by Cara Bristol
“Is that a launch bay?” He diverted attention from the egregious snub. Before the wall had resealed, he’d caught a glimpse of a cavernous hangar.
“No, it’s a flex chamber.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a space where one can shift. The longer a dragon stays in demiforma, the greater the urge to shift becomes. If he doesn’t release the dragon, the shift will occur spontaneously. On a spacecraft, that would be dangerous.”
He got a mental picture of a dragon bursting out of its own skin, like biscuits popping from a can. “They couldn’t blow out the hull, could they?”
“On a vessel this size? No. But inner walls? Yes. And on a smaller ship, a dragon could blow out the outer hull. So passengers and crew are required to use a flex chamber on spaceflights, the frequency of shifts determined by the length of the journey.”
“Can I peek inside?” he asked.
“There’s nothing to see. An empty flex chamber isn’t very exciting.”
“Would you prefer I see one with a dragon inside?”
She laughed and shrugged. “Okay. If you want.”
The wall melted into an entry, and they stepped into an empty space surrounded by solid gray-green walls, floor, and a ceiling inset with lights. There was nothing to see—except for the sheer vastness of the hangar-like chamber.
“There’s not enough space to fly,” she explained. “But it allows us to fully extend our wings, stretch our necks.”
He’d seen many dragons—but never her dragon. “Will you show me your dragoness?” he asked.
Chapter Seven
Yesss! Let us show him. I would like to meet him. The dragoness chortled with glee.
“That is not a good idea,” O’ne vetoed his request.
It is a perrrfect idea!
Pressure ballooned in her chest. Her hands and feet tingled as talons began to extend. Her bones ached as her spine and neck rippled, preparing to elongate. The dragoness was gaining control and was forcing a shift.
“We need to leave! Now!” Grabbing H’ry’s arm, she dragged him out of the flex chamber into the passageway.
A roar of rage echoed inside her head.
Pressure, pressure. So much pressure. Pain stabbed through her skin from the inside out. You cannot shift here! Stop it! You will kill us both. O’ne tucked her hands in her skirt as talons burst from her fingertips.
In silence, she battled with her alter ego as H’ry stared, and the reality of her life crashed down upon her again. She had been foolish to seek him out, to believe she could have one normal day. She was not normal. She was the priestess, the guardian of the future, the vessel for millions of lives, and now, the keeper of a bitter, angry dragoness.
She could duck into the flex chamber, shift, and let the dragoness vent her ire. The chamber would contain her; H’ry would be safe. However, her submission would empower the dragoness and make it that much harder to control her in the future.
Rather than move away, he touched her elbow, sending waves of heat up her arm. She was burning up. Her chest hurt. Her bones vibrated. “Are you all right?” He peered at her, concern etched on his handsome human face.
Weak, pathetic human! He is what you desire? the dragoness thundered.
“You don’t look so good. Are you all right?” he repeated. “Do you need to sit down?”
She didn’t dare speak for fear of what would come out of her mouth—like flames. She answered with what she hoped was a reassuring nod and dug deep for willpower.
Steeling her aching spine, she snarled, You would shift in the passageway and kill us and the millions of lives we carry? That is what you desire? A dragon could snap its own neck by shifting in a too-small space.
The dragoness roared but then slunk away into the shadows. Pressure receded. Talons retracted. Her heart pounded. Disaster had been averted but barely.
She backed away. “I’m sorry. I can’t continue with the tour.”
“What’s going on? What happened?”
She shook her head. “I can’t do this. I thought I could, but I can’t.”
“You promised me two days.” An accusing scent of hurt and confusion wafted off him, matching his glower.
“It wasn’t a promise I had a right to make.” Heartsick, her chest burning, she rushed away in a swirl of skirt. Two days might well have been a thousand years, ten thousand years. She hadn’t committed to an eternity of service but an eternity of servitude, of self-abasement. And now she had an enraged dragoness to contain. All she’d desired was two days for herself. Two days to forget. Two days to live.
Her long-neglected fyre flashed and ignited a tinder of suppressed resentment of sacrifice upon sacrifice. She halted her flight and curled her hands into fists. She would not be denied her two days.
She pivoted and marched back to H’ry. “I have an apology, an explanation, and a request.”
He folded his arms and jutted out his jaw. “Go on.”
“I am sorry for running off. I can’t show you my dragoness because she will harm you. She is aware of my regard for you, but she dislikes you and would hurt you.”
He didn’t speak or move. Finally, he dropped his arms and cocked his head. “And your request?”
“Will you forgive my churlish behavior? Can we continue with our two days?”
“That’s two requests.” His face gave nothing away, but she caught a whiff of amusement, a salty-sweet confusing odor. “On the first—granted. I forgive you. We can negotiate the second.”
