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  He looked at her as though he expected her to say something. If he did, he would have to be disappointed. She’d spent most of her life around men who preferred other men to women. It was a way of life for them and none of her business. Who was she to tell anyone how to live their life when she had no real life at all?

  When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “The way I figure it, we’d been here a little over three months when he ate something that killed him. That thing you smelled back there, the one your mouth watered to eat, is poisonous.” Stopping again, he balled his hand into a fist and slammed it into the trunk of the nearest tree. “He came here because of me. He came here because I was too afraid of what killing someone would do to me and it ultimately killed him. I killed him.” He jammed his thumb into the center of his chest to emphasize his words.

  “You didn’t kill him…” she left off at that, not knowing what to call him. “He came here knowing there was a chance he wouldn’t survive, that neither of you would survive. I know I didn’t know him and I don’t know you, but if he loved you, he would have wanted to be with you no matter what.” That’s the way she would have felt. If someone were to desert one of her sisters or mother like that, she would follow them willingly, because she loved them.

  Now she had another thing to worry about. How could she dig up a dead body when it had no tracker and she didn’t know where he’d buried it? “I have to ask you a question and I need an honest answer.” Deities, she didn’t want to bring up the grave of his dead lover, but she had to. Just as that thought crossed her mind, so did another. Did she dare suggest it and if he agreed, did she really think they could pull it off? “Did they put a marker in your lover?”

  “So, what you’re saying is we have to dig up Chartron’s body and take it back through the rift?”

  Ruby nodded. “We don’t have to dig it up. I can do that. I just need to know where he is. I know this is painful to hear, but there is no other way out of it. His remains must return to our dimension where they belong or this world as well as ours will continue to deteriorate.”

  As though punctuating her words, the ground trembled beneath their feet and a tree fell in the distance. The thundering noise as it tumbled to the ground tearing limbs from other trees, left no doubt as to what happened.

  He looked so lost, so near tears, Ruby rested her hand on his forearm. It wasn’t much as an offer of comfort goes, but it was all she was able to give. Apparently, it was enough.

  Standing tall once again, he straightened his shoulders and headed off to the right. “He’s over here.”

  It took them nearly two hours to remove Chartron’s body from the ground. He was not wrapped as the last body had been and the heat of the tropical environment had almost made him impossible to hold. Parts kept threatening to fall off.

  “Time to go.”

  “Yes. I’m ready.”

  Ruby opened the rift and waited for her quarry to cross. Damn. She’d never even asked his name. When she was certain he made it through, she stepped into the wavering rift and onto the waiting pad.

  “What took you so long to come through? The rift’s been opened a good twenty seconds.” Janus gave her a narrow-eyed look and raised a brow. “Having second thoughts about coming back?”

  She shook her head and smiled a real smile for the first time in a long time. “No second thoughts whatsoever, Janus. As a matter of fact, it’s good to see you.” She lay the body down with respect, a change from her act on the other side, the tracker imbedded firmly in his arm where she’d crammed it just moments before.

  “Here he is. Just as dead as you wanted him.” She smiled tightly. “Now, if you don’t mind, I would just love a shower.” With that, she headed out of the room to the changing room where she could get out of the leathers she had just spent almost two days wearing. She couldn’t wait to wash the sweat and the remainder of dirt and death from her body. As she left the room, she felt something brush her hand. “Good luck,” she whispered.

  “What did you say?” Janus demanded. He had followed her to the access hallway while the grunts collected the body of Chartron.

  “Oh, I just said these missions suck. I’m tired of carrying back dead bodies. That’s all. Can I bring back a live one that doesn’t want to kill me on the next assignment?”

  Janus opened and closed his mouth as she went to medical for the cursory check before she could strip and change.

  When medical gave her complete clearance, she used her increasingly acute senses to pick up on her new friend in the hallway outside the doctor’s office. His scent came to her as clearly as a gunshot and as Tossas took her into his care, she smiled at the knowledge that she was not alone.

  Ruby felt like whistling as she headed to the changing room. For once, life was good.

  “Tossas, how are things going around here?”

  “Well, with your successes and those of your sisters, fifteen of you can be away at any given time.” He waited for her outside the showers with a change of clothing ready for her.

  The leathers would be removed, checked for particulates and cleaned of all foreign soils.

  “That’s good. How many retrievals are out there?” She leaned back, drank some of the water as it ran over her face and used her better-than-average hearing to listen to his reply.

  “At last count, somewhere around three hundred are still outstanding. If you can believe it, with our world shaking to pieces, there were still the wealthy who wanted to use dimensional transport to escape.”

  “I am guessing you are not one of the wealthy.” The feeling of the soap running through her hair had her smiling with relief. It was fine that her body was set up for extremes, but that didn’t mean she liked getting dirty.

  “No, but my sister married one. They were petitioning the government to allow them to escape the earthquakes and the storms.”

