by Lili Zander
“Don’t kill them,” I shriek. “Please.”
The dragons swoop down. Dragon-Rorix grabs the soldiers, one in each massive claw, and takes off, his giant wings beating up and down, toward a mountain in the distance. Dragon-Ferix lands on the ground, throwing up a cloud of dust. His giant wedge-shaped head swivels around, and he gives me a quizzical look.
Get on, he seems to say.
I clamber on his back, settling myself between his spikes. With a jump, he takes off into the air, in the same direction as Rorix.
From a distance, I can see Dragon-Rorix drop the two soldiers at the peak of a mountain. My lips curl into a relieved smile. He heard me, he understood, and he did as I asked. He hasn’t harmed the Zoraken; he’s just temporarily stranded them. It’ll take them a few hours to climb down and get back to their skimmer, giving us the head start we need.
Then the two dragons wheel right. I see the ocean shimmer in the distance, blue and vast.
We’re leaving this continent and heading off into uncharted territory.
Lost city, here we come.
18
Rorix
Time blurs for the next few days, and our lives settle into a bizarre routine. We wake up, we eat breakfast, and we talk. Sofia tells us about her life as a healer on Earth, about her non-existent relationship with her mother, and her much better one with her grandmother. We talk about the homeworld and our families, but those memories are few and far between. Much of our lives have been spent here, on the prison planet. We tell her about that first bewildering rainy season, when the skies opened up and threw deluge upon deluge on us, seemingly intent on flaying us alive.
Ferix tells her the story of how I brushed against the same fungus that Harper did. “He would remember nothing,” he says, his lips curling with amusement. “We were all very worried, of course, but it was also a great opportunity for us to play pranks on him. He’d do his chores, and then he’d forget he’d done them, and so we’d pretend that he hadn’t done them.”
“That’s mean,” Sofia says indignantly.
I chuckle at the expression on her face. “Vulrux put an end to it when he found out,” I assure her. “And he was furious. The guilty parties were on latrine duty for months.”
Ferix grimaces ruefully. “We were,” he confirms. “That was… unfortunate. Especially because that was also the time we were discovering which plants and animals were safe to eat, and which ones would make us virulently ill.”
Sofia laughs. “Good for Vulrux,” she says approvingly. “We’ve had it a lot easier than you. We crash-landed on this planet, and in less than a day, you rescued us.”
Technically, I suppose that’s true. We did rescue the human women. Viola Lewis was being attacked by the dwals when Arax and Nyx found her. Harper was in a coma, affected by the same orange fungus as me, until Vulrux and Dennox’s blood pulled her out. Ferix and I, along with Vulrux and Thrax, had found Ryanna and Sofia wandering around, hopelessly lost, shouldering an unconscious Harper between them.
Yes, they would have most likely been dead without us. Without the survival skills we’d learned because of being exiled here for sixty years.
But the truth is, the human women did something far more valuable. They made our lives worth living.
And now, as I near the end of my natural life, I appreciate what Sofia has given me more than ever.
Of course, I won’t die. My body will still live. The dragon inside me is powerful, a savage warrior, the most fearsome predator on this planet. It will live for a very long time, hunting and killing, ruled by primitive urges. To dominate, to own, to possess.
The dragon will not cherish this moment, the feeling of warm peace as Sofia leans on my shoulder, her fingers absently trailing over my chest, her thumb brushing against my nipple ring. It will not appreciate her wit and her warmth, her steadfast loyalty to her friends, her strong insistence on doing the right thing. The dragon has no use for such things. The dragon will neither appreciate a clever joke, nor will the dragon understand the simple yet profound magic of companionship.
With each day that passes, it becomes easier for the dragon to force its way free. The transformation is much more rapid. Sofia doesn’t have to pretend to flee to provoke the creature; the creature lurks inside me, and it takes every ounce of willpower I possess to keep it leashed.
With each day that passes, I, Rorix und Marox ab Kei retreat, losing ground to the fever. I don’t remember large chunks of the day. I don’t remember anything about this new continent that we’re flying over. I remember nothing about this search we’re undertaking for a city that’s been lost for more than a thousand years.
