he was at least native to the world.

“It’s a big place. Surely they’re used to seeing strangers here?”

“I am a stranger, but they will know me for one of the dragon folk. They will know at once that you are not. You gave me your word that you would obey me if I told you to stay.”

Josie swallowed a little sickly, but she nodded.

He studied her several moments more, as if he was trying to pull from her mind any plots she might be hatching to disobey, but finally released her. “Can you swim?”

She sent him a startled glance. “Yes.”

“Well?”

She shrugged. “Well enough.”

He frowned, but in a few moments nodded. “I will be as quick as I can be, but I can not guarantee that I will not be delayed in some way. The plain is not a safe place to linger, but the grasses grow high here near the river.” He stroked a hand through her dark auburn hair and then withdrew it abruptly as if it had only just occurred to him what he was doing. “And this, and the garments you wear, will help you to blend with your surroundings. When I am gone, follow the edge of the forest for at least five sectas.”

He paused when she saw that Josie was looking at him without comprehension.

“This would be maybe six miles, I think, in your measurements. When you have gone at least that far, then you must make your way toward the Mirata--no closer to the city than that. If there is any threat, you must go into the river. The current is strong and will carry you swiftly away.”

Josie studied him uneasily. “I said I could swim, but I can’t fight in the water. What if this ‘threat’ comes in after me?”

“The river is your only option. You can not outrun the threat, or hide from it. The water will carry you away faster than you could run, and mask your scent so that you have a far better chance of eluding it.”

“We’re talking about a two legged ‘threat’ here I take it?”

Nigel let out an impatient breath. “The beasts will give the city, and you, a wide berth. Yes, I mean dragon folk. Females do not often travel alone even in my time.”

Josie turned to survey the plain of waving grasses. “Anything creepy, crawly, or poisonous I need to watch out for?” she asked, keeping her voice carefully neutral.

Nigel flicked a finger almost caressingly along her cheek. “If there was anything there that I felt would endanger you I would not consider allowing you to go alone.”

Josie nodded, swallowed with an effort, and tried not to think too hard about whether the caress was affectionate or not, or meant anything at all. Shouldering her makeshift pack, she smiled up at him. “Good luck. Guess I’ll see you around dark, maybe?” she asked, trying not to sound too hopeful, but there was no getting around the fact that setting up camp alone was a daunting prospect.

“Before dusk I will rejoin you.”

Nodding, Josie clutched the strap and headed in the direction Nigel had indicated. The urge to turn and look back was almost overpowering, but she resisted it. It was harder to dismiss the sense of loss that increased with every step she took away from him.

She hadn’t just gotten used to being around him. She had gotten unbelievably dependent upon him, needy in a far worse sense that sexual, as if that wasn’t bad enough.

She frowned at that thought, wondering if it was just an instinctive urge to form a tight bond for protection with someone stronger and more capable of defending her than she was of defending herself, or some kind of psychological melt down from the extremity of the situation she’d found herself in.

Maybe it was a little of both, with a more mundane natural attraction thrown in for good measure, because she was pretty sure she would’ve fallen hard for the guy if she’d met him in any situation. It wasn’t as if he was a toad, or an obnoxious prick that she wouldn’t have let within nine yards of her under any other circumstances. He was handsome, built like a god, and had the most appealing personality and manners of anybody she’d ever run across, besides being a macho man. If she’d met him in a bar she would’ve been willing to hook up on those attributes alone and she wasn’t really inclined toward hook ups.

She had, a couple of times, mostly because she was horny and she had buddies that swore it was the way to go if a gal just felt the need for a little action--way better than getting involved with a fellow soldier, which could lead to all kinds of trouble.

The last guy had been an arrogant prick, though. Even after two tequilas she’d barely been able to tolerate him long enough to get laid and she’d decided to try a fuck buddy after that.

That had been even worse, because just about the time she’d started getting used to the sneaking around, she’d discovered the lying son-of-a-bitch was married.

She supposed she should have known something was up, but she hadn’t wanted anybody to know about it herself because she didn’t want everybody gossiping about it. She’d thought that was why he was so willing to keep it quiet--because he felt the same.

And he did, but not for the same reason. The two-timing prick! It made her mad all over again remembering he’d had the nerve to act like he’d thought she knew all along. He knew damned well she hadn’t known. She’d asked him point blank if he was single.

Pushing that unpleasant memory from her mind, she decided it was safe to spare a glance back to see if she could still see Nigel. Disappointed when she didn’t, she stopped and turned around, surveying the area close to where she’d left him. There was no sign of him at all, though.

Frowning, she widened her search, still with no luck.

The grasses were tall, almost as tall as she was, but Nigel was a good bit taller. She ought to be able to see him.

Unless he’d gone into a dip? Or she had?

The plain looked as level as a pancake, but that could be deceptive, she knew. Shrugging it off after a few minutes, she turned to look toward the walled city and her heart seemed to stand still in her chest.

There was an absolutely huge fucking--something in the distance, nearing the city wall. The sun was in her eyes, but it was either the biggest bird she’d ever seen in her life, or ….

It had to be a bird, she decided, no matter how big it was.

Turning away after several stunned moments, she set off again at a hurried clip, trying not to think about the fact that the thing she’d seen had looked like it was big enough to carry off a full grown horse. Maybe the distance had made the size deceptive?

She didn’t really believe that.

Nigel had told her she didn’t have to worry about anything but running into one of his people, she reminded herself. He would have warned her if he’d thought she had to worry about something swooping out of the sky and snatching her.

All the same, she moved into the edge of the forest for a while. When the going became so difficult that she was making almost no progress, she stopped to rest. She didn’t have anything to eat because they’d finished off the last of the food the night before. Nigel had handed her the ‘wine’ skin to carry, but that tasted awful and wouldn’t quench her thirst anyway. Besides, two sips had intoxicated her when she was eating. She shuddered to think of the effect it would have on her when she hadn’t eaten since the night before.

Trying not to think about how far she was from water or her empty stomach, she fell to trying to calculate whether Nigel had had time to reach the city yet. The distance had looked to be at least five or six miles, about twice what she figured she’d walked so far. He had a longer stride and could walk faster, but then pushing his way through the grasses was bound to have slowed him up a good bit.

Deciding he probably hadn’t gotten to the gates yet, she rose finally and headed out again, this time moving along the edge of the field. The sun was roughly at the three o’clock position by the time she decided she’d walked the six miles Nigel had suggested.

Uneasiness crept over her when she realized that. By her calculations, the sun set somewhere around six. The first moon had usually appeared by the time the sun completely disappeared, but it had barely been a sliver when she first saw it. It was in the dark phase now and so was the second riser. If she couldn’t make it to the river in two to three hours, she was going to be stumbling along in the dark, which meant she was also more likely to get lost. She couldn’t see over the grasses without going up on her tiptoes even in the daylight, and that didn’t give her enough vantage to see very far.

Shelving that worry, she moved back into the forest until she found a rise that gave her a line of site with the river. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a damned thing she could focus on as a marker to keep from wandering off in one direction or another.

Not for the first time, she deeply regretted the fact that she’d been pitched into this situation without field gear.

A compass would’ve been handy.

On the other hand, this wasn’t Earth. There wasn’t any telling whether a damned compass would’ve helped or not.

The plains gave way to a more mountainous terrain to the west. Moving back to the edge of the field, she peered toward the hill country again, trying to calculate the distance and then turned to see what, if anything, she could see of the city. She was surprised but pleased to discover she could just catch a glimpse of the wall and a few rooftops above it.

Trying not to think about what she was going to do if she discovered once she was in the field that she couldn’t see that landmark, she clutched her pack and began to push her way through the high brush. She hadn’t a clue of what the plant was, but it reminded her of dying cornstalks--dying, because as Nigel had pointed out the leaves and the stalks were tan to reddish brown in color, not green. For all she knew, though, that could mean they were at the peak of their growing season, not dying.

They crackled as she moved through them though, as if they were bone dry.

She hoped nothing of the two legged variety was close enough to hear her progress because it seemed to her that the noise was nearly deafening. When she’d walked for what she calculated to be about thirty minutes, she stopped and peered over the grasses toward the city, and then the mountains. Altering course slightly, she pushed on.

The monotony began to wear on her fairly quickly. Moreover, the constant movement, both from her progress and the wind blowing over the grasses and making them sway, had a dizzying effect on her that quickly developed into a headache. The next time she thought to look around her to get her bearings, the sun had dipped considerably toward the horizon.

Consternation filled her when she realized she’d veered off course again. She was much closer to the city than she should be. Muttering curses under her breath, she looked around for the mountains and turned, heading more directly toward them in the hope that it would even out her course and put her back on track.

She hadn’t taken the mountains into consideration when she’d been calculating sunset, she realized belatedly. The range was to the west and the tallest peak was already nibbling at the lower edge of the orb. Fighting off the panic that began to eat away at her composure, Josie struggled to move faster, counting the seconds off under her breath to try to keep closer track of the passing time.

The next time she decided to check her landmarks she discovered she couldn’t see the wall of Kalarin at all and for several moments the panic she’d been trying to hold at bay threatened to overwhelm her. The mountains were many miles in the distance. They worked well enough as a reference point to the city--as long as she could see the city--but not otherwise. If she’d turned too far, she might not find the damned river at all.

Dusk was rapidly overtaking her now, too.

She stopped, trying to tamp the panic and think what would be best to do. She had a bad feeling she wasn’t close to the river yet. She couldn’t hear it and she thought she should be able to if she was close. Altering her course again to a little more easterly route, she rushed onward until she realized she couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of her.

Pausing to catch her breath, she rose up on her tiptoes for another look. Far in the distance, toward Kalarin, she saw a tiny flicker of light.

Either it was a very small light, or she’d overcompensated--again. A mental picture of her zigzagging her way across the plain arose in her mind, bringing with it the urge to burst into tears like a lost child. Yielding to hysterics sure as hell wasn’t going to help her, though, and she fought the urge back, jugged her mind to think what would be best to do.

Finally, reluctantly, she realized that there was nothing she could do. She was lost, and she knew it. She’d had a hard enough time trying to keep her course to the river when there’d been light to see. It was too dark now even for that.

The weariness her fright had kept at bay swept over her as abruptly as a tidal wave. Sinking to the ground, she pulled her pack from her shoulder and tried to find a comfortable spot to sit. The ground was damp and the dampness seeped into her pants the moment she settled.

A fire would have been nice, she thought morosely as she unrolled the bundle and pulled a blanket around her shoulders--food would’ve been good, too. Her throat closed. God she was thirsty! She could be ten feet from all the water she could drink but she sure as hell couldn’t tell it, and she wasn’t stupid enough or desperate enough to get up and start wandering around. She was just going to have to sleep where she was and wait until daylight.

She realized she’d been so panicked she’d forgotten Nigel had promised he’d meet her before dusk. Was he looking for her even now? Wondering where the hell she’d gotten off to? Not daring to call to her for fear he’d alert someone, or something to the fact that she was lost in the frigging bog?

Because it was a bog. The moment dusk began to overtake the landscape and she’d ceased thrashing through the tall grasses the noises of living things began to surge upward into a cacophony of sound. In the sky, high above her, she heard even above the sounds the wildlife around her was making, a fluttering noise, rather like sheets snapping in the wind.

Huddling deeper beneath the blanket, Josie tried not to think about what was around her. Frogs and crickets she could deal with, but she doubted the sounds she heard were coming from anything even vaguely familiar to her.

She didn’t know how long she’d sat huddled in the blanket when she heard something big coming directly toward her--something really fucking big. Her heart seemed to stand still in her chest and then tried to beat her to death, pounding against her ear drums so hard she couldn’t tell which direction the thing was coming from. She dragged in a deep breath, trying to steady her pulse and listen, trying to determine the direction so that she could flee in the opposite direction.

Finally, she managed to pinpoint it, or thought she had, but by then it was so close she couldn’t decide whether to try to flee or stay as still as possible in the hope that whatever it was would pass by. She’d just decided on the latter and began to scramble away as quietly as she could on her hands and knees when she felt something scurry across her mind. Josephine!

Disoriented, she paused, trying to decide whether she’d heard the sound, or felt it like it seemed she had.

Did it matter? She knew it had to be Nigel and a wave of gladness and relief swept over her. “Nigel?” she called in a shaky whisper.

A dark shape rushed at her, grasping her and hauling her to her feet and then she was crushed against a rock hard chest. “Josie! Why were you not at the river?” he demanded harshly.

She hated like hell to admit she’d gotten lost, but she doubted he would believe her if she told him she’d decided it was safer just to hide in the brush.

He pulled away from her and she knew he was looking down at her although she had no idea what sort of mood he was in--from the irritation in his voice probably not a good one. “You lost your way?”

Josie released a huff of irritation. She’d forgotten he had said he could read her mind if he was near enough.

To her surprise, he pulled her close again, tightening his arms around her. “Never mind. It is enough to know that you are safe.”

As surprised as she was by that gesture, she was more surprised when, instead of releasing her, he scooped her legs from beneath her and cradled her against his chest. She was way too relieved that he’d managed to find her to object, though. Instead, she looped both arms around his neck to hold on and fought back the urge to burst into tears. “I thought sure something horrible had me when I heard you coming through the brush,” she murmured shakily.

His arms tightened. Easing his grip after a moment, he turned and struck off through the brush as if he knew exactly where he was going. “I regret that I frightened you. I did not dare call out, though, for sound carries a great distance here and I could not tell how far away you were.”

Josie frowned. “You didn’t call me? I thought … that’s really weird, because I thought I heard you say ‘Josephine’.”

He checked momentarily and then began to move quickly through the brush again. To Josie’s embarrassment, they broke through the tall grasses not more than twenty minutes later and she could see the mossy banks of the river and the glistening water of the Mirata, as well. A small campfire flickered in the breeze blowing off the water.

She could not have been much more than a half a mile from the river and she hadn’t had a clue she was so close!

“I thought the fire might lead you to me when I discovered you were not waiting for me.”

“I couldn’t see the fire,” Josie muttered. “I couldn’t see anything. That’s why I stopped. I figured I had as much chance of getting totally lost if I kept going as finding my way to the river. I thought I should wait for daylight before I moved again.”

“I should not ….” He broke off. “It does not matter now.”

Discomfort settled over Josie like a heavy weight as he set her on her feet. She’d informed him she could take care of herself, and she’d sure as hell proven that! Small wonder he was treating her like a helpless, useless female!

It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy it on one level. It was actually nice to have somebody worried about her and taking care of her, but she had no desire to have a steady diet of being treated like a helpless child. She was woman. She had a mind of her own, and she was pretty good at taking care of herself, ordinarily, if she did say so herself.

She hadn’t given in to hysterics. She’d been tempted, but she’d kept her head. Under the circumstances, she’d made the right decision.

Instead of following Nigel to the campfire, she turned and made her way carefully down to the water’s edge to drink. Nigel joined her after only a few minutes. He had a skin, she saw, like the one he’d carried the Sachtian in, or maybe it was the same skin.

He leaned away from the bank and held the mouth of the skin open, filling it with water. “This I got for you, so that you can carry water.”

Better late than never, she thought wryly, though she kept the thought to herself. She would have far preferred a skin of water on the trek through the marsh than the Sachtian.

Nigel frowned. “I know. I should have realized ….” He broke off, shrugging. “You can not bathe here. We are too close to the city. There is another stream that joins the Mirata about a day’s travel up river. We will camp there tomorrow.”

Chapter Thirteen

“I have brought you this to wear,” Nigel said as they sat before the fire the following morning drinking the local version of coffee.

Surprised, Josie looked up from her zombie-like contemplation of the liquid in her mug as he pulled some sort of garment from the satchel he had brought with him from the city and held it out. Pleased that he’d thought about getting her something, Josie set the mug aside and took it, holding it up to study it.

It looked a lot like the garment he wore and after studying it blankly for several moments, she lowered it to her lap and looked at him curiously. “I thought women were not warriors here. This is … like your … uh … what you wear … sort of.”

“It is the armor of a youngling.”

Which explained why it was small enough it looked like it would fit her, she thought, feeling oddly deflated to discover it wasn’t even something intended for a woman. “Armor?” she asked a little doubtfully. The thing was as light as a piece of lingerie. It didn’t crackle when she tested it between her fingers, but it had a quality that reminded her of Mylar and appeared about as flimsy. She couldn’t imagine it protecting anyone from much.

“Younglings are without battle experience so there is more to protect the … uh … chest,” he pointed out.

Rather delicately, Josie thought, repressing the urge to smile.

He looked vaguely uncomfortable. “At a distance we will appear to be a warrior and his apprentice traveling together.”

Josie blinked at him and then looked down at her boobs. She’d always thought she had a decent figure. She was certainly no Pamela, but she didn’t have a boyish shape either, by damn. Her boobs were full, if not obscenely huge, her waist trim, and her hips maybe a little wide, but definitely womanish--not boyish.

She couldn’t ‘pass’ as a native dressed in the women’s veils, but she could pass as a boy?

“It will protect you,” Nigel pointed out a little uncomfortably.

Josie managed a tight smile, realizing that she was being way too womanish about the outfit. She was in a hazardous situation in dangerous, unfamiliar territory. If it would help to dress like a boy, it was stupid to balk over it and even more silly to be insulted at the suggestion.

She was a soldier after all. She didn’t doubt that a lot of people probably questioned her sexuality even on her own world because of the career she’d chosen.

Did Nigel think she was too man-like, she wondered? Was that one of the reasons, if not the main reason, he kept his distance from her?

At least it was a change of clothing and beggars couldn’t be choosers. “Thanks!”

She was about to ask him if she could wait until she’d bathed to change when she remembered he’d been worried about the time it would take them to cross the plains. Undoubtedly, he’d gotten it for that reason in particular, because they would be more exposed.

