Tristan MacLeod knocked on the cottage door of Stonefire’s clan leader. When he heard a muffled, “Come in,” he twisted the knob and entered.
Bram Moore-Llewellyn, Stonefire’s clan leader and Tristan’s friend of nearly thirty years, sat behind the old, sturdy oak desk that had been used by leaders of the clan for over a hundred years. It was beat up with more than a few scratches from young dragon-shifters trying out their talons. Tristan thought it looked like shit, but dragons were big on tradition and Stonefire’s clan leader was no exception.
Bram motioned for Tristan to come in and sit in one of the wooden chairs in front of his desk. Shutting the door, Tristan complied.
While he had a feeling he knew what this meeting was about, he asked, “You wanted to see me?”
Bram put aside the papers he’d been reading and looked up at him. “It’s time, Tristan.”
Fuck. “Can’t one of the volunteer males have another turn? Putting me together with a human is a bad idea, Bram, and you know it.”
Bram leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “No. I can’t risk the gene pool getting too small. Neither you nor your sister has had any young, and since you’re the elder, you’re first in line. I hate to be a hardass, but if you refuse to pair with the latest human sacrifice, I’ll have to kick you out of the clan.”
“Right, and put me at the mercy of the dragon hunters. I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
“No. But since I’m more than just your leader, and I’m also your friend, I waited until a decent candidate came along before I chose you.” Bram shuffled through a stack of papers, found what he was looking for, and held it out to Tristan. “Read her mini-summary.”
As much as he didn’t want to do it, Tristan took the paper and read the one paragraph summary:
Melanie Hall is a twenty-five year old female. Her reason for volunteering as a sacrifice is to heal her brother from a life-threatening disease. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. Her main interest is the history of human-dragon relations. Her psychological interview showed her to be a strong-willed, determined, and loyal individual who places family above all else. The Dragon Affairs office recommends pairing her with a likewise strong male to avoid unintended manipulation.
He looked up. “So rather than give me a female who will just let me fuck her and walk away, you’re giving me one that will probably fight me every step of the way? Are you sure you’re my friend?”
Bram smiled. “She’ll be good for you. A weaker willed human who would let you fuck her and walk away would prevent you from overcoming your prejudice against humans.”
Tristan narrowed his eyes. “Don’t bring my dead mother into this.”
Bram’s smile faded. “It’s my job to help you, and by extension, strengthen our clan. You can’t keep hiding yourself away by spending all of your time training the young dragons. It’s been ten years, Tristan. You need to let it go and focus on what you can do in the here and now, which is to help our clan—and all dragon-shifters, for that matter—from going extinct.”
“It’s not my bloody fault our numbers are so low. The humans hunted us for thousands of years. The only reason any of the human governments created protections for us over the last two decades is because of the deal we made when we exposed the secret of our blood, to end the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. To this day, they only value us for the healing properties of our blood and are willing to throw women our way, even if it means possibly killing them in childbirth, to get it.”
“I don’t care about any of that. Let them value us for our blood. In the meanwhile, the dragon-shifters need to repopulate so that one day we don’t need to rely on this barter system to survive.” Bram pierced him with his blue-eyed alpha stare. “Now, read the damn contract and sign it. Our healers are waiting for you to shift so they can draw the necessary amount of blood to complete our end of the agreement.”
Tristan could refuse and walk away. Despite the shitty odds, he would probably do just that if it were only him. But he couldn’t abandon his sister Arabella; especially as he was the only family she had left.
And damn Bram, he knew that.
Tristan held out his hand. “Give me the bloody contract. But if you think this is going to magically cure my hatred of humans, you’re in for a surprise.”
His friend handed over the papers. “We’ll see, Tristan. We’ll see.”
Chapter Two