“Negotiate? For what? What do you want?”
“This.” His arm snaked around her waist, and he pulled her hard against him. She gasped in surprise, and he lowered his head. His spicy exotic breath caressed her face a moment before his mouth covered hers. His tongue teased apart the seam of her lips and then slipped inside. He tasted like he smelled—cinnamon and cloves, leather and musk, man and possibilities so far out of her reach, she could only dream. He was strength and concern, protection and risk, caution and foolhardiness.
He growled, and her body responded, limbs going loose and languid, stomach fluttering, her fyre swelling and flashing. She felt hot and cold, flushed and shivery.
His tongue coaxed a response with gentle stroking, emboldening her to nibble at his full bottom lip, examine the bluntness of his teeth, and press herself against him, liberated by the awareness no one would dare interrupt them. For once, she was grateful anyone who spotted her would run in the opposite direction.
Broad, strong hands spread over her back, tracing each little bump of her spine. Would he notice she had double the vertebrae humans did? He cupped her ass and pulled her tighter into the cradle of his hips, against the firm length of his arousal.
Her fyre swirled and danced. She felt alive with sensation. For the first time in eons, in this man’s arms, she lived.
“I can’t stay away from you,” he murmured against her lips. “Can’t deny you anything. I should, but I can’t.”
He had to though. When the voyage ended, when the ship set down, they couldn’t see each other again. “When we land—”
He rested his forehead against hers. “You don’t need to say it. I know it’s over when we get to Elementa. You have my word I won’t seek you out.”
His promise broke her heart, but if he violated his vow, she would have no choice but to have Prince T’mar send him back to Earth.
A misty vision swept over, ghosts shrouded in a cloudy future, but the truth was clear. He would meet a human woman, fall in love, sire children, live his humanly short but happy life, and she would tend the Eternal Fyre long after he, his children, his grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-greats…ceased to walk the Earth.
Her fyre sparked with jealousy. Today and tomorrow are mine.
“Come with me. I have something to show you.” She pulled out of his arms but offered her hand. Humans held hands, didn’t they? She hungered for his touch, craved his lips on hers.
“Ah yes, our tour,” he
said drily but clasped her hand. A dragon’s claws were many, many times larger than a human’s paw, but in her present form, her hand felt tiny in his. It was a pleasurable realization and sensation.
She peered up at him. “You’ll like this. I promise.”
“I was teasing. I enjoyed everything you showed me.” He paused. “Even the flex chamber. I’m sorry for the trouble it caused. I wouldn’t have asked to see it if I’d had an inkling it would upset your dragoness.”
“It’s all right,” she reassured him. “This isn’t the first time she and I have spit fire at each other.” With give and take, Draconians balanced their rational demiformas and their emotional, volatile dragons. However, tending the Eternal Fyre required a clear head and reason, necessitating the subjugation of her dragoness. Needs deferred grew into resentments. Neither one of us is living the life we desire, she thought.
“Why does she hate me?”
“It’s the circumstance. Not you.”
Oh, yes, it is. I hate him. Despise him. Loathe him.
A cloying sweet scent touched her nose, and she realized it emanated from her dragoness. Beneath the rage was fear.
I fear nothing!
“Perhaps she is afraid of change,” she replied.
He’d already changed things by intensifying her yearnings and desires. Cloistered in the temple with duty proscribing her life down to the smallest detail, each day rolled out the same as the previous one. The most powerful dragoness in the galaxy had less freedom than the lowliest Draconian citizen, than a visiting human. H’ry caused her to chafe at the restrictions.
Happiness was reserved for those whose lives belonged to them alone. The Eternal Fyre had claimed hers.
She worried she wouldn’t be able to forget H’ry, and a tolerable discontent would deepen into bitter unhappiness. However, it was a risk she was willing to take. She would grab every tantalizing morsel of happiness, no matter what it cost her in the future.
They reached their destination, and she released his hand to usher him through the wall opening. Inside the lyceum were dozens of split-back thrones, the gaps allowing for tails to fit through.
“Is this a theater?” he guessed.
“An observatory.” A commanding snap of her wrist cut the lights and turned gray-green walls, floor, and ceiling transparent, opening the chamber to an infinite black sea of stars. Surrounded by countless pinpoints of light from endless suns, they floated in space, the ship appearing to have disappeared beneath their feet. The sole opaque wall separating the observatory from the passage was rendered invisible by darkness.
“Holy shit!” He latched onto a chair back, as if fearing he would float away.
She could have warned him of the effect, but she’d wanted to see his unschooled reaction. Eons had passed since she’d been able to experience space like this, to sever the tethers to the solid world and be alone with the universe. Except now there were two. A time, an experience, a life shared.
