Always (Dragon Wars, #3) (3 page)

He raised his hand to grip the side of her face, and her whole body shuddered. “I don’t get what you’re saying.”

“I know and I’m afraid you’re going to get even less, Robert.”

He shook his head while she poked the needle deeper into his skin. He winced and then his eyelids started to droop. “No one calls me Robert.”

She pulled the needle out. “Then me calling you Robert will be our thing, although you’ll never know we shared a moment at all.”

“Yes, I will.” He shook his head before his eyes closed altogether. “I’ve decided to remember what happened here.”

If only such a thing were possible.

She disposed of the needle then retreated to the door, needing to put some distance between herself and the werewolf who she couldn’t have. The best thing for Taty would be to launch the hell off the planet and forget him forever.

Maybe she should drug herself.

R
obbie felt movement beneath him. His mind had drifted and he wasn’t certain where he was or who the person doing the transporting of his nearly unconscious body was anymore. He was only sure of a single thing—he had decided to remember what happened to him. He had no intention of going anywhere unless it was on his own terms.

The scent of roses followed him everywhere. It was an odd smell, not an aroma he usually associated with anything except the flower itself. Werewolves didn’t smell of flowers, and underneath it the aroma of vanilla. He found it intoxicating to say the least. However, he had no time to stay asleep and drift in the scents of flowers and cooking.

Before he even opened his eyes, he jumped to his feet, ready to shift if needed. Several people cried out and, as he growled, he took in the sights around him. There were four other souls in the room, and a quick deep breath told him none of them—three men and a single woman—smelled at all of wolves.

The blonde goddess was the source of the sweet scents beckoning to him. She seemed...
familiar
. He shoved the idea out of his head. He’d probably seen her sometime during his stay there. She was probably the bitch drugging him.

He wasn’t concerned with handling a woman. If she were smart, she’d stay back. The men looked as if they wouldn’t be a problem either. They ranged from much shorter than him to right under his height. In any case, he could take out the whole room if necessary.

“Robert.” She rushed forward in front of the men. He waited for someone to object. What kind of creatures let a female step in front of them when a predator was in the room? He had seen old men who could barely move throw their bodies into a fight to stop a woman from being hurt.

“No one calls me Robert.” A sense of déjà vu accompanied the words and he ignored the sensation. “You are in charge, ma’am?” He added the last bit to be polite. A female led the dragons, and he’d never be nice to her. If this female proved competent and not psychopathic, he’d maintain a certain amount of respect.

“I’m in charge when we leave here. It’s complicated. Here, we’re all in charge.”

Her words were bullshit. Hierarchy existed to keep everyone safe. Someone was in charge, even if it wasn’t explicitly stated. Since she stood in front of her pansy colleagues, he was going to speak to the blonde hottie while ignoring how much he liked her fragrance.

“Where am I?” He was obviously in some kind of facility. Where was the place located and how he had gotten there?

She took a deep breath, her face paling. “It goes against policy for me to tell you.” Blondie dug into her pocket and pulled out a needle. “I promise you—if you let me, I can help you. You were injured. We helped you. I can make all of your confusion go away. Your friends are fine. Your brother, too. You’re all going to wake in a bed, perfectly safe. You’ll never know you were here.”

“Being drugged to forget part of my life doesn’t work for me, lady. You don’t smell as if you’re wolves and you’re certainly not dragons. What, pray tell,
are
you?”

“We’re...”She raised her chin. “Humans.”

Robbie laughed, throwing his head back in a loud hoot. The strangest things tickled his funny bones. The humans in the room didn’t seem to know what to do with his reaction. They looked at each other, and the female shifted the weight on her feet.

“Why are you laughing?” She lowered her voice. “I don’t see how our being humans is funny.”

“Well, you haven’t spent the last three years looking at cave paintings from humans. Never mind. Okay, you’re humans.”
Why not?
They weren’t wolves. His nose never failed him. Unless the dragons had figured out how to shape shift, they weren’t them either.
Humans. Sure.
“Why do you have me?”

