Amused by the dry observation, she gave the joyous laugh he loved so much. “Okay, fine. My mythological dragon mate is going to hide in a cave while I deal with corporate bureaucrats. This is officially the weirdest situation I’ve ever been in.”
“And do humans often find themselves in such situations?”
“Never.”
He pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her, wishing he could extend his wings to shelter her from more than just the cold. “When this is over and the threat has passed, we will speak of the future. Of what comes next.”
“The future,” she murmured against his chest. “I haven’t thought about the future in a long time.”
“Then I will think about it for both of us.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I have had millennia of sleep. I have much time to make up for.”
“That’s either romantic or ominous.”
“Perhaps both.”
She tilted her head back to look at him, and despite the threat looming on the horizon and the fear she tried to hide, she smiled at him.
“Come on, Ice Dragon. We have work to do.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“We can’t stay here.”
The words left Jaz’s mouth before she’d fully processed the thought, but the moment she said them, she knew they were right. She’d been thinking about her plan as they started searching for traces of his presence, and she finally realized it was driven more by her desire to remain on her claim than by realistic expectations. Adjar turned towards her and tilted his head questioningly.
“Hiding you in the caves isn’t going to work.” She sighed. “Not if they really want you. I was treating this as if they were trying to steal mineral rights, or even some piece of technology. If they were simply trying to acquire my claim, it might have been enough. But after the explosion, they know something happened here. They might not know exactly what happened, but they know enough to believe that there is something valuable here, which means they’ll dig in. They’ll bring in more equipment and more personnel, and keep searching until they find what they’re looking for.”
“Then what do you propose?”
She started pacing, her boots thudding against the metal floor. “I think we need to go to the rangers. They have a station about two hundred kilometers southwest. It’s remote, but it’s not close to any GenCon locations.
“The rangers?”
“They’re cyborgs who were originally sent to terraform Mars. Once the settlers started colonizing the planet, they transitioned into what passes as law enforcement. They handle disputes in the outlands and protect independent operators from corporate overreach.” She stopped pacing and turned to face him. “And most importantly, they’re not bought and paid for by GenCon. If anyone can help us, it’s them.”
His expression was unreadable. “You trust these… modified humans?”
“Yes.” She ran a hand through her tangled hair, already mentally cataloguing what they’d need. “They may not be overly friendly, but I trust them to be fair and honest. I can’t guarantee they can help us, but at a minimum, they can provide sanctuary while we figure out our next move. GenCon can’t just storm a ranger station without serious political consequences.”
“And if the rangers decide I am also a threat?”
“Then we deal with that.” She met his gaze steadily. “But I don’t believe they will. They know firsthand what it’s like to be treated as less than human simply because you are different. And the alternative is waiting here for GenCon to show up with God knows what kind of equipment, God knows how many personnel, and hoping we can somehow hide the fact that an actual dragon emerged from the ice. That’s not a gamble I’m willing to take.”
Silence stretched between them, and then he moved towards her, his movements fluid and predatory. When he stopped, he was close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his scaled skin.
“You would leave your home for me.”
It wasn’t a question, but she answered anyway. “This place is just metal and ice. It’s not—” She caught herself, surprised by the emotion rising in her throat. “It’s not worth your life. Nothing is worth your life.”
His hand came up to cup her face, his fingers impossibly gentle against her cheek. “Then we will gather what we can and leave. But first, we must ensure nothing remains for them to find.”
The wind had died to a whisper, but the cold remained brutal—the kind of cold that seeped through thermal layers and settled into bones. She pulled her face covering tighter and squinted against the pale light reflecting off endless white.
They started with the crater.
The hole he had punched through the ice was massive, a ragged wound in the landscape that screamedsomething happened here. Even from a distance, the darkness of the exposed depths was visible against the pristine surface.
“Can you collapse it?” she asked, her breath misting in the frigid air.
