Azlo

by Maia Starr

  "My kind? You always saw me as different, did you not, father?” I said looking at him.

  "Yes, you are different. You are 1,000 times better than I am. You are what I could only wish I could be. You are a hybrid. You are born of the combination of me, a full blooded Draqua, and your mother, a human female, and somehow that combination created a very powerful Draqua. You have powers that Draqua have never had. Your powers to influence the mind of a human is unlike anything we have ever seen. The others like you, all with their own individual powers, are very unique. Veiras is scared of that, and he does not want any Draqua to have powers when he cannot. He is a very selfish dragon shifter. But I am not. It is my responsibility as king to think of everyone besides myself and having a generation of Draqua that have the powers that I have seen among you will only give our race a greater advantage than we could ever imagine. It is important that we continue on this path; don't you see that, son?”

  "And so you want me to mate with a human female and make her my forever wife just because I have a duty to make sure that the future generation has powers?” I asked.

  "Yes and no. I was hoping that you would pick a human female because you're passionate about her and the fact that it would help the Draqua race would just be part of it. But you have not made an effort to find a human female; even the two that I brought to you, you have not chosen from one of them.”

  "Them? They are not worthy of me, father. If it is your wish that I take a human female as a wife, then I will find her myself.”

  "Find her? There are very few human females on our planet of Kelon. They are all spoken for except for the two that you keep as toys.”

  "Don't you worry about that, father. I will find one,” I said, walking towards the veranda and shifting into dragon form.

  "What are you saying? I do not like where this is going. Do not do anything foolish. Earth has yet to know of our existence, and we want to keep it that way. We make the disappearance of their human females that we take seem very random and accidental. Do not do anything that will blow our cover.”

  "Don't worry about me, father,” I said as I ran and jumped off the veranda and spread my wings. I flew directly down to the port. If it was so important to my father for me to have a human female mate right now, then I would show him. I would go get one immediately. I needed a little adventure and a little bit of breaking the rules. I had grown bored as of late.

  I shifted out of hybrid dragon mode and opened the door to a small but fast ship. I quickly went inside and turned on the engines and within 10 seconds, I was shooting through the sky and out into space with a destination of Earth.

  "Coordinates set for the planet of Earth,” I said to be mainframe that ran the ship.

  "Coordinates set for Earth. Please pick your destination," the mainframe responded. I watched as images of Earth scrolled across the screen. I needed to pick a place with plenty of water; my human wife would need to enjoy being around water considering that my planet was mostly covered in it and we were a water race.

  I saw an image of a vast ocean pushed up against cliffs. I pressed it.

  "Pacific Ocean coastline destination set,” the mainframe said.

  I allowed the autopilot to do all the work and I sat back and relaxed. I grinned. “This should be fun,” I said as a put my hands behind my head, leaning back in the chair. I was suddenly glad my father had given me the lecture; it was just the motivation I needed to go on a little adventure.

  I parked my ship just beneath the surface of the ocean. I figured I would play on Earth for a while before searching for my future wife. I shifted and made my way out of the ship, going for a long swim. I swam fast. I swam with the creatures of Earth. I swam toward the coastline, and when I saw the coastline approaching, I burst from the surface out of the water straight up toward the cliff. I landed on the dry land.

  I was not expecting that I saw. One human female stood there all alone. But when I saw her standing there, I knew she was the one. She was going to be my mate for life. I looked at her petite but curvy body. She was slim, but not too thin and not fragile looking. She had full hips and full breasts. Her long hair was a reddish brown color and went down to her waist with shorter hair hovering above her eyes on her forehead in a style I had never seen before. Her full pink lips were trembling and her brown eyes were wide with fright. She clenched her small hands at her side in fists. It was lust at first sight for me. This small human female was the one for me. I knew it then that I would no longer have to look for a mate.

  After persuading her to come with me, I flew with her in my arms as she protested me taking her, as to be expected. I flew down towards the water surface where I had left my ship.

  "What are you doing? I cannot swim the way you can swim!” she shouted at me.

  "Do not worry. We are not going in the water,” I said as the ship emerged out of the water.

  "What is that? What the hell is that? I cannot see what it is,” she said in panic.

  "That is because it is an invisible shield on my ship,” I said to her. To her, it would look like water coming up in a mound from the surface and falling away against an object that she could not see.

  "Invisible? That's impossible. Wait, what am I saying? I am in the arms of the dragon man, and I think an invisible ship is impossible,” she said to herself. I laughed at her remark. Then she continued. “Wait, ship? Did you say ship? Are you saying what I think you are saying? A ship? You are going to leave Earth, aren't you?” she said.

  The ship opened, and I flew inside. The door closed behind us. “Yes, and you are coming with me. We are leaving Earth. Step back, will you?” I said to her.