Ferix is the same way.
Yet, Sofia remains steadfast in her refusal to leave us, and I can’t bring myself to argue with her.
“I choose to stay,” she says over and over again. “Of my own free will. Would you repeat Beirax’s crimes and take away my agency?”
She’s clever, because this is the one argument we cannot win. We cannot strip her of her right to choose. Ever.
And though it is a shameful admission, I’m glad she’s here. I don’t want to fall into the abyss alone. When I disappear into the dragon forever, I want to do so knowing that I loved and was loved. That I’ll be remembered, even though I won’t remember myself. That I’ll be mourned.
It’s selfish and wicked of me to cling to my mate, to drag her into my own personal darkness. When it is time for judgment in the Gardens of Caeron, when my soul is held up to be examined, it will be in tatters, and I will be judged harshly for my actions here.
Once breakfast is over, we forage for food. Ferix and I are seldom hungry these days—Sofia tells us that the dragons take turns to leave in the evening to hunt, and I have woken up several times with blood caked under my nails and no idea why—but Sofia needs to eat.
She’d brought some food with her, but the bulk of her pack had been filled with medicine for us. Those food stores are long gone, save for a handful of spices, and it’s up to us to feed our mate, a task I welcome. Only a few plants are familiar to us from the Lowlands, which makes the process challenging and fraught with risk. Ferix and I taste everything first. I don’t know why or how, but we both seem to instinctively know what plants might harm our mate.
These foraging sessions usually take a couple of hours. Then, when we can no longer hold the dragons back, we transform, and we set off.
The fourth—or is it the fifth—day, the instant I wake up, I know something’s going to happen. There’s an electricity in the air, and my dragon is far more restless than usual. While Sofia is bathing in a nearby river, I pull Ferix aside.
“I have a feeling about today,” I tell him, taking care to keep my voice low so Sofia doesn’t overhear.
“A good feeling?”
I shake my head. “A couple of days ago, I felt uneasy, and I couldn’t shake off a sense that we were being followed.”
Ferix automatically looks up at the sky. “You didn’t say anything.”
“I thought I was imagining things.” A side-effect of my porous memory. I doubt myself, my thoughts, my feelings. The only constant is Sofia. “I might still be imagining things. Just be careful today.”
He glances over to the right, where our mate is swimming in the stream. “Are you guys coming to wash my back?” she calls out, her eyes twinkling.
My lips automatically curl in a smile. The fever is taking over. There are days when I wake up without hope, and then I feel Sofia’s body next to mine, and I realize that no matter what is going to happen, I’m still the luckiest person on the prison planet, because I found her. My mate. What was the phrase Harper Boyd taught us? Mi vida.
She is indeed my life.
Ferix’s thoughts must be running in the same direction as mine. “I’ll keep an eye out for trouble today,” he says grimly. “We don’t know what’s happening in the Dsar Cliffs with the others, but the Zoraken must be desperate to find our mate and take her away. They’ll
be searching for us.”
“Umm, guys?” Sofia gives us a quizzical look. “What’s going on?”
I shake my head slightly at Ferix’s raised eyebrow. I don’t want to tell Sofia my suspicions, not when they’re based on nothing more than a hunch. I turn to her. Her hair is dripping wet, and she’s standing in the shallow river, the water waist-high. She’s naked, and her breasts are round and full, her nipples erect and pebbled with desire.
Yet something in the back of my mind tells me not to linger. “We should probably get going,” I suggest. “The clouds are getting thicker.”
She looks up and nods ruefully. “You’re right,” she says. “That looks like a thunderstorm. Yeah, let’s take a raincheck.”
19
Sofia
What was it that Dickens said? ‘It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.’ That quote pretty much summarizes the last four days.
We should be tearing up and down this new continent, searching for the lost city. And we do. Each day, we’re in the air for hours. By the time we’re done, my skin is chilled, my eyes are red and irritated from searching, my throat dry, and my butt sore as hell from riding on dragon back.