He was being practical. She needed to be a little more practical and a little less sensitive herself, she mentally chided herself. “I’ll just change then.”

As she rose, he dragged a matching pair of boots and a cloak from the satchel and handed them to her. “You will not need those with the boots,” he said, pointing to her socks.

Josie looked down at the stained socks. The truth was she’d be glad to get rid of them, but she wasn’t so certain she didn’t need them. The boots looked new. They’d probably rub her feet raw in no time without socks to protect her tender skin.

Mentally, she shrugged. She could try it without the socks. If the boots rubbed, she could always stop and put the socks on.

Nigel rose and set about breaking camp and gathering everything up while she stripped out of her clothes. There was a fastening in the crotch of the one piece suit, she discovered, a ‘trap door’ for necessity, but after examining the piece she decided it was meant to be pulled up not over the head.

The deep, almost olive green color of the garment was actually very nice she decided as she pulled it up her legs, adjusted it on her hips and thrust first one arm and then the other into the top. It felt as lightweight on as it had when she’d first held it up to examine it. It was almost like being naked, except everything was covered. The fabric, or metal, or whatever it was, didn’t really seem elastic, and yet it moved with her, stretched even as her skin stretched in movement without any sort of restriction.

Impressed, she smoothed her hands over it, deciding she really liked the way it felt. The design was pretty cool, if it came to that. The fabric almost seemed to be formed of links that created a scale-like pattern. It had a tall collar that fit snugly at her throat, but it was open below the collar and then had what almost looked like claw tipped hands that cupped her breasts rather than flattening them as she’d thought it would. In fact, once she had it on, the piece conformed completely to her body shape.

Feeling a good deal better about the armor Nigel had brought her, she settled again and pulled on the matching boots. These, too, were designed in a scale-like pattern as if formed from the hide of some strange beast, although the material itself certainly couldn’t be likened to the hide of any animal on earth. To her surprise, the knee high boots were almost as light weight as the suit she’d put on, and like the suit, conformed to the shape of her feet and legs as soon as she’d drawn them up.

The boots had a ridge of claw-like spikes running up either side. Even the heels of the boots were shaped like claws.

Maybe it wasn’t black leather and metal spikes, but she rather thought it was an outfit a Goth chick would envy.

“Better?” she asked when she stood up once more, drawing Nigel’s attention.

He glanced up from what he’d been doing and froze, his expression going completely blank. It was impossible to tell what he thought, but Josie felt her satisfaction slip a few notches.

“Not better?” she asked, doubtful now.

He swallowed with obvious difficulty, his skin slowly darkening.

“That bad, huh?” she asked when he remained silent, feeling a blush creeping into her own cheeks.

“You will not be mistaken for a youngling,” he finally managed in a strangled voice, “unless, perhaps, they are blind.”

She was fairly certain the comment hadn’t been intended as a compliment, but she took it as one anyway, pleased and relieved that he at least didn’t think she looked mannish. “From a distance, though--like you said? With the cape?”

His gaze traced a slow path from her breasts to her toes and up again. “I can not fathom how you could don the armor of a youngling and look more … uh … more … uh … less ….” Words apparently failed him and he broke off without finishing. Finally, he dragged his gaze upward and cleared his throat as he met her gaze. “Perhaps it would be best to wear your own garments after all?”

A spurt of indignation went through her, but almost on the heels of it she remembered that she hadn’t actually wanted to wear it since she hadn’t been able to bathe the night before. Shrugging, still vaguely irritated, she removed the uniform he had bought for her and put hers on once more.

She didn’t return it to him. Instead, she very carefully placed it in her own make-shift pack and settled the pack on her shoulder. Tonight she would get the chance for a bath, and then she’d wear the new outfit whether Nigel liked it or not. The trek was grueling and miserable. There was no sense, as far as she could see, in being more miserable by adding dirty to bone weary. She had three changes of clothing now, by damn, and she meant to rotate and clean.

Nigel, who had moved down to the river to clean the pot and mugs while she changed, looked relieved when he saw she was wearing her own uniform once more. Without a word, he turned upstream and strode briskly along the river bank. Eying his rapidly retreating back with disfavor, Josie followed, but she made no attempt to keep pace with him. They had supplies now. From the looks of the bulging pack he’d returned with, enough to hold them for a while. She didn’t feel a great deal of urgency in rushing toward their destination.

She’d been gone more than a week. It was either too late to worry about getting in trouble, or this Goldenwing guy would miraculously come up with a plan to get her back before she was in trouble. Either way, she couldn’t see that pushing herself until she dropped was going to help.

At any rate, she sensed that something was bothering Nigel and he wanted to put some distance between them.

He slowed when he finally realized that she was dropping further and further behind, waited until she’d caught up with him and then outstripped her again. By the time Nigel decided to stop to take a break and eat, he was looking more annoyed, not less so.

“You are feeling unwell?” Nigel asked in a voice that skated the edge of a growl.

Josie slid a glance at him as she carefully separated her bread in the center and stuffed the meat and cheese he’d given her inside. “I imagine I look like hell, but I feel fine.”

“You are falling behind.”

“I’m pacing myself.”

Nigel was studying her irritably when she glanced at him again.

“We are a good five days trek from Caracaren, perhaps more--certainly more if we do not make as much progress as we can each day. It is you who were so anxious to return to your world, you who were concerned that you would be imprisoned for your long absence.”

Josie studied him for several moments. “From what I understand, we are hundreds of years into your world’s past,” she said after a moment. “If the portal can do that, I can’t see why I couldn’t go back and arrive at the time I left, however long I stay here.”

Nigel sent her a look of disbelief. “There is no predicting where, or what time, one will come through. If there had been, then we would not be here.”

“You thought there was.”

He frowned uncomprehendingly.

“You thought you could take me and go back to the time you left.”

His lips tightened. “But I was wrong.”

“Which just proves my point. There’s not a hell of a lot of sense in me worrying about something I can’t do anything about. I’ve given it a lot of thought, but I can’t see that it’s going to help, or hurt, if I arrive at Caracaren today, or ten days from now if traveling through the portal is so unpredictable you can miss where you want to go by centuries. And, if it was just a fluke, and maybe something happened to that particular one at that precise moment, then, hopefully, Goldenwing can get me back to my world and time when I should be there … regardless of when I get to see him.

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m as anxious to get back as you are to get rid of me, but I’m crying uncle here. You’ve proven your people are stronger and better than mine, or at least me. I nearly dehydrated yesterday and I still feel weak and washed out. I’m not going to let you push me to do more than I can do just to try to prove myself.

“Because I’ve finally come to accept that that ain’t going to happen anyway, and since I won’t be here that long, it just doesn’t matter.”

Nigel scrubbed a hand over his face and looked down at his food as if he couldn’t figure out why he was holding it. “I did not intend to insult you. Our ways are much different from yours.”

Josie uttered a wry chuckle. “That wasn’t hard at all to figure out. There isn’t a dick-swinging son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever known or run across that wouldn’t have taken me up on an offer of a free piece! Especially the guys I work with, even if they had prior commitments, and even if they thought I was a pure dog.

“Yes, you insulted me. I’m not used to be put down, and I’m definitely not used to being turned down because I hardly ever offer and when I do it’s because I’m really hot for the guy and can see he’s hot for me, too.

“I had a lot of time to think last night while I was wandering around lost and I wasn’t being too scared stupid to think. And I realized it just didn’t make any sense at all to be worrying about your opinion of me, or bothered because you didn’t even want to just hook up for a few days. One way or another, I am going home. I’m not going to stay here and that means that nothing that happens, or don’t happen, is relevant to my life.

“I’m not trying to give you a hard time to get even for feeling slighted. I’m just trying to look out for myself and that means taking things a little slower because I can’t keep up the pace you set. I’m just not up to it physically.”

As far as she could see, Nigel looked pretty much as pissed off when she’d finished explaining as he had before she started, but he looked thoughtful, too, and she thought maybe he needed to mull over it for a while.

Leaving him to think about it, she sought privacy to take care of her personal needs and then went down to the river to wash up. She couldn’t see her reflection in the water, but she didn’t need to to know she did look like hell. She felt like hell, to start with, because she was still feeling weak from doing without water all day the day before. She had no comb and although she’d done her best to finger comb as many tangles out of her hair as she could, she knew it probably looked like a rat’s nest anyway. The blisters on her hand had finally dried up, but the dead skin was peeling now and looked awful and beyond that she was sunburned, her lips were dried and cracked, and she had so many scratches from fighting her way through the marsh that she looked like she’d tangled with a wildcat.

Nigel had either finished his food or tossed it when she returned. He sent her a frowning glance and then turned his attention to the satchel, digging to the bottom of it and unearthing, to her surprise, a small sword in a scabbard and a wicked looking dagger. “These are for you,” he murmured, holding them out to her.

“Really?” she asked in pleased surprise, reaching eagerly to take them. Setting the dagger aside, she examined the sword and scabbard. Both were considerably less ornate than the one Nigel carried and probably half the size, but still cunningly wrought. The scabbard, she saw, had a hook at the top that she thought probably corresponded to the loop she’d found at the waist of the armor he’d brought her.

She wasn’t wearing it now, but she saw it hooked on her belt almost as well. When she’d settled it, she picked up the knife and examined that as she had the sword. It, too, was well crafted, the handgrip designed for beauty as well as practicality. It was also as sharp as a razor she discovered when she tested it and sliced the tip of her thumb open.

Realizing Nigel was watching her, she shoved the blade into the top of her boot and rose, pushing her hand into her pants pocket. “Thanks! I feel better already,” she said cheerfully, and meant it. Being exposed and vulnerable without a weapon of any description to defend herself with had unnerved the hell out of her. She didn’t much care for the idea of having to get up close and personal to do so, but having the blades was certainly far better than having nothing but her hands and feet to fight off an attacker.

To her surprise, Nigel caught her wrist and dragged her hand from her pocket, lifting her hand to examine it. Naturally enough, the cut on the tip of her thumb was bleeding fairly profusely. “It’s nothing,” she said uncomfortably.

“If it were nothing, it would not bleed thus.”

Josie forced a chuckle. “It’s not like I’ll bleed to death from it. It’ll stop after a while.”

“It will stop now,” Nigel contradicted her and promptly stuck her thumb into his mouth, sucking on it.

Josie gaped at him, partly because she was horrified he’d done something so revolting and partly because the moment the heat of his mouth closed over her thumb her belly spasmed with something that definitely was not revulsion.

She examined her thumb blankly when he pulled it from his mouth and released his grip on her. It had stopped bleeding.

It hadn’t just stopped bleeding. It had closed.

Dumbfounded, Josie discovered that Nigel was already disappearing down the trail by the time she shook off her shock sufficiently to look around for him.

She tried to tell herself that she just hadn’t cut her thumb as deeply as she’d thought, but she knew that wasn’t true. The wound had gaped open when she’d first done it and stared down at it in stunned dismay. She hadn’t cut it to the bone, but it had certain been more than a surface scratch. It wouldn’t have bled at all if she’d done no more than broken the surface layers of skin.

She didn’t ask him about it. What could he tell her anyway? We smell things you can’t smell, see things you can’t see, hear things you can’t hear, and our saliva can close and heal a wound like magic?

It was nearly dark by the time they came at last to the stream that Nigel had told her about. What he hadn’t told her, though, was that the stream was higher than the river and emptied by way of a tiny waterfall into a pool which then spilled over into the Mirata River and that the place was so beautiful it looked almost magical.

Delighted, Josie rushed through helping Nigel set up their camp, quickly gathering her share of the wood to build the campfire and the foliage he used to make the sleeping pallet. When she grabbed her bag to head to the pool, he stopped her, handing her a hair comb and a strange looking swab that was made up of a stick with a thin strip of bristly hide at one end. “For the teeth,” he explained when she looked at it blankly.

Pleasure washed over her. “You are such a sweetheart!” she exclaimed, clutching the gifts to her chest and leaning toward him impulsively to plant a quick kiss on his cheek before dashing off to the pool.

She felt almost as if she’d returned to civilization with all the goodies Nigel had managed to round up while he was in the city. No wonder it had taken him so long to meet up with her! He must have scoured the place from one end to the other to get everything, for she knew he would not have found armor and grooming supplies in the same place, or food in either of the places where he would have found those.

It was nothing short of amazing that such simple things could mean so much after doing without them for a little while.

The water was far warmer than the river, she supposed because it was more shallow, but all that really mattered was that it was a far more pleasant bathing experience, so much so that she found herself singing under her breath.

She jerked all over, staring at him wide eyed when she surfaced from rinsing the soap from her hair and discovered that Nigel was standing on the bank, watching her broodingly.

He cleared his throat. “I have made a stew.”

Josie blinked in surprise. Hot food, too? She was going to be spoiled. “Already? But … you just got the water a little while ago. What’d you do? Get a microwave while you were in Kalarin?” she asked jokingly.

He looked uncomfortable. “I merely heated the food that had already been cooked.”

She threw him a smiling glance as she moved to the edge of the pool and climbed out. “I was just teasing,” she chuckled, grabbing the veils she’d been using as a towel and drying herself briskly.

She’d just managed to sop up most of the water on her skin when Nigel dove into the pool, drenching her again. “You ass!” she said laughingly when he surfaced.

He wasn’t smiling, she discovered. In fact he was giving her a baleful glance. Irritated with his mood, she decided to ignore him before he spoiled her good mood. Standing, she grabbed her belongings and headed back to the campfire to dress.

He was probably really going to be in a foul mood when he saw what she was wearing, but she decided she didn’t care. She was clean and she had something clean to put on for a change. He still hadn’t returned when she finished dressing and combed the snarls from her hair. After glancing toward the pool impatiently several times, she moved to his satchel to find something to dip the stew out with. There were no bowls, but she figured the mugs would do well enough.

There were no spoons either, she discovered. Shrugging, she took the wooden serving spoon she did find, filled both mugs and set his aside and then used the big spoon to eat. Nigel returned while she was blowing on her first spoonful trying to cool it enough to eat. After sending her a speculative glance, he pulled a small loaf of the hard bread from his satchel and tore off a small piece to dip his stew with.

“This is excellent,” Josie complimented him when she’d finally managed to eat a few bites.

He nodded, but he seemed disinclined to talk and she decided not to push it. They’d had moments of harmony, but on the whole his mood had been growing steadily darker almost since they’d begun the trek. She supposed it was probably because he was worried about getting back, and chafing about not being in the thick of the battle to save his queen and seat her on the throne.

Her own anxieties hadn’t exactly vanished. If she allowed herself to dwell on it for any length of time she felt downright ill, but she’d meant what she’d told him earlier. Worrying about it wasn’t going to fix it. Worrying about it was just making her sick with apprehension and she had decided to push it to the back of her mind until she could do something about it.
It was full dark by the time they’d finished their meal. Ordinarily, they cleaned up, put the food where it wouldn’t draw animals into the camp, and settled down to sleep. Josie felt energized from her bath and the pleasure of having a few amenities, though, and she was in no rush to seek the pallet, knowing she was going to lie awake even if she tried to sleep.

She made no attempt to hurry, therefore, when she went down to wash up the pot and mugs from their meal. Instead, when she’d cleaned them thoroughly and set them aside to dry, she took out the makeshift toothbrush and used it and then settled down on the bank to stare up at the sky.

She’d never been much for star gazing and if anyone had asked she would’ve told them she couldn’t name a single constellation. It came as something of a surprise, therefore, to discover that she did know enough about Earth’s night sky to notice a vast difference in the pattern of the stars above her.

The first moon rose as she watched, full now, and unmistakably alien because it was neither yellow, orange, nor white as Earth’s moon appeared. Instead, it glowed a strange, pale aquamarine.

As she stared at it, a dark shape appeared. Highlighted by the moon behind it, she saw after staring at it curiously for several moments that it was growing larger and larger.

Her heart seemed to jump right out of her chest and into her throat.

It was coming straight towards her!

Chapter Fourteen

Abandoning the cook pot and mugs, Josie leapt to her feet and whirled to run. She hadn’t taken more than two steps, however, when she slammed into what felt like an unmovable wall.

Nigel’s arms came around her, steadying her before she could bounce back and fall. Slightly dazed by the impact, but too unnerved by what she’d seen to feel any pain, if there was any, she looked up at him. “There’s something … something big,” she stammered, clutching his arms and turning to look back to see if the thing was still heading in their direction. To her horror, she saw two more dark specks appear, gaining rapidly on the first.

Nigel dragged in a deep breath. “You are in season,” he said grimly, his voice plainly accusing.

Josie’s mouth dropped open in stunned surprise as she whirled to look up at him again, completely baffled by the term for several moments. “Excuse you? In season? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Your breeding season. Your time is upon you. I sensed it, but I thought it was only my imagination,” he ground out. “You should have warned me. The bulls are gathering.”

As insulted as she was by that remark--and she knew damned well he couldn’t smell a frigging thing because she was not, whatever he thought, on her damned period, the mention of bulls gave her pause, particularly when she discovered there wasn’t one, but three very large, very dark shapes on the horizon and all of them seemed to be heading straight for them.

“Bulls?” she asked uneasily as it abruptly dawned on her that she probably was fertile. She tended to think of her cycle only in terms of her period, which was a pain in the ass, not the fact that the period marked the end of her cycle. And if she was half way through, which by her calculations she was, then she had reached her peak fertility period.

The question was, how the fuck could Nigel tell? How the fuck could the ‘bulls’ he was talking about tell?

And, most importantly, what the fuck were the bulls?

Instead of responding he turned to stare at the dark shapes moving closer and closer across the night sky. Dragging his gaze from them, he looked around them, as if searching for something and finally pulled away from her. Grasping her arm, he hauled her back toward the camp.

Josie didn’t object. She would, in fact, have preferred that he move a little faster.

Instead, once they’d reached the clearing he stopped, as if waiting.

