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  As she knew? How would she know that?

  And why was he calling himself an android? Wasn’t he a cyborg?

  Thalina didn’t want to interrupt him to ask. It seemed like a smarter choice to listen.

  “Technically, the fight-or-flight response means that the brain, upon perceiving a threat, stimulates the hypothalamus to secrete the hormones cortisol and adrenaline into the bloodstream of the organism.” Acion’s words flowed smoothly as he tugged on his boots. He didn’t seem to care that his boots and chausses, and even the hem of his cloak, were still wet from the river. “This results in a number of physical reactions, including an increased heart and breathing rate, and a tighter focus of attention and loss of peripheral vision. Other signs are diluted pupils, bladder relaxation, flushed skin and shaking, as well as slowed digestive processes.”

  “But these reactions are triggered by the perception of a threat.”

  “Exactly, which means that the fight-or-flight response is always less vigorous in androids, even those who have the necessary stimulants—or equivalents—in their systems, because androids do not perceive threats as readily as biological organisms.”

  “And how does this tie back to an arousal rate of five?”

  Acion lifted a finger. “The Hive, in its brilliance, engineered this approximation of the extra level of power. Testosterone, while a steroid, is strongly linked with competitiveness, as well as aggression and violence. It has proven to be a more reliable trigger in highly advanced androids than adrenaline or cortisol, and one that provides a similar burst of energy and desire to triumph.”

  “How clever. And a five?”

  “Has been determined through extensive testing to be the optimal resting point, in order to allow for a response of acceptable timing.”

  “To approximate that of the fight-or-flight response?”

  Acion nodded, then looked around the chamber, as if seeking a means of escape. He still appeared to be slightly aroused, and Thalina liked that this was his resting state.

  She was more than ready to encourage his reaction.

  Maybe even time it.

  She was fascinated by the information he’d shared and wanted to know more. An android! If that was true, he was more highly developed than she could have imagined. Thalina wanted to know more.

  The Hive must be where he’d been created. “Tell me about the Hive.”

  Acion’s expression changed immediately, and she knew she’d asked too much.

  “That information is not available to you at this time.” He straightened his garments and stood before her, then bowed. “I have fulfilled my half of the wager. I would request that you now release me from this chamber so that I can complete my mission.”

  “I’m not sure that the Seed has been properly surrendered,” Thalina said. “There is a conviction amongst the dragon shifters of Incendium that the Seed must be delivered multiple times to ensure a satisfactory result.” She watched his eyes flick as he assessed this.

  “That information is not included in my brief.”

  “Perhaps it wasn’t made available to you, because it wasn’t foreseen that you would have need of it.” Thalina smiled when he met her gaze. “It is quite improbable that you would be the Carrier of the Seed. Providing additional detail would simply have wasted memory.”

  He nodded immediately. “That is logical. I would request a second item from you then, in exchange for a second delivery of the Seed.”

  “A second bargain.” Thalina nodded, watching him all the while. What would he ask for? “Such as?”

  Acion didn’t speak immediately. He cleared his throat, and Thalina was intrigued. It seemed almost as if he was shy.

  Shy?

  Impossible. He was a machine!

  Still, Acion dropped his gaze from hers and cleared his throat again. “I would appreciate the opportunity to see a dragon while I am on Incendium, if it can be arranged.”

  Thalina considered him, wondering at this request. It seemed very un-android-like.

  But his lovemaking had been, as well.

  She realized in that moment just how low her expectation of androids had been. They weren’t as easily identified as she’d anticipated. They weren’t like automatons in the least.

  They were much more interesting—or at least this one was.

  That was when she saw the flaw in his logic, revealed by his request. “But I told you that you were the Carrier of the Seed.”

  Acion shook his head. “A highly improbable situation. I thought it might be impolite to challenge you at the time, but your conclusion must be erroneous.”

  “Erroneous?” Thalina echoed. He thought she was wrong?

  “I can find no reference that there has been any Carrier of the Seed who was not mortal and humanoid in my records. They are unilaterally of biological origin and I am not.”

  She got to her feet then, knotting her belt and putting her hands on her hips as she came to stand before him. “Perhaps your records are incomplete.”

  “Perhaps so.” He fixed her with a resolute look, one that made her want to claim him again. “I invite you to augment my records by providing the name of any Carrier of the Seed who was not mortal and humanoid.”

  “Troy is a MindBender.”

  “Also humanoid and mortal, independent of his skills.”

  “My father, King Ouros.”

  “Humanoid in one of his forms, and also mortal. That he is said to have a second form is not material.”

  Thalina frowned. “What do you mean he is said to have a second form? That sounds like you don’t believe he can become a dragon.”

  “It is not a question of faith or religious conviction,” Acion said. “I have never witnessed a creature shift shape before, king or not, and so I retain some skepticism that it can be done.” He ran a hand over his head. “The biological complications inherent in a creature multiplying its size several times over as well as changing the shape and color of its body are daunting, to say the least. This can only cast doubt upon the assertion by dragon shifters that their kind is an ancient and primitive one.”

  “Haven’t you ever seen any shifters?”

