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Marissa did her best to concentrate on driving, but Asher was a distraction she couldn’t resist. Even in the ill-fitting clothes she’d given him he was sexy as hell, and far bigger than any human she’d ever met. With his huge size and hard, fit body he could easily be a pro wrestling star, earning the big bucks in the ring.
“So where are we headed?” Asher asked in a deep voice she found almost as sexy as the rest of him.
But she still had to swallow back a burst of anxiety as she concentrated on the highway ahead and said, “To Sydney ... to my father’s.”
She felt his stare like a slow burn into her brain. Bloody hell, he couldn’t read minds or any shit like that could he?
She cleared her throat. “But just to pick up supplies and change vehicles.”
“It sounds as though seeing your father isn’t something you’re looking forward to.”
She exhaled slowly, her fingers loosening ever so slightly on the steering wheel. Evidently he couldn’t read her thoughts or he’d know exactly how raw her feelings were on the subject. “Yeah, well, my father and I didn’t part on the best of terms.”
He reached forward, touching her ring that gleamed golden on her work-roughened hand. “Was it your choice of husband?”
She flicked him a cool glance, though her pulse thudded erratically. “You don’t miss much, do you?” She sighed and lifted her hand to glance at the plain jewelry. ”Except it’s not my wedding ring. Luke I never got married. We were engaged before he died.”
“I’m sorry that you lost someone you loved.”
She didn’t need to see Asher’s face to sense his own pain.
“You lost someone too?” she asked.
He nodded, his shoulders bowing. “Almost all of my people are now dead.”
Her chest tightened, as though some of his pain had just become her own. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make this all about me.”
She’d lost someone who’d been special to her while Asher had lost nearly everyone he knew.
“Don’t be sorry.” He looked her way. “It wasn’t only Luke you lost, was it?”
“No. How did you know?”
“I’m trained to notice details.”
She cleared her throat. “So what are you, a spy or something on your planet?”
It was that same hyper-awareness that had her perceive his flash of pain. But the momentary lapse of emotion was quickly masked.
“No, not a spy,” he murmured. “Although I was trained in all things, including self-protection.”
Was that even an answer? She searched his impassive profile before speaking. “My mother took her own life, six years ago. I was sixteen. And almost one year ago now I lost Luke.”
She didn’t even realize she’d shed a tear until Asher brushed the wetness away with his thumb. She resisted leaning into his touch, resisting totally melting for the alien.
Did he have to be so damn understanding? From the very first she’d known he was a tough and uncompromising warrior, and yet he’d shown only kindness. She forced back a sniffle and took some calming breaths. “Luke’s death was a work accident. I’ve crept past the guilt now and live a little easier knowing there was nothing I could do to save him.”
“But you still feel guilt over your mother?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” she admitted, feeling good somehow to get the truth out in the open. “I often wondered if I’d been there more for her, talked to her about her ... problems. Maybe she’d still be alive.”
“You can’t blame yourself for loved ones not being around anymore. It’s not what they’d want, and it’s not a good emotion to carry around.”
There was something in his voice that made her look at him again. She inhaled sharply. Going by his stark, pale face, he was a man loaded with guilt and responsibility. She turned back to the road. Her warrior was an honorable man. Did he blame himself for the catastrophic loss of his people?
“What happened to your people?” she asked.
“A war is what happened.”
Something inside withered a little. She’d never experienced war and hoped she never would. She could only imagine the atrocities, the deaths. Not to mention the guilt he clearly carried that came with living while so many others died. “You can no more blame yourself for a war than you can for the sun rising at dawn.”
“But I can,” he muttered, “at least in the former.”
She frowned, trying to piece all the fragments together. “Were you a general, someone important in your army?”
He exhaled slowly. “I was ruler of my people. It was my choice to stand and fight for our world, even knowing the Tantonics mass numbers and power.”
He was a ruler of his world? Her chest tightened. Of course he was. His regal bearing and his selfless need to protect her was proof enough. Not to mention his integrity that radiated from him like a beacon.