Something huge and monstrous hit the ground on the other side of the fire. Josie stared at it in disbelief, feeling as if someone had knocked her for a loop. As dark as it was, the moon and the firelight illuminated it.

Nigel pushed her behind him. Planting his feet in a wide stance, he drew his sword from its scabbard. The ringing sound of metal scraping metal pierced Josie’s shock. “Are you out of your fucking mind? You can’t fight that thing!”

Nigel slid a speculative glance at her over his shoulder as a second and then a third monster dropped from the sky.

Dragons, Josie’s disbelieving mind identified them. Real dragons, with long wicked teeth, great claws, and huge ragged looking, spined wings that looked leathery like batwings.

“They are young bulls,” Nigel responded, his voice sounding impossibly deep and gravelly. “… else they would not attack in a pack.”

Josie’s jaw sagged at the remarks. Before she could think of a retort, however, Nigel changed. One moment she was looking at the back of a very large, very muscular man, the next she saw sharp spines sprouting from his back. His skin changed, too, from flesh to hide that bore a strong resemblance to the armor-like skin of an alligator. From his shoulder blades, leathery wings sprouted, grew. The armor and boots he wore not only expanded with his body as he shifted, it blended with his new form in color and texture, becoming virtually invisible.

Josie stumbled back several steps and sprawled out as the transformation was completed and he doubled in size and mass. He turned to look down at her and her heart seemed to stand still in her chest.

Gone was the handsome warrior that had whisked her off to some strange land. In his place was the scariest fucking thing she had ever seen in her life, a nightmare creature like those on the other side of the clearing, a dragon. Only his eyes looked the least familiar to her. “Stay close--but not too close,” he said in a deep, rumbling voice that was almost as terrifying as his visage.

“Like hell,” Josie muttered, more to herself than to him.

“Do as I say, female!” Nigel roared. “They are bent upon mating. I admire your skills, little soldier, but you are no match for them even with the toy blades that I gave you.”

An AK47 wouldn’t be a match for them, Josie thought as she watched the dragon bulls puff their chests out and utter a challenging bellow one by one until her eardrums were rattling. Nigel responded by breathing a wall of fire over the smaller dragons that had challenged him. One managed to cover himself with a great leathery wing. Another shot skyward. The third screamed an eerily human scream as the flames licked over him. The smell of burning flesh reached Josie’s nostrils. Her stomach roiled, threatening to revolt.

Uttering a second bellow, the dragon that had protected himself with his wing lumbered forward the moment the firewall disappeared, swinging the blade he’d drawn from his scabbard. Nigel’s was in his hand in a moment.

Despite Nigel’s warning, Josie scrambled to her feet the moment Nigel and the other dragon began hacking at each other with their blades and took off in the opposite direction. She didn’t have a weapon that could take the smallest one down and she wasn’t about to wait around to see which one of the dragons came out on top.

She didn’t know why, or how, the damned things had arrived at the conclusion that she was in season, but she had no desire to be fucked by a dragon--not Nigel and certainly not any of the others. And she’d seen the look in his eyes. He wasn’t just protecting her. He had mating on his mind, too.

“I’m an idiot!” she muttered, racing desperately toward the cover of the marsh grasses. “Oh god, oh shit, oh hell! They are fucking dragons!”

Something crashed into the brush virtually on top of her and Josie skidded to a halt. Before she could change directions, a clawed hand damned near as big as she was tall grabbed her, nearly squeezing the breath out of her as it closed around her. “Mine,” he growled, lifting her clear of the ground and pulling her close to examine her. A puzzled expression crossed his reptilian features as he sniffed her. “You are not a dragoness.”

As terrified as she was, her battle instincts kicked in and, unable to reach either the sword or knife for his grip on her, Josie balled her fist up and slammed it into his nose as hard as she could. She thought it was probably surprise more than pain that loosened his grip, but she didn’t care. He dropped her and the moment she hit the ground she rolled away, scrambled to her feet, and ran back the way she’d come.

The stench of burned flesh assailed her a split second before a claw swiped at her. Feeling like a mouse in the midst of a pack of hunting cats, Josie dropped to her knees, skidding beneath the hand before it could grab her. Expecting another attempt before she could scramble beyond the dragon’s reach, Josie kicked up dirt trying to elude the thing.

A quick glance around brought little relief. The dragon that had attacked her in the brush had fallen upon the burned one. Nigel and the other dragon were still hacking at each other, dancing, or rather lumbering back and forth across the clearing, the stamping of their huge feet sounding like minor explosions.

Surging to her feet, Josie ran toward the river as fast as her feet could carry her, leaping from the bank and into the water. The chill of the water snatched what was left of the air from her lungs as she sank beneath the surface. She struggled, pushing off from the bottom the moment she touched down and fighting her way to the surface.

By the time she managed to expel the water she’d inhaled on her way down and shove her hair out of her eyes she saw that the current had taken her downstream. Nigel hadn’t exaggerated the swiftness of the current, she realized. She’d completely lost sight of their encampment by the time she’d managed to get to the surface again and the river bank whipped past her in a blur of eerie, dark shadows.

Her teeth began to chatter, partly from the cold, but mostly from reaction. Her chest tightened with the urge to burst into tears of pure terror. She fought it to bay as she struggled to stay afloat in the swift moving current, trying to bring her mind to order and think what to do.

She couldn’t stay in the water. It wasn’t cold enough to give her hyperthermia instantly, but she’d be feeling the effects before much longer.

She didn’t want to get out, fearful that the dragons would cease fighting over which one was going to get her and the victor would be coming for her any minute.

Drowning wasn’t a hell of a lot better choice, though.

As lethargy from loss of body heat began to set in, she made her decision and began to fight her way across the current and closer to the bank. It seemed to take forever to reach it, even though it looked no more than a few yards away, but finally she felt the riverbed beneath her feet. Her legs shook with fatigue as she moved further out of the water and no longer had the buoyancy of it to support her weight. She’d barely cleared the water when her legs wobbled and gave out under her and she sat down jarringly on the damp bank.

Drawing herself up into a tight ball to hold as much heat in as she could, she stayed where she was, dimly aware that she might have to jump in again.

Dully, she stared at the rippling surface of the water as the second moon rose to join the first, mesmerized by the glitter of light caught in the flow of the Mirata. Still gripped by shock she scarcely reacted at all when a dark shape landed virtually beside her seconds?--Minutes?--Hours later.

She’d lost all concept of time and place, was scarcely aware of anything beyond the turmoil in her mind and the quaking inside of her.

As dulled as her instincts were by shock, though, her sluggish mind registered threat and she uncoiled abruptly, diving toward the river. He caught her even as she launched herself toward the water, swinging her back against his solid form as effortlessly as if she’d been weightless.

Josephine! It is I!

Ignoring the bracing call inside her mind, Josie fought on, trying to free herself until he had wrapped her so tightly against his body that she couldn’t move. She went still finally, panting for breath, struggling internally to gather her strength. He caught a fistful of her hair. Dragging her head back, he nuzzled his face against her throat, opened his mouth over the pulsing vein along the side, sucking at it and then moving on to nip at the line of her jaw, murmuring words she couldn’t understand.

“Nigel?” she whispered shakily. Nigel Bloodragon, Duke of Sarcen, of the dragon folk in the land of Atar. Her mind balked at accepting what she’d seen.

He covered her mouth with his before she could say more, could object, could demand to be released. The heat of his mouth was scalding. It sent a scorching wave of heat rolling through her that made her skin pebble with reaction from the top of her head down to her toes. It seemed every muscle in her body clenched tautly, braced against the assault to her senses, but her defenses crumbled to dust as her senses filled with him.

His mouth on hers was demanding, his quest to explore the sensitive inner surfaces of her mouth with his tongue ruthless, intoxicating. Her mind clouded, swam as her body responded to his inducement without restraint, burgeoning explosively with desire that nearly matched that emanating from him.

His hold on her loosened as she became pliant against him, responded to the stroke of his tongue along hers by exploring and caressing him in return. When she managed to free her arms and slipped her palms upward along his chest, he tore his mouth from hers and scooped her up. Climbing the riverbank with her, he knelt at the top, laying her on the mossy bank and covering her body with his own as he sought her mouth again.

Cloaked in darkness, enveloped in the heat of his body, enthralled by his touch, it should have been easy enough to dismiss the world and every other consideration, but a prickle of uneasiness washed over her as he broke the kiss and began to explore her throat and upper chest with his mouth, stroking his hands along her body as if to familiarize himself with every inch of her. “You’re a Bloodragon,” she managed to say in a shaky whisper, pressing her palms to his shoulders.

He caught her wrists, manacling them to the ground on either side of her head. “And you are mine,” he growled savagely, capturing her lips beneath his again and kissing her until her feeble attempt at objection was swept away on a heated tide of feverish desire.

She forgot everything then except the days of yearning for his kisses, his touch, the need to explore him that had been teasing her for so long. She wanted it, needed it, chaffed at the barrier of their garments that prevented her from exploring him completely and her from feeling the touch of his skin against hers.

She was so delirious with need by the time he withdrew his mouth from hers that she didn’t even notice he’d released his hold on her wrists. She had no inkling of his design as he stroked his hands down her body and tugged at her garment. No warning that this was to be no patient exploration until she felt the head of his cock butting almost bruisingly along the tender flesh of her cleft, plowing past the resisting flesh at the mouth of her sex.

Her eyes flew open then. She sucked in a surprised breath as her body tensed against the unexpected intrusion. His face was contorted as if in agony. A tremor quaked along the bulging muscles of the arms he used to support his weight from her and through his body. As if he sensed her gaze, he opened his eyes. His gaze seemed to bore into mind as he struggled to embed his flesh more deeply inside of her. Mine. You are mine.

Her body quaked at the words that filled her mind, the muscles in her lower belly clutched possessively at his flesh. Groaning, he lowered his chest to hers, scooping her tightly to him with his arms as he thrust again and again until he had sheathed his member fully inside of her. Shuddering, gasping hoarsely, he sought her lips again as he began to move rhythmically in a savage, pounding cadence that demanded her surrender. Mine, Josephine Bloodragon.

Josie groaned into his mouth as she felt her body peak, begin to quake in hard spasms of release. Her convulsions of ecstasy seemed to push him over the edge. He tore his lips from hers as his culmination pounded through him, uttering a hoarse cry, shuddering.

His strength seemed drained from him by the time his great body had ceased to quake and tremble with the expulsion of his seed. Supporting his weight on his elbows, he allowed his head to droop forward until his forehead rested against hers. After a few moments, he dragged in a deep shuddering breath. Nuzzling his face against hers, he began to murmur to her.

Josie thought at first that her mind had simply suffered melt down since it made no sense to her. She realized after a moment, though, that he was speaking in his own tongue. “I did not hurt you, motse d’mi koaer?” he murmured tentatively as he unfastened her collar and peeled the upper section of her garment from her shoulders, tracing her collar bone with his lips.

Josie dragged in a shaky breath. “No,” she murmured, her lips quirking with amusement. “But the rocks you were driving my ass into were a little distracting.”

He jerked away from her to look down at her face in surprise.

Chuckling, Josie lifted a hand to his neck, trying to pull him back. When that didn’t work, she lifted up to meet him, nipping at his chin.

“I will make it better, motse d’mi koaer,” he whispered, hooking his hands in her garment and snatching it downward abruptly.

Josie gasped as he effectively pinned her arms to her sides. Before she could do or say anything more, he’d rolled her onto her stomach. She nearly rooted the dirt as he lifted her hips clear of the ground. She gasped, struggling to lever the upper half of her body up as she felt his free hand skim her buttocks, moving in soothing circles and followed by the caress of his lips. Her belly clenched as she felt the nip of his teeth. Warmth flowed through her, defying the sated bliss of moments before.

Apparently, his attentiveness had the same effect on him, because he lowered her knees to the ground a moment later, tugging the wet garment off of her and tossing it aside, then whipped his cape off and spread it on the ground beside them. Before she could right herself, he scooped her up and settled her on it.

Still damp from her swim in the river, her skin pebbled as a breeze wafted across her. Shivering, she rolled onto her back, watching as Nigel discarded his own armor and moved onto the cape beside her.

She wanted to study him, to explore him thoroughly with her gaze, her hands, her lips, but he covered her body with his almost at once. He rolled onto his side as he found her mouth with his, kissing her deeply. Skimming a hand along her back to her buttocks, he cupped them, massaged the tender flesh of each cheek, and then moved his hand up her back again, molding her against him as he explored her back, resurrecting echoes of the passion they had only just shared.

I have wanted this … wanted you.

As the words moved through her mind they left heated need in their wake, but they stirred doubts as well and a chill chased the fiery desire as the memories flickered through her mind. I know what my duty to my bloodlines is…. You are in season…. The bulls are gathering to seek a mate.

He wasn’t himself. The Nigel she’d grown to know wouldn’t do this, didn’t want her.

He’d been caught up in the heat of battle. His instincts had overpowered his reason. He was going to hate himself for this, hate her.

He paused, lifted his head to stare down at her for a long moment, his breathing ragged with need. Nay, motse d’mi koaer. I chose this. This is my world, and the one law that binds me above all others. I fought them for you, to claim you for myself …. because I could not allow another to claim you.

Josie swallowed with an effort, still too caught up in the intoxicating sensations he’d created in her to think clearly.

He dipped down to nuzzle his face against her throat and nibble at her flesh. “Yield to me,” he murmured as he explored her ear. “I have proven my right to claim you in battle.”

She thought he was half mad with the urges driving him--maybe still half mad, too, with battle lust, but she found the pull to yield far stronger than the will to resist. Twisting her head, she met his lips with her own, slipping her arms around his neck to hold him close.

Chapter Fifteen

Josie knew she was alone even before she opened her eyes. As she’d drifted toward consciousness, she’d reached out with her senses in search of the warmth she’d expected to find next to her, and failing that, sounds that indicated he was nearby.

Sighing with disappointment but without much surprise to discover she was a victim of ‘hit and run’, she finally opened her eyes. It took a moment to figure out why she was looking at sky instead of her bedroom ceiling. The moment her mind caught up to the reality of not being in ‘Kansas’ anymore, it also clicked that it was broad daylight, not early morning, and her heart skipped a beat.

Pushing herself upright, she looked around at the stalks that surrounded her uncomprehendingly and finally struggled to her feet.

She was wrapped in Nigel’s cloak and completely naked otherwise.

Slightly relieved when she caught a glimpse of the riverbank beyond the marsh grasses, but still disoriented over the fact that she’d woke in the brush instead of camp, she pushed through them and looked around again. There was no camp, not even the telltale signs that one had been there.

Numbly, she looked around the area again more slowly, prodding her brain for an explanation. In a few moments memories began to flood into her mind.

There was no sign of a camp because she’d fled the camp the night before.

Because four dragons had been slugging it out to see which one of them was going to get to fuck her brains out.

“God!” Josie muttered, suddenly feeling more than a little nauseated as her belly clenched reflexively in fear at the memory. She glanced around again, this time scanning the sky and fighting a sense of panic.

Her mind was a chaotic mess. Great blank gaps fell between snatches of memory that played in her mind like a video in fast forward and were almost as indecipherable as the gaps.

Uncertain for several moments of what to do, she finally yielded to the call of nature and headed back into the brush to relieve herself. When she emerged again, she headed directly toward the water. Along the way, she discovered the armor she’d put on the night before after her bath.

She stared down at it dully for several moments, allowing the images in her mind to cycle until they finally made sense. Nigel had been with her, victor in the battle over who got to screw Josie. She hadn’t imagined that, hadn’t made it up to gloss over the horrible images from before.

Deciding she didn’t really want to think about it at the moment, she grabbed the suit up, shook the dirt from it and headed down to the water. Her inner thighs screamed bloody murder when she squatted down at the water’s edge to bathe. If she’d had any doubts that she’d spent the night ‘making a wish’ the pain clenched it.

She actually wished it hadn’t.

As reluctant as she was to revisit, she found herself going over the night before as she bathed, trying to piece things together so that they made sense. Everything was pretty clear right up until the moment she’d looked up and saw that ‘thing’ in the sky. Her mind had instantly connected it to the huge thing she’d seen over Kalarin and she’d known it wasn’t something she wanted to familiarize herself with, though, and from that moment on nothing was terribly clear.

Nigel hadn’t been nearly as stunned, or scared, as she was, though. When she’d fled to him he’d been more grimly accepting.

He’d accused her of being ‘in season’. She’d barely noticed the accusing note then. She remembered it with excruciating clarity now, though.

And then, right after that, those monstrous things had landed right in the clearing with them, bellowing and snarling a challenge--to Nigel, who’d responded by turning into something just like them and breathing fire.

A shrink would probably say she’d had a psychotic break. The shock of seeing such horrific things had made her mind snap and now it was trying to fill in all the blanks.

There was a little problem with that theory. Logically, her mind would’ve been trying to make things better, not worse by making her imagine that the one safe harbor she’d been clinging to since she’d arrived in this godforsaken place wasn’t any safer than anything else.

So what could she make of it? Had it happened? Or hadn’t it? Disbelief filled her even trying to consider the possibility that her eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on her, but then the dragons had seemed pretty fucking real. She was bruised all over from the realness of that thing that had grabbed her.

She massaged her temples. Half the time she’d been here, maybe more than half, she’d felt as if she was caught up in some sort of mind game, dreaming, or something. The misery of the trek and camping out was too real not to accept, but nothing else seemed quite real. It seemed more unreal after what had happened the night before, but she supposed she was going to have to grapple with acceptance because there were just some things she couldn’t dismiss.

She had not imagined leaping into the river. She was still sore all over from fighting the current, and felt vaguely achy from the chill.

