by Kate Rudolph
When I cleared the courtyard, my second in command, Veyne, was waiting for me, a cloak thrown back over one shoulder as if he’d been out riding. He preferred to keep to his human form, and while it puzzled me, I saw no reason to object. He showed his dragon when absolutely necessary and fought with all the strength and discipline that his role entailed. He’d never lead the dragons, but he was a man that I could count on, one who’d been part of Trogan’s retinue but had managed to curb some of the former alpha’s worst excesses. He’d quickly climbed the ranks among my people and I greeted him with a smile.
“Alpha, your mother has requested an audience,” he sneered, as if I should have banished my family to the outlands rather than allowing them to retain residence in my home.
“I’ll see to her after the afternoon session.” It was probably another attempt of hers to find me a mate to secure my position, but I would at least hear her out. My mother had one of the sharpest minds in all of my lands and I’d be a fool to ignore her simply because the fever for grandchildren had overtaken her mind. I could fend off her attempts to see me mated and she could offer counsel on the latest offenses committed by the wyverns.
The door to the central keep slid open as Veyne and I approached. The building was made of stone, built to withstand the harshest flames a dragon or wyvern could produce, but inside some of the comforts of more modern dwellings had cropped up. Many years ago the place had been wired with a communication system, and several public rooms contained vid screens which connected to the data feeds dumped by the Oscavian Empire. There were no media programs produced on the planet of Drakus, but we’d gladly accepted technology and adapted to it in the centuries since aliens first made contact. The Oscavian Empire had long since claimed to be our friend, but the way they looked at our dragon forms with greedy eyes was warning enough to keep some distance. We could not hope to take them in interstellar war, but they could not face us on the ground. It made diplomacy a difficult dance, but it was one we’d been managing for years.
And even I could admit that the entertainments they provided were fun to watch.
The corridors buzzed with activity as we made our way to the great hall. I could hear the murmurs of the petitioners who were lined up and waiting for an audience, but they’d been directed to queue up in another hallway. These monthly sessions were a waste of my time. My duty was to keep these people safe from our enemies, not negotiate cattle disputes. But the people wanted to see their alpha and ignoring them just led to more unrest.
Just ask Trogan. It would require a necromancer and more magic than could be found in all of Drakus, but he’d learned the cost of bad leadership.
So I could sacrifice a few hours every month to make my people feel better, and hope it led to good things in the future. We didn’t need a revolt of unsatisfied peasants.
Veyne left to see to his other duties as I stepped into the great hall. It was no surprise to see my mother already waiting there. With no mate of my own, my mother took on many of the duties that would have normally fallen to my consort. And though she wanted a private audience to badger me about my bachelor status, she wouldn’t use now as an opportunity. She knew her duties just as I did, and whatever she wanted to ask me would wait until later.
“You were nearly late,” she chided gently as she took the seat beside me.
“Nearly,” was my response. I settled into my own seat and waved at one of the attendants to open the door. A few hours of petitions weren’t going to change my life, and once this was done I could get back to the real running of things.
As I expected, it went on and on and on. I kept myself from slouching using tricks that had been instilled in my since boyhood, but I almost didn’t catch the yawn that tried to escape when one of the petitioners went on a long tirade about his neighbor ignoring a property line. These citizens didn’t know that the threat of the wyverns lurked. We’d been at uneasy peace for a century and there was little thought of a war to come. But even if there was, many of these men and women would never be conscripted into service. Most of the people who came for an audience couldn’t shift into their dragon forms. It was only the most powerful of my people who had that ability.
For everyone else, they lived in one form, confined to skin or scales, with the intelligence of the other form confined inside of them for all eternity. In rare cases, it was rumored that a person could unlock their other skin, but in reality if a person didn’t shift before their twelfth year it would never happen.
Less than ethical healers and witches offered remedies that promised to unleash a second form, but none of them had ever been proven to work. Dealing with them was almost as time consuming as dealing with the wyverns, but it was my duty and I would not fail. I’d never had to wonder what it might be like to be unable to shift. My mother was an alpha and my father had been one as well. I’d shifted for the first time when I barely knew how to walk. I could not imagine what it would be like to have my dragon chained inside of me, unable to do anything but beat at my skin and beg for escape. It was no wonder that the desperate would cling to any cure.
A quick glance at the time showed the audience was almost over. One of the servants would know the exact number of petitioners I’d managed to see, but it was never enough. The line surely snaked down the main road and into the nearest village. Some would be back next month, others would give up, but more would take their place.
An alpha’s job was never finished.
A whisper of interest snaked through the room around us and my mother leaned forward, as if trying to make out what was going on. My mind had been wandering and it snapped back to attention when the whispers started. Whispers were never good. The last alpha’s downfall had started with a whisper.
The steward led in a woman in strange clothes. Her dark hair was matted and there was a smudge of dirt on her cheek. Something about her tugged deep inside my gut and I almost stood and walked towards her before I realized what I was doing. She was nearly as tall as the steward, but her shoulders were hunched, as if she wished no one in the room could see her.
