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She peered up at him with her light green eyes and Tristan frowned. Why were human women so short?
Melanie stared at him for another two seconds before she offered him her bag. “That still doesn’t really tell me who you are, but since I’m staying with Stonefire for at least the next six months, I can hunt you down if you run off with my things.”
He pierced her with a stare. “If I decided to run off with your suitcase, I guarantee you wouldn’t be able to find me. I have wings.”
“Right. You’re a dragon. I’m not sure how I forgot about that.” She offered her bag again. “Well, take it then. I’d say it’s heavy, but you look like you can handle it.”
She’d forgotten he was a dragon?Fuck. So much for using the rumors of dragon brutality to get her to leave him alone. The female was going to be a bigger challenge than he’d anticipated. His preemptive glare had been justified.
For now, he just needed to deliver her to his clan leader. He could worry about how much trouble she was later.
He took her bag. “We have a meeting. Follow me.”
He turned and started walking. Since he didn’t try to pace his strides with her much shorter ones, she had to half-jog to keep up.Good. Maybe if he kept her winded, she wouldn’t try talking to him. He had no intention of getting to know Ms. Melanie Hall.
* * *
Melanie wasn’tsure what she had expected on meeting her first dragon-shifter face-to-face, but Tristan MacLeod hadn’t been it.
Yes, he was tall, lean, and muscular—okay, she’d admit sexy—but he could probably snap her in two if he tried. Manners and politeness definitely weren’t his forte. She doubted he even knew how to smile.
And yet, she had a sinking feeling he was the male who had been assigned to her.
Best not to jump to conclusions, Hall.Right. She was a social scientist. She needed to observe and obtain more information before forming any sort of definitive opinion. Maybe the dragonman was merely having a bad day.
At least, the walk was doing some good to help calm the fluttering in her stomach. She might’ve put on a brave front for the dragon-shifter, but inside her heart thumped a million beats a minute.
And she’d only been on the dragon-shifter’s land for ten minutes. How could she last six months?
Taking a deep breath, Mel remembered her decision to treat her time with the dragon-shifters as nothing more than a difficult fieldwork assignment.
Observing Clan Stonefire as an anthropologist was going to be her coping technique. Yes, she would have to get naked with some dragonman and possibly bear his half-dragon child, but she was going to make the most of her six months here, or longer. If she played her cards right, she might be able to write her doctoral thesis on something to do with the Stonefire dragons.
She’d been struggling to come up with a good thesis idea, but a close study on how the dragon-shifters lived would be groundbreaking since very few true facts were known about them. In Mel’s opinion, giving humans a glimpse into their daily lives might help ease the fear surrounding the dragon clans. Far too many parents still told legends of how dragons would swoop down and pluck children from their parents to eat them as part of the nighttime story routines.
A sound that was a mixture of an eagle’s cry and a lion’s roar echoed through the air. Mel stopped in her tracks as she clapped her hands over her ears against the noise. Before she could look up to see what had caused it, she had to close her eyes against the wind as it whooshed over her. Two seconds later, she opened her eyes to see the receding shapes of a gold and red dragon fade into the distance. She could only make out their wings and large bodies before they disappeared from her line of sight, and disappointment rushed over her. One of the perks of living with the dragon-shifters was that she could finally see a dragon up close, but it looked like it wasn’t going to happen quite yet.
She looked over and saw Tristan standing with her bag. Before she could stop herself, she asked, “Do you ever take humans up with you when you’re in dragon form?”
His neutral expression became dark. “We’re not pack animals at the mercy of human masters.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“You obviously haven’t had to deal with dragon hunters or pro-containment activists. Some say that being pack animals or blood donors is all we’re good for.” He turned and started walking. “Come on. Stonefire’s clan leader is waiting for you.”
Asshole.Even if he was having a bad day, he didn’t have to be so rude.
Mel half-jogged to catch up with him. He was still a foot or two ahead of her, but if he thought it would deter her from continuing their conversation, he was sadly mistaken. Anger had always made her brave—and a little bit careless. “You’re right; I don’t know much about the poachers or the anti-dragon people. But unless you tell me, I never will.”
Tristan stopped and she nearly ran into his back. He looked over his shoulder. “Look, I’m going to lay out the facts for you. While you might’ve volunteered for this, I didn’t and I don’t plan to waste my time on getting to know you or some such bullshit. I will do what I’m contracted to do, nothing more. I suggest you gear yourself up for some sex and enjoy it, because that’s all you’re going to get from me.”
Mel blinked. “You’re the male assigned to me?”
Tristan turned and gave a mocking bow. “The cream of the crop, my lady.”
“Somehow, I doubt it.”
There was a flash of hatred in his eyes. “I don’t want this any more than you do, but you signed the contract, which means you’re going to try to give me a child. And if all goes well, I hope you’ll leave me and my child alone and go back to your human life.”
