Page 51 of Alien Dragon's Bride

“They would scent us before we even came close.” He turned back to the apartment he’d come out of. “Go home, human. This isn’t your fight and I have vowed to protect my people from extinction.”

He marched to the door and opened it.

“Send me.”

“Pardon?” Dena asked beside her.

“Back at the cafe with Alice, the Tryn had come because he smelled Levx on me. So use me as bait.” The dragons could hide downwind and she could distract the demon until they could rescue the triplets and the others. Her throat constricted at the thought of them and Levx and the others dead, but she refused to give into that terror that felt like her heart was being crushed.

“It won’t work.” He shook his head, his gaze softening. “Too much time has passed and you no longer have his scent on you.”

She lifted her trembling chin. “Then let me roll around in his things and get some of his smell back on me.”

“That won’t be enough.” Dena touched her shoulder. “Plus they have Levx as far as we know, you’re nothing to them but a human now. Before they could’ve used you to get to him.”

Tears stung her eyes and she jerked away. No there had to be something she could do. She couldn’t just wait around for Levx to be okay and return. And all these dragons—people having to leave their home and hide against an enemy—it wasn’t fair.

“What else do they want then, besides Renjerians?” That was what his people called themselves, right?

“They want to destroy us,” he said. “First they attacked our world, then they did something to our water supply that made our women infertile. When we discovered we could shapeshift with Dena and two of my son’s help, we came here. Human women, if the right blend, can carry a half-blood child and thus ensure the survival of our race.”

“What tests? Do you do that to the women you approach for surrogacies?” They hadn’t done anything like that to her but then again, she still had a blank contract.

“Yes. If the results came back negative,” he said, “then we’d have given you a sum of money to thank you and moved on to the next.”

“So there’s no guarantee then if these women do pass these tests of pregnancy?” She hadn’t thought of that. But what if the test were wrong? What if someone could get pregnant?

“Our race is dying,” he said, his voice gruff but tears in his eyes. “We can’t take chances. And it’s not far to the Renjerians or the human women to put them through something that won’t work.”

“These demons—your enemy—wouldn’t want you all to succeed in lots of births would they?” Megan glanced from Levx’s dad to Dena.

“Correct.” Dena nodded.

“And if they have such a strong sense of smell, then they’d know if a woman was pregnant and if that embryo was Renjerian?”

“Yes.” Levx’s dad agreed.

“Then send out a pregnant female. You’ve been doing surrogacies for months.” Or at least seven as that’s how far along Cynthia had looked when she bumped into her at the grocery store.

“There are no pregnant females here,” Dena said.

“What about Cynthia? She couldn’t have had her baby already.”

“She had a placenta eruption and lost the baby. She and Tremel were devastated and fled north already once the Tryns were discovered and the king gave the order to evacuate the city.” Dena’s eyes teared up.

“Then there’s no one?” Megan asked. No wonder they were desperate to pay for human surrogates if the pregnancies didn’t always work out. Sorrow filled her heart at what her friend Cynthia and her mate must be going through.

“I’m afraid not. Best if you left, we’re all packing and will leave at nightfall.” Levx’s dad disappeared into the apartment at the end of the hall and Megan’s shoulders sagged. This wasn’t how the story was supposed to end. After all, Levx had gone through only to lose to demons. And what about the three boys? They’d come to help her and ended up getting captured. All because she and Levx had fooled around in her apartment and his enemy had known it.

A thought filtered through her sorrow. All they needed was one pregnant female. That they had to give those women extra protection because they drew the Tryns like crazy.

Hope budding in her chest, Megan grabbed Dena’s arm before she left the hallway. “Wait. Use me as bait.”

She shook her head. “We told you, that won’t work. You’re just hum—”

“No, artificially inseminate me.”

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