“What do you mean, more prominently? How else can I wear it?” Bobbi asked, frowning. She decided to give up arguing with him—for now, anyway. Maybe later she could change his mind about at least visiting the Mother Ship. For now, she could sense she wasn’t going to make any more progress.
“You wear it like this.”
Dragon lifted the piece and draped it over her head. Then he did something to the fastening so that she was wearing it almost like a kind of crown with the golden dragon resting on her forehead.
“There.” He sat back and nodded in apparent satisfaction as Bobbi reached up to carefully touch the dragon. It was a little larger than a silver dollar and at first it felt cold against her skin, but the metal soon warmed up.
“You really want me to wear it like a crown?” she asked, arching her eyebrows at him.
He nodded firmly.
“That way no one can mistake the fact that you belong to me, little one. No other male will dare to touch you when they see you wearing that Claiming piece and smell my scent all over you.”
“I would have thought what you did to the two guys in the alley yesterday would be deterrent enough,” Bobbi murmured. “Or what the, er, guy living inside you did.” She shivered when she remembered the fate of the two Saurian attackers again.
“That will help, too,” Dragon said, nodding. “But I want you wearing my jewelry and my scent, too. Please understand, little one…” He took her hands and looked at her earnestly. “I just want to keep you as protected as possible until after our wedding, when you’ll have all the protections of being a wife. I’m tempted to lock you in my rooms until then, but I know you want to spend time with your friend.”
“I do like spending time with Keelah,” Bobbi said, nodding. “And I don’t want to be locked up like a princess in a tower all day.”
“Good—then you’ll wear the jewelry.” Dragon leaned over and kissed her cheek. “And now, I really have to go. I’ll meet you at First Meal.”
“All right.” Bobbi nodded and watched him leave with a preoccupied look on his face. Then she got up and went to look at her new jewelry in the bathroom mirror.
The golden dragon was cunningly jointed so that it conformed to the slight curve of her forehead and didn’t feel stiff or unnatural at all. Its golden tail curled just between her eyebrows and the ruby flames coming from its mouth matched her hair.
She touched it lightly and shook her head. She had so many conflicting emotions about the big Kindred, she hardly knew where to begin.
On one hand, it was clear that he loved her to distraction—he was pretty much obsessed with keeping her safe in every way he knew how. But on the other hand, he wouldn’t even consider leaving Saurous or trying any other life. And he expected her to give up her own life and career without a second thought, so she could be his little wife and “bear his sons.”
“I can’t stay here,” Bobbi murmured to her reflection. “It’s horrible and it’s cold. And no matter how sweet Dragon is, he’s my captor, not my fiancé—not really.”
Hearing the words come out of her mouth seemed to break something inside her and tears came to her eyes. But Bobbi couldn’t deny the truth of them. She might have come to care for Dragon—she might even be starting to love him. But she couldn’t give up everything she’d worked for all her life and settle down on Saurous—she just couldn’t.
But will he let you go? whispered a little voice in her head. And the image that rose in her mind wasn’t Dragon. Instead, she saw the same mental picture she’d seen earlier—a dragon like the one on her new Claiming piece, curled around a pile of gold with Bobbi herself in the center as it guarded her jealously with eyes that never blinked.
He’ll want to keep you, you know, that little voice told her. He and Dragon both.
Bobbi felt a shiver run down her spine. She had no idea what was going to happen, but something told her that leaving either Dragon or the entity that lived inside him wasn’t going to be easy.
Not easy at all.
50
Dragon found his Big Brother in his rooms, lolling in his extra-large sleeping pit with a Pleasure Girl on either side of him. Zerlix was naked, his flaccid corkscrew phallus laying limply against one scaly thigh. No doubt he’d been using it all night long, forcing himself on the helpless girls he surrounded himself with, Dragon thought, feeling disgusted.
He knew it was the Saurian way for a male to buy Pleasure Girls and use them any way he wanted, but the practice had always seemed wrong to him on many levels. He remembered Bobbi telling him that Saurian society was “toxic” for women. Maybe she was right.