  I put her on her feet and moved away from her. “Like hell I am going with you! Let me out of here!" she yelled at me.

  I moved away from her and used the space to shift. In a flash, my wings vanished and the scales on my skin receded into my body. I now looked like any other human man, except I was almost 9 feet tall.

  "What was that? You are a man! What the hell are you?” she shouted at me. I laughed.

  "Come on,” I said, putting my hand on her small waist and leading her to a seat. I sat her down in it. She stood right back up. “Oh no, you don't! Let me out of here! I am not going anywhere with you,” she said.

  I locked eyes with her. “You want to sit here. You are excited to be on this ship with me. Sit here calmly,” I said.

  Her demeanor changed. She was no longer panicked; she was now calm and sat obediently with her hands in her lap. I strapped on the seatbelts, one over her left shoulder down to her hip and the other from her right shoulder down to her opposite hip, creating an x across her chest. I had to move quickly, because judging from my experience with her earlier, my persuasion did not last long on this human female. I quickly jumped into the pilot seat and did not bother with setting coordinates. I had it on manual pilot, and I shot straight into the sky and into space within seconds.

  "What just happened? Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God!” she shouted.

  I laughed at her. I don't know why I found her amazement so amusing, but it was to me.

  "Do not unstrap those safety belts or you will go flying across the ship and hit the wall. At this speed we are flying, it will not be pleasant,” I said to her.

  "Please tell me we are still on Earth,” she said.

  "We are now in space. It is not black out the windshield because it is night, I am sorry. That is space,” I said to her. She turned her attention away from me and towards the windshield and gasped.

  "Holy shit. I am in space. I am really in space. Am I dreaming? This all has to be some weird, bizarre, very real dream. None of this is possible. You, a dragon shifter, a man-thing creature, you are not possible. Your invisible ship, that is not possible. And now me in space, that is not freaking possible!” she said.

  Again I laughed at her. I was actually having fun with this human female; it was the first time I had ever experienced such fun with a human. Usually I only had th
is much fun with Jix and Baca; they were my closest comrades and were also hybrids. This was going to be a lot of fun.

  CHAPTER THREE

  MELODY REEVES

  This was not happening to me. Yes, I asked for adventure, but nothing like this. I just wanted an adventurous boyfriend for a change, someone that did not bore me or make me pay for the dinner tab even though he made a lot of money. I never asked for an alien being to come down out of the sky and swoop me away from my planet. Not just any alien, but one that could shift into a half-man, half-dragon form. All of it was too bizarre, and it really felt like something that can only be true in a dream. But I knew this was reality; this was no dream. It was absolutely insane. What was worse was the sense that I kept losing control over my own mind. This alien had some sort of telepathic powers, and that was very dangerous.

  I sat strapped into the seat on a spaceship, yes, a damn spaceship. I looked out the windshield at the blackness of space. Then I looked over at my abductor. Now that he was shifted, he looked just like a human man, only much larger. His hands were larger, his physique was larger, his bare feet were larger. I wondered if everything was larger… He sat there in a loincloth and nothing else, leaving very little to the imagination. He was still damp from being in the ocean, his long black hair layered and framed his face. A couple of beads of water dripped down his back. I found myself becoming very turned on by him.

  "Are you doing it again? Stop,” I said, realizing that he must be doing it.

  "Doing what?” He looked over at me with his thick, dark eyebrows furrowed.

  "That thing. That stupid mine thing that you do. The mind trick to get me to do and think as you want,” I said crossing my arms in front of my chest.

  "No, I am not. Whatever you were thinking of, you thought of on your own,” he said with a smirk as though he knew what I was thinking about.

  "Oh…” I said feeling embarrassed and felt my cheeks flush. “Where are you taking me? You know you can't just do this. You can't just come to Earth and take a person and do what you like with them. Where the hell are we going?” I asked him in anger.

  "We are going to paradise. Nothing on Earth can compare to it,” he said quietly in a calm, deep voice.

  "And where exactly is this paradise? Somewhere in the solar system?” I asked him.

  "No, it is in another galaxy,” he said.

  "Another galaxy! Are you serious? I can't believe this. I can't believe this is happening to me. Why me? Why is this happening to me?” I rambled on. I did not understand why I was the only human on this ship with this alien. None of this made sense to me.

  "Don't worry, human female; where we are going you will fall in love with it instantly. There is nothing like it. It is beautiful. The water is crystal clear. The islands are formed of white sand from crystals so fine that it feels like cloth beneath your feet. The breeze carries a scent of the flowers in the air, and it caresses your skin with just the right amount of cold under the hot sun. The food is clean. The air is clean. The plants and the health of the planet come first before everything, and we live in harmony with all of it. We are the caretakers of our planet. We value the health of it and live off of that. We have long been the custodians of the beauty that you are about to experience. You are very lucky,” he said softly.

