Page 11 of Possessed By the Dragon Alien
“They would disapprove.” He caught her hand as she reached for the last branch, his fingers intertwining with hers. She didn’t pull away. The branches tumbled to the ground again.
“Then why—?”
“Because I want to be here with you more than I fear their opinions.” His thumb traced across her knuckles. “Tell me your name,” he said, desperate suddenly to know her as something other than 93-A. “Your real name.”
She withdrew her hand and frowned. It was as if the brief spell had been broken for her. Her face turned wary. “Why? So you can take that from me too?”
“No, I—” But he had no defense. She was right. Everything he represented, everything he’d done in service to the Axis, had been about taking. Control. Power. Freedom. “I want to know who you are.”
“I’m 93-A,” she said, rising to her full height and lifting her pert little chin. “I am what the Axis made me. A number. A worker. Property. A prisoner in your perfect garden.” She had either forgotten, or stopped caring, that she was speaking to a member of the Twelve, and something about that was an incalculable relief to him. She was speaking tohim, not a high chancellor, and she was letting him know that she was not pleased with the system. Not pleased, atall.
The bitter truth in her voice made him want to rage against everything he’d spent his life building. His wings twitched with the need to shield her, though from what—himself, the Axis, this entire hideous system—he wasn’t sure. It didn’t really matter. They were all the same, weren’t they?
“I can’t accept this gift,” she said, handing the tool back to him as he stood up. “If I’m seen with it, my supervisor will demand to know where I got it. If I say you gave it to me, I will be accused of lying, then of theft, and punished. I hear there is a nerve agent that is administered to prisoners who misbehave. Forgive me if I don’t want to learn what that feels like.”
The raw honesty in her voice made his heart squeeze. He was close enough to see the conflict warring in her green eyes. He, too, was a mess of conflict. Duty against desire, control against the wild thing growing between them. He could see it in the pulse that jumped in her throat, feel it in the way she had stopped trying to edge away from him. The way she had stopped being afraid of him.
“I should go,” she whispered, but made no move to leave.
“You should.” His hand tightened around the returned tool that was still warm from her grip. “If anyone attempts to punish you, for anything, I will seethempunished. No one touches you,” he said roughly. His free hand came up and his fingers traced her smooth cheek. He couldn’t keep the tremor from his voice as he spoke. “I wonder what would I see if the Axis hadn’t touched you at all.” The words slipped out before he could stop them.
Her gaze locked on his, wide with surprise that quickly changed to something he couldn’t decipher. She stared at him for a long moment. Something shifted in her expression—not a softening exactly, but an opening, like clouds parting to reveal a glimpse of sky. “You’d see someone who knew the stars,” she whispered. “Who could read weather in the wind and growth in the soil. Someone who wasn’t afraid to look up. And someone who loved, with all her heart, those who loved her.”
The raw honesty in her voice made his chest ache. He wanted to part the clouds, take down the energy dome, and give her a clear view of those stars. He wanted to be someone she could love with all her heart. But he had no right to ask that of her. Hewas part of the system that had ground that freedom out of her. “The stars,” he echoed. “You can’t see them here.”
“No.” She knelt again to gather the scattered branches, her movements quick and efficient. He did not assist this time. It was clear she didn’t want him to. “The dome blocks everything real.”
He should let her go. Should turn and walk away, forget this conversation ever happened. Instead, he found himself asking, “Do you miss them?”
Her hands stilled. Her expression went lost, wandering, as if there were too many things that she missed to begin counting them all. “Every cycle,” she said in a hoarse whisper. She straightened, clutching the branches like a shield. All her walls were back up. “May I return to my duties now, sir?”
The “sir” was like a blade between his ribs. He wanted to hear his name on her lips, not a title of respect. But he had no name to give her—not one that wasn’t tied to the Axis. He was as trapped as she was, just in a gilded cage instead of a cell.
“Yes,” he said. “Go.”
She hurried away without looking back. He watched until she disappeared around the corner, taking with her all the warmth in the garden.
SEVEN
Nena squeezed her trimmings to her chest and tried to steady her breathing as she hurried down the garden path. What was wrong with her? She’d practically insulted a member of the Twelve. Spoken to him about stars and freedom, of all things. Like some foolish rebel instead of a careful prisoner. Just thinking of it made her pulse skip. Either he was playing with her, drawing her out to test her, or…he was sincere.
She shook her head sharply. There was nosincere. He was Axis. One of the most powerful beings in the empire. Whatever game he was playing, she needed to stay far away from it.
She rounded a corner and nearly collided with another official. This one was small and slight, with skin so pale it was nearly transparent. Where a nose should be, there was only a thin slit. The female’s uniform was light gray—not the black of the Twelve, but still a sign of authority.
“Careful, worker,” the female said. Her voice had an odd echoing quality. “What has you in such a hurry?”
“Apologies, ma’am.” Nena lowered her eyes. “I was returning to my duties.”
“After speaking with High Chancellor Madrian?” The female’s words were casual, but something in her tone made Nena’s skin prickle.
Ah, at least now she knew his name—High Chancellor Madrian.
“He asked about my work in the gardens,” Nena said carefully.
The female’s head tilted. “And what else did you discuss?”
“Nothing else, ma’am.” The lie felt thick on her tongue. “He only wanted to know about the pruning.”