She slowed behind a SUV towing a caravan, before she asked, “So these ... Tantonics. Are they the same aliens who were in the craft chased by fighter jets?”
“Yes.”
Her mind racing, she added, “But your people are fire-breathing dragons, they must have had a chance at defeating your enemy.”
“Our dragon form doesn’t come to us until many years of age. Even then most of my people won’t willingly go through the agony of change until the rising of the twin moons compels them.”
“How old were you when you first shifted into your dragon form?”
“I was almost a century when my body decided it was time, which is early compared to most of my race.”
A century?
She nearly missed the road sign ahead that revealed the Sydney turnoff. She flicked on the indicator and exited the road onto a much busier highway while her thoughts chased one another like a kitten would its tail.
She pushed away thousand-and-one questions to ask, “So how old are you now?”
“I’m a decade off two centuries.” At her unwitting gasp, he added, “Unless grievously injured, our species are immortal, so a century before shifting into dragon isn’t all that long a wait. It takes at least a hundred years to condition the body to pain in order to endure a shift, especially for the first time.”
She shook her head. She’d just barely acknowledged he was an alien dragon shape shifter. Learning all this new information about him and his kind defied all laws of reason. “Did you deliberately inflict self-pain to prepare your body to shift?”
He nodded. “Yes. My kind held monthly pain rituals just before our two moons rose. The older shifters who’d already endured the process, devised different practices in which to increase our pain threshold.”
“That sounds...”
“Barbaric? Torturous?”
“Yes.”
“Believe me, there is no alternative. The pain of shape shifting is beyond anything even an enemy could devise. And being dragon, even in our primary form, burning isn’t an option.”
“Your flesh doesn’t burn?” she asked weakly, doing her best to take it all in and ignore all logic.
He pressed a warm hand against her cool cheek. “Fully fire resistant.”
Not that she was taking too much notice of his heat. It took everything she had and then some not to react to the flood of hormones bursting into life at his touch before flooding into far more intimate parts of her body. It made her achingly aware of how long it’d been since she’d allowed a man near her.
“And for any of my people to first transition into dragon, they must find a compatible mate to induce the spark that ignites our inner dragon into existence.”
She bit into her bottom lip, her belly tightening even before she asked, “So you found that mate?”
“Yeah, for a short while I guess I did.”
She wouldn’t dwell on the shaft of relief at hearing his mate had been short term. “Just how long is a short time in your world?”
He sent her a wry smile. “I was with Rhyhana for three years.”
She indicated once again, seemingly driving on automaton for the four hours it took to get to her father’s place in the city. “That’s quite some time. Was it the war that tore you apart?”
“No. It was another man called Baron.” His voice roughened. “But it was eventually the war that tore him and Rhyhana apart. The Tantonics captured her. A fate worse than death.”
“So Baron is still alive?” She caught his nod in her peripheral vision.
“Yeah. He escaped our world together with me and three others, including my sister.”
“Where are they now?”
“Far away from here and the Tantonics with any luck.” He sighed. “No more questions. The less you know about everything to do with me the better.”
She smiled grimly. “I don’t plan on being captured, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Unfortunately very few plans work out how they’re expected.”
“Like your war?”
His mood visibly dimmed. “Yeah, like my war.”
She bit into her bottom lip. “I didn’t mean to suggest it was your fault.”
He shrugged. “It is what it is. I can’t change the past.”
She glanced at him. “You know, you’re really starting to sound like a human.”
“That is good. We learned a lot of human ways on our journey here.”
A service station appeared ahead and she pulled into its turnoff and parked beside a bowser. She killed the engine and once again turned to Asher. “Then I guess you know our cars here need refueling. I guess you also know women need to use restrooms occasionally.”
“As do the men and women on my world.”
“So we’re not so different.”
“If one took away our shape shifting ability and our tendency to run hot, we’d be pretty much the same.”
“Just ... bigger versions.”
His lips curled. “Yeah, bigger.” He leaned forward and cupped her chin, his thumb softly stroking. “Believe me, that’s not a bad thing.”
