Page 9 of Consorting with Dragons

I could hardly stand to admit it to myself.

The Lycans had notified us days earlier that they had received word that a large crate containing a vetami egg was going to be transferred on their docks and we had arrived the day before to meet the thieves when they arrived. It was a large, ready-to-hatch egg, according to their sources and it supposedly “belonged” to King Travon of Thalios. He had sold the egg to a third party, they said, and that person or his agent was coming to pick it up.

On Horvath, we had known about Travon of Thalios and his vetamis for years. In fact, he was my cousin, the son of my late father’s youngest brother, though I’d never actually met either of them. I’d never had any desire to meet them. His father and my uncle, a man named Illios, had been entirely disreputable. He had married the queen of Thalios long ago in an arranged marriage. The queen had tragically died of “food poisoning” not long after their son Travon was born, and Illios had then installed himself as Regent for the infant. Illios proved to be a harsh ruler, and there was a short-lived coup attempt later on by what was left of the old Thalian army after he got through with it. Illios had prevailed against it, however, creating his own army of mercenaries and he kept his office.

When he had first gone to Thalios, Illios had taken six vetami with him without permission from Horvath. From what we knew, he had, over the years, managed to build his own stock of vetami, and they numbered around twenty-five or thirty beasts from what our spies had been able to report. It didn’t seem like much, but Vetami eggs took years to hatch, and vetami weren’t prolific beasts by any means anyway. It was one reason they’d landed on the endangered species list.

Worst of all, he had taken all of the very rare Golden vetami left on Horvath. Goldens had always been scarce, and therefore more valuable. It seemed as if he’d taken every one capable of breeding with him.

Travon hadn’t assumed the role of king, however, until after the death of Illios, about ten years ago.

The Parliament of Horvath had declined to make an issue about the vetami Illios had stolen from us. But they did agree to keep a close eye out for any trafficking of the eggs or the young vetami themselves, and Travon had been sternly warned against trying to sell or breed them. The very fact that there was an egg at all was illegal, as he had been told not to breed any of themwithout permission. We offered again and again to purchase the eggs from him, but he continued to refuse. King Davos himself had agreed to step in if it became necessary, and it seemed, with this latest stunt, that it was. Travon was flirting with rebellion too, and we’d heard the increasing rumors of King Davos’s patience wearing thin.

Travon’s presence here on Lycanus 3 delivering “his” egg was a direct violation of the law, and I intended to report him right away and see if I couldn’t hurry the process along. If I had my way, I would have arrested him today for the violation, but once he’d made it back to his ship. I didn’t want to involve the Lycans in his removal and arrest. Travon was a thief, plain and simple, and a troublemaker. I wondered what it was that he’d meant to accomplish by selling the Moravian king this egg. He was the kind of man who would always have some nefarious scheme in mind. Having seen the beautiful prince, I now had a good idea of what that might be. Travon was probably hoping to marry the young man and gain favor and power as Davos’s grandson-in-law.

We had petitioned for rights over all the vetami years ago, just after the war, when so many eggs and young hatchlings were being stolen by Axis and Alliance soldiers. They were not only stealing our heritage but a valuable asset of our moon, and thankfully, King Davos had agreed.

All of this was racing through my mind and jealousy swept over me to think of Travon even touching the boy. Was this brash, gorgeous young man guilty of anything except bad judgment? I didn’t think he was. He’s said something about his father sending him to pick up the egg, so I was holding out hope for the fact that he’d been caught up in something that wasn’t his fault. I fully intended to find out for sure.

But despite the outcome, his fate was already sealed. I would never let him go. I’d try to negotiate a marriage contract,but if that failed for some reason, I’d take him and go to the Narvathian Mountains, so wild and so remote that we’d never be found. Tracking equipment didn’t work up there because of the magnetic fields that covered the area, and it was well known throughout the galaxy as a place a man could hide out indefinitely.

Hopefully, it would never come to that extreme. I was not only the Marshal General of Horvath, and related by marriage to the queen, but my grandfather had been a former king of Horvath, so I was a royal in my own right. I didn’t think the boy’s family would turn down my marriage offer.

I fell down in my chair, exhausted by the morning’s excitement, and wondering what the hell I was going to do now. I didn’t want a mate and had no business having one—especially a young man like this one, who was so loud, so belligerent, and so rather extraordinarily beautiful that having a mate like him would demand far too much of my time and attention. It wasn’t anything I wanted or needed. But it looked as if I were trapped by this damn mating bond.

That morning in the warehouse, the scent of him had hit me from across the room. It was sweet and compelling—and so intense that it made my knees a little weak. But I tried to ignore it at first. I began to breathe through my mouth, because I had an awful feeling that I knew what this was, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. Not that there was ever a good time for the fucking mate bond, but I was hoping against hope that I was mistaken and one of the men in this place simply smelled incredibly good.

Of course, I knew the truth, but at the time, I was in deep denial.

The moment I’d seen him, however, I felt that pain in my stomach that people said came along with the bond. It infuriated me, and as I got up closer and more personal to him, thatridiculously sweet scent continued to hit me hard. He began shouting at me at one point and my brain was screaming “mate” at me, but I was determined to ignore it and keep denying it. And I did pretty well, considering. I didn’t like the others touching him, but I was all right until he pulled that damn disruptor, and I had to disarm him. The moment I put my hands on him, I was lost.