She hadn’t imagined having sex with Nigel. She wasn’t real clear on all of it, but she did remember that it had been like nothing she’d ever experienced before, fabulous, a little rough, but fantastic. Ordinarily, once would’ve been enough. She wasn’t greedy or hard to please, but once hadn’t seemed to be enough for him.

That’s why she wasn’t really clear on much of what had happened between them. Her memories were a cloudy mass of tangled bodies and intoxicating desire. She’d been high on passion all night long, thoroughly satisfied, and then before she could flake out from exhaustion he’d had her begging for more.

A shiver skated along her back that was partly from the heady memories and partly from the abrupt realization that, if her mind hadn’t cracked, she’d spent the night fucking a man that wasn’t a man at all. At best, he was only partly man.

The most unpleasant question occurred to her then.

Why?

She’d pretty much been panting over the guy since they’d met, regardless of the circumstances. He’d seemed to find her reasonably attractive, too, but he’d made no bones about the fact that they were not the same and he couldn’t be wasting his time with a puny human.

She hadn’t changed her mind. She’d been scared shitless when he arrived and virtually leapt at the opportunity to grab comfort and release tension with some desperate life-affirming humping with the guy she’d been dying to get her hands on.

None of that could be said for his motivation, though.

All right, maybe the life-affirming part, because he’d just tangled with three dragons that seemed pretty intent on eliminating the competition for the piece of ass they were after.

It seemed inescapable that he’d been caught up in the heat of the moment, so caught up in it that he’d thrown caution and principles to the wind. And, as much as she hated to even consider it, she thought the breeding thing had probably caused temporary insanity. Because if his kind could be drawn from miles away to fight to the death just to get the chance of a fertile female, it seemed to go without saying that they weren’t running on their brains.

Abruptly, it felt as if a giant hand had closed around her heart and squeezed, punching the breath out of her at the same time. Breeding! “Oh my god!” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet and looking wildly around as if she could find some way to escape. “Oh my fucking god! Oh lord! Condoms! NO condoms!”

Her chin wobbled at that thought. She had to have been out of her mind!

She hadn’t even thought about birth control, let alone safe sex! She’d never used anything but condoms for birth control. She needed the condom anyway for safe sex, and she hated the chemical birth control. The side effects had just seemed too risky considering she hardly ever even had sex.

She was going to castrate that bastard if he’d knocked her up!

She fumed over the thought for several minutes, until it occurred to her that she should be kicking her own ass. If she was in deep shit, it was just as much her fault as it was his, maybe more. She hadn’t exactly tried to hold him off.

Pressing a shaking hand to her lips, she tried hard to shake off the panic and force herself to think rationally.

She’d been exposed, but she didn’t know she’d caught anything, disease-wise or otherwise. She decided after a little thought that it was probably doubtful that the dragon folk would have the same problems humans did. In fact, they seemed remarkably strong and healthy--all of them she’d seen. Besides, if they weren’t the same, the odds were probably in her favor that she couldn’t catch anything from them--different species and all that.

It seemed to her that it must be just as unlikely that he could’ve gotten her pregnant. Surely they were just too different for that to be a problem?

Even if it was, there was no point in panicking now. Hopefully, she’d be back home soon and she could get checked out and if anything turned up--like an extra heartbeat--she’d still have plenty of time to do something about it.

Deciding she didn’t want to think what she would do about it, at the moment, she finally decided to put on the suit she’d been holding since she’d found it.

She wasn’t nearly as thrilled about the Goth aspects of her suit as she had been to begin with. Once she had pulled it on and found the boots she realized it hadn’t been designed for cool. The kinky scales and claws and spiny horns were there because they were dragons and they probably thought it was all very beautiful.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She felt like such an idiot. How many times had Nigel said ‘we are not the same’? And she’d just brushed it aside, ignored the warning--because it had been a warning. She knew that now.

And Nigel was probably seriously pissed off that he’d lost his head and did it with her--a human, and not even his social equal in her own world.

Maybe that was why he’d disappeared?

Almost on top of that thought, he reappeared, striding briskly along the riverbank from the direction of Kalarin, or rather, from the looks of it, their camp the night before because he was carrying everything they’d abandoned.

She’d been so deep in thought, so wrapped up in panic, she hadn’t noticed until he was nearly upon her.

She wished she’d noticed sooner, because she had maybe five minutes to decide how she was going to act when he reached her.

It wasn’t enough. She was still trying to decide when he stopped beside her, his face an unreadable mask.

He was trying to figure out how she felt about it, she decided.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know. So, barring a clue of how she felt, how should she act? Would she be making a total fool out of herself if she acted like she was glad to see him? And, if she did, would she regret it later?

She cleared her throat. “I wondered where you were,” she said uncomfortably, abruptly feeling a really stupid urge to cry and without a clue as to why she felt that way. Relief that he’d actually come back instead of abandoning her? A latent fear of him because of what she knew now? Fear that he was pissed off and/or disgusted because of what they’d done?

He shrugged, indicating the pack on his shoulder. “We needed the supplies,” he said, his voice sounding strangely rough.

Take the bull--dragon by the horns and meet it head on? Or play lily livered coward and pretend it hadn’t happened?

“Great! I’m starved,” the chicken responded.

He looked more than a little disconcerted, but he merely nodded and settled the pack. “We lost some food in the--uh--last night.”

Josie turned red as a beet.

He cleared his throat. “We are much further downriver, though, than I had thought we would be. We have gained a day at least.”

Josie snorted and then covered her face with her hands, giggling for a moment and then sobbing. “Good thing I decided to go for a swim, huh?” she managed to choke out between the giggles and the wails.

“Josie?”

She peered at him between her fingers. He looked haggard, his expression eloquent of both consternation and bafflement. He lifted a hand, almost tentatively, as if he meant to stroke her shoulder. It was all the invitation she needed. She launched herself at his chest, weeping and snuffling.

“I am a beast to have used you so roughly.”

Josie uttered a hysterical giggle at that and then clamped her lips together to try to stifle the laughter, shaking her head. “No,” she muttered.

He wrapped his arms around her cautiously, stroking a hand over her hair. “I can not tell you how deeply I regret….”

“Then don’t!” Josie snapped, pulling away from him abruptly and looking around for something to mop her face and nose with. The cape she was wearing was all she had and she covered her face with it. “I’m sorry,” she muttered into the cape. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m never like this, really I’m not. It’s just that last night ….” She shuttered. “I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised after the Baklen, but I’m just not used to running into …!” She broke off abruptly, feeling coldness wash over her when she realized what she’d been about to say.

It was too late, though. Nigel withdrew both physically and emotionally. “We should eat and then try to make some progress before nightfall,” he said after a moment.

“Don’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m so sorry, Nigel! I’m sorry about everything.”

He grimaced. “Then we both have much to regret.”

It needed only that to set her off again, confirmation that he was as unsettled and embarrassed about his loss of control as she was. Josie dragged in a shuttering breath, fighting the urge to burst into tears all over again, but she knew she was in no state of mind at the moment to try to talk to him. If she had been, she wouldn’t have said what she’d said. She was an emotional wreck. She needed to get her own head on straight before she could discuss what had happened between them like a rational human being.

Nodding, she moved down to the water’s edge to wash her face. As she’d hoped, the cold water had a bracing effect, tamping the raw nerves that had her feeling as if she was teetering on the verge of breaking down again and that it would take no more than a word or look to tilt her in the wrong direction.

When she’d dried her face and hands on the cape, she rinsed it in the river, wrung it out and carried it back with her. Nigel had retrieved his own cape from where she’d dropped it and had spread it on the ground. Settling across from him, she took the food he’d set out for her and did her best to eat, knowing she needed it. As hungry and weak as she was with the need, though, it still took an effort to chew and swallow and by the time she got to the last few bites she thought she would throw up if she struggled to swallow even one more bite.

The cape she’d washed, to her surprise, was nearly dry. After studying it in astonishment for several moments, wondering what sort of materials they used to make their clothing, she finally shrugged it off and attached the cape again to the small epaulettes on the shoulders of her suit.

Not surprisingly, Nigel seemed disinclined to chat as they set out again. Josie wasn’t in the mood for it either, but the silence between them seemed more strained to her even than it had been in the beginning when she hadn’t known him at all.

No real surprise there, she supposed, wondering if he was more worried that he might have impregnated her, embarrassed at his loss of control the night before, or disgusted that he’d done it with a human.

He’d made it crystal clear that he was saving himself for his mate, who would have to be one of his own kind.

She wondered why she wasn’t horrified that she’d slept with a dragon, but finally supposed that it was because she still didn’t really accept that he was any different than her. Even after what she’d seen, she only thought of the ‘him’ she’d come to know, and desire, and admire, not the dragon she’d seen him transform into.

She didn’t realize how safe he made her feel, just by being nearby, until they stopped to make camp for the night and he told her he would prepare the food while she bathed. She glanced toward the river and her belly immediately clenched with fear at the thought of going down to the water by herself.

“I have marked you as mine,” Nigel said gruffly. “The young bulls would not consider challenging my claim.”

Josie felt her face flame, but, despite her embarrassment, she immediately noticed the qualification and, as uncomfortable as it made her to ask, she had to know. She cleared her throat. “The young? What about the older ones?”

He studied her for a long moment and finally transferred his gaze to the kindling he’d stacked to make a fire. Very deliberately he sucked in a deep breath and expelled it in a thin stream of flame that instantly ignited the wood.

Josie jumped. She might have leapt to her feet and run except that she was spared the opportunity of further insulting Nigel by the fact that the spurt of adrenaline that shot through her left her too weak to leap to her feet. Feebly, she lifted a shaking hand to her pounding heart, struggling to maintain the appearance of being completely unconcerned about the fact that he could expel fire--at all--whether he was in human form or dragon form.

“If they have not claimed a mate already, they would still hesitate to challenge another mature bull for a female carrying his seed,” he said in a low, growling voice.

Josie stared at him blankly for a moment as it slowly sank into her that he was trying to prod an argument out of her. She might have been tempted to, except the abrupt, challenging shift in his mood unnerved her.

Beyond that, the entire concept of their culture baffled her, and she was more inclined to look for answers at the moment than argue uselessly over sexist comments. This time they were in was definitely primitive. She supposed, if she’d given it any thought, she would have assumed that even his time didn’t compare to her own technologically advanced culture, but he didn’t seem primitive to her, especially not now that she’d finally figured out why they carried swords and daggers, and not guns. They didn’t need them. She doubted they needed any weapons at all considering what they were capable of.

Their mating practices, as she understood them, thoroughly confused her, though. Because that definitely sounded like more primitive man--somewhere between where they just knocked the women down and fucked them whenever they took the notion and when they decided to claim a woman for their specific use. Didn’t they have sex just for fun? Because, as crazy as it seemed to her, it sure as hell sounded like he was saying he’d made some sort of commitment. “That was--uh--what we did, it isn’t--uh--like--permanent here? Is it?”

He sent her a brooding glance through narrowed eyes. “We do not breed females and then abandon our young,” he growled. “A male that copulates with a female at the time she is fertile is mating--and we mate for life.”

Josie stared at him in dawning horror as that sank in. No wonder he was so angry! He thought he’d screwed up his future, compromised his lineage and his bloodlines!

He probably blamed her for it, she thought, feeling an abrupt upsurge of anger. If that wasn’t just like a damned man! One minute they were all over a woman to screw them, ignoring every protest short of a club to the head, trying to convince them to do it without a ‘raincoat’ and the next they were blaming the woman for getting them into trouble by getting knocked up!

“Well, that’s not the way we do things, so you can be sure I won’t be holding you to it. And don’t you even think about blaming all this on me!” she snarled, surging to her feet. “I couldn’t have fought you off if I’d tried!”

“But you did not try! You accepted me,” Nigel ground out, losing his tenuous grip on his temper. He had not needed to see the look of horror on her face when he told her they were mated to know that she would reject it, but the confirmation of his suspicions made him feel unwell.

Regardless of what she seemed to think, he did not blame her for his predicament. He could not even blame it on urges beyond his control. He had known full well what he was doing. He simply had not cared at the moment that he would pay later. He had told himself that he was duty bound to protect her and that that superseded his other obligations. He had convinced himself that he would regret it more if he did not at least try to claim her, to convince her they could make it work. “You did not warn me that you were coming in season! There were other ways to protect you if I had known before.”

Josie gaped at him but she could feel blood surging into her cheeks. “Because we don’t come in season!” she growled at him. “We’re fertile once a month.”

Nigel glared at her in patent disbelief for several moments before his expression changed abruptly as if he’d thought of something. “This is time of the month?” he demanded, obviously aghast at the possibility.

“Yes, that’s time of the month!”

A confused look settled over his features. “Why would I have time of the month? Human males are on the same cycle?”

“Human males are horny all the time,” Josie said dryly. “And I do mean all the time!” She thought it over a moment. “Weird! I’d never thought of it like that. Maybe that’s because they’re around fertile females all the time?”

“How could I have known this?” he growled.

“You speak English, damn it! I assumed you knew a hell of a lot about us. You knew damned well that I didn’t know anything about you or your world, though!”

His lips tightened. “No one here knows much about humans. There are tales from ancient times, but most are considered myths. Certainly, no one has ever believed that they were as fertile you say. There are no other creatures on such a cycle.”

As intriguing as she might have considered that at another time, she wasn’t currently in the mood to pursue it.

She wasn’t actually in the mood to pursue their argument any further either, if it came to that. They could go on blaming each other until doomsday and it wasn’t going to change anything. “Fine. We’ve established that I don’t understand you, or your world, or your ways and vice versa. I don’t see any sense in us fighting about it. I guess, considering your customs, we shouldn’t have had sex. I’m not saying I agree with it, because I for one thought it was the best ever, but it’s not the end of the world. Nobody knows but you and me, and nobody else has to know.”

Chapter Sixteen

Nigel watched Josie as she gathered up the things for her bath and headed down to the river, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He was too angry about her flippant dismissal of his claim to her at first to think of anything to say that he would not regret later, but as he mulled over everything that she had said he became less angry than thoughtful.

It was patently obvious that she did not accept him as her mate, did not consider what had passed between them as powerfully significant as he did, but just as clearly she did not regret it.

It had been wrong, he realized, to keep from her the true meaning of being one of the dragon folk. He had not consciously done so at first, but as time had passed and he had become more and more deeply enthralled with her he had very deliberately kept it from her, fearing that she would react just as she had when she knew.

He was not certain even now that his reasoning had not been sound. He had thought that once she came to know him that the differences between them would matter no more to her than they did to him.

It had been dishonest to keep it from her, but had it been a mistake? Somehow, he could not believe that if he had been more honest and open to begin with she would have been any more accepting. He thought it likely she would have been less inclined to open herself to him.

After a few moments, instead of preparing their meal, he rose and headed toward the river. Regardless of what she had said, she felt safe with him and not safe when he was not close by. He had not misinterpreted her anxiety. He thought it unlikely that any would accost her now, for they would know his scent and that of his offspring that she carried, but it would make her feel safer if he was close by.

And he could not simply accept her decision and do nothing to try to change her mind, not when failure to sway her meant that he would lose her and his offspring. Ordinarily, he would have considered that he was honor bound to respect her wishes and accept the rejection, but there was nothing ordinary about their situation.

He had not imagined that their joining had given her as much joy as he had found. She had admitted that much. Surely that also meant that she cared for him, at least a little? And if she cared even a little, then could she not come to care more?

He was not altogether certain of how he would go about discovering if that was possible. He had much to offer, but Josephine had not only not been impressed by his title or his wealth, she had made it clear she thought poorly of those who were simply born to wealth and privilege. She had accused him of snobbery, but she was just as guilty of it in her own way.

The question was, could she be made to see past her prejudices and come to love and accept him?

She jumped all over when she discovered that he had followed her to the river’s edge and he felt a mixture of discomfort and anger that the gathering of the bulls had so unnerved her.

Josie smiled at Nigel a little uneasily, wondering if he’d sensed how nervous she was about going down to bathe by herself, or if he had some other reason for following her.

Maybe he’d come to try to smooth things over, she thought a little hopefully?

“I loved that pool we stopped by last night.”

He studied her for several moments and finally lifted his head, scanning the sky from horizon to horizon. A shiver skated along Josie’s spine as she watched him.

“I could take you there if you like.”

Josie blinked in surprise. “Take?”

He crouched beside. “There is little risk that we would be spotted in so short a flight.”

Josie swallowed. He meant he’d change and take her. She didn’t know if she could handle that at the moment. “There would be some risk, though, right? That’s why you didn’t just--uh--change and fly straight there, to Caracaren, to start with?”

He frowned, struggling to keep the heat from creeping into his face at the question. What she said was true. He had not shifted and taken her directly to Caracaren because he had thought they might attract unwelcome attention, or that it might endanger Josephine unnecessarily, for he knew that if he was challenged, or worse, attacked while he was carrying her, her chances of serious injury, or death, was high, but it was only partly true. The main reason he had not done so was because he was in no great rush to return Josie to her own world, and he had not thought that she would swoon with desire if she saw his true form.

He had seen her reaction to the Baklen. They were ugly creatures, of course, not beautiful like the dragon folk, but Josephine was not a human that was easily shaken. He had seen how she faced her foe, fought him, not just to protect herself, but to defend the man who was with her, and because it was a duty she did not flinch from as a soldier.

She had called them monsters, things, and she had been shaken to her core, so shaken it had chased every other consideration from her mind, virtually thrown her into his arms when she had no trust in him at all, no reason to trust him if it came to that.

“I did not want to risk a battle while I was carrying you,” he said finally.

Josie felt a coldness wash over her at that, an image instantly leaping into her mind of falling to her death from so high in the sky that she could not even scream. She pasted a false smile on her lips. “I don’t miss the pool that much,” she said wryly.

Nigel nodded, struggling against the sick feeling that twisted inside him that she could not bring herself to even look upon him in dragon form. “Then I will protect you from the current here so that you can bathe,” he said firmly, reaching for her hand.

