Under Fire: Dragon Shifter Romance (ComeShift Series Book 2)

by Sky Winters

  The overseer led her to the place where she was to join the line. Keandra got down on her knees and began to work, picking at the rocks and stones with a pick and her bare hands. She hoped to find some of that midnight blue stone, just so she could say she had done something today. She was going to prove her worth.

  Because, if she didn’t, there was no telling what would become of her.

  At the end of the day, the overseer and several other people in command came around to check all of the Earthling slaves’ buckets. One of the commanders came to Keandra and snatched up her bucket.

  She scowled as she looked down into it. “Two?” The Hoth was so ugly, perhaps even the ugliest that Keandra had seen so far, that it was only a guess that it was female. Her voice was shriller than the others, and she had fashioned some ridiculous, hot pink lip balm to her… well, it wasn’t a mouth. To her facial orifice.

  Keandra averted her eyes. “Yes, Commander.”

  The fierce female Hoth scowled even more, making Keandra wonder if she could read her thoughts and had taken offense.

  “Not enough!” the Hoth commander shouted. Before Keandra knew what was happening, the Hoth woman struck her with the back of her hand. Keandra fell to the floor. The Hoths took pleasure in shifting into their human forms when delivering brutality. Fists were not poisonous like their tentacles, but boy did they hurt.

  The Hoth’s human form was perhaps even uglier than her alien form. Keandra was amazed into almost being impressed by just how horrid this Hoth looked. She threw up against the icy stone where she lay.

  Shifting back into her alien form, the commander dumped the two meager rocks into the collection bin and then rolled past Keandra, tossing the bucket over her shoulder. “Better tomorrow!” she barked.

  The bucket fell with a clang near Keandra’s head, rolling into her.

  Keandra wiped the corners of her mouth with the back of her hand. She felt sick just being there. Around her, she could see poor souls giving their rock offerings to the guards and then being beaten. It turned out that Keandra had been one of the lucky ones. Several Earthlings were taken out on stretchers, and some of them were clearly dead.

  Wherever you are now, Albion, I hope you’re fucking happy. I hope you’re so happy you choke.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The rest of the earth week continued on in the same way. Keandra rose early every morning in the small and packed sleeping quarters, feeling like she had not gotten any sleep at all. She showered in an ice cold, tiny shower and then dressed in her assigned rags. Every day, she worked until her back felt like it was about to snap in half and every evening she was beaten for not uncovering a satisfactory number of stones.

  She started to notice, early on as she was working and living in these awful conditions, that something was growing in her belly. She might have worried that she was possessed somehow, after one of the bouts with her captors, but the strange sensation combined with the sickness and headaches that she had been experiencing indicated that it might have been something else altogether…

  “Are you pregnant?” one of the other captive Earthlings asked, gasping at her one day while they worked side by side.

  Keandra’s face flushed and she looked down at her stomach. This all but confirmed it. “Possibly,” she said shyly. She typically did not speak with her fellow workers. Mostly because they got beaten for it.

  The other Earthling continued to gasp a bit, shocked and maybe a bit horrified. “You better not them know, or they will treat you worse. I’ve seen people die in here because they were carrying a baby… But it’s already so obvious.” She said this last part sympathetically, like Keandra might be a lost cause.

  There was nothing to be done with this information, however. She could not go see a doctor about it. She could not contact Albion and let him know that he might be a father someday soon. Not that she wanted to include him in this, being that she was only here in this place because of him. But still. She couldn’t even if she wanted to.

  Instead, with this little secret growing and moving inside of her belly, she went to work each day and got pummeled each evening.

  One day about two weeks after starting in this foolish errand of a mine, the door to the shaft opened and who the fucking hell should appear but Albion. He searched the room with his eyes, finally catching sight of her.

  He smiled at her.

  She glared at him.

  He came over to her as though the glare was not enough reason for him to stay away. “Hello again, Keandra Calhoun,” he said.

  “Are you here to betray me again?” Keandra asked him icily.