But we also linger. There’s a definite sense that we’re running out of time, and I cling to each moment of normalcy. We deliberately take time to talk around the campfire. I try to get Ferix to teach me how to cook. And of course, we make love. A lot.
I’m filling my heart with love and packing memories into my mind in anticipation of a future in which I’m going to lose them.
I haven’t thought of the others. I’m too emotionally numb. Too drained. There are too many things to worry about, and I have to narrow my focus to the task in front of me.
Find the lost city.
The sun is starting to set when all of a sudden, Dragon-Ferix, whose back I’m riding on today, goes into a steep dive.
Has he seen something?
My heart pounds in my chest, and I lean forward, my fingers wrapped tightly around his spikes. The air whooshes by so fast that my eyes start to water, and I can’t see anything.
Then we land, Rorix half an instant behind us. I half scramble, half slide off Ferix’s back, and when I look ahead, I see what caught his eye.
In front of us, in the middle of what looks like nowhere, are three small houses built of stone.
“Stand back, Sofia,” Rorix growls. “It could be dangerous.”
He doesn’t need to tell me twice. I keep a very nervous hand on my ring and stay back, my heart in my mouth, as Ferix and Rorix stride forward.
They might not be afraid of anything, but I am. I’m terrified that someone’s going to burst out of the houses and start firing.
But there’s no sound, none at all. The grasses around the walls look overgrown and unkempt. The more I look around, the more convinced I am that the buildings are abandoned.
Rorix and Ferix search all three houses. It takes less than five minutes, and then they emerge from the right-most house and signal to me. “No one’s around,” Rorix says. “I think they’ve been empty for a while. Kind of like the Dsar Cliffs.”
I don’t want to get ahead of myself. “Do you think it’s another exile batch? One that landed on this continent?”
“I doubt it.” Ferix shakes his head. “Look at the walls. The stone has been cut into blocks. You can’t do that without tech.”
Hope blazes inside me, sharp and bright. “The lost city?” I whisper. “Could this be part of it?”
Rorix and Ferix exchange glances. I’m fairly sure they don’t believe in the existence of the city, but they’ve gone along with me. They’ve never grumbled about flying long hours. They’ve never once snapped at me, never once told me I’m on a fool’s errand.
“You know something, Sofia?” Ferix says slowly. “I think it might be.”
Thirty minutes later, I can’t stop giggling. “This feels like Goldilocks.”
Ferix gives me a confused look. “What?”
I’m giddy and punch drunk. These houses are clearly built by a technologically superior civilization. Doors slide open when I walk in. Lights come on automatically. But beyond that, the three houses seem to have been built for people of very different sizes.
Every piece of furniture inside the first house I enter is just a little too small. In the second house, everything is Draekon-sized. In other words, too big.
But the third house? It could have been made for a human. It’s just right.
Is it any wonder I’m thinking of Goldilocks?
It’s late. There’s a bed in the second house that’s big enough to fit all three of us. A real, proper bed.
And a real, proper bathroom, with a massive bathtub dominating the space.
I’ve been sleeping on the ground for days and days. I’ve been bathing in cold streams. Right now, the idea of a bath and a night’s sleep on a soft mattress?
If there are three bears, they can eat me. I don’t care. As long as they do it in the morning.
There’s really a lost city. There must be. There must be other Draekons somewhere nearby. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll have a cure for the Draekon fever.
My heart is racing with excitement. It’s going to happen, I just know it. Rorix and Ferix are going to get better.
I give my dragons a bright, excited smile. “I’m going to soak in the bathtub. You remember that raincheck I was promised this morning?”
Ferix gives me a slow, lazy smile, one that makes my insides tighten. “How could we forget?”
Rorix starts the bath while Ferix helps me out of my very tattered clothes. Everything, including my bra, is ripped—the dragons are not gentle with my clothing—and faded from handwashing in various streams. I’ve taken to wearing cut-off shorts and knotting my torn shirt so it just covers my breasts and leaves my midriff bare. I call it ‘jungle chic.’