Josie was fairly certain she didn’t want to risk the swift current, with or without Nigel’s help, but she found herself placing her hand in Nigel’s in instinctive response to his gesture even before she’d fully considered it.

He waded into the river until the water was lapping at his hips and braced himself and then tugged gently on her arm to encourage her to follow him. She hesitated, but finally yielded to his insistence, pausing only long enough to discard the cloak on the bank.

It wasn’t going to be much of a bath when she was still fully clothed, she thought wryly, but she supposed it wouldn’t hurt the armor. Nigel rarely took his own off.

When she had joined him, Nigel braced her against his body and took the soap from her free hand. She made a new discovery as he lathered his hands and began to rub them over her arms and back and buttocks.

The suit didn’t just feel like a second skin, it was like skin, like wearing nothing at all once it was wet. She could feel the stroke of his hands along her body as if she was completely naked. Disconcerted at first, she discovered long before he had urged her to turn around and brace her back against his chest that his hands generated a great deal of warmth in spite of the chill of the water.

He lathered soap over her chest and belly with the same, slow, thorough deliberation and then moved lower still, stroking his hands over her upper thighs and then between her thighs. She wasn’t certain how he bypassed the fabric between her legs, whether he had unfastened the crotch or merely pushed beneath the leg opening, because she was already intoxicated with the heat pounding through her blood when she felt his fingers part her cleft, but her knees buckled at his touch and she would’ve collapsed if he hadn’t been holding her firmly against him.

He hesitated when he had traced her cleft with his finger, as if debating whether to stop or to openly caress her. Disappointment filled her as he withdrew his hand after only a brief debate and began to rinse the soap from her.

She was still quaking inside with need when he helped her to climb out of the river and then abandoned her to dry herself while he returned to the camp.

Frowning, Josie took her make-shift towel out and dried off, wondering exactly what he’d meant by what he’d done. Why use the guise of helping her as an opportunity to fondle her so intimately, and then not follow up? Had he not intended to do more than help her and then been drawn into that exploration?

Or was the tease premeditated?

By the time she’d dried her arms and legs and patted the veiling over her suit, Josie discovered that the suit itself was dry. Whatever the thing was made of, the material seemed to have amazing properties.

She found when she returned to their encampment that Nigel had heated more of the stew he’d made before. She settled opposite from him, struggling to dismiss the discomfort she felt from all that had happened between them since the last time they had shared a meal. “This is very good,” she said when she’d tasted it. “Not quite like anything I had before, but the meat is a lot like beef.”

He glanced up at her from his own food.

“Don’t tell me what it is,” she added hurriedly. “I’d rather not know. I’ll just pretend it is beef.”

A wry smile curled his lips, but he frowned after a moment. “You prefer to ‘pretend’ also that I am a man.”

Josie flinched and directed her attention to her food. “You already knew about humans,” she pointed out. “Maybe not everything, but a lot more than I knew about … dragons. We have myths, but everyone thinks they’re just myths.”

He studied her keenly for several moments and finally nodded. “You are right. It is unreasonable to expect you to accept something so alien to you so quickly … if at all.”

Distress filled her at that last comment, but instead of addressing it, she drew him back to what he’d told her earlier. “What sort of myths do you have about humans? Why would you have myths about them at all, for that matter--unless they’ve been here?”

He shrugged. “No one knows the true origins of the tales--this is why most of it is discounted.”

“But not all?” Josie asked, quick to notice the exception.

He frowned. “I told you once that it was my duty to make certain my bloodlines were pure. You were right. It is a snobbery. But this came about because the lines of dragon and man mixed long ago--according to myth.

“The clans of man and those of dragon clashed frequently, but often they were allies in those turbulent times. We did not look as we do now. We were pureblooded dragon once, and although we still shifted as we do now, the human-like forms we assumed when we wished to take advantage of that form were not so human. The dragon folk were drawn to mankind.” He hesitated, but went on after that brief pause. “And mankind was drawn to our powers, of which they had none. The clans intermingled in search of mates, but in time the dragon folk saw that they were weakening their own lines by their obsession with man. We began to look more and more like those we were so drawn to, but have less and less of the strengths of our own kind. When offspring began to be born that could not even fully shift into their dragon forms, we shunned man and soon after became enemies.”

Josie looked away from Nigel uncomfortably. She would’ve liked to say it just wasn’t true that mankind had exploited the dragon folk in the hope of becoming as powerful as they were, but unfortunately it sounded all too probable, especially considering some of the people she’d known. “So the portals are some sort of natural phenomena that have always been here. I guess that’s where we got our myths about dragons.” She considered it for several moments. “Nobody’s ever discovered the skeletal remains of a dragon on my world--not but what the world’s big enough to hide a lot that might never be found.”

“I spoke of my own world,” Nigel said.

She frowned. “So, you’re saying man originated here?”

He shrugged. “Of a certainty some did, and passed through to your world, possibly only those who no longer felt that they belonged to either clan--man or dragon, for they could not shift, and yet they had some of the powers of the dragon folk and those of the man clan feared and hated them.

“In time, mayhap all, for there are no longer clans of man here.”

Josie gave him a steady look. “Or maybe the dragons just wiped them out?”

His face hardened. “Mayhap. I do not know. All that I do know for certain is that there seems to be evidence to support at least a part of the legends. In my time, there are many who can not fully shift into dragon form--males.”

Josie looked at him curiously at that. “Just the males?”

“Only the males. To my knowledge there are no longer any females who can shift at all.”

Josie lapsed into silence, thinking it over while she finished her meal, wondering if it was even possible that mankind had originated on this world, instead of the one they thought of as their own. It seemed unlikely, but then the entire tale sounded more like legend than actual recorded history. Except that she had to think it was strangely coincidental that there were myths of dragons on her world and legends of humans on his if there was nothing to it.

When they’d cleaned up and returned everything to the satchel, Josie settled on the pallet. Nigel seemed in no great hurry to join her and Josie wondered if he’d decided after everything that had happened that it was better to give it up to her and keep his distance.

Or maybe he thought he wasn’t welcome?

She considered that, but she didn’t have to search hard to realize that he was certainly welcome as far as she was concerned. Aside from the fact that she’d grown accustomed to sleeping beside him, last night’s experience made the thought of sleeping alone extremely unappealing. In fact, she wasn’t sure she could sleep at all without him draped over her like a battle shield.

From his perspective maybe there wasn’t a lot of appeal, though. In the first place, he’d assuaged both his need and his curiosity, thoroughly and repeatedly the night before, so she wouldn’t be surprised if he had no interest for that reason. In the second, he deeply regretted the lapse and maybe he was reluctant to cuddle up next to temptation.

He’d made the pallet, though, and it was his cloak she was lying upon. If he wasn’t comfortable sharing anymore, or thought he wasn’t welcome, or whatever, then she should give it up to him and make her own.

She was reluctant to ask him, though.

After twisting and turning for a while she finally decided to risk the snub she feared and sat up. “If you don’t want to share the pallet I can make my own,” she said a little stiffly.

He glanced at her in surprise, seemed to wrestle with himself for several moments and finally shrugged. “I will keep watch.”

Josie’s belly tightened instantly, and she looked up at the night sky. “You said it wasn’t likely any of them would come after … uh …you know.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Rest, Josephine. I will not disturb you.”

Josie frowned at him. “Well, you’re wrong, there. It disturbs the hell out of me to take your pallet while you sit up instead of resting, and the thought of sleeping by myself after what happened disturbs me even more. I know you don’t think they’ll come back, but I’m not as convinced as I’d like to be.”

He still looked unconvinced.

Josie dragged her knees up and looped her arms around them. “I understand, Nigel. Really.”

He lifted a dark brow questioningly.

She shrugged. “I thought it was all pretty insulting--at first, but then I got to looking at your side of it after what you told me tonight. It’s like--a debilitating, hereditary disease, isn’t it? That’s how you see it. Every time a dragon breeds with a human they lose something and their offspring becomes less like them and more like humans.”

Josie paused, wondering if the lie she’d thought up was something she could actually carry off, but she finally decided she could do it. It helped that Nigel had admitted he really didn’t know that much about her world or humans.

She didn’t question whether she ought to do it or not. She preferred honesty, but she could see that this was something that was really bothering Nigel and she figured a lie in a good cause wasn’t any worse than a social lie intended to make someone feel better, or keep them from being embarrassed.

“But you can stop worrying about it. It didn’t happen because it couldn’t happen. We use birth control to keep from getting pregnant because we do enjoy recreational sex and there’s no other way to keep a woman from getting pregnant every time she has sex, unless she’s pregnant already--or uses the birth control.

“I don’t completely understand it myself, but it doesn’t seem to prevent the cycle. It just prevents the pregnancy, so that’s probably what you sensed--the chemicals used for birth control.”

She smiled wryly. “So you don’t have to worry about a shotgun wedding or anything like that. I wouldn’t hold you to it, even if there was any chance you had made a baby with me. It was just a heat of the moment thing and my fault as much as yours, but, from what you said, not even your customs would require any sort of commitment unless there was a baby.”

Chapter Seventeen

Nigel transferred his gaze from Josie to the flickering flames of the fire, frowning as he struggled to understand her motives for the lie she had told him. He knew it was not true that she was not carrying his child--he knew his seed had found fertile ground-- but he was not certain that she knew that for a lie because humans had lost touch with their own senses long ago and did not attend those they still possessed. Had she made it up because she thought he did not want to fulfill his obligations? Or because she was determined that she would not?

“I do not see the mixed breeding as a disease. I did not even before I knew you, and I certainly could not see it that way now, for you have many strengths, and those far exceed the frailty of your body. There is much about you that any male would take pride in seeing in his offspring, would rejoice to pass on to his descendants.

“I spoke of my obligations to my lineage because it was the will of my sire that I choose a mate whose bloodlines were at least as pure as ours, but even he knew, as we all do, that the choice is not a true choice. It is not a decision that can be rationalized. When a male meets the female he is destined for, he can not choose to ignore it.”

He grimaced. “I told you that because you were afraid of me. I knew that an insult would turn your mind from the fear that I would take you against your will far more quickly than any reassurances I could give you.”

He’d been pretty damned convincing, and Josie wasn’t sure she believed what he said now. “I wasn’t afraid of you. Ok, maybe a little unnerved, but arriving here put that out of my mind really quickly.”

He sent her a disbelieving look and finally rose, moving to the pallet and settling beside her. Rolling onto his side, he bent the arm beneath him and propped his head on his balled fist.

“This is true--what you said about not being able to breed?” he murmured, lifting his other hand and stroking it along her back.

Josie stiffened, but it didn’t prevent warmth from flowing through her veins at his careless caress. “Umm,” she murmured uncomfortably.

“And the recreational sex?”

Josie turned to look at him for a long moment and finally lay back against the pallet. Looking up at him, she caught and held his gaze. “I’m going home, Nigel. With or without your help, I’ll find a way back to my own world and the things familiar to me, even if I can’t get back to my own time.”

He said nothing, merely studying her, his expression carefully neutral. Finally, he lifted a hand and allowed it to rest lightly over one breast, almost idly stroking his thumb back and forth across her nipple. The fabric that separated her from his touch might as well not have been there at all. Heat curled through her, congregated low in her belly and made the muscles there grow taut.

“Then we should drink our fill of one another since it is not contrary to your customs to have sex without obligation, and I desire you, and you seem to desire me. And then, when we part, there will be no regrets, for we will have exploited our desire for one another thoroughly and sated ourselves.”

A strange mixture of conflicting emotions swept through Josie at his reasoning, so quickly she had difficulty identifying them. Disappointment was certainly among them, both because he had given up so easily on his insistence that she was his mate, and also because he sounded so much like every other guy she’d ever been with. It wasn’t that she wanted a relationship or that it was the least bit realistic to think they could have one. She knew nothing that could be identified as a relationship would work out, especially under the circumstances. It wasn’t even that she objected to the suggestion that they just hook up for a while and scratch each other’s itch. She’d felt like suggesting it point blank herself. She had certainly hinted at it already.

She finally decided that she was disappointed because she really, really liked Nigel, a lot, and it depressed her to think nothing could come of it, and also because she had convinced herself that he wasn’t like the other guys she’d known. He was a man of honor. He wouldn’t consider just fooling around.

Regardless, she thought he was probably right. She’d never even come close to finding someone who thrilled her like Nigel did. Passion that explosive had to be a fluke, something that would quickly burn itself out with familiarity.

They’d both be better off if they got it out of their system before the time came to part. If they didn’t, she knew she was certainly going to be yearning for it and miserable that he was beyond reach.

Forcing a faint smile, she rolled toward him, placed a hand on his chest and slipped it upward to hook it around his neck and urge him to meet her. “If we’re going to do that, then we should get started because I’ve got a feeling it’s going to take a lot of mutual exploration to completely satisfy me.”

He closed the distance that separated them as if he had only been restraining himself with iron willed control, waiting for the invitation. His response to her offering was heated, his passion full blown. The force of it hit her with the impact of an atomic blast the moment his lips opened over hers, the possessive thrust of his tongue causing instantaneous melt down. Her head swam dizzyingly with the rush of excitement that swept through her as he flooded her senses with himself; his heat, his scent, his taste, the strength and size and hardness of his muscular body, the feel of his skin against hers.

Uttering a sound of need, she moved closer, lifting one leg to drape it over his hips so that she could press her body fully against his from chest to groin.

As little barrier as their garments represented, she thought it was still too much and began to tug at the shoulders of his to thrust it out of her way.

He broke the kiss, watching her through fevered eyes as he skimmed out of his clothing. She struggled frantically to rid herself of her own, shoving it down to her waist and then her knees and then hanging her boots, briefly, in the tangle as she tried to use her feet to rid herself of it completely.

Her clumsiness might have embarrassed her at another time, but he seemed to be having similar difficulties and was more inclined to ignore it at the moment than squander the time to untangle himself. Slipping an arm beneath her shoulders, he dragged her close, lifting her and covering the tip of one breast with his mouth. She sucked in a sharp breath at the keen sensations that jarred through her as he suckled her nipple, teasing the sensitive tip with his tongue and the heated suction of his mouth until she felt faint with the effort to drag enough air into her lungs. She’d forgotten all about the tangle of boots and clothes binding her lower legs by the time he laid her back against the pallet and sought her other breast, teasing it as he had the first.

Drunk with the pleasure swirling through her mind and pounding along her nerve endings, she clutched at him, stroked his back and shoulders. He broke off teasing her breasts when she began to moan softly, dragging his lips across her belly as he pushed her suit from her legs.

Lifting away from her after a moment, he finished removing his own clothes. Discarding his boots, he turned to her, caught her legs, and moved them apart, kneeling between them.

Her belly clenched in anticipation. Warm moisture flooded her sex with need as his gaze moved over her, settling on the thatch of hair on her mound, his gaze like a caress as he explored her nether lips.

Breathing raggedly with his own need, he caught her leg. Lifting it, he removed her boot, tossed it over his shoulder and settled her leg again beside his thigh before repeating the process with her other boot. He leaned over her then.

Her skin prickled with acute sensation at the brush of his heated breath as he placed his palms on either side of her and dipped toward her, crawling upward until his face hovered just above hers.

Holding her gaze, he settled his weight on one arm and explored her with his other hand, stroking her breasts, molding his hands over them and massaging them before he moved on to explore her ribs and belly. Her belly quivered with the sharp sensations rippling through her as she felt the touch of his hand along her belly, and then exploring the tender flesh of her cleft. He leaned down to capture her lips as he found her clit, stroking it deftly and sending her need soaring higher. The pleasurable tension rapidly coiled tighter within her until she was kissing him back feverishly, moving restlessly beneath his touch.

Within moments she reached a point where the teasing was almost more torture than pleasure. She wanted more, needed it desperately.

Blindly seeking, she stroked her hands along his body until her fingers found his turgid flesh. He jerked as she closed her hand around his cock, massaging his swollen member and trying to guide it to her passage.

Yielding to her demand, he lifted his lips from hers, brushed her hand from his cock, and shifted to align his body with hers, stroking the head downward along her cleft to gather the moisture of her body’s need before pushing into her opening. She gasped at the first probing touch, digging her fingers into his flesh as a rush of goose bumps crawled over her. Planting the soles of her feet on the pallet, she lifted up to meet him as he thrust again, firmly wedging the head of his cock inside of her.

A groan escaped her that was part desire and part frustration at his gentle claiming. She swallowed convulsively, trying without much success to gather moisture into her mouth. She bucked against him as he thrust again, sinking deeper. “Nigel,” she gasped a little frantically, fighting the urge to scream at him that he wasn’t giving her enough fast enough. She needed it now, all of him. She wanted the same savage pounding thrust as before, when he had been driven beyond his control.

Your body fits mine so cunningly, mi sol, gives me such pleasure I fear I can not hold back to pleasure you.

Don’t hold back, for god sake! I’m dying here! Give it to me! Now!

He expelled a harsh breath. A tremor went through him. He seemed to struggle with his self-control and then he arched his hips and drove into her so deeply she cried out as her body seemed to splinter with ecstasy. The sound made him pause, but she was having none of that.

Bending her knees, she planted the soles of her feet firmly on the pallet, reaching down as she arched against him to dig her fingers into his buttocks in demand.

Scooping her into his arms, he held her tightly as he withdrew and thrust again, abruptly setting a savage, pounding pace that sent shocks through her entire body. The stroke of his cock along her passage quickly sent her over the edge. Within moments she felt her body begin to quiver as it reached its peak, and then hard quakes began to wrack her as her body convulsed with waves of ecstasy.

She was still gasping for breath and groaning with the magnitude of her release when he began to shake as he met his own crisis. Uttering a harsh groan, he burrowed his face against the side of her neck as he was caught up in the throes of ecstatic completion.

