She nodded in approval. “Right, which means with fewer dragons, the hunters can ask higher prices on the black market whenever they harvest a captured dragon.”
“You say ‘harvest’ and I say ‘torture’.”
Shaking her head, she said, “Don’t turn this into me not caring about your kind. I’ve pretty much given up my life to help the dragon-shifters, and what did I get in return? An endless parade of humiliation and irritation. Sometimes I wonder why any of us stay with the department.”
His inner beast growled at the thought of anyone humiliating this strong woman. Bram agreed with his dragon.
His curiosity piqued, he said, “I’m not Marcus. You’ll face no humiliation here as long as you tell me the truth.” She looked unconvinced, so he continued, “You spoke with Melanie earlier today. Was she afraid of me? Did she have an endless line of complaints about me? Or anything else that contradicts my claim?”
She paused a second, before answering, “No. She’s extremely loyal to you.”
“Exactly. I treated her fairly from the moment she set foot on this land, just like I do with all the sacrifices. Hell, I was even helping Cait with her fear of dragon-shifters up until she died.”
Both man and dragon took a second of silence to remember the woman who’d suffered so much and had tried to come back, only to die in childbirth. To this day, he blamed himself for assigning Neil as her dragon-shifter. The bastard never should’ve been allowed a human female. In Bram’s opinion, banishing the arsehole had been too easy a sentence, but the only one that had legally been open to him.
Evie touched his arm and he looked back into her eyes as she said, “You truly feel sorry for Caitriona’s death, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes searched his for a few more seconds before she nodded. “I believe you. I’ll tell you the truth.”
Her acceptance made his dragon hum.
For a second, he stared down at the beautiful redhead standing before him and savored the feel of her hand on his arm. The urge to haul her against him and kiss her was overwhelming, but there were a million reasons why he couldn’t.
Still, his voice was husky when he said, “So tell me how seducing me was
supposed to help you?”
Licking her lips, her grip tightened on his arm before she said, “I was hoping that if you slept with me, I might be able to convince you to let me stay here. Sex was only part of my plan; I was hoping to make you care for me too, especially since one of the former DDA inspectors let slip that you can’t have children and thus can’t have a sacrifice.”
~~~
As the words left Evie’s mouth, she instantly felt equal parts daft and callous. She’d just admitted to using something extremely personal against Bram. Why, oh why, had she told him that part? Preying on his infertility would most assuredly sting his dragon-shifter ego.
Yet rather than shout or go mental like Skyhunter’s leader most assuredly would’ve done, Bram merely stared at her in silence.
Okay, she’d admit that his cool, blue-eyed gaze was prodding her to fidget, but she wouldn’t do it. She needed to be strong and plead her case. Evie refused to think of what would happen if she failed.
Bram took a step back, forcing her to release her grip on his arm. Her stomach flipped as her heart rate kicked up. Was the distance a sign that he was going to dismiss her?
When Bram finally spoke, his voice was low. “I don’t know how any of you lot found out about that, but it’s clearly my business and mine alone. Tricking me into helping you is also not the way to garner my help.”
Since he hadn’t outright dismissed her yet, she risked a question, “So, does that mean you’ll help me?”
“To be honest, I don’t know. But to even consider it, you’re going to do something for me without putting up any fight.”
Uh oh. She didn’t like the sound of that. “What, exactly, am I supposed to do?”
Pointing to the couch, he said, “Sit down and wait there.”
In normal situations, she would balk at following an order such as that one, but this wasn’t just any situation. These next few minutes would determine her future, so she sat down.
Nodding, Bram headed toward his desk and fished something out of one of the drawers. When he stood up, he had a laptop in his hand. He waved it as he said, “While I go question the dragon hunter, you’re going to type out everything you can think of related to the Carlisle hunters, the assassination of DDA inspectors, and what else you know about me and my clan.”
So far, so good. “Okay, so if I do all of that, you’ll let me stay?”
“I never said that. First, you’re going to work on giving me a reason to need you. After all, if you stay on my land and aren’t a DDA employee or a sacrifice, then I’ll be breaking your British human law. You’d better have some bloody good information for me to try and fight that.”