Page 8 of Seduced By the Dragon Lord (Dragon Lords 2)

Suddenly he wrenched her wrist back, easily disarming her. Her knife clattered to the floor. In the next mind-boggling instant, he dragged her to her feet and positioned himself behind her in a hold that had her arms bent painfully behind her.

Once again she cried out, petrified.

“What in the world?” a voice interrupted…a soft feminine voice.

A petite woman draped in elegant evening wear carefully towed her way over the still-molten threshold. A last piece of hot metal dripped down, landing on the tail of her gown. She rushed to stamp it out. “Dammit! Edel is going to kill me.”

Jessie wanted to rub her eyes, because there seemed to be a strange pinkish-purple halo around this woman. Could the cloying fumes burning metal be messing with her?

“Your Majesty!” Goliath exclaimed, his voice both shocked and concerned. “You should no’ be here.”

“Nonsense. Who else is going to—” Thewoman,who appeared to be around Jessie’s age, blinked at them both in surprise. “Orik, what in the hell are you doing?”

“I am restraining the human.”

“What? Why?”

“She is dangerous, Your Majesty.”

Her Majesty waved that notion away. “Don’t be ridiculous. You let her go right now.”

“She shot me with an Earth weapon.”

Her Majesty’s eyes went wide. “Shot you?”

“Aye. Then she threatened me with a knife.”

Her Majesty’s gaze zeroed in on Jessie’s Ka-Bar lying on the floor. “Oi, now,that'sa knife,” she exclaimed…in a faux Australian accent?

That couldn’t have been a quote fromCrocodile Dundee.

Then Her Majesty turned in a circle, taking in the thrashed state of the ship for the first time. The control room was a shell of its former self, just like the rest of the craft. Jessie had ripped up, torn out, and demolished whatever she could. Panels that used to hide the inner workings of the ship had bulked out her initial barrier. Now, wires and pipes were exposed everywhere. Much of the ceiling had been gutted so she could carve a path through the ventilation system to the other areas of the ship where the doors had been locked: the hydroponics room, the storage room, the sleeping quarters. Preparing to make her stand here in the control room, she had stripped those rooms of their goods and stashed everything here, designating corners for food, sleep, and weapons.

Her Majesty knelt and rifled through Jessie’s considerable supplies. “How did you get all this stuff?”

Goliath shook her when she didn’t answer right away.

“I went through the ceiling.”

Her Majesty glanced up and studied the exposed metal framing. “Are you shitting me? Dammit! Why hadn’t I thought of that?” Facing Jessie, she tapped her chin. “Geez. You’re smart, pretty,andresourceful? You make booby trapsandyou have a wicked sick Rambo knife? Who are you, Lara Croft’s little sister?”

O-kay, that was way too many cultural references for an alien. “What is going on here? Who are you people? And what was that…thing?”

“Oh, of course. Sorry,” replied Her Majesty. “This is Orik, head of the guard, and I’m Juniper, but you can call me June. I’m, uh, sort of the queen around here. And I’m from Earth, too.”

4

“Dragons.” Jessie repeated in a disbelieving tone. After steering her out of the ship, Orik and June had brought her to a guestroom within a seriously impressive, almost fairytale-like castle, where June, a self-proclaimed human/queen of dragons informed her about the planet they were on—Legura—and its dragon-shifting population. “Did I hit my head or something? Or are you just fucking with me?”

“I know it’s hard to believe.” June plucked a sugary pastry from a pile on the table and then pushed the plate toward her. A servant entered and silently refilled their tea.

In what universe would Jessie Jane Knight be having high tea with a queen?

This one, apparently.

Freshly showered and dressed in a borrowed white sleeveless blouse and slim-fitting pants that tucked into her black hiking boots, she now sat across from June in the dining area of her newtemporary living space.

It seemed that becoming a lab rat wasnotin her future.

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