  Albion frowned.

  “Don’t talk to me,” she said. “I did not ask for you to come here. You must feel so high and mighty to be able to come back here and see me suffering…”

  “The Hoths hired me to come command the mines in this compound,” Albion tried to explain.

  “So we’re going to be coworkers now?” She was glaring so hard at him that she wondered if her face might get stuck that way. “Fabulous.”

  She hoped he could understand sarcasm. He may have been an alien, but he was not stupid.

  With that, she turned from him. She did not want to let him hurt her again. The best way to prevent that was by not letting him get close again.

  He kept his distance from her, which Keandra was both thankful for and resentful of at the same time. She did not want him anywhere near her and she also felt oddly comforted by his presence. Damn him, she thought once while glancing over to look at him. It was so much easier to be mad at him when he was not with me. She did not know what she would even want to say to him now, but she wanted to say something.

  Possibly, she might want to tell him about the baby.

  There was no doubt in her mind now that that was what it was.

  Sex with Albion had, on the whole, been not unlike sex with an Earthling man, so why should his baby be unlike an Earthling baby?

  She could feel his eyes on her as she worked. She continued to feel him watching her, taking a keen interest in her progress. He never spoke to her, but she could tell that he had asked the other overseers about her because they looked at her even more weirdly now.

  His presence in the mining compound did not diminish their violent cruelty towards her however. Every evening, like clockwork, they still beat the shit out of her, leaving her bloodied and retching on the floor.

  As she felt his eyes on her throughout this, Keandra wondered if he was guilty. She hazarded a quick glance to see if he seemed to have any feeling at all about her now. Any kindness left in him towards her. He had healed her, made love to her, and cried when he betrayed her… Surely he must have felt something.

  But even if he did feel something, he kept silent and did not stop the beatings, either of her or any other Earthling.

  He just went around, stoic, listening to the reports by the overseers. Keandra wondered if his betrayal of her had left him dead inside.

  If so… Good.

  * * *

  As time went on, Keandra felt more and more certain Albion was looking out for her. Now, whenever one of his underlings kicked the shit out of her, he exchanged harsh words with them and that overseer eased up a little. It was not completely saving her from attacks, but it was an improvement. Slowly, Keandra started to trust him again. She was not going to fuck him again or anything, but she appreciated him being around. Now that he was actively attempting to make things better for her, she could forgive him.

  A little.

  She was not sure that she would ever be able to fully forgive him.

  There was only one supervisor Albion was not able to control and protect Keandra from. He was a gargantuan Hoth named Leeroi. He was black and red like a spider, with long dreadlocks both in his Hoth form and in his humanoid form. He had the appearance of someone from the Caribbean back on Earth. He thought he was tough shit and the sexiest Hoth. He hid his pride not at all.

  And he had his sights set on Kea
ndra.

  He started overseeing her work more than anyone else’s. He took it upon himself to be the one in charge of her, whipping her with a long black whip that resembled his long, black tentacles.

  It stung almost as much as she assumed the poison did.

  On one such evening, after reprimanding her for the four pieces of Hothian jewels that she unearthed, he tucked his whip back into the belt of his uniform and leered down at her. Keandra writhed on the ground, spitting up blood. If her baby was still with her, it would be a miracle, though she supposed that Gekkota spawn was strong.

  Albion was nowhere to be found.

  Shit. And I was just starting to like him again.

  Suddenly, Leeroi grabbed Keandra by her hair and yanked her up from the ground. He held her still, close to his large face. He sniffed her, his irises expanding and contracting as if moving in and out of the light. “Clean up and meet me back in my chambers. That is an order.”

  With that, he pushed her away from him and moved along the line of Earthling slaves, checking on their work and then whipping them accordingly. Keandra collected her empty bucket and her pick, making sure that the area she had been working in was devoid of dust or pebbles, and then headed to the back rooms. She put her bucket and pick in the room where she slept with ten other slaves, then quietly went into Leeroi’s bedchamber.