By the time the quakes of release mellowed to tiny aftershocks and eventually vanished altogether, Josie was more than half asleep. She drifted lazily, blissfully sated and unwilling to be roused from the rosy afterglow even to untangle herself from him. He shifted after a time to the other side of the pallet, rolling her onto her side and dragging her back against his body. She made a small sound of complaint at being disturbed, but wiggled back against his warmth readily enough when she realized he only meant to cuddle.

“What’s meezold mean?” she murmured.

He stiffened. After a moment, he lifted his head and nibbled at the side of her neck. “One day, perhaps, I will tell you.”

Josie frowned, mildly irritated, but she wasn’t currently in the mood to pursue it. “What does mozmecara mean then?”

He chuckled huskily. “If you want to know you will need to learn my tongue.”

The comment pierced her bliss, sending a spiral of depression through her. It wasn’t likely she was going to be around long enough to learn his language.

She didn’t want to think about that at the moment, though, so she resolutely dismissed it and the sense of sadness that threatened to overtake her pleasure and sought oblivion.

The day was bright when she woke. Disoriented, wondering why that alarmed her, she lay perfectly still for several moments struggling with it.

The sound of movement behind her sent a jolt of adrenaline through her and she pushed herself upright abruptly, almost sagging with relief when she saw that it was Nigel. In the act of setting the pot in the coals of the campfire to heat, he glanced at her as she sat up, his gaze speculative, as if he was trying to gauge her mood.

She wasn’t sure what her mood was beyond sluggish with sleep and weak with the ebb and flow of adrenaline through her system.

They’d overslept--or at least Nigel had allowed her to sleep long past the time they were usually up and about, she realized. Stiff with their lovemaking the night before, she struggled up from the pallet, looked around until she’d located her clothing and boots, and went to take care of her morning ritual.

When she returned, Nigel was sipping the brew he always made in the morning. A steaming cup was awaiting her across from him and she settled to sip it slowly.

“I overslept,” she finally commented.

He frowned into his mug. “We can make up the time.”

It was impossible to tell from the remark whether he was irritated at the delay or not, but she finally decided he wasn’t. Shrugging it off, she finished her hot drink as quickly as she could and helped him break camp.

Allowing him to take the lead, she followed him for a while as she generally did, a dozen or so paces behind. She’d been pleased with the turn of events the night before, more than pleased. Only thinking about it made her warm all over and set her blood to pulsing faster through her veins.

She wasn’t certain of how he’d felt about it, though. At the time she’d been disappointed that it seemed he could be so easily corrupted into tossing his own values to the wind and accepting the way of things on her world, even though he was giving her what she wanted.

Not that she saw anything wrong with the way of things on Earth. No one had the time or opportunity to devote to the long, drawn out, and carefully monitored dating process of the older generations. One hardly had time to breathe a relaxing breath, for it seemed that a person’s entire life was set in fast forward. Babies didn’t get to be babies--they had to know everything even before they got to kindergarten. Children couldn’t be children, they had to raise themselves while their parents worked, and before you could spit you were out in the rat race scrambling to ‘make it’ before you were too old and nobody thought you were ‘young and bright and promising’ anymore.

If you didn’t ‘make it’ before you were thirty you were a loser and nobody wanted to be tied to a loser.

Anyone who wanted the old fashioned marriage and babies and the house with the white picket fence had to scramble to grab it in between the dog fights to climb that ladder of success. It only made sense to short hand dating/mating when everything else was that way--grab it and growl.

Maybe it wasn’t that Nigel had discarded his own customs so much as it was that he’d realized the futility of trying for something they couldn’t have? Maybe he’d realized there was no sense in throwing away what they could have?

Finding the trend of her thoughts depressing, she shrugged it off and quickened her pace until she’d caught up with him. After glancing at him several times and struggling to think of a conversational gambit, she finally took the plunge. “You never have told me much about yourself.”

He sent her an indecipherable glance. “You have never asked.”

Blushing at the rebuff, Josie retreated into silence, slowing her steps and dropping behind once more. He caught her by surprise when he stopped abruptly, turned and grasped her arm, jerking her toward him so that she fell against his chest. Even as she gaped up at him in surprise, he swooped down, covering her surprise parted lips with his own and kissing her with a ruthlessness that drained the starch from her knees. Dizzy, disoriented, she leaned weakly against him, groping blindly for purchase.

He released her almost as abruptly as he’d caught her and she had to lock her knees to keep from wilting weakly to the ground. “This is all you want to know, is it not, Josephine Benate? Do I desire you? Will I fuck you senseless and then give you more?”

Josie gaped at him, too stunned to fully grasp what he’d said at first. Anger didn’t hit her until he’d released her and stalked away. “If you didn’t enjoy it, too, you wouldn’t be so damned anxious to be so accommodating!” she yelled at him.

He checked at that, pivoted around to glare at her. “I want more,” he growled. “I want what you promised me--something you obviously do not have to give--or will not give.”

The hurt she sensed behind the anger deflated her. She couldn’t think of anything to say and after studying her for several moments, as if waiting for a response, he merely spun on his heel and abandoned her.

Chapter Eighteen

They had made excellent time, Josie thought morosely when they finally stopped to make camp for the night, because Nigel had been totally pissed off and set a pace she suspected was intended to leave her completely behind. She hadn’t struggled to do more than keep sight of him. Her own anger had resurrected itself after a while.

She hadn’t promised him a damned thing! She thought indignantly, refusing even to look at him when, instead of stopping to eat and rest as he generally did, he merely slowed his steps toward noon, handed her a piece of bread with meat and cheese stuffed into it, and kept walking. That was all in his mind. She’d been upfront with him from the start. Even when they’d had sex the night before, she’d told him before they’d done anything at all that she wasn’t staying.

Was it her fault that he’d thought giving in to him that first night was the same thing as standing before a justice of the peace and saying ‘I do’? Like she could possibly understand his strange customs! Or think, even, when her blood was surging through her and turning her brain to mush! She would’ve agreed to anything he’d demanded just then, because all she’d been able to think about was having him thrusting into her and assuaging her needs.

Nigel had paused briefly a few times, but he hadn’t stopped until he’d found a small stream meandering toward the great river. It wasn’t much of a stream, though, hardly more than a ditch with a puddle in the bottom.

Discarding her clothes on the bank, trying to dismiss her resentment and the sense of injustice and guilt gnawing at her, Josie moved to the middle and sat down. The water barely rose above her waist, but it was something to bathe in, and it wasn’t cold like the Mirata River, at least.

In no great hurry to return to camp, or face Nigel, she lay back in the water after she’d bathed, staring up at the night sky and trying to empty her mind of all the thoughts and emotions that had been plaguing her since the argument with Nigel that morning.

So much for thinking he’d discarded his own customs and beliefs for hers, she thought wryly.

This situation was fucking with his mind as badly as it was hers. She knew he couldn’t possibly want what he was asking. Deep down, whatever he said now, she knew he had to feel that it was wrong for him, that he was failing in his duty to his family even to consider a human as his life-mate. She was doing him a favor to ignore his protests to the contrary. He just didn’t know it.

Even if it wasn’t for the fact that she was human and bound to pass on traits to his children that he would find highly undesirable, she didn’t know a damned thing about his world. How could she possibly fit in? Especially with him being a lord, somebody considered above the common man--or dragon, as the case may be. No one would accept her as his duchess. She’d be like a--social leper, despised, looked down on. And he would probably be looked down on, too, for taking her on.

It was probably equivalent to an English duke marrying an American of dubious, but poverty stricken, origins. Everybody would turn up their noses when they saw her like he’d stepped in shit and was tracking the stinking mess across their pristine carpet.

Why would she want to live like that, especially when she was as good as anybody where she came from?

Why give up everything she knew?

He wouldn’t fit into her world any better than she could fit into his, for that matter, not that she could see him giving it up to be with her.

The moment he felt threatened or thought she had been, he’d do just what he’d done the other night. He’d shift into a dragon and then everybody would drop dead with fright, or run grab the biggest gun they could get their hands on to try to kill him.

The bioengineers would probably come at the thought of getting their hands on his DNA. Before he could spit they’d have him strapped to a table and dissected.

She didn’t even know why she was thinking about it.

She didn’t want to stay.

She was crazy about him--she might as well admit it because she sure as hell couldn’t deny it--but she wasn’t crazy. Misery yawned ahead of her no matter what she did, because she wasn’t going to be able to just slough him off like a bad dream and go on with her life as if nothing had happened. She still thought her decision was the only one she could make, though, that would give either one of them a chance at future happiness.

There was no sense in making a bad decision worse by compounding it with stupidity. They had at least a couple more days, and then, assuming Goldenwing knew about the portals, she might well be home again with this behind her.

Maybe it was smarter to just leave the anger alone, let him brood, instead of yielding to the temptation to try to work him out of her system? Because she didn’t think that was going to happen, especially not in just a few short days. Maybe if she could devote a month or two to a regular diet of Nigel she’d get bored, and he’d get bored, and they’d both be relieved when it was over. They could part as friends, without regrets, but she couldn’t really afford to risk it.

If Goldenwing couldn’t help, she was going to have to make the trek back, brave the Baklen and brave the portal, hoping it would take her back to where she needed to be, back to where she belonged before this got any harder.

Her first inkling that Nigel had followed her to the stream came when she finally sat up again and the water no longer deafened her to her surroundings. He stopped when she turned to look toward him, his feet braced, tension in every line of his body.

Her heart skipped several beats, but she could tell little about his expression.

Wondering if she had any reason to feel alarm, she surged upward, striding from the stream. He caught her shoulders as she neared him, pulling her against his length, his intent clear. She was still trying to decide whether or not she actually wanted what he was looking for when he slipped an arm around her shoulders and caught a fistful of her hair, tugging her head back and dipping down to suck a love bite along her throat almost in the same motion.

A shiver skated through her as heat and chill collided, the heat of desire and warmth of his body, the chilling caress of the wind along her damp back, but all thought of objecting fled. She embraced him tightly, holding herself against him.

She didn’t want to think anymore. She only wanted to feel what he made her feel when he stroked and caressed her body until she could no longer contain the rising tide of heat and it exploded in a crescendo of expended pleasure.

Twisting her head, she met the hunger of his mouth with her own hunger, arching against the hard ridge of flesh digging into her belly. His arms tightened around her almost crushingly and then he slipped the arm holding her shoulders downward, cupping her buttocks and lifting her against him.

She murmured a sound that was part pleasure part pain as her tender flesh rubbed almost bruisingly along what felt more like hardened steel than flesh. Breaking the kiss after only a moment, he shifted slightly away from her and dragged her down. Her head swam dizzily as he twisted, laying her back against her cloak and sprawling half atop her, his weight pressing the breath from her lungs.

Before she could recover it, he was kissing and caressing her almost feverishly, from shoulder, to breast, to belly. Fire poured through her, scouring her, shattering her mind into a swirling morass of threatening darkness. She gasped hoarsely, trying to drag air into her lungs against the crushing weight of sensations too intense and all encompassing to grasp or sort.

“Nigel! Oh god!”

He shifted upward from his exploration of her belly, silencing her with his mouth. The possessive rake of his tongue along hers, his essence, filled her, threw her further off kilter and out of control.

She gasped, clutching at him frantically as he broke the kiss and covered one breast, sucking and teasing the distended tip until she was nearly weeping with the intensity of the sensations colliding inside of her.

She dragged in a shaky breath of relief when he released it at last and moved down to explore her belly, but the respite was short lived. Before she’d even begun to grasp his intention, he had lifted her hips from the ground and covered her clit with the heat of his mouth. She jerked, tensing against the assault to her senses, but she found she couldn’t fight the rising tide of passion. Within moments it enveloped her. Her body peaked, began to convulse in hard shocks of release that dragged hoarse cries from her throat.

She was still shuttering and trembling in the aftershocks when he moved over her, thrusting into her in almost the same motion. Her body tightened against the intrusion, yielding reluctantly to his determined conquest and then receiving him at last when he drove deeply inside of her with another explosive climax that seemed to drain every modicum of strength from muscle, tissue and bone. She was hardly even conscious of the moment when he found his own surcease. Already floating in a sea of sated oblivion, she hardly registered when he went still at last, gasping harshly as he struggled to regain his own normal breathing and heart rate.

If it had not still been knocking against her eardrums frantically, she might have wondered if her heart had exploded with the force of her climaxes. She couldn’t even find the strength to lift her eyelids when he finally drew away to look down at her.

She began to sense that something wasn’t quite right as he watched her, but she was in no condition to figure out what the problem could possibly be. She was still marveling over the fact that she’d had two powerful climaxes in a row and lived through it when he finally got to his feet and left her.

Feeling rather like she’d just had a close encounter with a bus, she couldn’t even arouse enough emotion to feel particularly perturbed about his departure. After a few minutes, though, when he didn’t come back, she pushed herself up weakly and looked around.

Frowning when she saw no sign of him, gathering her strength, she got to her feet and wobbled back to the stream to bathe off. It took all she could do to gather enough strength to dress herself.

Contrary to her hope/belief, Nigel was not in the encampment when she returned and she began to feel the beginnings of doubt creeping in to banish her satisfaction. “Talk about a hit and run,” she muttered under her breath, moving to the fire and checking the food that had been left there to burn. It looked pretty inedible, but she was still feeling less than her usual springy self and the thought of starting another batch of the stew didn’t appeal to her. Using her cloak, she pulled the pot further from the fire and dug in Nigel’s satchel for a piece of the hard bread that was their dietary staple. Instead of digging out one of the mugs, she dipped the bread into the pot to moisten it enough to eat it. The stew, she discovered, didn’t just look and smell burned. It tasted burned.

She wasn’t really all that hungry, though.

Obviously, Josie decided when she’d finished her solitary meal, Nigel wanted to be alone. As tempting as it was to go in search of him and pick a fight with him if necessary to make him tell her what was wrong, she stifled the urge. She had no idea where he might be. For all she knew he could have shifted and taken to the air.

Besides, she had a fair idea of what was eating him and there didn’t seem to be much point in rehashing it.

Struggling to shrug off the depression that had begun to descend on her, she left the fire and lay down on the pallet, covering herself with her cape. To her surprise, she fell asleep almost at once.

She woke some time later, muttering a protest as Nigel gathered her against his body. “I am so sorry, mi sol, more deeply regretful than you could possibly know.”

Unwilling to allow him to arouse her from her comfortable cocoon of sleep, Josie patted him. “Z ok, cher. Go ta sleep,” she slurred, snuggling closer to him and drifting off again.

Chapter Nineteen

Josie felt as if her entire world had collapsed around her ears as she stared at the distant walled city of Caracaren. Of all the things she had expected to feel, devastation certainly wasn’t one of them and yet the moment they topped the rise and Nigel paused to stare into the distance, pointing toward the spires rising high above the city walls, a crushing weight of loss descended upon her.

The journey was over. With any luck at all she would be going home. She should have felt relief, tentative gladness that the trek, at least, was almost over. Instead of thinking of the comforts she’d left behind, and the security of knowing every day was going to be pretty much like the day before, though, she thought about never looking at Nigel’s face again, never feeling his body against hers, or the touch of his lips.

She struggled against the regret that was rolling over her already, but it was as useless as trying to stop the tides.

“I must leave you here while I go to Caracaren,” Nigel said at last, breaking into her morose thoughts.

She glanced at him questioningly. “Why?”

He swallowed with an effort, reluctant to tell her, but he knew he had to. He could not simply leave without giving her fair warning. “I wear the insignia of my office, Josephine, and yet all will know the moment they see me that I am not the duke they know. I can not simply walk into the castle of the king. I would be seized at once and imprisoned. I will have to use stealth if we are to have any chance at all of making contact with Goldenwing.”

The sorrow she had been drowning in already deepened, was joined by fear so cloying she felt nauseated. “Why didn’t you tell me before?” she asked numbly.

His lips tightened. “Because it had to be done, regardless of the risks. Because there were no options open to us, beyond risking the portal blindly. Because I made a promise to you.”

Josie stared at him for several moments and finally sank to the ground wearily. “Only imprisonment?”

“What?”

She looked up at him. “You’d tell me if there was more to it than that, wouldn’t you?”

He looked away. “The risks are minimal if I go alone.”

Josie struggled with the tears clogging her throat. “I’m not a fool, damn it! That is a military installation. They’ll think you’re a spy, or an assassin. They’ll kill you if you’re caught! ”

He knelt beside her. “Then it will be better if I am not caught.”

“What if I asked you not to?” she asked in a wobbly voice.

“Do not ask something of me that I can not do. We can not stay here, Josephine. Whether I go to look for Goldenwing or not, we are living on borrowed time. Sooner or later we would run afoul of someone who would question our presence here and if they know nothing about the portals then we could not convince them that we were not spies. Even if they know, we might not convince them we were only here by accident and they might not care even if they believed.

“I told you that there had been times when the dragon folk and humans were enemies. This is that time. In the early days of King Caracus, the animosity between the two clans boiled over and a great war erupted between them. When it was done, the last of mankind had vanished from these lands.

“It is for this reason that I slew the young bulls who came for you, instead of merely beating them and sending them on their way. I could not leave them alive or, once the heat had passed, they would have known what you were and they would have reported.

“We are fortunate to have come this far without incident beyond that.”

Josie stared at him in horror, not the least because it hadn’t occurred to her before that he’d killed the dragons he’d fought with. “You knew this? Why didn’t you say something before?”

His expression hardened. “Because I did not know, not until I had gone into Karacaren and heard the talk of war. You must stay here, and you must take care to stay out of sight. There are caves near here that I know where there will be little risk of discovery. If I do not return, you must go back the way we came and risk the portal we used before. Travel by day as we have.”