  Acion shook his head. “This is why I would welcome the opportunity to observe one.”

  “But if you’re the Carrier of the Seed, then I must be a dragon shifter princess.” Thalina raised her hands, inviting him to look at her.

  Acion shook his head again, and this time he frowned. “You have been constructed to resemble the princess Thalina, to be sure. I would have to be able to compare the strength of the resemblance in the presence of the princess herself, a situation which I find distinctly improbable given that I have been found to be an intruder in the palace…”

  Thalina’s temper flared. Constructed to resemble the princess Thalina? “Who do you think I am?” she demanded.

  A man wise in the ways of dragons would have taken a warning from her precise speech and low tone, but Acion only spared her the barest glance and took her question at face value. “It is evident that you are an android created by a talented maker. That is the only reasonable conclusion given the available data. The quality of your simulated skin and sexual organs is remarkable in both detail and functionality. In fact, I doubt that either your skin or genitalia could be distinguished from the biological equivalent, and would welcome the opportunity to take a small sample back to the Hive for research purposes…

  He wanted a piece of her for the Hive?

  Thalina growled. “You’re calling me a liar?”

  “A liar?” Acion considered this, his eyes flicking. “I thought of your choice as adept management of information. When dealing with intruders, some deception is permissible, according to my programming and undoubtedly, yours.” He halted and studied her, seeming to finally notice her reaction to his words. “You are vexed. This is irrational on your part,” he scolded gently. “You should modify your understanding of my words in their context. I mean to flatter your maker, and truly,
you shouldn’t take offense easily, especially given your intended application.”

  “What intended application?” Thalina asked in that same quiet tone. A puff of smoke rose from her nostril and she knew her eyes were glittering coldly. She could feel the shimmer of the shift already vibrating in her belly and knew a pale blue light would soon emanate from her skin.

  Acion was going to get his wish soon.

  He blinked as if her question was unexpected. “It is highly probable that an android possessing such capability to mimic arousal and sexual satisfaction is intended for deployment amongst the sirens in the markets of Incendium. Perhaps they are to be replaced. The care taken in the manufacture of your sexual organs reveals the plan of your maker clearly. Surely you must be aware of that intent, or have deduced it for yourself. You do not seem to be lacking in computational powers.” He shook a finger at her and smiled slightly. “In fact, to test your prowess against that of a male android is a most clever means of rating your performance…”

  He had no chance to finish his sentence. The suggestion that Thalina was not just an android but one destined to provide sexual fulfillment to paying clients—and not a dragon shifter princess—only compounded his error of calling her a liar.

  “I am the princess Thalina!” She roared as the heat of the change shot through her body, stretching her sinews and boiling her blood. “And I am a dragon shifter!” Acion fell silent and took a step back, his eyes moving faster than should have been possible. She knew he was gathering information.

  Thalina would give him some data. She bellowed as wings grew from her back, as she grew a long tail, as her teeth became long and her talons longer. Scales sprouted from her skin and rattled as they covered her body. Her wings brushed the top of the chamber and her tail swept across the floor before she locked her gaze upon the offending android.

  “As you see,” she murmured, her deep voice making the floor vibrate. “The biological complications are easily overcome when you know how.”

  Acion stared at her. “But this is against all statistical probability and must be an illusion,” he managed to say before Thalina breathed the torrent of flames in his direction that he so roundly deserved.

  * * *

  The first indication that Acion’s conclusions were flawed was the way his companion began to glow, as if a blue light was emanating from her skin. She might have been lit from within, or radiant, in a way that he couldn’t quite reconcile with his understanding of android abilities.

  Her eyes seemed to have a fire burning in their pupils, too. Acion quickly searched his databanks for the possible reason for that glow. He considered that this might have been an augmentation from her maker, one he’d never witnessed before, and launched a search of sexual preferences on Incendium.

  He’d barely begun that search when she became much larger. In the same instant, so quickly that he couldn’t quite see their development, she grew wings, a tail, and dark green scales. Talons grew from her hands and feet, gold rippled over her belly, and her shape changed in the blink of an eye to that of a large dark green dragon.

  Acion adjusted his reasoning to allow a total correlation between that blue glow and the individual emitting it being a dragon shifter.

  On the cusp of change.

  He sprinted for the door, but his reaction was too late and too slow, despite both being highly improbable individually and infinitely less so in combination.

  The second indication that he had made a mistake was the lick of flames on his back. His shirt caught fire, his chausses dried instantly, and orange fire surrounded him completely. He tried to outrun the flames without success. He reached the wall all too soon and ran his hands over it, seeking a seam he could cut open. He heard the dragon roar. He was surrounded by the fire of her fury and knew the damage to his exterior membrane was extensive. He could smell it.

  A reaction considerably more powerful than any fight-or-flight response he’d ever experienced shot through Acion’s body, making him want to battle for his very survival. He couldn’t find a seam in the wall. The saw in his index finger only created more sparks against the metal wall and didn’t even scratch the surface. He couldn’t run. He clawed at the edge of the sealed door, but the fire only got hotter. He couldn’t see anything but flames, and he saw that the burn was spreading. He could smell the metal of his shell beginning to heat.