“Mr. Owens.” One of the males finally spoke. He had blond hair similar to the hot female. In fact, they had other features which were similar, too. Maybe it was the chin. “We aren’t going to answer any more questions. You’re going to go where you belong, and we’ll all move on, too.”

“You’ve made a fatal error. You seem to be under the impression I am going to listen to you. You’re nothing. A maggot. You’re not the kind of male who can give me orders.” And it offended his sense of right and wrong. He made a quick choice. Rushing forward, he grabbed the female and pulled her against him. “I’ll speak to you and only you.”

With a flick of his wrist he knocked the needle she held onto the ground. It hit the floor with a clink. She gasped.

“You and I are going to have a conversation, alone, without these puny males to make ridiculous demands they can’t possibly follow through on. If anyone tries to interfere, I’ll kill you. Am I clear?”

In his life, he’d never harm a woman, with the large exception of the dragon queen. The human female had nothing to fear from him. Although, she didn’t need to know that. Let her be afraid.

She didn’t struggle when he tugged her from the room and the wimpy humans—no wonder they’d had to go into hiding or whatever happened—did nothing to stop him.

“Your men are useless.”

The female snorted and it was everything he could do to not grin at the sound. In other circumstances, he’d give in to the urge. However, he was too busy trying to make sense of his current circumstances. The smart thing to do would be to find his people and get them out. Except in front of him were humans no werewolves had ever seen.

He wasn’t going to waste his chance to find out what they knew about the dragons.

Robbie had dragged her distance when he saw an open room. With windows on all sides, he’d be able to see if anyone came or went. As he was basically making up his plan as he went along, a little advanced notice for potential enemies seemed his best option.

He let go of her arm after he locked both the doors. She wasn’t going anywhere until he had the information he wanted from her. Anything else he might desire was quite out the question. Her heady aroma played havoc with his cock.

The realization jarred him. Robbie hadn’t wanted a woman in over a year. At least he still could, it appeared, which was something.

“You can cut the act.” She shook her head. “We both know you aren’t going to hurt me.”

“Oh?” She was right, although he didn’t intend to tell her so. “How do you know I won’t?”

“Because I know everything about you, Robert Owens. Well, not everything. To claim everything would be to overstate the truth. I’ll say I understand you well. A lifetime of observation has afforded me some insight into your mind.”

The room stilled with her words. She couldn’t mean it. He had no memory of her. Granted, the lack could be chemical, but how the hell could she have watched him his whole life? Certainly he’d have to possess some kind of recollection about so close a relationship.

“I think you’d better explain yourself.”

She crossed her arms, which only pushed her very fine boobs out further. What the hell was wrong with him? A year without any interest sexually and he couldn’t stop thinking about
her
when he needed to focus on life and death issues.

“We watch you. The wolves, I mean. I’m only telling you because there’s no way you’re getting out of here without having your mind wiped again. So, yeah, you’re the best television around. A series of very well hidden cameras let us watch you all the time, to study the wolf population. You happen to be a personal favorite of mine.” She shrugged. “Well, of a lot of people actually. Women, specifically.”

“I...” He had to take a breath. They had television when he was a child, only the wars had destroyed all the cable. Since then, they were lucky if they got print news. All forms of entertainment had ceased. “Are you telling me that my society, werewolves, as we struggle through a war, are a source of amusement to you?”

“Not amusement exactly, no. As far as watching you, the war is a relatively new thing. It’s only been seventeen years, and we’ve had you guys on screen for hundreds more, which isn’t to say I’m dismissing seventeen years. I’m absolutely not. It’s been going on for more than half my life. However, we’ve had a vested interest in your society for hundreds upon hundreds of years.”

What the hell?
Still, he’d travelled a distance down this crazy path, better to manage a handle of things. “How have you done all your viewing? Some kind of movie room? Everyone gather to have dinner in front of the screen?”

“There are televisions.” She pointed to the corner of the room. “Like that one. I could put it on if you’d like to watch something.”

