Claudia rotated a finger in the air, indicating he should at least sling the cloak over his shoulders. “It’s been too frantic, and I’ve used too much energy freeing you. When I’m stronger, I’ll learn your language and teach you mine.”
“This cloak barely covers me. It is irrelevant.”
His body made two of hers, and the cloak did little more than cover his back and fall to his waist. “You need pants,” she said, and pointed to his legs.
“Ah, you are admiring my cock? It is magnificent, is it not?” Tharius frowned. “But you are so small. Will something of this size fit your female parts?”
“Let’s not run ahead of ourselves.” Did he really just say that? “Pants,” she said and dipped her head because her face was about to catch fire from the images careening through her mind. The way he’d naturally assumed they’d fall into bed with each other the moment the opportunity presented. She touched her own legs, running her fingers down the length to demonstrate. “To cover your legs and, well, all of your lower half.”
“Teranthes?” Tharius looked down, shaping his own legs as if he’d only that moment noticed they were there. With a deft flick, he slid the cloak about his waist, fastening the long ties at his hip. “At rest, when not in uniform or armour, we wear the teranthes. Do I please you now?”
“Yes, you please me. But you need more clothes. Something to help you blend.” In this half-state, all shiny and blue, with those purple eyes of his, he’d never pass for a drab wyvern.
She watched him sniff the air and frown. Lift his good hand, palm forward as if reading the air on his skin.
“I sense much has changed since my sleep. You will tell me what stories this place has seen in my absence.”
“You’re not going to like what’s happened to your moon.”
He wasn’t listening. Only staring thoughtfully over the steep drop to the valley floor spreading away below the mountain. More life on this side, coloured with the greens and purples of meadow and forest, the blues and blacks of rivers and lakes. A place of contrast, of deceptive beauty and sinister shadows. Did he recognise his home world after so long asleep?
“I must retrieve my armour and weapons and rejoin the war effort.”
“There is no war, Tharius. The dragons lost.” She touched his arm lightly, skimming the transition from smooth scales to thick leather patching the bare skin. His gaze followed her fingers, a deepening fascination unfurling inside of him. So focussed, she felt every one of his thoughts.
“You can only hide and hope they don’t find you. If they find you, they’ll want you for their games.”
“I hear sadness in your voice, female Claudia.” He took her chin, tilting her face to his. Scars stood out on his cheeks and chin like carved, silver threads. “You have seen things you cannot forget? I understand this. I too carry the burden of memory. We cannot unsee the things that stole shards of our hearts. Nor undo the things we have done. We can only thank the gods for granting us another chance to prevail. That is why they sent me you, Claudia.”
She leaned into his touch, staying open to him. Lead him gently from his past to the present day horror of Prison Moon One, reality show and porn central. He’d find out soon enough how much his home world had changed. Getting him to believe it might be another matter entirely.
He left her to retrieve her pack. “Come, little one, we must feed. Let us be away.”
Before she could protest, the world tilted and his arms enclosed her. The temple, the courtyard rushed by and they were on the wall fronting the sheer drop. Two tattered wings unfurled from nowhere.
And then Tharius leaped into the void.
Chapter Eleven
For ten glorious breaths, they caught a stray breeze and soared, weightless, towards the valley floor. A flying rainbow of flashing colour, even with his scales dulled to shadows of their former majesty.
Claudia gripped with a grim determination, fingers clawed into his skin. Did she believe he would let her fall? Tharius saluted her courage, the way she bit back her screams and offered her trust. She had his approval. Something he did not give willingly.
Soft skin pressed to his chest, the cloak tangled in his scales. He roared out his pleasure at simply being alive and airborne again after so long without moving.
Sharpening his vision, he picked out an area of dull brown, clear of trees and vegetation that may impede his landing, and prepared to shift the angle of his wings to put them down gently to protect the fragile female in his arms.
Nothing happened. The very fact he still had the semblance of arms should have reminded him of the folly of launching on brittle, untried wings. Where first they caressed and enclosed the air, now it rushed through the fragile tissue with the force of a tempest, reminding him they were little more than tattered shreds. If he didn’t fold and retract and take the impact when it came, they’d be so damaged it would take seasons to recover their power.
Tharius curled his body, folding Claudia in what he prayed made a safety cage for her if not him. The ground hurtled towards them.
“Hold on. Whatever you do, Claudia, don’t let go.”
“I won’t.” Her face pressed so hard into his skin, she must have marked him with her imprint for all time. When her grip tightened, he diverted all of his focus, all of his energy, into keeping his wings out and slowing the shift back to his hybrid state. If the wings must be sacrificed to save them, then so be it. But he must stay as near to his dragon form as possible until safely down.
The crack of tearing sinew, muscle and skin snapped through the air. He must judge this to the moment to avoid sacrificing them to the point of no return. He let out a low growl. Calculating aerodynamics while hurtling to almost certain doom had never been his forte. He decided and he acted. Tharius the impetuous they sometimes called him, but more often, the decisive one.
“Stop thinking, Tharius. You’ve done this before. Go on instinct.”
The drift of Claudia’s words soothed him. Did she bid him calm? Let go and trust he’d remember what to do?