  Acion calculated an escalating probability that each breath would be his last.

  But the flames stopped.

  The smoke cleared.

  Acion opened his eyes. He looked back at the dragon, who was watching him as avidly as might be anticipated from a predator. Smoke still rose from her nostrils and her eyes glittered coldly. The floor was singed to black between them, but he was still intact.

  He recognized that this was because she had chosen to let him be so.

  Should he thank her?

  The dragon took a step closer and Acion watched her warily, desperately searching his databanks for information about dragons. He had one, almost encyclopedic, reference, and scanned it rapidly. The species Draconis is a large and varied group said to be one of the few creatures surviving from ancient times. Each subdivision has their own characteristics, from those associated with the elements—Firedrakes, Waterdrakes, Airdrakes, Earthdrakes—to those whose forms echo their favored environment—Frostdrakes, Mistdrakes, Emberdrakes etc. One folk tale declares that the fire breathed by all dragons was lit in the first of their kind by the light commanded to illuminate the dark chaos of the forming universe. Dragons are inclined to live a very long time and to breed very seldom—as a result, they tend to be comparatively rare amongst the life forms of the universe, and also broadly scattered. It is not unusual for a group of dragons to populate a specific area of the universe, assuming it as their territory, and over the eons to forget that others of their kind exist. They do have long memories but are inclined to discard details believed to be irrelevant to their survival in a process called “sifting and sorting.” There has been speculation amongst biologists that sifting and sorting is an information management technique refined by dragons as even their capacity for memories is limited. A long-lived dragon may sift and sort more than once, or even do so routinely.

  The dragons of Incendium are a particular sub-species of Draconis called Mutatus, i.e. dragon shape shifters. The Draconis Mutatus has the ability to change from a dragon form to a humanoid form and back again. In rare cases, a specific dragon shifter may have the ability to assume additional forms. The abilities of one form do not necessarily transmit from one form to the other—in human form, the dragon shifter can seldom breathe fire, for example—but physical traits and injuries do carry between forms. Generally, the dragon shifter has more abilities and more powerful abilities in his or her dragon form, but this is not necessarily the case.

  The shape shifter dragons of Incendium usually mate with a human of the opposite gender. The offspring of such mixed unions are always dragon shifters. Rarely—as in the example of Queen Ignita and King Ouros—a pair of shape shifting dragons are both attracted to each other, destined mates, and able to conceive offspring. This situation is always considered to be one of very good fortune and the astrologers of Incendium spend considerable time computing possibilities from this rare union. On other planets (like Excandesco), it is believed that the mate of a dragon shifter should always be a human who can’t shift, in order to control the dragon in the resulting child or children. The marriage of Ignita and Ouros is an abomination to her sister Pennata, both because Ouros survived his seduction and because their twelve daughters are dragon shifters on both sides. Dragon shifters are not mature adults until they are eighty-one years of age, and this is considered to be a lucky number both among their kind and (usually) among those who live in their company.

  At the same time, Acion also gathered information. This dragon’s scales were deep green, but it was a complex color, shading from emerald to obsidian on each individual scale. The light p
layed with the surface of the scales, making them look iridescent. They gleamed. Her belly, in contrast, looked as if it was made of pure gold, as did her talons. Both shone. There were feathers adorning her back and her tail, each of the same iridescent green as her scales and they fluttered as she moved, catching the light. Her eyes were golden brown, the same hue as that of the woman he had believed to be an android, and it was in her eyes that he found the glimmer of intelligence that showed the commonality between the two forms.

  No animal had ever looked at him with such comprehension and awareness.

  She was the princess Thalina.

  Against every expectation.

  She was a royal dragon shifter princess of Incendium. Acion sought new conclusions from this revelation, in the hope that one would provide some guidance. What had that reference to Excandesco meant? Acion searched again.

  Excandesco is the planet where Queen Ignita was raised and where her blood relatives continue to reign. On Excandesco, the dragon shifters tend not to make enduring relationships. It is in fact customary amongst the female cousins of Queen Ignita to consume the Carrier of the Seed once fertilization of the egg has taken place. Her male cousins prefer to roast their destined mates once the egg has been delivered and secured. Ignita’s sister, Pennata, is currently reigning monarch and holds the throne alone. Although the family of the sacrificed mate is showered with gifts and privilege, there is a tendency to hide if one is realized to be the Carrier of the Seed. Queen Pennata is reputed to be ruthless in uncovering the truth and is suitably feared by the occupants of her kingdom. Needless to say, the Excandescans don’t believe in true love or HeartKeepers—a notable exception is Ignita and she frequently argues with her sister over this. In moments of marital strife, Ignita has been known to remind Ouros that he survives on her sufferance. In reality, she couldn’t live without him and they both know it.

  Acion straightened as his concern faded. He was confident in his ability to reason with any thinking creature. It was brute instinct that he found unpredictable. His information about dragon shifters, while limited, indicated that they were a logical species, if a passionate one, and he chose to discount the proclivity of the relations on Excandesco to devour their human mates. He wasn’t human or mortal, so clearly was already an exception.