  His room was the size of the room that she slept in, but it was clear right away that he did not have to share his room with anyone else. A large bed sat in one corner of the room, covered in blankets of jet and scarlet. Keandra definitely did not feel comfortable sitting on his bed, so she chose his desk chair instead. He had a computer device on the table there, but it was neither open nor on and she was not about to do something that would anger the most aggressive overseer.

  Keandra wished like anything that she could send telepathic messages to Albion. She did not see him in the room while Leeroi was attacking her. She wondered if Albion would even be able to do anything against a slave driver such as Leeroi. It was more than likely that the Gekkota would simply be stripped of his rights as a supervisor. And where would that put her? Back at square one.

  All of a sudden, the door to Leeroi’s chamber zipped open and the Hoth came into the room, letting the door zip shut behind him. He came toward Keandra. Not wasting time, he grabbed her by the hair again as if that was the only way he knew how to grab a woman. He pulled her out of the chair and then threw her down onto the floor in front of him. Awkwardly, she sat up on her knees.

  That’s when she realized that that was exactly the position that he wanted her in.

  He unbuttoned the front of his regulation uniform and pulled out his long, thick Hothian member.

  Keandra felt her stomach turn. Leeroi massaged the back of her head a moment, running his sticky fingers through her hair. Her ponytail was gone; the tie that held it back lost amongst the rubble somewhere down in the mines. Lost like she was now.

  She closed her eyes and felt hot tears falling as he began to push her head closer to him, bringing her face up to his crotch. His sticky fingers were worse when she felt them on the back of her neck, hot and moist from something she did not even want to guess at.

  The door to the chamber suddenly zipped open again. Keandra tried to crane her neck to see who it was – rescuer or added rapist – but Leeroi continued to hold her tightly with her face inches away from his cock.

  “Stop it right now, Commander Fkassrt!”

  Albion Pagoda. Oh my god, thank you.

  Keandra kept her mouth shut tight so Leeroi wouldn’t have the chance or satisfaction of getting it around him. Thankfully, Albion posed enough of a threat for him to freeze.

  “Let the girl go,” Albion instructed, speaking calmly but authoritatively.

  Leeroi let out a quiet snicker. “By whose orders?” he challenged. “You are not in charge here, Gekkota. So why don’t you slither along back to your cave?”

  For an excruciating moment, Keandra worried that Albion had been bested. It was quite possible that he was acting above his station. As a foreign species to the planet, her Gekkota probably did not have authority over the Hoth who stood uncomfortably before her.

  But then something wonderful happened.

  Albion produced a piece of parchment from one of his cargo pants pockets. He cleared his throat softly and read from it. “By the authority of the Galactic Federation of Hoth, Albion Pagoda is granted full command of Compound Z Hydra 7. Signed, President Sluuurb.”

  Leeroi finally released his grasp on Keandra. As soon as she was freed just the slightest bit, she moved away from him, crawling across the slippery metal floor on her hands and knees, calf screaming in pain. She crawled to Albion, closer to him than to Leeroi but not quite next to him. She did not know what the outcome of this would be, and she was not sure she wanted it to include riding off into the sunset with her betrayer.

  “You made that up,” Leeroi said in a growl. “You’re shitting me.”

  Albion held the parchment out for him to look at. Leeroi snatched it from his hands. He read it over quickly, getting angrier and angrier by the second. “But you’re a Gekkota. A dragonling. You’re scum. Why would anyone put you in charge of anything?”

  Keandra’s rescuer simply shrugged. “Seniority.”

  This was the last straw for Leeroi. He flew into an all-out rage, tearing up the parchment and shifting quick as a flash into his disgusting, tentacle-covered form.

  It was actually hard to call it a form. A globule was not a form so much as a mass. Keandra felt like retching whenever she saw the Hoths’ true shape, and Leeroi took the cake when it came to repulsive. You and that female Hoth should get together. Actually, don’t. You can kill civilizations with that amount of ugly.