  I was completely surprised by this. A dragon shifter alien that had shot fire from his mouth only moments before was now speaking almost poetically about his home. I could tell that he took great pride in his home and I found that to be almost sweet. The way he spoke about it, it was almost as if he became another personality.

  "What is it called? This beautiful paradise that you call a planet, what is it called?”

  "I call it home," he smiled at me. I cocked my head to the side.

  "It is called Kelon. That is what we Draqua call it.”

  "Draqua?”

  "That is what we are called. Draqua,” he said. “You are called humans. We are called Draqua.”

  "I understand. What I don't understand is what I am doing here. None of this makes sense to me. Why did you take me? This paradise that you speak of sounds like it has everything that you could possibly want. You speak of it so fondly,” I said.

  "It does. It does have everything that I could possibly want. But it does not have humans,” he said.

  "And because of that, I have to be the one taken from my life? That is not fair. I want to go home. I want to be on Earth. That should not be your decision,” I said to him.

  "It is too late for your protest. We are far from Earth now. There is no going back. And you can call me Cylo. Understood, human female?” he said in a very dominating voice.

  "And you can call me Melody, not human female,” I said to him, biting every single syllable. He laughed.

  "It is safe to get up from your seat now, Melody, if you would like. There is a sleeping area in the back along with food and drink,” he said as he pressed buttons and flipped switches.

  "I can get up? Aren't you scared I am going to run away?” I asked him.

  "We are on a ship in the middle of space. Where would you run to? It is impossible,” he said with a laugh again. I was tired of him laughing at me, so I awkwardly struggled with the seatbelts, finally getting them undone. I got up from my seat and nearly fell over. He caught me with his hands on my waist. I felt very small in his massive hands.

  "Whoa, are you all right? You have to watch those first steps. When it’s your first time and space, it takes a while to get used to it. It is a lot like being on a boat in the water. Use the walls to help you walk,” he said. But I could barely focus on his words because the heat from his fingers on my skin was too distracting.

  "I think I got it,” I whispered. I did not mean to whisper the words, but that is how they came out. I grabbed onto my seat and pulled myself away from him. I continued to walk along using the walls of the ship to help me stay balanced.

  I found the area in the back of the ship. There were two small beds that were more like padded benches inside of a little nook. There was a counter with storage containers that were bolted to the wall. I was very thirsty and hungry. I had been on a hike, after all. It now seemed like days ago. I opened a container and found bottled water that was in clear round circles. It almost looked like they were in bubbles. It was very strange. I picked one up, and it was soft in my hands. I found the opening and unscrewed it and put it to my mouth and drank. It was the most delicious, clean, fresh, crisp water I had ever drank in my life. I was astounded by the taste of it, but it was in fact water.

  "What do you think?” Cylo asked as he came up behind me.

  I turned around startled. “It is delicious. Is this water?” I asked.

  "Yes, it is. It is water from my planet of Kelon. It is very different from the water that you drink on Earth, is it not?” he asked.

  "Yes. I am afraid that water on Earth is very dirty, full of chemicals and all kinds of crap. This, on the other hand, is absolutely delicious,” I said to him.

  "Maybe water used to taste like this on your planet but does not any longer. Here, try some of this,” he said, handing me a strange looking pink fruit that reminded me of the fruit of a cactus.

  "What is it?” I asked.

  "It is called lita fruit. I think you will like it. It is very sweet and very filling,” he said.

  "But I am human. What if I cannot eat the same things that you Draqua can eat?” I asked him.

  "Do not worry. Many human females have eaten this fruit before you,” he said.

  I looked at him confused and with shock. “Human females? But how? You said that Kelon did not have humans.”

  "No, you misunderstood. We do not have native human females, but there are human females on the planet now. Slowly over the years, we have brought them there,” he said.

  "What?! How many exactly?” I asked.

  "It must be somewhere between 800 and 1,000 human females scattered across the planet. I do not know the exact number, but my brother does
, and so does my father,” he said, getting annoyed and turning his back on me.

  "Wait. What are you talking about? How did these females get there?"I asked.

  "The same way you are. Over time,” he said.

  "You mean that your race of Draqua has been stealing human females from Earth for years?! I shouted at him in rage.

  "Don't get mad at me. I am not the one that started it. I had no control over it. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go back to the front of the ship. We will be in my galaxy in a matter of an hour or so,” he said.

  "An hour? But we only left Earth less than an hour ago," I said following him to the front of the ship. I was startled by what I saw. Outside the windshield was no longer black; it was stripes zooming by us.

  "I put the ship into hyperspeed. It gets us there faster,” he said, sitting back down in his chair and going to work. I was mesmerized by the sights zooming by us. It was very beautiful. But it was nothing compared to what I was about to see on the planet of Kelon.