Page 281 of Hunters and Prey

“The last one is a Kalan from Draga,” she told him, even if she suspected he knew all this and was simply testing her. “Fertile, strong…the only thing these three males have in common is that they seem to possess the same cellular structure that happens to the Drakesthai when they are mated. Which is unusual considering their race and that Kalans and Corinthians don’t have mates.”

Chiara frowned. Three races from three different systems. Yet these males had one other thing in common aside from their ancestry.

She looked up at Ian – trapped for a moment by his amethyst eyes. All Draga royals were born with purple eyes. Then Chiara dropped her gaze, acknowledging the slightly more dominant male.

The reactions were bred into her. The genes so strong she couldn’t deny them. It was how the Ancients, the humans of old, wanted them to be. Part of the animalistic nature brought back in force, designed to create a wolf-like society.

Prince Ian was silent as he studied the shreve with her, both of them lost in their own thoughts. Whether he noticed her submission or not, Chiara wasn’t sure. Working with a royal was strange – and a royal who didn’t enforce protocol was even stranger.

Chiara hadn’t spent enough time around Princess Adelina to really be able to compare before she became the Queen of the Draga System.

“Have there been any tests done on the Neprijat?” Ian asked suddenly.

She shook her head and expanded on the genetic make-up of the Corinthian. “None have been brought here for us to study. I also believe Queen Adelina wanted us to focus on curing the Drakesthai sterility. I haven’t received any other orders.”

The prince hummed a bit as he thought, watching the way she flicked through the various different tests.

Chiara wanted to understand what this disease was more than anything else she’d ever worked on before. There were so few uncured diseases in Draga that there were millions of physicians working on each one. She’d been transferred to work on hypomalarya with Prince Ian after she had successfully found a cure for the neurodegenerative disease Cerve-Mattal.

But they all hadn’t been fast enough. The king had died before anything could be found to cure him.

That she was even here, working on this new disease, was thanks to the prince. His letter of recommendation was how she’d gotten a place on one of Queen Adelina’s starships. Chiara would forever be grateful for that – even if his demands grated on her nerves.

“Prince Ian, are these tests from the Queen’s husbands?” Chiara asked. She didn’t look at him so she wouldn’t trigger his protective instincts. But she had to know. She was straightforward to a fault. Subtlety hadn’t been something she’d been able to learn.

Chiara had spent most of her life working with medicine to avoid the minefields of humanity, politics, and protocol and yet here she was rubbing elbows with royalty.

“Yes,” Prince Ian said with a sigh. “I’m trusting you with intel that only a few know the truth of. Drakesthai aren’t the only ones with mates. Courtesans of Draga mate as well. But it is a very well-kept secret the courtesans don’t want known as it isn’t quite the same as it is for the dragons.” He flicked another genetic workup from his shreve to hers.

Chiara’s eyes widened when she studied it, recognizing the royal genes right away. But there were anomalies she hadn’t expected. “This explains a lot,” she finally said. “I won’t say a word on the subject other than to you.”

Queen Adelina had three parents thanks to some fancy in utero work. And one of them was a courtesan…no doubt the same courtesan that mothered Prince Ian. That was how the queen’s scent seemed to change so subtly. How she was dominant even though she smelled of night-blooming jasmines.

Chiara laughed as the knowledge sent neurons firing. She flicked back to the three males. Oh, how she loved puzzles.

“So the queen is mated to all three males. How fascinating.” Her mind raced as it catalogued the new information, compared it to what she already knew, and how that could work with the Drakesthai. Puzzle pieces flicked in and out of place as she considered all that could be done to further test and cure the Drakesthai.

“This mating isn’t the priority,” Prince Ian reminded her. “But I thought perhaps it might help to see how the mate bond can affect all races. Apparently per Prince Kaiden, non-Drakesthai reciprocate the mate bond because of the changes the Drakesthai pheromones have on their mate’s biology. I wonder if the disease is affecting the pheromones, which could be part of the problem.”

Chiara shook her head as she encrypted the files on the queen and her mates. She flicked a finger and put those away, the hologram dissolving. Then she selected another file. “These are all the tests I’ve run on the ones who are mated. The pheromones don’t seem to be affected. All mates react the same regardless of race. The changes from the mate bond are what trigger the fertility, not the pheromones.”

Prince Ian harrumphed as he took the shreve from her. “I still think it’s a good idea to do more studies on the effects of the pheromones.”

Chiara had to clench her teeth together to keep her mouth shut. She already knew the prince thought her…argumentative. The few times they’d worked together she’d managed to slip at least once, and it was something she was trying to work on.

They couldn’t afford to fight amongst themselves when the Neprijat were so busy trying to wipe them all out.

It was why Chiara was in the Hai System in the first place.

When Queen Adelina was just a princess, she had been desperate to find a solution to the Neprijat scourge. She’d sponsored the usurped Prince of Khara and got her father to grant him sanctuary to honor their alliance when most of the royals had wanted to send him away.

With the livestream constantly giving the people of the kingdom a view into the royal family’s lives and the politics constantly working to keep things running – Chiara had watched a quiet, shy, submissive princess make a stand for something.

And so when there had been a request for physicians to travel with Princess Adelina to the Hai System where their survival could not be guaranteed…Chiara had decided to make a stand as well and had requested a letter of recommendation from Prince Ian.

Chiara would not hide in the Core of Draga when there was something she could do to help their people – to possibly find a way to survive the war that was coming. Because without the Drakesthai warriors on their side, Chiara could clearly see the facts…Draga would not survive the war with the Neprijat.

So to gain that alliance, Queen Adelina had promised to cure the dragons’ sterility after a very...heated discussion.

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