Who was she? I didn’t know every one of my people on sight, but I would have remembered her. It wasn’t just her beauty. There were plenty of beautiful women on Drakus.
I could practically see the spark of her dragon flame and I wanted to mix it with mine and see what happened.
Madness. Unless she were my true mate, it would immolate us both.
And yet…
The steward cleared his throat to announce the woman. “Alpha, may I present Kristen Mora from… ahem… Celestial Mates.”
I’d thought nothing could make me look away from the woman, Kristen Mora, but it seemed my mother’s meddling did the trick. I turned from the woman before me to the woman beside me and leveled a glare that would have been strong enough to burn if I wasn’t disciplined.
My mother pursed her lips and glanced at Kristen. She studied her for several seconds, expression puzzled. “She wasn’t meant to come to you until we’d spoken.”
Sweat beaded the back of my neck and my throat was dry as a desert. If I didn’t get out of there soon I’d unleash my fire like an untested youth. I shot up from my seat and didn’t let myself look back at Kristen Mora.
“Deal with this,” I told my mother. “Clean up your mess.” I turned to the steward. “We’re done for the day.”
Leaving the room, I made my way back to the central courtyard where I could take to the sky in peace. My human form held me in too tightly and I needed the freedom of the sky before I burned my own keep to the ground.
Chapter Three
Kristen
Had that guy been breathing out smoke? I’d dealt with some pretty bad rejections before, but I’d never made someone self-immolate. And was that even possible? My mind flashed back to the dragons I’d seen outside and the suspicions that had clouded my mind.
Oh, this couldn’t be good.
The guy might have been an asshole, but he’d been hotter than sin,
with sharp cheekbones covered in just the right amount of dark stubble, thick dark hair, piercing eyes, pale skin, and a body that promised to be all hard muscle and rippling abs if I ever saw him naked. Not that I wanted to. I wanted to be rejected and sent home. That was the plan. But it wasn’t like his immediate rejection felt super good.
It made me realize that there might have been a tiny sliver somewhere deep inside that had hoped that this would finally be the place I found home, the place that wouldn’t send me away. They’d see something worthy in me and know that I belonged here.
Among the dragons.
Um, yeah, maybe not.
The older woman who’d been sitting by the hot guy nodded to the man beside me and he walked away, leaving me alone in the room to be studied like a scientific specimen.
“Kristen Mora,” the woman said, the syllables tripping over her tongue like she’d never heard a name like that. Since I wasn’t on Earth anymore, maybe she hadn’t. I had no idea where this planet sat or whether we were still even in the Milky Way. Humanity had embraced space travel, but we weren’t exactly heavy hitters when it came to exploration and colonization. We left that to the Oscavian Empire.
There was nothing to do but fake my way through this. I didn’t know what this Celestial Mates thing had to do with me or why they’d plucked me from Earth, but it was the only reason they’d let me in the door. Despite the company I kept back home, I wasn’t a con artist so I’d just have to fake it. “Kristen Mora from Celestial Mates,” I confirmed. “I was sent here for…” I had to swallow hard and smiled brightly to try and cover the sudden bout of nerves, “for mating.”
“Hmm,” said the woman. “I can’t say you’re what I expected.”
Wait. Was I supposed to be her mate? She wasn’t exactly my type, as old as my mother probably would have been if we’d ever met, and giving off an angry teacher vibe.
“I wanted to talk to Drikal before you were introduced. He’s been… reluctant to mate, but if the Celestial Mates found you, then you must be what he needs.” She approached me and circled around like some sort of stalking cat. When she got behind me I turned around, not liking her at my back. The woman raised her brows as if I’d failed another one of her little tests. Good. I was glad she wasn’t supposed to be my mate. Not that I wanted that Drikal guy or anything. “My son is a good alpha to his people, but every alpha needs a mate.”
Alpha. Mate. If it hadn’t been for the vehicles I’d seen parked outside of the castle and some of the technology embedded in the walls I would have thought this world was totally medieval. But asking about it seemed like giving too much away. “Do you have a name, er, ma’am?” Was I supposed to call her your majesty or something? Was an alpha the same as a king? And could we get some clarifications on the whole dragon issue?
“You may call me Riga,” she said. “Now let’s get you settled while Drikal is throwing his tantrum.”
That almost made me smile. Maybe people weren’t all that different no matter what planet a girl ended up on. I followed Riga down the halls and tried not to gawk. Tapestries depicting men fighting dragons and dragons fighting other dragons were strung up, their colors so vibrant it was almost like looking at a vid screen. I wanted to stop and stare, but Riga barely spared the art a glance. We came to a large black door that slid open when Riga stopped in front of it. She ushered me inside and then down another hallway. The twists and turns got me confused and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find my way back to the entrance. It was a bit alarmed and I wanted to ask for a map, but if this woman had summoned me for her son, I doubted she wanted me disappearing just like that.
Was I going to be a prisoner? My stomach curdled at the thought. Had I just delivered myself to be a sex slave to some man-dragon on a planet many light years from home?