His wings snapped and creaked, folding and dissolving into him as the ground flew towards them. He took the crash on his biceps, on the already damaged arm. Save what was left of his wings, preserve the strength of his good arm. Above all, protect the small female weight cradled to his breast.
The slam of grasses and packed soil on muscle knocked the wind from their lungs, leaving them rasping for breath. Tharius rolled, taking the energy from the hit, rolled again, and brought them to a halt at the base of a towering esequa. He lay beneath, Claudia shaped to his full length. They lay together, gasping. Stunned to be alive after the dramatic fall.
If Claudia chose to chastise him for his rash move, he’d listen and think he deserved her ire. She gave him everything and had every right to be angry to witness her gift treated so negligently.
“I should not have tried to fly so soon. Not with you in my arms. Forgive me, instinct overrode my good sense.”
Little humility in his make-up, but he said the words. Claudia patted his arm twice, which he took to be an affirmative. Silently, he thanked the gods for this female of good sense and not prone to hysteria and sulking. Something he sadly had great experience of. The Draegon mates were constrained to bow to their males in everything, but that didn’t stop them employing a little of their legendary frost when it suited them.
“Lie still, Tharius. I need to catch my breath.”
Her weary tone bade him give her time to recover from the shock he’d surely inflicted. Tharius held her with his good arm, and stared up at the pink-blue sky, the drifting wisps of pale-grey cloud. Today, the arc of the nearest celestial body the Draegon called the mother of the moon, rose a light red, oddly transparent above the distant trees and peaks.
As a youngling, he lay like this, in communion with nature, watching the skies for the first signs of his father’s shimmering blue wings, beating powerful and sure towards their lair. A frisson of excitement rippled through him. T
hat he could still feel it after so many seasons spoke of memories etched onto his very core.
Claudia coughed, and he narrowed his gaze. Too close for proper focus, but she appeared to be in one piece. Flattened to his chest, her breasts rose and fell in time with his breath, and he was aware of how well they fit together. His good hand drifted over the dips and contours of her back, and his cock nestled quite naturally into the apex of her thighs. He kept very still, instinct telling him a female of her species might be alarmed by any unsolicited advances in that direction.
No denying, though, that she was almost made for his male.
Claudia pressed off his chest, lifting her head and shoulder, peeking through a curtain of hair. Tharius tangled his fist in the pale mane, pushing it from her eyes, rubbing the strands between his fingers. His sensitive sense of smell caught the release of oils and residue of her journey across the forests, plains and mountains he saw when they joined minds. He felt the urge to push his face into her skin, scent her all over, until he learned every scrap of her.
“It’s a good thing I saw you survived that, or I’d have died of fright.”
“Are you hurt, Claudia?”
“A few scratches, I think, from when we rolled.” She lifted her chest from his, bracing her legs on either side of his hips, pushing her rump into his cock. Closing his eyes, he savoured the friction prickling his skin. Oh yes, he remembered this coming together of male and female in mutual passion, absent any call to mating duty. Betrothed from birth, but free until the first joining to indulge his male urges, all dragons of his elevated station took the opportunity to sample pleasures they might never find again.
“Tharius?” A light tapping on his cheek pulled him from his musings. He shook his head, remembering the way a female sending heat could make a male forget who and where he was. Make him think only of wanting and taking.
He dragged his mind to the problem in hand. She might be hurt. The flying eye had spoken of another blue. They must escape to his lair and plan their moves, not lie here thinking of bodily indulgence.
The crude gown, fashioned from tough hide cushioned her where it covered skin. Claudia held up her forearms, inspecting the scratches and grazes. Sitting in one fluid movement, he circled her waist to steady her, bringing the junction of her thighs in even closer contact with his cock. A favourite position for mating.
They really did fit together well. Though Claudia seemed as yet unaware of that.
“You think?” She lifted her gaze from inspecting her wounds, tangling with his. A knowing look and impossible to misinterpret. So she did feel this heat flowing so seamlessly between them?
His eyes darkened as they did in the throes of lust. Hers only softened to the misty green of a late-summer sea. “Show me,” he said and lifted her wrist to inspect the damage.
“We can bide awhile for you to administer healing.” His stinging skin said that he also suffered scrapes, but though he felt no broken bones, standing might reveal hidden injuries. “Test your legs and lay your hands on my back. With healing, I may be able to shift fully to male form. I…”
The words died in his throat. Claudia’s fingers closed his lips with a gentle touch. Lifting one finger, she pointed to a thicket of purple-fronded trees atop a rise in the land. He turned his head, listening.
“Something’s up there, Tharius. Something big.”
“What? Did you hear something? Nod if you did.”
She tilted her head once, as she’d seen him do, and he berated himself for not paying more attention to the danger surrounding them. Too used to standing atop the food chain, fearing nothing until the wars came.
This was still a war zone, and she an untried civilian. And up there might be a whole army of wyverns waiting to attack, or one of the feral creatures that roamed his world seeking sustenance, or even merely a reason to kill.
“Is it a wyvern?”
