“She gets grumpy when she misses school,” Lottie said.
Freda slammed the driver’s side door and turned the key in the ignition. The car gave off a sputtering sound and did not start the way that Sysko's car did. Lottie gave him a look of shock. Freda grumbled loudly in the front seat. She tried turning the key again, but it gave the same sputtering response. Freda got out of the car and lifted the hood, checking the engine. She then slammed the hood down several moments later.
“Of course, it's a cracked engine head,” Freda said, growling and pacing over the gravel driveway. “That's going to cost two grand. And who knows how long it'll take to fix. Now I have to call a tow truck to tow us back to Boston. How much is that gonna cost me?”
“I can take you back to Boston. My luxury sports car is brand-new,” Sysko said, sweeping his hand over his new Porsche.
Freda looked up at him like he was a lunatic, her mouth dropping open and her eyes going wide.
“Can we, Freda, can we?” Lottie asked, jumping up and down and clapping her hands.
“Oh my God,” Freda said. “Fine, I'll let you drive us back. I have three hundred dollars in my bank account right now. I'm a graduate student, not a millionaire. My parents just died. Now I have to take care of my little sister, and I’ve got a dragon admiral wanting to mate with me. How will I ever finish my dissertation now?”
“Geez Freda, just get in the car,” Lottie said.
Freda glowered and swung open the front passenger door of Sysko's Porsche. She climbed in and shut the door behind her, sitting in the front seat with her arms crossed angrily over her chest while he and Lottie transferred the bags from the broken-down sedan into the trunk of his car.
Lottie climbed in the backseat, and Sysko sat in the front. Grinning over at Freda, he turned on the car and slid down the roof that settled behind the backseat.
“It's a convertible,” he said in a self-congratulatory tone.
“So? Good for you, bro,” Freda said, not looking at him.
“I heard that human females like convertible sports cars,” he said.
“Where are you getting your information?” Freda asked him as he backed up the human vehicle and turned around in the driveway.
“My science officer. He is one of the most intelligent men in the entire Draxos space navy.”
“Well, he may be one of the most intelligent men in the Draxos space navy, but he doesn't know anything about me.”
“Did you like the flowers?” Sysko asked.
“I did,” Lottie said.
“Who doesn't like flowers?” Freda asked.
“See? She did like them,” Lottie said from the backseat.
Sysko set his navigation for the city of Boston and began maneuvering through the concrete highways of Earth. Driving the vehicle was not unlike driving his speeder so he had no problem making his way to her city.
His mate was clearly distressed and he assumed that she was overwhelmed by all the pressure put upon her by her environment and current events. He couldn't blame her. Her parents were probably dead. She had a sister to take care of, a dissertation, and a mate who wanted to turn her into a dragon. He could understand why she might be a little miffed. He would try his hardest to alleviate the stress.
Sysko decided that the best course of action was showing gentleness to the little human female. As shapely as her petite form may be, she was not Draxos. His female required even more gentle handling than his own kind. Though his inner dragon raged in his mind to claim his mate as quickly as possible, Sysko knew that it would never work that way. He would have to take his time and court her like a gentleman in the way that human gentlemen courted human ladies.
He had been waiting many cycles for a mate of his own, and now his lovely Freda had arrived. He would wait as long it took to woo her, even if it killed him. He would not push her beyond her limits. Not if he could help it anyway. He pledged to try to retain control of himself in every moment.
As the miles ticked away, he could tell Freda was beginning to relax. After a while, they stopped for a bite to eat at what the girls called a “diner”. The three of them went inside and found a table. The girls both got turkey sandwiches and he got one as well. When the server brought their food, he was impressed with the crunchy lettuce, the savory turkey, and the sweet bread. Earth food wasn't too bad. After lunch, Freda became more lively and pleasant in the car. She turned one of the knobs on his dashboard and music poured out of the speakers.
“What is that?” he asked.
“It's the radio,” she said, flipping through the music channels at an alarming speed.
“Why don't you just pick something?” he asked.
She gave him a look that told him that she found him annoying so he shut his mouth. Finally, she chose something and a jarring cacophony of noise blared from the speakers. The “music” stirred up his emotions and slammed into his belly.
They made it into the city, not a moment too soon. He turned off the radio as he parked outside her building, not wanting to hear that noise again. He helped the girls carry their things into the apartment, and they set everything in the hall outside the door. Freda stopped there as Lottie went inside. Sysko kept expecting her to ask him in, but she continued to stand there with her arms crossed, blocking the door.
“Well, thanks for the ride,” she said. “I arranged for a tow truck. My car should be arriving by tomorrow.”
“You want me to leave, don't you?” he asked.
“Sorry you went out of your way like this.”
“My speeder can pick me up. But the question is, what should I do with my new car?” he asked her. She shrugged and started to turn to the door. “Oh yes, I can lend it to you because your car is broken.” He thrust the keys into her hands. He was still holding the flowers he'd carried up from the car and shoved those into her hands as well.
