Page 16 of Alien Dragon's Bride

The boy in the mask roared, charging away from Megan and the others.

“We’re hunting Renjerians…want to play?”

“Uh…sure.” Not like she had anything else to do. And really, she couldn’t leave without know if she was going to get the contract with…damn, she didn’t even know his name. “How do we play?”

“We need another dragon.” The first boy nodded. “Let me get my mask. You and Dexon can be on the same team and we’ll hunt you. But you have to hide real good cause we can sniff you out easily.”

Such imaginations. She accepted the mask they handed her and pulled it down over her face. The three boys must be triplets for the looked exactly alike with reddish-brown hair and tiny freckles over their faces and arms.

“Should I hide with Dexon or on my own?” she asked.

The third boy shrugged while the one in the mask called out from down the hallway, “Hurry, with me before the Tryns come.”

“Okay.” She dashed toward his voice and found him hunched behind an empty desk. “What are Tryns?”

“Come with me, I’ll show you, but keep your fire breath ready,” he whispered. “That’s the only thing that slows them down.”

“Are the Tryns your brothers? The ones with the guns?” She clawed down the hallway following his lead.

“No, them are the human hunters. They hate us.”

He sounded so serious, like this was real life and not pretend.

“Why don’t they like us?” she asked, playing along.

“Cause they think we are part of the Tryns, but we’re not.” He shrugged. “Hurry up, they’ll find you.”

She ducked down behind a chair. “So what are the Tryns?”

“Come on, I’ll show you.” He grabbed a pad and paper from the desk and quickly drew a picture, pushing it at her.

Her throat closed up, her breathing turned ragged. He’d drawn two figures: one a demon-like creature complete with small leather wings, horns, and forked tail, and the other was what she’d seen last night. A dragon.

“W-Which ones are the Tryns?” she asked in a shaky voice.

He rolled his eyes. “Aren’t you paying attention? They are.” He tapped the paper on the side of the demon.

“And this is a dragon.”

“Yeah, like us.” He puffed out his chest, replacing his dinosaur mask.

She lightly touched her own mask he’d loaned her. “But we’re not dragons or are you pretending we are?” It had to be a coincidence that she’d seen a freaking dragon and this boy was playing them. Maybe he thought of dinosaurs as dragons like they belonged to the same family like cousins. And she’d seen one.

Her skin grew cold as sweat prickled her back. No, she couldn’t have seen a dragon. They didn’t exist. Neither did dinosaurs—anymore.

“No, we’re the dragons. We’re Renjerians from Renjer, our planet we had to flee because of the Tryns. Shhh…I hear the hunters coming.”

All the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. This was just a game and a coincidence that these three boys were playing hunters and dragons less than twenty-four hours after she’d seen one.

She licked her lips after his brothers went down another hallway. What if he and his brothers had seen what she had? That would explain why they were playing this game with dinosaur masks and insisting they—or rather she and he—were dragons or this Renjerians and not just Velociraptors.

“Did you or your brothers see anything like a Renjerian recently?”

He cocked his head to the side reminding her of a lizard looking at prey. It was exaggerated by the dino mask he wore. “All the time.”

“Really?” Was he telling her the truth or was this part of the game? “How often?”

He shrugged. “All the time. We shed our human skin and dive off the roof at night. Should’ve seen—”

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