As distressed as she was by the turn of conversation, she was still a soldier and she swallowed the urge to fall apart and behave like an idiot. It wasn’t easy. Her thoughts were chaotic and more focused on what she might do to help him if Nigel didn’t return than on what to do for herself. “Wouldn’t it be safer to travel at night?”

He shook his head. “We see well by day, and better by night.”

Reaching for her hands, he drew her to her feet and led her to the edge of the low bluff where they stood, pointing to an outcropping of rock below them. “Beyond that formation there is a cavern, but it is easily missed because the opening is little more than a crack in the rock. It will be safe enough to have a small fire, but only a very small fire. There are enough supplies left for at least three days … possibly five if you are very careful with it, so do not wait for my return beyond sunrise tomorrow.

“You are clever, and resourceful, but avoid the villages. You will have to hunt wild game to see you through the trek back.

“The Baklen see very poorly in daylight and rarely travel except at night. So when you have reached that area, stay the night in the cavern where we first stayed if it is late in the day and strike out early so that you can reach the portal before dark.”

Josie struggled to remember everything, but the longer he spoke the more difficult it was. “You’re not expecting to come back, are you?”

He looked at her in consternation. “I will be back. I am only telling you this because it is foolish not to consider the possibility, not because I believe I can not do it. And I must know that I do not have to worry for you or I will have my mind on you and not on what I must do.” He hesitated. “Give me your word, Josephine, that you will do just as I have told you if I do not return for any reason.”

Josie bit her lip and looked away. “I’m not going to do anything stupid, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

He hooked a finger beneath her chin and forced her to look at him. “Your word of honor as a soldier.”

She lifted her chin stubbornly and looked away again. “I am a soldier, and well trained, not a helpless female. Our code is never leave a man behind. You’re asking me to run like a coward without even trying to do what’s right.”

He caught her arms, but instead of shaking her as she’d fully expected, he pulled her tightly against him. “You are carrying my son in your womb, Josephine Bloodragon. Grant me the peace of knowing beyond all doubt that you will protect our child.”

If he’d been angry and yelled at her, she could’ve withstood that. She found her defenses and her determination crumbling before his plea. She couldn’t even find it within herself to argue with his assumption that she was carrying his child, because she discovered that she hoped it was true, and because she knew he wanted reassurance that, no matter what happened, his line would not die out, even if it was corrupted by her genes.

He stroked a hand over the back of her head, smoothing her hair. “Do not believe that, mi sol, for it is not true. I rejoice each time I think about the mother of my child, for she is my love, motse d’mi koaer, the light of heart, and where ever she goes, she will dwell within my heart forever.”

Stunned, Josie pushed away to look up at him speechlessly.

He dipped his head then, kissing her soundly, but briefly, on the lips. “Tomorrow, mi sol,” he reminded her. “Do not linger here near Caracen any longer. I will meet you along the trail if I am delayed. I swear it on the soul of my sire, for I have promised to see you safely home and I will defy the gods to do it if necessary.”

Feeling strangely numb and bereft at the same time, Josie watched as he dropped the pack he’d been carrying, strode to the edge of the bluff, and transformed from man to dragon before her eyes. Lifting his great wings, he shot skyward. Within moments, he was lost completely to her sight, soaring high above the clouds.

Sniffing against the sting in her nose and eyes, she looked around a little vacantly and finally lifted the satchel he had left. Shouldering it, she moved to the edge of the bluff and studied the terrain until she saw a way down. The sun was already low in the sky by the time she reached the ground below and the formation Nigel had pointed out still seemed far away.

Fortunately, she was in too much emotional turmoil to really feel anything at all. Instead she functioned on autopilot, moving as quickly as she could toward the cave Nigel had told her about. She passed it four times before she finally realized the crack she kept looking at really was an opening. He had not exaggerated the size for she discovered she had trouble squeezing through it herself. A sliver of late afternoon sun still lit the interior, which she discovered was actually pretty shallow, and fortunately for her, completely unoccupied, probably because it was too shallow to offer much protection.

Weariness had chased away some of her turmoil and some of her shock by the time she’d reached the cavern, enough that she focused immediately on the gathering gloom. Dropping the packs, she hurried back outside to gather what she could to make a fire, pitching it through the opening and going back for more. By the time she decided she’d gathered enough to keep her fire going through the night, darkness was nearly upon her. Galvanized by that realization, she squeezed inside again and searched the packs frantically for something to light the fire with.

She shouldn’t have been surprised to find nothing, but she was.

Nigel hadn’t considered that she wasn’t a dragon and couldn’t simply make fire, but then there was no reason for him to think like that and she couldn’t spare the time to rant and rave. After a desperate search for flint turned up nothing resembling that rock, she settled beside the fire that wasn’t a fire and stared at the sticks she’d gathered.

She had no expectation that she could make fire with sticks, but she didn’t have anything to lose by trying. At least she’d seen it done and had some idea of how to go about it.

Whoever said TV wasn’t a good thing?

She was sweating profusely by the time she had generated enough heat with friction to produce a tiny puff of smoke and it felt as if her hands were on fire. Dropping the stick she’d been twirling between her palms, she lifted the one that she’d stuffed with dry moss and grass and blew on it until she thought she was going to pass out. She’d just decided she had been too optimistic when she saw a tiny spark of actual flame within the smoldering wad.

Her heart leapt with excitement. Setting the stick carefully on the cave floor again, she leaned down to coax it, blowing on the tiny flicker of light and carefully adding small pieces of dry grass until it had produced a flame about as big as she could’ve gotten with a lighter with the first flick of the flint.

She almost felt like leaping to her feet and dancing, however pathetic it was, because it was fire and it produced a tiny glow of light in the rapidly darkening cave. “Don’t guess I need to worry about having too big a fire,” she muttered tiredly when she’d babied it along until it was flickering merrily and still wasn’t putting out as much heat or light as a flashlight.

Sighing, she dragged the satchel close and dug around in it until she found a small piece of bread. She’d been too busy trying to get a fire going to think about finding anything to make a pallet with--not that there was a lot of vegetation around for that sort of thing. It had taken her a while to gather up something to burn.

From out of no where, the urge to cry swamped her again, stinging her eyes and nose. “Oh Nigel!” she whispered. “Please don’t get dead! Please, please don’t!”

Why hadn’t he told her before that he loved her? Why wait until it might be too late?

Sniffing, she rubbed her eyes and nose, trying not to think about his state of mind, or what sort of trouble he expected. He’d said he would come back for her. She had to believe that he believed that he would.

Why had he spoken as if he thought he might not, then?

Because she’d refused to swear she wouldn’t try to come after him, she realized. But did that mean it wasn’t true? Had he only said it to appeal to her motherly instincts?

She didn’t believe that. She wasn’t going to let herself believe that he wasn’t coming back. He’d only said it because he wanted her to know, in case he didn’t.

Was it even possible that she was pregnant? Or was that just wishful thinking on his part? Or maybe just the macho in him?

She set that aside. It was a possibility that she was because she sure as hell hadn’t used any self control or birth control, but that wasn’t the issue at the moment. Even if she was, she was so early in term she couldn’t tell it and it wasn’t something she needed to worry about at the moment.

She hadn’t promised him she wouldn’t go after him. She was days away from Caracen, though, and if she did set off in that direction in the morning instead of the opposite direction and Nigel caught up with her he was going to be seriously pissed off.

She shrugged. He would just have to be pissed off.

She wasn’t going to just turn tail and run if there was any chance that he might be imprisoned and leave him there to rot, or face torture and/or execution. She would have to at least attempt to get him out or she would never be able to live with herself.

He wouldn’t have even considered abandoning her.

She had no clue of how she would go about it, but she wasn’t going to get any ideas until she’d had a chance to study the place.

It was cold comfort, but it beat the hell out of contemplating returning by herself to the land of the Baklen and when she’d finished her cold meal she dragged the blankets out and curled up near her pathetic little fire and did her best to sleep.

Determination finally got her there, but she slept fitfully, for she’d grown accustomed to curling up beside Nigel and every movement in her sleep reminded her that he wasn’t there.

It was sunlight filtering into the cave that woke her the following morning. Sluggish from the minute amount of sleep she’d managed to get, Josie snuggled a little deeper into the blankets and tried to drift away again. Her mind was awake, though, even though her eyes were still gritty with the need for sleep and after a while she gave up.

The fire had burned out without even leaving smoldering coals. After poking at it with a stick a few times, she gave up, too weary even to consider trying to light another fire. Pulling a small piece from the last loaf of bread, she nibbled on it and chased it down with the tepid water in the skin.

The skin, she saw, was only about half full, but she wasn’t far from the river, and the river wound all the way to the city.

Gathering everything up and stowing it in the packs again, she left the cave and scanned the sky, hoping for some sign of Nigel. Disappointment and worry filled her when she didn’t see him, but she shouldered the packs and, after getting her bearings, headed toward the river. She’d slept late because the sun had been high before it spilled into the cave, and it was nearly noon by the time she reached the river. Deciding she wasn’t really hungry, she stopped to rest and refill the water bag.

After dawdling for almost an hour with no sign of Nigel, she realized she had to make a decision. Do as Nigel had asked? Or go after him?

It wasn’t much of a debate, really.

Grabbing the satchel, she emptied it on the ground and looked through it, carefully studying the contents. Some of it Nigel had bought simply because it increased their comfort level, but they could get by without it if they had to. After separating the contents into two piles, one for absolute essentials and one for not absolutely necessary, she bundled the discards in the blanket she’d been using to carry her clothes and found a place to hide it. If she came back this way and she had time to retrieve it, she would, she decided, but she didn’t have to lug it all the way to Caracen.

Returning the rest to the satchel, she slung the now full water bag over one shoulder and the satchel over the other and set out toward Caracen, periodically scanning the horizon and the sky overhead for any signs of threat. She had been walking for nearly an hour when she glanced up to check the sky again and saw a dark speck in the distance.

She’d already dismissed it and focused on the ground again when it clicked in her brain that it might not be a bird. When she glanced up to look again, the speck was no longer merely a tiny, dark spot. It was much closer, close enough that she could identify it as something very large and coming fast.

Adrenaline shot through her instantly, sending her heart and lungs into overdrive and she whipped around in a tight circle, searching for some place to hide. They’d left the marshes behind days earlier, though, and the rocky terrain offered little in the way of cover. She glanced toward the river but dismissed it. She didn’t want to go into the treacherous current unless there was no alternative. Compromising, she scrambled down the bank, crouched low and ran along the water’s edge until she found a shrub sprouting from beneath a rock that was perhaps half as big as she was. It wasn’t much cover, but she decided it would have to do since she didn’t have time to look for anything that might work better.

When she’d settled as close to it as she could get, she focused on calming her heart and scanning the sky. There was no longer any question in her mind of what it was when she spied the object in the sky again. It had gotten close enough now that she could make out enough details to assure her it was a dragon.

Hot and cold flashed through her. Nigel, she wondered, trying to tamp the hopefulness that surged through her?

As she strained to see if she could tell, she noticed something she hadn’t noticed before.

There were other dark specks on the horizon, nearly a half a dozen, and all of them were heading directly toward her.

Chapter Twenty

When Josie tore her gaze from the dragons in the distance, she discovered that the one she’d first seen was directly overhead. It clicked in her mind even as she saw the dragon above her bank and turn in a tight circle that dragon plus pursuit probably added up to Nigel.

Probably, but not necessarily.

She didn’t actually make a conscious decision. She simply leapt to her feet the moment it crossed her mind that it could Nigel. “Nigel! I’m here!”

Josephine? By the gods! What the fuck are you doing here?

Guilt instantly swept through her, but her relief was so profound to know that it was Nigel and that he appeared to be unhurt that she dismissed it as he ceased to circle overhead and dove toward her.

He came at her in a rush, swooping near the ground, one hand extended to grab her. The catch knocked the breath from her. Dizziness assailed her as she was swept off of her feet and then her stomach went weightless as he instantly began climbing again.

Her first thought, when she finally managed to catch her breath, was the pursuit, and she craned to see if they were gaining and if so, how much. “What happened?”

“I could not risk speaking to Goldenwing. The palace was full of men-at-arms and if he had decided to sound the alarm, I would not have been able to get out again. I had the devil of a time getting in to begin with. Instead, I searched his quarters and stole his notes.

“I did not manage to get out of the palace without detection.

“Why are you here and not where you should be? I have led them to you, little fool!”

Josie sent him a look that was one part guilt and two parts outrage. “You couldn’t have honestly believed I was just going to leave you to rot in that place?”

He uttered a growl of frustration. “I can not elude them with you and I can not risk a battle with you.”

Josie swallowed against the sick feeling that welled in her throat, realizing she’d seriously screwed up and endangered both of them. She still didn’t think she’d made the wrong decision. It was the only one she could have made, but it had jeopardized their position. “Find a defensible position, then, and we’ll fight them.”

Nigel sent her a speculative glance. After a long pause, he pulled her close, cradling her against his chest. “I would rather risk the portal than take you into battle. There are six seasoned bulls behind me. These are not young, untried males as those were that I fought before. I might have a chance if there were half the number--might.”

He banked abruptly, his decision obviously made, and headed northward. Josie didn’t try to argue, but it disoriented her that he headed north instead of south where the only portal she knew about lay. “Where are we going?”

“Goldenwing notes a cluster of portals north of Mont Kilean. These are all that he has discovered thus far--I did not know of them myself.”

A cluster? Portals going where? All going to Earth? Some going there and some god only knew where? The thought unnerved her, but as she glanced back to see how close the dragons were that were pursuing them, she realized Nigel was right. They didn’t have a choice. Fighting to the death wasn’t a choice, it was what one did when one ran out of choices.

If Nigel hadn’t brought her through she wondered if his life would be in danger now. He’d spoken as if he was just as much at risk in this time as she was, but she didn’t believe that. If she hadn’t been with him and he hadn’t been determined to protect her he could’ve blended into the populace without any problem.

She doubted he would have considered the risk of trying the portal until he found his own time and place if she hadn’t been with him. Or he would’ve looked for another one, instead of going to Caracen to seek Goldenwing’s advice.

These are foolish thoughts, mi sol. You are guilty of nothing--save ignoring my wishes. As much pleasure as it gives me to know that you were willing to try to rescue me, your first responsibility is to the babe, for it is helpless and completely dependent upon you. I am not helpless. I would have found a way to return to you even if they had captured me.

“I know you’re not helpless! Not ordinarily, but you can’t take on an entire army by yourself.”

I am not without guile, mi sol. Do I seem so brutish to you that you can not imagine that I have resources beyond my strength and skills as a warrior?

Amusement threaded the thought even though it was chiding, but Josie blushed anyway. “I wasn’t suggesting you didn’t have brains to back up the brawn, but sometimes everything you’ve got isn’t enough. Sometimes a person needs help, even if they’re almost nauseatingly perfect--big and strong and a great fighter, and brilliant, besides being drop dead gorgeous.”

A rumble vibrated his chest and Josie realized he was laughing. “You think I am nauseatingly perfect?”

“No, I only said that because I could tell your ego needed stroking,” Jose retorted dryly.

He dipped abruptly toward the ground and Josie’s heart clenched--everything on her clenched, and she clutched at his arms a little frantically. His hold on her tightened. A moment later he lit on a wide plateau and set her on her feet.

Feeling more than a little wobbly kneed, Josie braced herself and turned to scan the sky for the dragons pursuing them. Her heart leapt into her throat when she saw how close they were.

“Nigel!” she gasped, groping for him blindly.

“I know,” he said tightly.

When she turned, she saw that he had shifted and was studying a long scroll. “Now is a hell of a time to decide to not be a dragon!”

He was frowning at the scroll and didn’t even look up. “I am far too clumsy on the ground in dragon form.”

“Yes, but ….” Josie stammered as the first dragon landed on the edge of the plateau little more than twenty yards from them. “They’re here!”

He glanced up then. Shoving the scroll into the waist of his loincloth, he grabbed her arm. “By the gods! I don’t know which to try but we’ve no time to pick and choose,” he growled, hauling her along behind him as he raced across the plateau.

Josie stumbled at the sudden jerk, righted herself with an effort and shifted into high gear to try to keep pace with him, fleeing blindly as two more dragons lit behind them. They were virtually upon the lip of the plateau before her mind registered it.

“Oh my fu…!” she gasped as he dove off the edge toward the jagged rocks far below them, yanking her with him.

Time and motion seemed to freeze abruptly. A cold slimy sensation washed over her and then she sprawled on an unyielding surface so hard it knocked the breath out of her. “… cking god!” she grunted.

When she managed to push herself up, she froze. They were on the plateau they’d just jumped off of and directly across from them stood one of the biggest dragons she’d seen. It was nearly twice the size of the other three surrounding it.

“It spat us right back where we were before!” she gasped, too stunned to grasp it.

“Not quite,” Nigel muttered in a low, rumbling growl. “That one is a female … and she is in season.”

Still thoroughly disoriented, Josie turned to gape at Nigel. He was in dragon form once more, but that only confused her more.

A roar that made the rocks beneath her feet tremble and rattled her ear drums brought her head snapping around to the group on the other end of the plateau. “Find cover!” Nigel roared, nudging her. The nudge sent her sprawling, but she scrambled to her feet before she’d fully touched down as a wall of fire came toward her.

Screaming, she ran without any thought of where she was going beyond escaping the searing heat of that blast. It wasn’t until she’d plastered herself behind a boulder that she discovered Nigel hadn’t followed her.

He hadn’t because the bull that had bellowed the challenge at him was in the process of trying to stomp the life out of him. Frozen for many moments with shock and fear, comprehension was slow to filter into her brain.

They were in the same place, but definitely not in the same time, she reasoned finally. The female was in season. The bulls had gathered to fight for a mating and they’d decided Nigel was one of the contenders.

The big question was, was he?

That thought was enough to pierce her stunned disbelief and Josie inched to the edge of the boulder and peered around it.