The guys, of course, prefer me naked.
As I tug off my shorts, Ferix is practically purring. His hands skim down my back, making me shiver. Goosebumps break out on my skin, and my nipples harden. As grimy as I feel, I’m tempted to skip the bath and jump into bed with my Draekons.
“Sofia.” Rorix beckons me. Steam rises from the bath, along with a faint sandalwood scent. And if the thought of getting clean wasn’t enticing enough, there’s Rorix, standing at one end of the giant tub, his hair around his shoulders and bronzed muscles gleaming. He holds out his hand to help me in. Ferix follows.
I reach for one of the pieces of cloth folded on a nearby shelf, but Ferix beats me to it.
“Allow me,” he says in a rough voice. I relax in the warm water and let the men fuss over me, applying a sort of cleansing oil—the source of the sandalwood scent—and gently scrubbing my skin. They love taking care of me. This is something I’ll miss if the dragons take over.
That’s not gonna happen. I reaffirm my vow to save them as Rorix stands to pour water over my head.
“My turn,” I say when he kneels back down.
“You are going to clean me?” He looks amused as I sit on his lap, straddling his big thighs.
I’ve never done it in a bathtub before. Obviously. Time to check it off my list. “No. We’re going to be very, very dirty.”
His lips curl into a smile. “I like the way you think.”
That is such a sexy smile. I lean forward and trace the outline of his lips with the tip of my tongue. He growls, and pulls me closer, catching my lower lip between his teeth, before sliding his hot, talented tongue into my mouth. As I kiss him, I rock against his cock, then slip a hand between us to stroke the heavy length.
“Back home, there’s a fairy tale called Goldilocks,” I tell my mates. “Goldilocks is a girl who gets lost in the woods and finds a house with three beds. One is too small. The other is too big.” I fist his length, and he growls again, and his cock gets even harder, if such a thing is even possible. “And then there’s the third one. Just right.”
“Like my cock?” he rasps, his face
clenched with pleasure.
I huff a laugh. “Oh no. Both your cocks fall in the ‘too big’ category.”
“Yet you’re wet for us, sweet one.” Ferix’s eyes are hooded. He takes his cock in his hand and strokes himself lazily, and the sight of it sets my pussy twisting with need.
I tighten my grip on Rorix’s hard length. “You’re right,” I whisper. “I am wet for you. You only have to look at me, and I’m hot and needy and desperate.”
Rorix growls again. For a moment his pupils narrow. The dragon peers out of him, and then the man reasserts control. “You drive me crazy, Sofia.”
“Touch me,” I whisper, and tug him closer. My hands slip over his shoulders, marveling at the way his muscles flex as he catches my hips. Our lips chase and tease each other’s until I turn my head to suck water droplets off the hollow between his neck and collarbone.
A hand presses against my back, pushing me forward. I oblige, rubbing my bare breasts over Rorix. I look back as Ferix scrubs my back, raw hunger in his gaze.
“I have not cleaned you here.” Ferix’s expression turns wicked as he slips the cloth between my bottom cheeks, circling my anus. Rorix holds me still as Ferix pushes a finger in my puckered hole, teasing and tempting me. My limbs tingle with little lightning bolts of pleasure.
“That’s naughty,” I gasp as my body succumbs to the pressure of his finger.
Ferix grunts. He slides that wicked digit in and out of my ass. I bet if I turned around, his pupils would be slitted like the dragon’s. Maybe that should disturb me, but I’m too turned on.
I trust these guys. Dragons or not, I belong with them.
Ferix adds another finger to his taboo probing, and I whimper into Rorix’s mouth even as I grind my hips against his. It feels so good.
With a guttural groan, Rorix lifts me up and sets me on his cock. I hold the base of his thick member, steadying it as I slide down. The rumbling in his chest increases. I lock my arms around his neck and let him surge upwards, filling me completely. For a second, pleasure knocks my breath from me.