I didn’t realize that I’d stopped walking until Riga cleared her throat. She’d managed to get several meters ahead of me and was waiting by another door. “Is everything alright?” she asked once I cleared the distance. “I do apologize for how things happened this afternoon. I’m sure once Drikal has had a chance to think things through he’ll be more willing to see about your compatibility. And if he does not see reason, one of his lower alphas is sure to want a mate.”
I clamped down the response to that. I had barely accepted the bargain of mating with Drikal; I wasn’t about to be pawned off to some lesser dude just because the head alpha rejected me. And I didn’t even want him!
My libido whispered that that was a lie, but she was a horny hussy who shouldn’t be given the time of day.
“We’ll see what happens,” I said mildly.
The room she led me into had all the comforts of home: a giant, fluffy bed piled high with blankets and pillows, a large bathtub built into one of the walls that looked like it could fit me and ten of my closest friends, a bookshelf filled with books in a language I didn’t understand, and a panel on the wall that was probably for communication.
“I’ll send you attendants to see to your needs,” Riga assured me. “You will join us for our evening meal.” It wasn’t a request.
She left me alone and I sunk down onto the bed, suddenly tired enough to sleep for a week. As far as jails went, it was the nicest one I’d ever been put up in, but it was still a jail.
I didn’t think I’d fallen asleep, but I must have since some time later a poke at my shoulder roused me from a surprisingly deep slumber. It had been late at night when I’d disappeared off Earth and I had no idea how many hours had passed. Enough that it was surely long past my bedtime. But the sun hadn’t quite set yet, and assuming that this planet functioned with any similarity to Earth, it wasn’t late enough to try and sleep the night through.
A woman hovered over me, her face brown with deep green eyes and short curly brown hair. She studied me just like Riga had. I don’t know if there was a flashing neon sign that said I wasn’t from this planet or what, but I must have been giving off signals. Then again, maybe it was my translator. It only now occurred to me that I hadn’t had any issues understanding the people I spoke to, and since this definitely wasn’t Earth, there was no way everyone was speaking English. I’d invested in a decent subdermal translator in the hopes that it would give me better job prospects, maybe get me working on one of the space stations in the Sol system or something. So far it hadn’t happened, but at least I wasn’t struggling to understand anyone on this dragon planet.
Yay?
“Hello,” I finally said when the woman didn’t so much as blink. She reared back and another woman giggled. I angled my head and saw the second woman, who looked a lot like the first except she had longer hair and her clothing was pure blue instead of teal. I didn’t know if they were wearing uniforms or not, but the cut of each of their dresses—knee length, sleeves to the shoulders, and scoop neck—was generic enough that it could have gone either way.
“Kristenmora?” the woman nearest me asked like it was one name.
“Just Kristen. Who are you?” I hoisted myself up and ran my fingers through my hair, wincing when I combed through a few knots. My muscles were heavy and tight, like I’d slept for hours, but if the sun outside was anything to go by it hadn’t been quite as long as I’d feared. Then again, how was I to know how long a day was on this planet?
“I am Ceri,” the first woman said. “My companion is Safa. We’ve been sent to aid you and deliver you to dinner.”
I hoped I wasn’t the meal, but I was pretty sure that was just reflexive, tired cynicism talking. I glanced down and saw that my clothes were a bit wrinkled and rumpled from my trudge to the keep, followed by my nap. It wasn’t what I would have chosen for dinner at a castle, but I didn’t think I wanted to give up the last link I had to home.
“What is this place? Where I am I?” Ceri and Safa were the first people I had the sense to ask. Drikal, or whoever he was, had fled before we could speak two words and I didn’t know if I trusted Riga. There was no reason to trust the two women in front of me, but at least
they could tell me something. “And who are you two anyway? Not just your names.”
Safa came forward and sat beside me, her smile practiced and fixed on her face. I didn’t know if there was anything I could say to make that expression disappear, but there was nothing genuine about it. “Our lady, Riga, has requested that we assist you. We are both her advisors and confidantes. Know that you are in good hands.” Safa waved towards Ceri, who produced a bundle of clothes with a flourish. It must have been behind her back or something.
So they weren’t just servants, but they were almost certain to report back to Riga. It made asking for help fraught, but I didn’t have many other options at the moment.
“You are in the alpha’s palace on the planet Drakus in the dragon territory. Some call our land the Hoard. You are safe here,” Ceri assured me as she laid out a dress as red as fire in a cut similar to what she and Safa were wearing. “Where are you from that you don’t know our land?”
“Earth.” I didn’t see a reason to hide it. I figured they could tell I was human, but once I had the thought I wasn’t sure why. We looked basically the same, though there was a bit of a glow to their eyes that didn’t look like anything I’d seen before. But they didn’t have horns or skin in a color that I’d never seen. They had the right number of fingers and presumably the right number of toes. Arms and legs were both accounted for and there wasn’t a tentacle in sight. It would be very easy to forget that we were different, that they lived in a land of dragons. “The Celestial Mates just sort of dropped me here,” I said, working my way around to the question I really wanted to ask. “If I needed to get in touch with them or check in, is there a space station or something I could get to?”
“Space station?” Ceri laughed. “We don’t need ships here. The Oscavians would probably shoot us out of the sky.”