  As she shut off the valve, his hand came around the edge of the shower with a fluffy towel. She worked at her hair before drying the rest of her. The showers were only for the women of the gem block and those who worked with them.

  She idly wondered at the fanciful nature of those techs who had taken them from the incubation chambers and named them after their eye color. The doctors must have had a whimsical streak when they named the first group of five, all generated from the same split cell clusters after gemstones. The second sets were flowers and the other two sets were equally foolish.

  She always felt the irony of being named after gems from a planet she did not belong to. Her mother had tried to describe their home, but each male forged his own world in his image, so their father’s world would not match that of any other male that they met.

  Their mother did not want them having false expectations in case they met a man out there. Or a dragon. Whichever it was, the glimmer of the happily ever after that the techs had read to them when they were little kept popping into her mind of late.

  She sighed and finished drying herself. She handed back the towel and was given her clothing in return. Loose and comfortable, she stretched as she rocked against the drawstring, her tight abdomen flexing.

  “Do you want a yoga class?”

  “Yes, please.” The thought was appealing and Tossas was a good instructor.

  She left the shower cubicle and put on some soft slippers, then pattered along at his side.

  They got the mats out and engaged in an hour of mild stretching until her system was humming happily. “Do you know when I am going out again?”

  “Yes. You are slated for the morning, so let’s get you fueled and ready to go.”

  She groaned. “What is it this time?”

  “Anthropologist. You will like this planet though, there is another indigenous species.”

  He herded her to the common room and obtained her food for the evening meal. Since there were no other handlers, he sat with her, his own food in front of him. She liked how he didn’t try and bully her as some of the other handlers had. He simply shepherde
d her wherever he wanted her to go after telling her what she needed to do.

  It was quite simple. She hated surprises.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Janus was scowling at her once again.

  “Am I stuck with you on my dispatch team?” She stretched out as they handed her the dart gun and the scanner. As she buckled them into place, she looked up to see him scowling at her again.

  “This assignment is different. You have to find your target within a large population of beings similar to us. They don’t take kindly to outsiders and your marks are becoming more obvious by the day.”

  She scowled at him, “Marks?”

  “Those tattoos on your arms have been getting more vivid every time you come through the gateway. Don’t you notice your own body?”

  She raised one eyebrow at him. “There are no mirrors in my quarters or in any of our quarters. If your eyes weren’t so shiny, we wouldn’t even notice that we didn’t quite look like you.”

  He blinked rapidly. She could tell he was refusing to meet her gaze and she fought a laugh. “Back to the assignment, Janus. Your eyes are still shiny unless they are closed.”

  “Right. You are seeking an anthropologist who joined this society in an effort to understand our own development. Dr. Evian Raughl is your target. She is definitely wanted back alive, preferably with her notes and findings.” He looked up from his display and then quickly away.

  “Understood.” She checked the scanner and opened the note section displaying an image of her target. “Oh, nice. Upgrades.”

  He gritted his teeth, “Nothing but the best for our operatives. The D.A.R.E. project has made quite an impact on the governing bodies. Weather stabilization has been noticed and we have been ordered to make your assignments as pleasant as possible.”

  A tiny imp in her mind danced in amusement. She locked on the coordinates and moved forward. “Gotcha. Clear the gateway. Dimensional gate opening in five, four, three, two…”

  The light swirled and opened, letting her through the dimensional paths. Slipping along the rift lines, she went to bag herself a doctor.

  Sunlight and a meadow full of grass greeted her. She turned around and grinned at the bucolic setting. Everything was open air and light.

  A high-pitched squeal sent her into a fighter’s stance, but she straightened with a foolish smile when two small girls came running through the meadow out of a stand of bushes. Berry juice painted the girls’ faces a bright pink.

  Their laughter came to a sudden stop when they saw her. The taller of the two had long braids that hung down the front of her gown. “What are you?”

  Ruby noted that she said what and not who. “I am a dragon, hunting for an off worlder. She needs to return to her people.”

  Honesty was best with children. She and her sisters had always gotten frustrated when one of the techs lied. Deception had a certain stink to it.

  “Which off worlder?”

  “Doctor Evian Raughl? A woman of similar build to me.”

  The girls blinked all three of their eyes. They were cute, but their two standard eyes were crowned by a third above their little button noses.

  “She’s in the village, near the castle. We can take you to our house and our mom can show you.” They nodded together and looked to her for her input.

  “That sounds sensible.”

  She kept a distance of twenty feet between her and the little girls, so they would not feel intimidated. They were less than half her body size and she had no idea how tall an adult would be based on their example.

  Their mother was working in the front garden and when the little ones led her to their mom, she held them close, then shooed them behind her.

  Ruby’s heart ached a little as the mother touched the shoulders of her little ones. She had never even met her mother in person, let alone gotten a touch or hug. One tech had tried to give the little dragons affection, but she had been promptly fired for getting too close to the project.

