Viola Grace - D.A.R.E. Project 02 - Topaz Dare

Topaz has been enjoying the small freedoms that each assignment for retrieval has given her. When confronted by deadly insects that have already killed her targets, she has to choose running for her life or finishing her job. She is assisted by another dragon who offers her an option for her time off. He will take her to visit her sister if she will spend some time getting to know him, and part of her is only too delighted to happily to take Kirai up on his offer. Dragons, kidnapping, giant bugs, poisons and meeting a sister she thought dead make for quite the short layover for an active D.A.R.E. agent.

The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Topaz D.A.R.E.

Copyright 2011 Tianna Xander and Viola Grace

ISBN: 978-1-55487-833-8

Cover art by Martine Jardin

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Devine Destinies

An imprint of eXtasy Books

Look for us online at:

www.devinedestinies.com

Topaz D.A.R.E.

D.A.R.E. Project: Book 2

By

Tianna Xander and Viola Grace

In case you missed Ruby DARE

In Ruby DARE, we met the dragons living on a world not their own, living a life that is only a bare existence in an underground facility.

The people of earth have set the destruction of their planet in motion, creating a device that has enabled them to use a dimensional gateway to walk between worlds. What they didn't know, couldn't know, was that each person transported punched a hole in the stability of their world, each transport weakening the dimensional fibers that allowed their world to remain intact.

Thirty years ago a woman who was not human walked through a rift and warned them of the problem that would emerge with their technology. She was arrested, incarcerated and when it was found that she was pregnant, her children were removed and experimented on. This split the four embryos into twenty and the young girls were raised underground with no knowledge of who or what they were.

These girls grew into women who became part of the DARE project. Dimensional, Arrest, Retrieval and Extraction, these women travel from world to world to bring back the travellers, prisoners and escapees from earth to hopefully heal the wounds that the humans have made.

The DARE project women had no knowledge of their origins aside from what their mother gave them, that is. Eiwyn kept her bond with her daughters while her body was in suspended animation in a lower level of the facility.

Eiwyn is a seer and left her husband to bring her daughters to adulthood without the interference of her kind. Her husband would have used her daughters for political alliances, but she foresaw a different destiny and came to earth so that they could have it.

When Ruby met her male on assignment, Eiwyn breathed a metaphorical sigh of relief. Despite her confidence in her abilities, having a foreseen outcome come to pass was reassuring. Now, with one daughter safely away, there were only nineteen more dragons to go and she could leave this boring, backward world to its destiny, for better or worse.

Chapter One

Topaz stifled a scream as someone grabbed her and pulled her down behind the sandy ridge she was peeking over.

"Hold still. The Marruk are motion sensitive." The voice was deep, masculine, and as she turned her head to look at him, he seemed just as surprised as she was.

She tried to speak, but he pressed his hand over her mouth with a jerk of his head to the locals milling around on all six limbs, their jaws clacking in the still air. They resembled large ants, very large ants.

Topaz looked at the man who held her and noted the marks on his face matched her own. Can you hear me?

He blinked in surprise. Yes. Who are you?

Topaz. Who are you?

Kirai. How do you come to be here, lady?

I am a member of the Dimensional Arrest, Retrieval and Extraction team. We are pulling the humans back to their world. They tore holes in the dimensional barriers with their technology.

Why are you working with them?

Because they raised me in their lab. I haven't known anything else beyond duty. It's my life's work.

The gaze that he gave her with his inky black eyes analyzed her. She felt a searching touch in her mind and, in a rush of fluttering sensation, he took her memories.

In self-defense, she reached along their link and took his memories in return. Her mind spun as she absorbed his thoughts and she took in exactly what he was. Kirai was a dragon, just like her. Images of flying filled her thoughts, giving her a piece of freedom she had never imagined.

You can fly. It wasn't a question. She could see the memories in his mind.

Yes. The Marruk have left for their afternoon foraging. If you want to collect those bodies, now is the time.

Topaz nodded and he released her mouth. "The Marruk killed my targets."

"Their bones are in that pile over there. Finding the human ones should be easy." He lifted himself off her and helped her to her feet.

She could feel her features puckering in a frown. "Why are you helping me?"

"Because I wish to begin a courtship and this will be a good beginning." He smiled, his facial markings twisting in a pleasing way.

He towered over her, the top of her head barely to his shoulder. His skin was a fascinating bronze, his arms bared by a leather vest that matched his trousers. The marks on his arms had jagged edges and her new knowledge filled in the gaps. His mother's markings were on his face, his father's on his arms. Echralia was his mother, Kairu his father. It was all there in the thoughts that she had taken.

"Fine. I have three days left here, so court if you can." She took strides toward the bone pile and kept her guard up for any of the returning ants. Topaz knelt next to the pile and flipped out a tarp from her pack. Each human bone was accounted for as she placed them carefully on the fabric.

"They were a scouting party?"

"I think so. Their actual assignment was not divulged to me." She shrugged and kept working.

He joined her in carefully separating the human from animal bones, including the locator tags. A glance at her scanner showed that all five of the people she was looking for were in this pile. It was a sad end to her fourth assignment.

"Do you enjoy your work?" He was trying to engage her in conversation that much was obvious.

"It has its moments, but it is more of an obligation than work. We aren't given much of a choice and you know it."

"I apologize for my method of getting to know you. It was an act of impulse."

She looked at him in surprise. "Thank you for your apology. I don't think I have ever been the recipient of one before."

He cocked his head while he continued to sort bones. "The humans lack manners. They always have."