“You're lending me your brand-new sports car?”
“Of course, my dear. I don't need it. Now, I should be getting back to the ship. I will court you again tomorrow. When is a good time for you?”
“A good time for me? I have so much to catch up on.”
“Why don't you let me help you?” he asked. “I will come to you at the time of your customary evening meal.”
“You can just meet me here at six tomorrow. I'll see you then. Thanks for the ride.”
She disappeared behind the door and his heart sang with the triumph of pleasing her. He hadn’t expected to lend her his car, but fate had come into play and it all worked out perfectly. Sysko walked away, humming with satisfaction. He had accomplished more than he’d expected today.
Chapter 9
Why are you being so nice to him?” Freda asked Lottie as she gazed through the peephole to make sure he'd gone.
“Why are you being so mean to him?” Lottie countered.
“I'm not being mean. I'm having a healthy dose of skepticism.”
“That's not what they call skepticism,” Lottie said. “That's what they call bitchy.”
“And to think that a week ago I was scraping you up off the floor,” Freda said.
“A lot happened in the last week. Everything's changed. The whole world is different now. After I realized that mom and dad were probably dead, I checked out. But the Draxos came to save us from the cyborgs. We don't have to be scared anymore. We can rely on them to help us. You understand that, don't you? They’re our friends.”
“You can believe whatever you want, Lottie. You always were gullible,” Freda said.
“I'm not gullible. The president is working with the Draxos. They're giving our world advanced technology. They're going to solve our energy problems, our population problem, and our hunger problem. There will probably be peace on Earth now. All thanks to them,” Lottie reasoned as Freda began moving the bags from the living room to their proper places.
“Yeah,” Freda muttered. “That's what everybody thinks. But I have yet to see it for myself. As far as I know, it's just a bunch of fan
cy words. I need to get back to work tomorrow in the real science and technology of the human race,” Freda said.
“Speaking of science and technology, Sysko told me his sister was a big scientist back in the Draxos system. Apparently, she's the one that discovered the human/dragon connection and what they call the transformation ritual,” Lottie said as Freda began to unpack her duffel bag.
They had used all the canned foods she'd brought with them after the attack, and then some. The last few days at the cabin had been spent dealing with the emotional roller coaster of finding out she was the fated mate of a Draxos.
“Am I supposed to be impressed by that?”
“There aren’t very many female dragons left in the galaxy and Sysko’s sister is one of the leading scientists for their race. She's even younger than you,” Lottie said.
“What are you trying to accomplish by telling me about this science prodigy dragon girl?” Freda asked.
“Well, I'm just saying that maybe you and she have something in common. That's all I mean. Besides her brother Sysko, that is.”
“I guess.”
“Sysko is awfully handsome, isn't he? Don't you like him even a little bit? He was so nice to bring us back to Boston.”
“He's just trying to get in my pants,” Freda said. Walking into the kitchen to start dinner.
“Of course he is. He's in a mating thrall. If he doesn't claim you, he will die.”
“I can't believe that you believe such hogwash. You know all of this could be a big ploy. We don't have any proof that any of it is true.”
“You're so cynical, Freda. I can't even talk to you right now,” Lottie said, throwing her hands in the air and leaving the room.
Freda groaned and finished making dinner. Lottie took her portion, plopped herself on the couch, and started watching Draxos informational videos on YouTube, completely ignoring Freda for the rest of the night. Freda took her food to her room and tried to catch up on her schoolwork. She was so distracted by Lottie's badgering that she could barely study.
There was nothing actually wrong with Sysko. In fact, he was incredibly handsome and if she was just taking his general demeanor into account, he was a decent enough person. But her suspicions about the Draxos wouldn't let her trust him. She had to protect her sister. She had to protect her species. It was everything that she stood for and everything that she was. Just because a beautiful and charming man walked into her life, wearing a tailored suit and driving a sports car that he promptly lent to her, didn't mean that she would just accept it at face value.
Maybe part of her did want to accept it as true. Wouldn't it be nice to have a man like Sysko? A powerful and influential man who was a legit dragon? His black, star-spangled body was a sight to behold. And when he had gone into his hyperdrive form while defending them from the cyborg ship, she had felt something so deep and compelling that she still had no words to describe it. She’d chocked that all up to anxiety and trauma, which she still was convinced was the case. But the overwhelming flood of emotion that had been sparked within her at the sight of Sysko's thrall form would not go away
Instead of studying, she opened her computer and did a search for “Draxos transformation ritual”. She opened the first search result and read a couple of lines. Her mouth dropped open in shock and disgust. The transformation worked on the principle of genetic regulation, activating the recessive dragonoid genes in the human body. The genes had to be activated by a specific protein and that protein was the semen of the fated mate. So, the way that Sysko intended to transform her into a dragon was by applying his semen to every part of her body? Inside and out. Gross.
“It just gets worse and worse,” she said.
