Page 55 of Red Dragon’s Heart

Maddie felt her insides grow cold. He wouldn’t need her anymore.

Although… Emon hadn’t exactly said he wanted Zak to come back.

Zak was still fingering the collar. “Who has control of it?” he asked.

Emon raised an eyebrow. “Me, of course.” He held up a gold disk. “This key is tuned to the Al-Maddeiri royal blood. So if I croak unexpectedly, you’re not totally screwed. Kira or Mayah can take the collar off, if they want. Personally, though, if I were them, I’d maintain control of the thing and make you cluck like a chicken whenever they felt like it. In fact, I might do that myself.”

“Fuck off.”

Maddie sucked in her breath. It would take more guts than she could imagine to tell that terrifying man to fuck off.

Emon just gave a snort of what seemed like combined amusement and annoyance. “I’m glad to see adversity has improved your character.”

“Nothing is going to improve my character.” Zak spoke absently, though; he was still turning the collar over in his hands. “And anyway, you’re one to talk. Make me cluck like a fucking chicken.” He shook his head, gazing at the collar, and then looked up at Emon. “If I wear it, do I retain any of my powers?”

“We—Thorne—managed to calibrate it to allow your innate Draken abilities. Strength, speed, healing, resistance to damage and magic. No spells. You can still make clothes, though, thank the gods, so we don’t have to look at you naked.”

Maddie sniffed. Some people liked looking at him naked.

Zak said, “Who said you’re going to get to look at me at all? I have a nice place here. Cozy.”

“Which is going to be overrun by the Council any day—on the warpath about your pet chemist. You need to pack her up and bring her back to the territory, before they come busting in here and take her.”

Crap. How had the Council found out where she was?

“Over my dead body,” Zak growled. “How the hell did they find out about her?”

“Are you kidding? She was all over the news, and they know she was working for Grenadier and Belvedere. And then, rumors reached them of two rogue dragons being involved. A purple one and a red one. It took them a while, but unfortunately they finally managed to put two and two together, and came up with you. They’re putting pressure on Thorne to get your location out of me. He’s going to have to come up with it sooner or later. Probably sooner.”

“But—”

Emon just gazed at him with that sardonic eyebrow lift. “I assumed you’d want to come. Isn’t that why you asked Thorne for the inhibitor serum? So you could come back without killing anyone?”

“No, actually. I was afraid the monster would hurt Maddie.”

That statement engendered a long, pregnant silence.

Then Emon said, “Is she your mate?”

Maddie held her breath, wondering what level of relationship ‘mate’ involved for dragons, and what Zak would say about it.

Zak glanced in the direction of the lab door, and lowered his voice so Maddie could barely hear it.

“Worse. The monster thinks she’s its mate.”

Maddie stood there, stunned. The monster had a thing for her?

Emon frowned. “Then why would it hurt her?”

Zak made a frustrated noise. “I can’t control it, when it comes out. What if it claimed her?”

There was another long silence, and then Emon said quietly, “Fuck.”

“Exactly.”

“But if it has feelings and preferences—”

“Don’t go there.”