  “Yes, how may I help you, dragon?”

  The ease at which the woman identified her clicked immediately. This woman had seen others of her kind.

  “I am looking for two things. I am looking for a doctor similar to me who is studying your customs and people.”

  The woman gave her a glare. “And the other?”

  “Is there another one like me here?”

  She looked surprised. “Of course. Lord Oton. Would you like to see him first?”

  Ruby’s heart was almost pounding visibly. “If it would not be awkward for you. Thank you.”

  “It will be best anyway. The doctor is staying in Lord Oton’s castle. You will need his permission to speak to her.”

  “Will you take me to the castle?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind going yourself, I have to finish the weeding and the girls need to get to work on their letters. My husband won’t be home from the fields for hours.”

  The farmwife pointed to the west, the castle was obvious enough to make her blush.

  “Thank you for your help. Will the locals give me any trouble?”

  “No. Most won’t speak to you until Lord Oton has approved you.”

  Ruby nodded and started for the village at an easy lope. Aside from her sisters, she had never met someone like her. And this one was male.

  The farmwife was correct. The tall, slender locals pretended that she wasn’t trotting through their market square. She had never felt so inconspicuous in her life.

  This beat using her newfound talent at blending in.

  The gates to the castle were open wide, an invitation she was not going to ignore.

  Several of the people bustling about stopped and a few even dropped their parcels in surprise. “Which way to Lord Oton?”

  A man with some kind of small animal pointed elongated fingers to the stairs leading up and into the stone home that the dragon must live in.

  Trembling with eagerness to meet another one of her kind, she practically ran up the steps and was stopped short by guards at the entrance to an audience chamber. “You cannot see his lordship if you do not have an appointment.”

  “An appointment?” This was ridiculous.

  A tall, slender native with white hair and a clipboard scowled down at the paper. “He has seen all on his petition for the day. The final appointment is in with him now.”

  She had dealt with bureaucrats before, “I am a last-minute addition to the roster and will only be here for the day. Is there anyway an exception can be made?”

  The man looked up and he swayed alarmingly. “Of course, lady. Just a moment while I announce you, lady…”

  “Ruby of the D.A.R.E. project.” She smiled and let the official scurry in front of her. Instead of waiting in the hall, she ducked past the two guards and walked slowly toward the large chair at one end of the audience chamber that housed what was unmistakably a male dragon.

  He had midnight hair and she could see the vibrant blue of his eyes as he spoke to the two farmers in front of him. His dark bronze skin was marked with the same twisting marks that she wore, visible with his arms exposed by the vest that was the sole covering for his upper body. The marks seemed split somehow and her instincts told her she should know them. His forehead was marked with a fine tracery of scales and when his official approached and whispered in his ear, that forehead wrinkled in confusion.

  He looked up and she was exposed to the full force of his gaze, the brilliant blue in the black of his eyes taking her in from head to toe. The official whispered to the farmers and the men looked over their shoulders, back at their Lord and left with knowing grins on their faces.

  Ruby found herself drawn to him. Her booted feet made slight scuffing noises on the tile as she approached. Unable to stop herself, she stepped up until she was directly in front of him and extended a hand to touch his arm. “Deities, you are real!”

  She jerked her hand back as if scalded. His skin had been so warm, the scent reaching her so enticing she had thought for an insta
nt that she stumbled into a dream.

  “As are you. Such a delicate thing to be alone and undefended in the worlds.” He stood and she found herself looking up. The only other option was to look forward and stare at his collarbone.

  His hand came under her chin and she jumped as he caressed her jaw with his thumb. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, lady?”

  She swallowed, completely forgetting why she had come. It took banging into her dart gun as she raised her hand to touch him again to remind her. “Oh.”

  She stepped away from him, the touch that had her up on her toes in the hope for more dropped away as she backed up. “Apparently, I need your permission to speak to Dr. Evian Raughl?”

  He sat on the edge of his large chair and looked at her with consideration in his eyes. “Yes, you do. She is in my house and under my protection. What do you want her for?”

  “She must return home.”

  The indelicate blurt came with a hot blush as his gaze continued to flick around her body as points of interest caught his attention.

  He rubbed his jaw and she watched the slow motion with her lip between her teeth. “Why?”

  “They need to close the holes they made in the dimensional fabric with their machines and their people.”

  He perked up. “They?”

  Tell him what you are. Rip off your sleeves and tell him.

  Why, Mother?

  It will explain a few things to him. Now do it.

  “They, the owners of the lab that gestated me and my siblings to adulthood.” She frowned but tore the sleeves of her uniform down to her elbows, exposing her tattoo-style birthmarks.

  Now that she had seen another one of her kind, she was almost sure that it was a kind of birthmark.

  Oton’s eyes widened until the black was quite visible around the blue. “That is impossible.” He stood and backed away for a moment before grabbing her arm for a closer look.