He couldn't tell her about the mate bond. Not yet. Not when she was injured and exhausted and grieving her ship. Not when they were locked in a cage with neuro-cuffs slowly poisoning his system. She needed facts, not more complications.
"I told you I was from Vemion. I'm a dragon lord." He kept his voice as matter-of-fact as possible. Like discussing the weather or navigation routes.
"Honestly, I thought that was just a title." She studied him with those sharp green eyes, cataloging details she'd missed before. "Are you a real dragon, like with scales and everything?"
"When I choose to be."
Her expression shifted through several emotions too quickly to track. Disbelief, wonder, calculation, and finally settling on grim acceptance. Because of course the universe would throw this at her too.
Pirates, treasure maps, and now shapeshifting passengers.
"You did something to the door to get us out." Not a question. She was piecing together the timeline, finding the holes in their captivity.
"I burned a hole in it."
Her gaze flicked to the energy field holding them now, and he could see her doing the math. Wondering why he hadn't already freed them if he had that kind of power at his disposal.
"They're on high alert right now. And I'm not immune to blasters." He shifted, trying to find a position where the neuro-cuffs didn't dig into his wrists. “Right now, they want you. I think you need to give them some hint about this map, to make yourself useful."
"And then we wait for our moment … again?" The skepticism in her voice could have etched glass.
"Exactly."
"We should just take our fucking moment while they're reeling." She stood, pacing the small space like a caged predator. Frustration crackled off her in waves that made his dragon want to growl.
"It may not seem like it, but I have tactical training on how to survive a hostage situation. We need to remain calm." Especially him, or the cuffs might do their worst.
"I am calm." She was absolutely not calm. Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides, and he could see the moment she registered the blood under her fingernails. Her blood, from wounds she'd taken defending her ship. "You have fire powers. You even used them to protect me from that cannon, didn't you? What's stopping you?"
The question hung between them. He could tell her the truth. That she'd redirected his fire, turned it into something else entirely. That the only person who could do that was someone whose soul was designed to complement his own. That in saving her, he'd found his mate.
But the words wouldn't come. Not here, not like this. She had enough to process without adding an eternal bond to the mix.
He just shrugged. "We need to get these cuffs off me first. Give them what they want, make it seem like we're not a threat, and in a few days, we'll own this ship."
They wouldn't need days. Once he got these cuffs off, once he had a clear shot at Horris without risking Mercy, it would be over in minutes.
She stopped pacing, turned to face him fully. The bruises on her face had darkened to purple-black, and her split lip had started bleeding again. But her eyes were clear, focused.
"Fine. We play it your way. For now." She settled back onto the bench, close enough that their shoulders touched. "But when your moment comes, you better be ready to take it."
He would be. For her, he'd be ready for anything.
7
The cleaning rag in Mercy's hand had seen better days. The synthetic fibers had broken down into something that smeared grime around more than removed it, but she kept scrubbing anyway.
Playing the broken captive meant accepting whatever degrading task they threw at her.
Her knees ached from kneeling on the deck. Her fingers had gone numb from the industrial cleaner that burned through skin as efficiently as it ate through carbon scoring. Every joint in her body protested the repetitive motion, but she kept her head down and worked.
Better this than sitting in that cage with Zane. Better this than thinking about how he'd hidden his true nature while she'd fed him wine and played card games with him.
A dragon.
An actual fire-breathing, shape-shifting dragon who'd played helpless while pirates destroyed her ship.
She attacked a particularly stubborn burn mark with renewed vigor. The longer she spent replaying their time together, the more obvious his act became. The way he'd moved through her galley with supernatural grace. The casual strength when he'd helped secure cargo that should have strained someone of his athletic build. The way he hadn’t seemed to get cold, even that night when the ship's heating had been on the fritz and she'd been bundled in three layers.
