Page 25 of The Dragon's Captured Heart
“Laura,” she supplied. “And you?”
“Madison.”
“Right. Well, Madison, the first thing you need to know is that the dragons didn’t start the kidnapping.”
We passed a pair of men in guard uniforms as we walked. Laura waved to them and said hello, including mentioning one of them by name. The men smiled back and nodded … respectfully, almost deferentially, to the human.
I filed that away, making a note to ask why they treated her that way. Then her words sunk in.
“They didn’t?”
“No. We did.”
I scoffed. “Bull. I fought the dragons. They’re basically invincible. No way we were able to kidnap one of them from here. As far as I know, no human even knows wherehereis anyway!” I waved around emphatically to mean the palace and the Dragon Isle beyond.
“You didn’t hear any rumors about why the war started?” Laura asked.
“Oh, sure, there were plenty. But I never gave them much credit. If we had a dragon in our possession months ahead of time, word would’ve gotten out. We would have known, one way or another, what was going on. It was just a lie the dragons made up to justify their invasion…”
Laura had tilted her head down to look at me, her perfectly sculpted eyebrows arching ever so slightly as she made it clear I was spouting off falsities.
“You seriously believe we kidnapped one of them?” I asked her.
“Yes, I do.” There was no doubt in her voice. No fanatical belief in a concept. The confidence was … calm. Not fervent.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I was there,” she explained. “I was part of the team assigned to study him. To discover all we could of who and what he was.”
“Oh.” It was a pathetically weak response to the admission of a secret so huge, but my brain was too busy readjusting itself to this new information.
“I was one of the techs on that team. It was our job to figure out what he was, where he was from—sure, he looked like a dragon, but was he of Earthen origin, or were dragons a race of aliens that had contacted us once before? As your face says, we had a million questions we needed the answers to. It was my job and the job of others to figure that out.”
“So, all that happened, all the fighting, the dying … that wasyourfault?”
Laura’s face darkened. “You have to remember, at first, we had no idea who or what he was. Or that there were more of them. We knew nothing. Would you have let an alien roam around our world free? Think of the panic. Besides, I was just a tech on the team. I had no authority to stop it.”
She wasn’t telling me everything, I could tell. But I didn’t get the impression she was lying either.
“So, what happened?”
“The war started, and our mission changed to figuring out ways to hurt them,” she said. “It was during this I ended up spending a lot of time with him. Getting to know him better.”
“So, he brought you with him when he escaped,” I filled in, everything becoming clear. “You’re his concubine? Is that how it works? They want me to do the same with Callum.”
“Maybe in his fantasies, I suppose, but no,” Laura said, laughing lightly as she shook her head. “You’ve got it all backward.”
“I do?”
“Iaskedhim to bring me with him.”
My jaw hit the floor. “Youwhat?How can you sound so happy?”
“Iamhappy,” Laura said. “The happiest I’ve ever been. Why else would I choose to come back here with him?”
“So, you chose to come here. You fell in love with him?”
“And how,” she added dreamily. “Vicek is the best man I’ve ever met. He treats me like a person and a princess, all in the same breath.”
