Her Dragon Captor (Her Dragon King Duet 1)

“Damianos Drákon has finally returned my message,” he guessed as soon as Ivar, appeared on his wall screen. He god spoke the brilliant Russian physicist decades ago, specifically to work with him on this project.

“Yes, Master,” Ivar answered, his Russian accent still thick despite having now lived the majority of his life in the small Idaho mountain town where their lab was located. “We received a communication from Damianos Drákon just now.”

So late at night? No matter. Ao Quong’s flame flared with excitement at his assistant’s announcement. Finally, the go ahead he’d been waiting for had arrived.

“Very good. We will review the portal trial plan at tomorrow’s morning meeting before recruiting volunteers.”

With that order, he opened his mouth to end the call. Perhaps if he returned to sleep now, the dream would come back to him. His flame quivered in anticipation.

“But Master, he did not give us the go-ahead to start conducting trials.”

The words to end the call froze in Ao Quong’s mouth, dissipated and reformed as, “What?”

“The communication…it said we were all allowed to return home as the project had been shuttered until further notice. And it ended with a dismissal. Mr. Drákon said our services were no longer needed.”

No longer needed…millenniums of research, experimentation, and waiting for the technology on this backward planet to advance enough to recalibrate one of the Betrayer King’s fating match portals to achieve their goal. And now his king was saying their project was no longer needed?

This time Ao Quong didn’t ask, he roared, “WHAT?”

DYANA

“Are you sure I can’t escort you home?” Brandon yelled over the blaring club music after Dyana told her gang of #richkidsoflondon friends that she was shoving off. “Or you could come back to mine.”

Dyana bit her lip. No, she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything but that she was a fool, an utter fool for what she was about to do.

Which was turning down yet another invitation to “come back to mine” from Brandon. Brandon, the boy she’d had a crush on for ages before Maxwell Kreft had come along.

Originally, the only reason she’d started flirting with Max at that meet-and-greet mixer for their Oxford MBA program was to make Brandon jealous. Max’s hair had been hopelessly untrimmed, and he’d worn unimpressive store-bought clothes without a bit of nanite in them. But he’d also been the only bloke in their entire program who was both taller and fitter than Brandon, so she’d decided to chat him up. She’d wanted Brandon to see that unlike his weak-chinned girlfriend of the month, she could have any guy she set her sights on.

But the half-interested flirtation had quickly turned into a real conversation. And then a little voice in Dyana’s head had told her that she was done with reality series bad boys. This sweet, handsome guy with the boarding school accent…yeah, he was it.

“You might not be any hashtags, but you’re a right laugh,” Dyana ended up telling Max. “And I promise I won’t report you if you go in for a snog.”

He’d taken her up on her invitation, and by the time Brandon broke it off with his latest girlfriend some short weeks later, Dyana was already head over heels in love with the totally unminted boy from the mixer. She’d floated Brandon a few sad face emojis, and that was that.

Dyana and Max hadn’t had nearly as much in common as she and Brandon did. Brandon’s parents had been on the same reality internet series as hers. And their parents’ fans had been shipping them for ages. If Dyana had fallen into a relationship with Brandon after his breakup, she imagined they would’ve received advance offers of full wedding sponsorship in exchange for spontaneously “deciding” to get married.

Max had been the opposite of Brandon and every other boy she’d ever dated if Dyana were being honest. Much to her parents’ dismay, he’d refused on-camera time, and he barely used his biosystem to do anything but study. He’d seemed to be dating Dyana despite her lux hashtags, not because of them. And when he asked her questions, he expected intelligent answers. Which had been a first, hadn’t it? She’d always been quietly smart, but she’d never had a boy appreciate that about her.

Not until Max.

Max was unputtogether for reasons that had nothing to do with irony. He used a basic Tesco styler to cut his hair for presentations and interviews, and he only replaced clothes when they became holey—sometimes not even then.

But that didn’t mean he had no pride or respect. Quite the opposite, really. Even though his only hashtag was #skint, he insisted on splitting the bill when they went out for dinner—which was rare, because he was an excellent cook.

And he’d even found a way to make her last birthday special, despite not being able to afford much. He’d contacted all of her friends behind her back and had them pair their favorite picture of her with a written memory on their biofeeds. Then he screenshot the lot of them all and delivered them to her in a scrapbook along with a wonderful meal, better than anything she could have gotten at a five-star restaurant. The gift couldn’t have cost more than a quid or two, but for a very long time, it was the most valuable thing she owned.