“It’s so simple, is it? You say the word, and we can spy on the wolves?”

“Television.” She spoke upward toward the device, and it flipped on. “I want Owens. Dougal and Caitlyn. Show them to me.”

The screen flashed and seconds later he found himself staring at moving pictures of his brother and sister-in-law. They were standing in their kitchen. Caitlyn leaned against the counter and laughed at something his younger brother said. Unprepared to see them first hand, he jerked at the image. A thousand mosquitos may have well have assaulted him all at once.

He forced himself to stay perfectly still. As much as he was attracted to the blonde enigma in front of him, he didn’t know her and he wouldn’t let her see him sweat. “Thanks. Turn it off. Now.”

She immediately told the television to turn off, which told him more than anything else. The woman claimed he wasn’t in charge, yet she did as he told her to without arguing. He’d led werewolves for long enough to know who the most dominant presence in the room turned out to be. In the case of the two of them, his force of nature outweighed hers. Not to mention the way her eyes kept darting to his own. She wanted to please him.

However, all instincts relating to his hostage aside, he had more important questions. “You have pretty impressive technology. We never had the ability to speak to our television and make it do as we wanted.”

“What you see is nothing. It’s actually very low brow when it comes to what we used to be able to do before the dragon mess. The stuff left is bare bones. When we leave in a week to meet the rest of what is left of the humans, we’ll have much broader capabilities.”

He pointed at the screen, unable to believe what he saw.  His temper rose, although similarly to his earlier reaction to Dougal’s sudden appearance he wouldn’t let her know how thrown he had become. “If you have all of the technology stuff, why are the dragons beating you? Why haven’t you put them down? You did something before, when you came for me. There was a large boom.”

She sighed loudly, her shoulders drooping. “The dragons are tricky. We were able to draw them back underground for an extended sleep. They grew so strong, so fast after we made them. Before we knew it they had escaped their cages, killed their scientists.  It was all so out of control, or so I’ve heard. It was before my time. Anyway, we got them to sleep. We knew it wouldn’t be forever. By then, most of our leaders felt it was better to abandon ship. They were done with your planet, finished with what we could learn here. Politicians come with their own agendas. Always have, always will. The older ones, who were in charge when my father was here, cared about the science. The new ones it’s all about space travel again. Ships. Lasers. Money. Mining. So what if two groups of sentient beings we are responsible for creating are warring, and the one who didn’t start this war is about to be wiped off the planet? What does it have to do with any of them?”

He tried to process everything she said, however it was the last bit which caught his entire attention. “Come again? The creating beings part.”

“Hundreds of years ago, humans started experimenting in gene splicing. Things got rapidly out of control. First with the dragons, then later... Well, the wolf combination was thought a huge misstep. Nothing seemed to be working. However, after we had gotten the dragons to sleep, we suddenly noticed the shift. Your people had changed. With very little interference from us, you
evolved
. It took hundreds of years, but you became what you are today. It’s really been...amazing.”

She was so invested in what she said. Her hands flailed around as she spoke, her eyes bright. It was everything Robbie could do not to throw something across the room. He didn’t care for being thought of as anybody’s science experiment. Her whole rant was bullshit.

“What do you mean little interference?”

“Um.” She rubbed her nose. “When it became clear the dragons were going to rouse, my father and some of the others supporters managed to get dragon speak placed into your population. Your sister-in-law, Caitlyn, she has the capability. They can control the dragons. Yet, you don’t let her do it. Why is that, by the way? I’ve always wanted to ask.”

“If you wanted to help us with the dragons you shouldn’t have given the power to our women. Anyone who spent any time watching us would know we never place our females on the front line to do something so dangerous.”

She snorted again. Robbie couldn’t decide if he wanted to kiss or throttle her. Of course, she would never go for it seeing as he was fascinating to her the same way a dissected frog would be.

“We keep hoping you’ll outgrow your sexism. My father and the others simply chose their own bloodlines. It made sense at the time. Use your resources.”