  In the blink of an eye, Albion shifted into his dragon form. He retained his blue and green hues, but became enormous in size. He filled the room, he was so big, and Keandra wondered if he was about to completely burst out of the mine. She assumed that he could control his size… As it was, Albion’s head would have hit the ceiling if he did not have a long neck. He slithered and scurried around the room like a snake-like salamander. His forked tongue moved in and out of his jaws every now and then, sniffing out the smaller Hoth.

  Keandra stayed where she was, protected as she sat on her legs between her dragon’s hind quarters. He kept her safe there, like a parent protecting its egg. Leeroi the Hoth darted about the room, poisonous tentacle stretched out and at the ready. He was trying to find a good position so he could use it, but Albion moved so much and was so massive that the amoeba-like alien looked more confused than anything.

  Surging forward in a misguided attempt to sting Albion’s back leg, Leeroi decided to attack Keandra instead. He lurched toward her, and his tentacle whipped at her. She jumped out of the way just in time. Meanwhile, Albion let out a small blast of flame directly at Leeroi’s back.

  The Hoth let out a petrifying scream that sounded like someone drowning. He was liquid and Albion was turning him into gas with his heat.

  “Keandra,” Albion suddenly boomed down at her.

  She stared up at his huge head. He looked the same and different at once. She was frightened of him, even though she knew that she should not be. She was glad that he was on her side.

  “Leave this room. Go join the others. I will find you.”

  Keandra did as she was told. She stayed on her hands and knees, rushing to the door before finally standing up. She ran to the room where the others normally slept. They had obviously all been disturbed by the violent sounds coming from Leeroi’s chamber.

  She hid under the tables along with them, watching the door for any movement that showed it was over. The entire mine began to shake as the hallway lit up with Albion’s flames. He had torched the whole chamber.

  Leeroi was toast.

  When the door to the slaves’ room opened, Albion’s head appeared in the doorway. Actually, it was only his snout. That was all of him that could f
it at the moment. Keandra had never been so happy to see a nose in her life.

  “Keandra, hop on my back. It is time to leave,” he said, and then hissed like a snake. “The rest of you, get out of here any way you can. Go fast and be smart while the Hoths are distracted. Leave this place. Leave this planet. Go.”

  There was no argument there. The slaves all started running in different directions, all of them going toward whichever exit they could think of.

  Keandra hesitated. “Why should I go with you?” she asked him. “What makes you safer than all the others, when you lied to me and gave me to these beasts?”

  Albion repositioned himself so his large, golden eye was all that could be seen in the doorway. Despite its size and the fact that a fierce dragon was attached to it, the eye was gentle and caring… and remorseful.

  “It was foolish of me,” he said. “I will work every day to regain and keep your trust… But we can discuss this later. Please climb onto my back, Keandra. I will keep you safe because I love you.”

  All of the wind was knocked out of her when she heard Albion say those words to her. She had not expected to hear him say that, especially not while he was a gargantuan dragon. Currently all she could see was one of his eyes. But somehow, that was enough.

  Not wanting to ruin the moment by speaking and likely saying something stupid due to her emotions, Keandra simply gave a curt nod and went to the doorway. He graciously moved out of the way so she did not ask his eye to move. She climbed aboard his spikey back and wiped the tears from her eyes.

  What a day she was having.

  Once she was safely on his back, Albion swiftly scurried through the gaping chasms of the mine, not caring as his large body crashed through walls and ruined everything the Hoths had built in his path. What his head and broad shoulders did not break, his tail smashed. At last, they made it to the top of the mineshaft. They both felt like they could breathe again.

  The Galactic Federation of Hoth was sitting up there in their throne room or whatever they wanted to call it. They were about to be cinders, Keandra guessed. But Albion did not set them on fire. He did not even grumble with smoke. He just narrowed his reptilian eyes at President Sluuurb, who cowered under his throne-like seat as if he did not expect a dragon shifter might possibly shift into a dragon when given power.