She stood from her computer and looked out the window at the night sky line of Boston. She had a decent view since the building next door was shorter than hers and she was on a little bit of an elevation. She could see downtown and the lights twinkling in the skyscrapers of night. Her world was different now. Everything had changed while they were at the cabin. As much as she didn’t want to, she had to accept that. Nothing would ever be the same again. The introduction of her suitor was just part of it. In this new world, things like dragon transformation was reality. Like faster than light speed space travel, hovering vehicles, and free energy.
Maybe there was some hope for the future with the Draxos. Maybe there was some hope for her and Sysko. Maybe it was a nice dream to believe that a beautiful man would fall from the sky and want to take away all of her pain and help her save the world, but she still couldn't quite believe it. As she looked out into the night at the sparkling lights, she told herself that she would at least give Sysko a chance. Maybe he was what he said he was. If so, did she really want to pass up the chance to love someone who could love her in the way that he promised? She didn't think that she did, no matter how grumpy and cynical she might be on the outside.
Chapter 10
Freda walked downstairs to the parking lot with Sysko's keys in her hand and stared at his car. The cherry red convertible sat in a parking spot like an omen of bad fortune. She sighed deeply, heaving her shoulders. It wasn't that she didn't look forward to driving his car, the exact opposite was true. But accepting the offering from the alien felt one step closer to giving in to his ludicrous demands. She clicked the button to unlock the car and climbed behind the wheel, sliding into the soft leather seat. It was the most comfortable vehicle she had ever sat in. As she turned the key in the ignition and heard the engine come to life, she let out a deep breath and backed out of her parking place. The car handled like a dream as she pulled onto the road on her way to MIT.
As she navigated the streets of Boston, she decided that Sysko wasn't such a bad guy. In fact, he was actually pretty nice. He’d been nothing but helpful to her and her sister, but what she disliked most was that he was an alien invader who wanted to turn her into one of his kind. Why did the Draxos believe that they could just claim humans willy-nilly and turn them into dragons? Humans were meant to be human. That's all there was to it. She was born on this planet. She grew up here and she planned to die here. Not on some distant, alien world across the galaxy. But as she pulled up in front of the robotics laboratory, she thought for a moment about what it would be like to travel through the stars as Sysko's bride and see all that the galaxy had to offer.
Since the cyborgs had attacked Earth, humanity could never go back to sleep and forget that there were other lifeforms in the universe. From now on, humans would always know that aliens existed and that meant things would change for better or worse. Everyone seemed convinced that the Draxos were here to help, unlike the cyborgs of the Archon Empire.
When Freda came to the front door of the building, she found a sign on the door that read, “closed until further notice.” She growled and gritted her teeth. The school had shut down and she had not been informed. What ever happened to going on with business as usual? She sat down on the steps in despair, rested her elbows on her knees, and her chin in her hand. What was she going to do now? She’d already missed a week of school and work on her dissertation. That's when she heard the door behind her swing open. Dr. Higgins walked out and put his hand on her shoulder.
“What are you doing here, Freda?” he asked.
“I came to continue work on my project, and I needed to get out of the house. Everything is so crazy. I just want a little bit of normalcy. When is the school opening back up again?”
“The administration is giving it another week for repairs and clean up. But faculty is allowed inside. I can let you in if you want.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” she said, standing.
She grabbed her backpack, slid it over her shoulder, and followed Dr. Higgins inside. He seemed to have a strange tick she’d never noticed before. Probably still shell shocked from the attack, she thought. Inside, the smell of the old building hit her nose and it immediately made her relax. A smile curved on her lips as they walked into the robotics lab and she found her project sitting
where she had left it last. The broken computer parts had been cleaned up and replaced and everything looked tidy and normal. She placed her backpack in her locker, grabbed a pair of goggles and a lab coat, and went to work. Professor Higgins returned to his office to do some administrative tasks and she was left with her robots and artificial intelligence in the laboratory.
She ran a diagnostic screening on her robot and then continued to work from where she’d left off on the programming. It felt as if it had been forever since she had worked on her project. After several hours of diligent focus on her AI program she uploaded it into her robot and tested the connections. All of its systems were running smoothly and she booted up the robot and brought it to life.
“Good afternoon,” she said to the robot.
“Good afternoon,” it said in a clipped voice.
Freda smiled with glee that her robot had responded. She had been working on this project for over a year. As she sat in the lab and conversed with her machine, she felt like she was finally getting somewhere. After running a final systems check, she told her robot good night and turned off the interface. When she looked at her watch, she realized that it was already five o'clock and she had agreed to meet Sysko for a date at six.
“Crap,” she muttered as she pulled off her lab coat and goggles on her way out. She grabbed her backpack and hurried down the hall, out the door, down the stairs, and hopped into Sysko's convertible before hurrying home. When she got to her apartment, she found Lottie sitting on the couch, eating cereal and watching the latest news about the Draxos on television.
“Don't you ever get tired of learning about those dragons?”
“No,” Lottie said. “It's my new obsession.”