The female, apparently impatient to be mounted, had assumed the position and was waving her ass enticingly while the males tried to kill each other. Weaving through the heaving fighters on all fours, she swished her long tail and then lifted and curled it over her back.

Josie’s eyes narrowed on the female. “Horny slut,” she muttered, realizing that the female was trying to incite the males by waving her stuff at them and driving them mad with her scent.

She slid a glance at Nigel, wondering if he was an innocent bystander caught up in the mating ritual or if he was as maddened by the female’s scent as the others were. She would’ve liked to have dismissed the thought as purely ridiculous, but she remembered the way he’d behaved before and she wasn’t even a dragon.

Maybe the mating thing really didn’t count since she wasn’t, she thought abruptly, feeling a mixture of anger and dismay filtering into her that ousted the shock and fear.

He had professed all sorts of adoration for her, the skunk! What the hell was he doing out there fighting over another piece of tail?

Almost on that thought, she saw that the female had worked her way over to Nigel and paused to give him a really good look at the goods. “Save it, you fucking bitch!” she yelled. “He’s taken!”

Considering the roaring, growling and crashing going on, she wouldn’t have thought it possible even to make her voice heard over all the ruckus. But it was like one of those moments when the music abruptly stopped the moment one yelled to be heard over it.

The silence was almost deafening and Josie could hear her voice echoing off the nearby mountains for miles into the distance.

Nigel was the first to react, shoving his opponent backwards by driving his elbow into the dragon’s snout. His opponent, caught completely off guard since he was staring at Josie as if he’d been turned to stone, fell backwards, knocking the male behind him down on top of the dragon he’d been fighting.

The female was the second to recover, and obviously outraged that Josie had had the nerve to join her party. She belched a wall of flame that scorched Nigel’s backside and nearly singed Josie’s eyebrows before she could leap for cover. She leapt to her feet, however, the moment the flame disappeared, certain Nigel was right behind her.

He wasn’t. When she dared a peek around the rock, she saw he’d sprawled out inches from where she stood when the female had launched herself at him and grabbed him by one leg.

She didn’t have time to think. If she had, she might have thought better of it. The only thing running through her mind, however, was that she wasn’t going anywhere without Nigel and by the time Nigel managed to free himself from that hulking horny bitch’s grasp, the males would’ve recovered enough to launch another attack for even now they were brawling with one another for dominance.

Uttering a growl of rage, she grabbed her sword and leapt onto Nigel’s back, using him like a springboard to launch her toward the female. The intention, which had hardly jelled, was only to slice the hand the female held Nigel with since the blade looked like a toothpick compared to the size of the female dragon.

Execution of the plan didn’t quite go as expected.

The blade connected, nearly paralyzing her arm and her impetus sent her flying onward. She slammed into the female’s chest and bounced back toward Nigel like a ping pong ball. He caught her, crushed her to his chest and lumbered past the boulder Josie had been hiding behind.

She’d barely managed to catch her breath when she felt the familiar sense of frozen time and space as they passed through another portal. The smell and taste of fresh cut grass, or rather plowed up grass, filled her nose and mouth as she skidded to a halt. It took her several moments to realize the ringing she was hearing in her ears wasn’t ringing at all.

It was sirens.

And the blackness wasn’t blindness or semi-consciousness.

It was night.

Nigel had already managed to get to his feet by the time she staggered to hers and looked around. A spotlight blinded her. She shielded her hand with her eyes, catching a glimpse of a half a dozen men and trucks behind the spotlight.

Not men. Armed soldiers, jeeps--and in the darkness behind them hangers, barracks.

“What the fuck?”

“Do you see that?”

“What the hell is it?”

“Shoot! Fire! Fire! Fire!”

Nigel hadn’t had time to shift before he’d dove into the portal.

“Don’t shoot!” Josie yelled, instantly brought to the realization that they’d not only returned to her world and her time, they’d landed virtually on the heels of when they’d left--or maybe moments before she had left?

Either her shout was unheard or they just didn’t care that she was standing between them and Nigel. She heard the pop of a rifle and almost instantaneously a bullet whizzed past her head. Nigel grunted at the impact as it slammed into his chest, closed one great hand around her and bolted toward the trees.

The forest around them grew darker as they left the blinding floodlight behind, the trees and shrubs blurring with the speed of Nigel’s progress. When the sound of gunfire had dulled with distance, Nigel halted and turned. Inhaling deeply, he drew a semi-circular wall of fire between them and their pursuit, flapping his wings to build the wall higher and send the flames crawling back in the direction from which they’d come.

It would hold the men off, but not long, Josie knew. “Shift, Nigel! For god sake do it quick before they catch up to us!” she gasped as he set her on her feet a few moments later, steadying her before he settled heavily to the ground beside her, one hand clamped to his chest.

“I can not. My bulk and flesh have protected me from the worst of it. The spearhead in my chest will kill me if I shift now and I can not heal nearly as quickly,” he ground out, uttering a pained grunt as he pushed a finger into the hole, trying to dig the bullet out.

She hadn’t fully registered until that moment that the bullet that had missed her had plowed into him instead. As rattled as she was, his comments immediately brought cold, hard reason to the forefront. She didn’t try to explain that it was a bullet. It didn’t matter what it was beyond life threatening. A sob escaped her. “How bad is it?” she asked fearfully, surging toward him and trying to pull his hand away so that she could see his wound in the light from the fire behind them.

“It will heal.”

“You’re not just saying that? It’s not deep? It’s just a flesh wound?”

He dropped the bullet to the ground beside her, breathing a sight of relief. “I heal quickly, mi sol.”

She swallowed at the endearment, dashing the tears from her eyes to examine the wound. Relief flooded her when she saw that the wound didn’t look deep at all and was only bleeding sluggishly. Reassured that he wasn’t in any immediate danger from the wound, her mind instantly leapt to the more certain danger--the men who’d answered the call when she’d radioed in the breech in security. They’d seen Nigel, gotten a really good look at him. There was no way they were going to just abandon the search, fire or no fire, and if they caught him in their sights again, they were going to fill him full of holes. “The portal. Can you reach it?”

He nodded, pushing himself to his feet again. “It is here.”

“Go! Before they catch up!” she said anxiously, yelling over the sound of gunfire that she knew was probably drowning out the movements of the troops advancing on them through the woods. ‘Clumsy’ in his dragon form or not, Nigel’s size and speed had put a good distance between them and the soldiers very quickly, but she knew they didn’t have much time regardless before the men were close enough to get a bead on him through the blaze that separated them.

Nigel knew it too. She saw it in his eyes when he lifted his head to stare back toward the advancing men and finally returned his gaze to her. “You will be alright if I leave you?” he demanded harshly, doubt threading his voice.

‘If I leave you’ echoed through her mind, the words agonizingly painful. “Me?” she sobbed, abruptly as crushed by the realization that he had fulfilled his vow to return her to her home as she was worried about his wound. “You’re the one they shot! And you’re not going to get the chance to heal if they catch you here. Go! Be safe! They’re not after me.”

He studied her for what seemed an endless time and yet the moment passed far too quickly. “It breaks my heart to leave you here, mi sol. Take care of our son.”

Chapter Twenty One

Josie was so blinded by the tears filling her eyes and running down her cheeks she could barely make out his form in the semi-darkness as he turned away from her abruptly and ran toward what appeared to be nothing more than a thicket of brambles. She dashed the moisture from her eyes, trying to drag in a breath, feeling as if something was crushing her chest as she watched him go, squeezing the life out of her. Even as she saw him bend his knees to launch himself toward the portal, she burst into a run, racing after him. He was already disappearing as she sprang forward, one arm extended to grab hold of him.

Her fingers closed around his foot a split second before the wall of nothingness she’d grown all too familiar with surrounded her. Loose sand cushioned her impact when she landed on the other side, but she managed to catch a mouthful as she rolled to a stop, gasping for air.

Spitting the grit out and wiping at her mouth, she sat up and looked around. As she’d suspected, they appeared to have landed in the same desert where they’d landed the first time they’d crossed from her world to his.

“Well shit! We’re back in the damned desert!”

Nigel, who still lay where he’d landed and had been staring down at her in disbelief began to shake and then to chuckle out loud. Shifting from dragon to man, he swooped down on her and scooped her into his arms, hugging her crushingly and then leaning down to nuzzle his face against hers. “We are home, mi sol!”

Josie sniffed, mopping at the tears and sand that covered her cheeks. “You’re sure?” she asked doubtfully. “A hoard of Baklen aren’t going to come stampeding over the dune yonder?”

He leaned away, lifting his chin at something behind her. “I am certain. We are in no danger here, for these lands are mine. That is the Fortress d’Sarcen, home of the Duke of Sarcen … and his Duchess.”

Josie turned to look. In the distance, she saw an enormous fortress gleaming in the light of Atar’s moons. Perched atop a rocky hilltop, it almost seemed to sprout from the rock. Dismissing it after only a moment, she pushed away from Nigel and examined his chest. “It’s closed,” she murmured in surprise. “It isn’t even bleeding now.”

Nigel said nothing for several moments. “It still hurt like hell.”

Josie looked up at him in surprise, tilting her head at him questioningly.

“You came to make certain I was not hurt badly?”

Josie studied him seriously. “I couldn’t have stood not knowing.”

He looked torn by her response. “At least this time you came because you wanted to,” he said wryly.

“You weren’t interested in the female, were you? Because if you are I can go back.”

He looked taken aback, then outraged, and then amused. After a moment, he placed a palm on either side of her face and kissed her with a thoroughness that made her weak. “She was magnificent,” he said pensively when he had cuddled her against his chest again.

Josie pulled away to glare at him.

“But my heart had already been won,” he added hastily, and then began to chuckle. “I can not believe that did not make it into the history books. I am sure it is the first and only time that a female challenged another female in combat for her mate.”

Josie blushed to the roots of her hair. She’d hoped that, in the heat of the moment, Nigel had been too distracted to remember what she’d yelled. “Well, you are taken, aren’t you?”

“Most definitely and irrevocably, mi sol.” His amusement faded. “You are fortunate you came off from it unscathed. I will beat you if you ever do anything that dangerous again.”

Josie’s brows rose. She laughed in disbelief. “You and who’s army?”

“You are an audacious speck of humanity!” Nigel growled, and then swallowed thickly. “You will do no such a thing again because your adoring mate will languish and die if I were to lose the motse d’mi koaer.”

Subdued by that, she studied him soberly for several moments and finally leaned to brush her lips against his. “I love you, too,” she murmured. “I don’t think I realized how much until I saw you leaving. I knew then that I might be able to live without you, but I didn’t want to.” She settled against him, content to just be held and relish the peace of the moment. “You’re sure we’re in the right place and time now?” she asked after a while.

He shrugged. “We are in the time that I should be, for I built yon fortress in my youth for the mate I would one day bring to it--you--and it looks much as it did when I left.” He studied the landscape keenly for several moments. “The season has changed. Come, we will go and see what we can discover, and bathe the grime of our travels from ourselves.”

A greeting party of a half dozen men-at-arms met them before they’d gone far. Josie was immediately alarmed when she saw the dark shapes drop from the top of the walls of the fortress and spread their great wings. She glanced at Nigel uneasily. His gaze was focused upon the warriors flying toward them at incredible speed, but she didn’t sense any tension in him.

He smiled abruptly. “It is Jon Goldenwing, captain of the guard,” he said finally.

Josie frowned. “You can tell from here? My god, your eyes are good!”

He chuckled. “Aye, but I had no need to. He identified himself.”

“Telepathically?”

Nigel pulled her to a stop and caressed her cheek. “We use this to communicate over distances, and we can not even do so always, or with everyone. You have not come to live in a world that will be silent to you. Very different from what you are used to, yes, but not so different you can not grow accustomed.

“And the name is no mere coincidence. He is the grandson of the Goldenwing I sought out to find our way home. This is why I knew of the portals, for they are not common knowledge.”

“Your grace!” the warrior in the lead exclaimed as he shifted and dropped to the ground a few yards away, sinking to one knee in a deep bow immediately and executing a salute by crossing one arm over his chest and slamming his fist to his upper chest. “We had nigh despaired of your return!”

Nigel tensed. “The queen?”

The man lifted his head to stare at him in surprise. “Well, your grace. Delivered of a beautiful daughter not two months since.” He grinned abruptly. “Your niece.”

Nigel’s face went perfectly blank. “Damien?” he asked sharply.

“Besotted with his queen,” Jon Goldenwing offered, grinning broadly. “And from what I hear, Queen Kahlia is equally pleased with her Consort.”

As curious as she was about the conversation conducted in their language and completely incomprehensible to her except for the tones and the body language, Josie contained her curiosity until they reached the Fortress and she and Nigel were alone in his living quarters.

She did not, in fact, get around to asking him about the conversation until a good deal later. The Fortress came as a stunning surprise. It had all the opulence and charm of old world grandeur and all of the convenience of a civilization that was in many ways the technological equal of her own world, and in some ways more advanced.

Save for the security doors that opened off of the ramparts into the Fortress proper and required voice recognition to be opened, the interior doors opened to them at their approach and closed behind them again soundlessly. The corridor they traversed to reach Nigel’s quarters was so huge their footsteps echoed along it, which Josie thought an outrageous waste of space until it dawned on her that she was among a people for whom much space was necessary. They were dragon folk. Obviously they thought in terms of their size as dragons when they built for once she considered it that way, she could see that as huge as the corridors were, they were only reasonably spacious for passage of dragon folk in their dragon forms.

Nigel’s quarters were almost intimidating, both in the spaciousness of his apartments and the grandeur. Drapes and mounds of pillows in autumn colors softened the coldness of stone walls and floors, and vast ceilings. The furnishings were of some species of wood and lavishly ornamental with carvings.

The bed, separated from the main room by sheer hangings, was proportionate to its surroundings, which was to say enormous, probably half again as big as a king sized bed, Josie decided.

The bath, she discovered to her absolute delight, was everything she could’ve hoped for and nothing like she’d expected. It went well beyond mere modern conveniences. The ‘tub’ was the size of a small pool and deep enough she could’ve swam in it if it was fully filled. Constructed of polished stones, it was cunningly designed to appear almost like a natural pool and waterfall she discovered when she and Nigel had stripped and descended the steps.

Like the doors that opened automatically as they reached them, the moment they stepped into the pool, water began to cascade from the stone walls around them. Surprised, Josie jumped when the water hit her.

Nigel’s dark brows rose. “Too hot?”

Josie thought it over. “Maybe a little.”

“Cooler.”

Immediately, the water temperature changed. “Its voice activated?” Josie asked, trying not to look like an awestruck country bumpkin that had just discovered running water.

“Umm,” Nigel responded a little absently, pulling her against his body and stroking his hands over her. Immediately distracted from her curiosity about the workings of the bath, Josie yielded to the allure of a leisurely bath and mutual exploration.

By the time they emerged, neither of them was in any mood to delay longer. Still damp, they tumbled onto the huge bed together and appeased their appetite for one another in the desperate haste of a need pushed to the limits.

As they entangled in the sheets and with each other afterwards, drifting in sated bliss toward sleep, Josie recalled the meeting outside the fortress.

“What was it that Jon Goldenwing told you?” she murmured against his chest, which she was using for a pillow.

Nigel had been stroking his hand along her back in a slow, rhythmic caress but at that he paused. “The queen has borne an heir.”

Josie stiffened and lifted her head to look at him as that announcement connected in her sluggish mind. “We didn’t come back at the time you left?”

“Apparently not,” he said wryly. “The princess has been crowned queen, taken a consort, and borne her heir.”

Josie settled again after a moment. “You are--upset--that you weren’t here to help your queen?”

He shrugged. “That depends upon whether or not she is upset that I was not here to help her.”

“You think she might be,” Josie asked uneasily.

“I think we must go to see her and find out.”

Josie was more inclined to think they should find out before they went.

“If she is angry, I can always appeal to my brother for his intervention.”

Her brows rose. “I didn’t even know you had a brother. You think he has a lot of influence with her?”

He smiled at her. “In point of fact, two. It is Damien of whom I spoke. And, as he is reasonably fond of his eldest brother, and the queen seems fond of him, then I am not too concerned. Somewhat disappointed, and immensely deflated that I was not more closely involved in seating her on her throne, but not unduly worried.”

Josie considered it for a while, but she couldn’t dismiss the anxieties than began to gnaw at her. “Do you regret that you were with me instead of here where you were needed?”

Nigel surged upward, rolling her onto her back. “I will always be deeply grateful for the kind hand of fate that took me to you. You can not even begin to comprehend how deep my love for you is or you would have no doubts.”

***

Exhausted but triumphant, Josie relaxed limply against the pillows, breathing a peaceful sigh of relief as the pain finally left her, smiling faintly as she heard a choked cry. The bed dipped as Nigel settled beside her and laid a wriggling bundle carefully across her chest.

Josie saw when she opened her eyes that Nigel looked as gray with pain and fatigue as she felt. Concern wafted through her even as she gathered the bundled infant into her arms and guided him to her breast.

Nigel rolled onto his side and used his arm and fist as a prop so that he could watch their son feed. Lifting his other hand, he stroked the baby’s soft cheek. The baby paused in his greedy suckling long enough to glare at the hand disturbing him and Nigel chuckled.

“You look as washed out and weak as I feel,” Josie murmured, mildly amused and Nigel transferred his gaze from the baby to her, studying her for a long moment.

“Because I feel the same,” he said after a moment. “Did you not sense that I was there, with you?”

She frowned, trying to remember back, but she was so exhausted, and she had been in such pain that she hardly knew where she was. “I heard you in my mind,” she said finally. “You’re saying you felt the birth pains? Why would you choose to do that?”

He smiled faintly, shaking his head. “To bond as closely to my son as to my dearly beloved mate,” he said simply. “It is the way of the dragon folk, mi sol.”

The End