I didn’t have to treat him the way I did, but by that time I’d seriously lost all reason anyway. Thank the gods he hadn’t tried to run from me. I came to my senses fairly quickly and got him up to his feet, wrapping my cape around him to hide his nearly naked body from prying eyes. I was shaking as I realized that some small part of me was thinking of mating him right then and there. Like a Lycan wolf, determined to have its way.

I didn’t strictly consider myself to be a Lycan—no Horvathian ever did. The truth, of course, was that we more or lesswere, though we didn’t like to admit it. Horvath was a moon of Lycanus 3, and to be sure, we had common ancestors with the residents of the three planets. Physically, we resembled their inhabitants, except for our fair hair, but we proudly considered ourselves to be just Horvathian citizens and not Lycans. There were significant differences between us in our history and our biology as well. We didn’t shift into Lycan wolves, as they did for one thing, and we never had. That was one, big, definite evolutionary split in our favor. It was said that it was the main reason our ancestors had migrated to this moon.

But somewhere down the line, many of us had inherited that stupid mating bond they had, and it wasnothingthat any of us wanted. It completely disrupted and even ruined lives, like I felt it was about to ruin mine.

Like the Lycans, Horvathians were cursed to find our mates unexpectedly and without warning. Then we were further cursed to be unable to resist them. Born with the capacity to have abond that was damn near unbreakable, most of us dreaded the day it might hit us, because it was so fucking unpredictable. The objects of our affection could be any sex, any age, or any social situation. If the person were truly unacceptable age-wise, or if either we or they were already mated, we could try to distance ourselves from them, but usually, even that didn’t work very well.

On Horvath, our claim to fame was our dragons. Those of us who were Dragon Riders formed a similar bond to our dragons as we did with our mates, and it was damn near unbreakable. I sometimes wondered if we humanoids hadn’t developed right alongside the vetami on our moon and that was where this bond had somehow originated. It was as if their blood called to ours—like the blood of our mates did. When it came to the vetamis, it was of vital importance as to whether or not the eventually ten-ton-plus beast would accept their rider and follow his commands. Both lives might depend on the strength of that bond. The same was true for our mates.

If the person were already married or far too young or too old for marriage, then we faced a lifetime of disappointment and pain—unless we simply ignored everything and kept them with us, regardless of all other considerations . It simply didn’t matter. That’s why we considered the bond to be such a curse.

Dragon bonds were easier. My own dragon had only just hatched when he’d chosen me as his rider, and the exhilaration I’d felt was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. Or it had been until this very moment in the warehouse when the other known type of blood bond chose that horribly inconvenient moment to rear its head with furious, unrelenting force.

It was said that a mating bond was the strongest feeling we would ever experience in our lifetimes. When it came, we had to exert every bit of our self-control to not be overcome with lust and passion for the person associated with it, and a kind ofmadness came over us that could send us into a mating frenzy. We might grab the person, hold them captive or even fuck them right where they stood, and we’d fight anyone who tried to stop us. If the person didn’t fight us and just accepted the bond, we would eventually calm down, but they would rightfully hate us for it. It was a no-win situation.

The Lycans, who were our closest genetic cousins, had a similar thing that happened to them when they found their mates, so we began to call it the same thing they did, the mating bond, but that was far too tame a name for the violence of those feelings. I didn’t just want to “mate” or “bond” with this man. I wanted to possess him, toownhim body and soul. He was mine from the first moment I knew what was happening.

When I had first smelled that heady scent, I was frantic to see who it was coming from and then the prettiest little face I’d probably ever seen on a man or a woman was right there in front of me, and I knew the scent was coming from him. Everything about him was flawless, from his perfectly chiseled face to his oddly colored blue-green eyes. Was he feeling this too? It was said the mating bond went both ways, regardless of species. I hoped that was true, so he might be able to understand.

“Tell me who you are,” I said, and he looked back up at me and said something I could barely even hear. I paid him little attention, because he had pushed back his hood just then to display a flood of red-gold curls cascading down to his shoulders, and his beauty was stunning. Was he part Tygerian? He was much too small to be fully Tygerian, and his skin didn’t have the right markings, but the Tygerians were the only ones in this part of our galaxy known for having red hair. His eyes flashed at me, and his pretty little bow-shaped mouth sneered at me, which was infuriating—and adorable.

He was arguing about something, resentful of the way I was acting, I’m sure, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself long enoughto listen to him. And I thought to myself, if he was a thief, as I thought, then he was out of control, and it was my job as his mate to bring him back in line. I was angry at him, but at the same time, I wanted to kiss him, caress him and run my fingers through those red-gold curls until he purred with pleasure. I wanted to make him mine, and I’d never felt that way about anybody before, let alone another male.

I liked women, but I wanted to kiss those plump lips of his and feel his soft stubble on the skin of my face. I wanted to wrap him up in my arms and never let him go, and the mating urge was telling me—why not?Go ahead. Do whatever you want to do to him, because he’s yours, isn’t he?

And it was all because I was convinced, with no further proof necessary, that this boy belonged to me. Like I said, it makes no sense when you think of it later, or try to explain it, but my every instinct was urging me to take him, lock him down and get him under my control.

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