Fear chased across her face. So she had a history with wyverns that put fear in her eyes? His vision darkened on a fleeting memory that was hers, not his, of a wyvern in flight. There would be a reckoning when he regained full strength. The creature would regret laying hand and claw on her.
“Is it bigger than me?”
“Yes. With shaggy hair, and long sharp teeth and claws.”
She tapped her own teeth, peeling back her lips in a grimace. Made claws of her hands. He slid her from his lap, pressing her down when she tried to stand with him. The creature she described could be one of many able to kill a being as small as she. He wished for a weapon, but saw only spindly shrubs that might provide a branch sharp enough to stab, but would be useless as a club.
“Do I kill it? Look into my future. Tell me.” He kicked out, flattening half the shrub with the first blow of his foot. Snapped off the biggest branch and inspected the point.
“I think so. Take care, Tharius.”
“That did not sound like an affirmation.”
Claudia rubbed her eyes, turning her gaze to the copse of trees stirring peacefully in the breeze. In the short time of his foolish attempt at flight, the sky had darkened with thickening cloud, the air charged with the energy of another building storm. His lair was two, perhaps three days’ hike from the ambracite temple. When this threat was eliminated, that’s where he’d take her.
On impulse, he laid a flat hand on her head as if in blessing. So small, huddled at his feet. Home; he’d take her home. Home was where he stored his treasure, and that’s exactly what she was. He must place her symbolically atop his hoard, as he did with Ekala, to signify possession.
“Let me come with you.” She made to rise. He increased the pressure, holding her in place.
“No, I will deal with it.”
“You only have use of one arm.” She tapped his dangling limb, tempering the move with an apologetic flattening of her lips. “How do I explain this to you? I put a wyvern in thrall. I can do the same with that creature up there. Believe me, it’s out for blood.”
“Stay.” His dragon issued the command. So sure of being obeyed, Tharius let go his hold. Claudia grabbed the opportunity to scrabble to her feet, swaying a little from the sudden move. Gathering herself, she stepped out of his immediate reach and faced him.
“You’ll have to take this on faith. I’m not a damsel in distress, and you need me up there.”
The wind whipped hair across her face. Raised the flesh to visible pimples on her lacerated arms. “You bleed. The creature up there will sense that.”
“It already has. My blood, and yours attracted it.”
Tharius frowned. She made the last words sound like an accusation. Did she not understand his duty as a male to keep her safe?
“You want to protect me. I get that. But on my world women are allowed to fight alongside men. If you’d allowed your own females that right, some might still be alive.”
“While we debate, we make ourselves vulnerable.” The male took over, reminding the dragon that the invaders brought female warriors who fought with as much vigour and savagery as their males. Claudia’s race may have extended that privilege to their own females. He would make allowance for their differences, but only as long as she stayed safe.
“I didn’t mean to say that, Tharius. I’m glad you still can’t understand me.” She made a half circle with her arm as if beckoning him on. “I’ll stay behind you, if that helps your ego. But I promise I’ll pay my way.”
Determination shone from her every pore. He capitulated with a curt nod. Females were ever the same, clouding a male’s mind with worries when he needed focus. “I prefer you stay hidden, but since you will not, you will obey my every word. There can be only one commander in a fight.”
Claudia snapped a flat palm to her forehead and then crept obediently into his shadow. Salute or insult, he did not know.
“I will attempt to shift a little more towards my dragon. Do not be alarmed by my appearance.”
“I see the real you, Tharius. He doesn’t scare me.”
She r
ubbed his arm as a mother would in reassuring a young child. A tactile people, these Earthlings. He covered her hand with his, listening for movement, the rustling of a body large enough to disturb leaves on high branches. Sniffing, he scented the sharp stench of acrine roots crushed underfoot.
“It’s over there, to the left. About to break cover.”
She was right. A biped shape lumbered from the tree line, a blade in one fist, a rock in the other. A rethis. It stopped, lifted its face and scanned the slope and flat plain. With nowhere for them to hide they could only take it head on and hope to prevail without further injury to add to their toll.
No use hiding if the creature had already seen them. Tharius launched at the slope, taking off at speed to ensure Claudia stayed far behind. Kill it before she threw herself into the fray.
He did not reckon with an Earth female’s determination.
“Tharius, there’s a camera.” Claudia huffed behind him, gesturing wildly to the sky, and the orb-shaped eye winding through the trunks. So they were watching him. Nothing new in that.
“I see it. Claudia, you’re distracting me. Go back.”
“No, that creature is wide open to me. Oh, how do I explain my powers to you? If I can put it in thrall, you can disable it.”
“We will have words about this later.” Use her, his dragon urged. If she insists on this folly, then use her.
“Let it see you, then, and think you easy prey. I will take it. But make no noise, lest there be others in those trees waiting.”
“Okay.” Claudia raised her arms, waving them at the creature. Its over-large head turned slowly, eyes fixed on the small, Earth woman. A long tongue snaked out to flap over its chin. Each meaty leg would make two of Claudia, yet she did not hesitate.
The creature swung its head, deciding who to engage. Fearsome to look at, but easy to confuse, if he remembered his hunting days with any degree of accuracy. He must time this right, or he would lose his little saviour. And he wasn’t ready to give her up now, or ever.
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