Page 73 of Dragon Me Through Space

“Are you going to lie in bed all day?” Zeke asked.

“Yes,” I mumbled as I pulled the blankets up higher.

Preston wafted a delicious smelling cup of hot chocolate near my face, but when I reached for it, he pulled it away.

With a scowl and a huge groan, I sat upright. “Fine, I’m up. Happy?”

Preston smirked, handed me the cup, and kissed my cheek. “I’m quite happy, yes.”

As I sipped on my sweet hot cocoa, I realized that Wayne, Zeke, and Gage were staring at me. “What?” I reached a tentative hand up to my hair, wondering if I had an epic case of bedhead.

“You marked her?” Zeke asked and looked at Preston.

“Marked and knotted,” Preston announced proudly.

My face heated and I hissed, “Preston.”

He only smiled wider until it was a full-blown smile and said, “They were going to find out eventually.”

“Are you alright?” Wayne asked. “In pain?”

Preston growled softly. “I would never hurt her.”

“Not on purpose,” Wayne argued, “but she’s not a Dragonkin and hasn’t been knotted before.”

“I’m fine, thank you for your concern,” I said and gave Wayne a soft smile before glaring at Preston, who only continued to smile. Smug jerk.

“Any news?” Preston asked, finally turning away from me.

“It seems they really were headed home when they received the distress beacon, so no foul play that I could find,” Wayne answered. “I went through their entire log history and nothing suspicious came up.”

“How long until we arrive home?” Preston asked.

“I’m not certain, since they’ll need to make at least two refueling stops, and their log doesn’t state how long they plan to stay for each refueling,” he answered.

“Murmurs amongst the crew is that they’re trying to get home as quickly as possible because something important is happening soon,” Gage answered. “I couldn’t find out what was happening, though.”

“Can’t you just ask your father?” I asked.

All four turned to me before looking back at Gage.

He sighed. “Technically, yes, I could ask him, but him having knowledge I don’t means I would have to trade him something for it.”

My brows furrowed. “What? But you’re just asking about your planet and what’s going on there. It’s not like you’re asking for military secrets. And even if you were, you’re the princes, right? Shouldn’t he want you to ask for information to stay updated on events and current statuses?”

“We’re supposed to stay ‘in the know’ at all times as princes,” Zeke answered. “They want us to develop our own intelligence groups to keep us updated without having to provide us answers.”

“Which we do have, but recent communications have been slow due to us being so far from home and not having frequent contact with our sources of information,” Wayne supplied.

“Reach out to our recent informants and get an update as soon as possible,” Preston ordered them. “We have to meet them for breakfast in thirty minutes, and I don’t want them to catch us unaware of something important.”

“At least we caught him off guard with Xoe’s presence,” Wayne said. “Means that they hadn’t tapped our ship at any point.”

They all nodded.

Turning to me, Gage said, “My father will treat you respectfully, but will also try to ask you things to cause you to give out information you shouldn’t.”

“What information could I possibly have that I shouldn’t tell him?” I asked. I barely knew anything about them or their world.