“This is wild. I feel like I’m free-floating through space,” he said, still hanging onto the chair.
“The observatory is a bubble jutting out of the ship,” she explained. A bubble of infinite possibilities. A bubble of dreams.
“This is mind-blowing.” Moving from chair to chair, he inched toward the transparent starboard hull.
She stifled an amused chuckle. “Everything is quite solid. You’re still on the ship. It’s an illusion we’re floating in space.”
“What an illusion. It feels like space-walking.” He pivoted in a slow circle, taking in the full view, then extended his hand to her. She took it, and he pulled her into an embrace of comforting warmth and exotic scent. “Thank you for showing me this.”
Her head bumped his chin as she nodded. “Much better than an empty flex chamber?”
“This is the best part of the ship.”
On the outbound journey when the exploration team had searched for a new planet, she’d spent many hours in the observatory, dreaming of possibilities, realizing her life could be much grander than she ever imagined. She’d seen nebulae, satellites, asteroids, comets, planets. Entranced, she’d gazed upon the blue orb of Terra and then watched forested land grow close way too fast as the ship lost control of the descent and crashed.
She didn’t know if the rescue ship had had an observatory. On the trip home, she’d been too consumed by despair and rage to care about the stars.
She slipped from his embrace to flatten her palms against the clear wall. This voyage would be her final glimpse of space. “This view, the vastness stirred my curiosity, aroused a desire to explore, and to experience firsthand the wonders of the universe.”
She would have followed that dream if not for the grief and rage after the loss of her daughter having driven her to the temple. Then, exalted to priestess, she’d used her powers to destroy those who’d wronged her. Quicker than a blink, her transgressors ceased to exist. She, however, remained in despair.
His touch gentle, H’ry traced a line from her temple to her jaw. Nerves lit up. Her core contracted. Her fyre danced. She wanted to fling herself into his arms, but the burning in her chest reminded her she could not. “You impress the hell out of me, lady,” he said. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”
Despite her angst, his comment struck her as funny. “Can’t imagine you’ve met many dragon priestesses.”
Blue eyes were serious. “I meant your courage, your dedication, your presence.”
She’d never considered herself courageous. Embattled, often. Resigned, usually. Unworthy, always. She wished she could be what he believed she was. She averted her face from the admiration in his eyes. She was unworthy of him, too.
A finger beneath her chin turned her face. “Will you show me your demiforma?”
She opened her mouth to deny him.
“Please—unless it’s dangerous. Unless in demiforma, you’d eat me or toast me,” he joked.
If he only knew. As priestess, she could conjure fire no matter what form she took. “That wouldn’t happen. I’d still be in full control.” The dragon didn’t gain command until fully actualized. She hadn’t been demiforma in 10,000 years, since she adopted her woman form in honor of her child. “Why do you want to see it?”
“When our time ends, I want to know I saw the real you, all sides of you.”
Heat flooded her face at the intimacy of his admission, at the temptation. Oh, to be seen. To become real in someone’s eyes, and not a paragon, an icon, a priestess, an object of fear.
Her fyre flared bright and hot, burgeoning with expectation, anticipation, trepidation. He’d seen only her woman form, and she knew he found it pleasing. What if he thought her demiforma ugly?
“Please,” he asked again.
She gave a slight nod and gave herself space. Taking a breath, she called to the fyre within.
Chapter Eight
Seeing O’ne shift was like watching a time-lapse video. Her features and body rippled, as if something lived under the skin, and then a leathery frill emerged out of her neck to frame her changing face, her mouth and nose compacting into an abbreviated snout. Her clothing adapted as her body broadened and lengthened, and a tail jutted from the base of her spine.
Beautiful as a woman, she projected a majestic, commanding presence in demiforma. He could only imagine what her dragoness looked like. He wished he could have met her, too.
She curled her talons into the folds of her skirt and gazed at him with familiar but wary amber eyes.
“You’re magnificent.” He cupped her cheek, her scales smooth against his palm. Shyly, she rubbed her face against his hand. Maintaining eye contact, he smiled, and when she dropped the lower jaw of her snout in a grin, she revealed short but sharp fangs. Her alabaster hair, still braided and coiled, appeared to have coarsened.
He brushed his thumb over her knuckles and sharp claws then lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.
“Thank you,” she said. Her voice sounded rougher, more gravelly, but
his body reacted with a surge of heat, as if a fire had been lit in his belly.
“For what?”
“For being you. Many humans would not accept a dragon.”
She was right, but there had been enough distrust to go around on both sides. Biggs’s attempt to steal Elementa had fostered and exacerbated political tension and animus, but Draconians clung to their own prejudices about humans. O’ne’s dragoness would kill him if given an opportunity.
“I’m not like most humans,” he said. Perhaps his inchoate fyre counted for something after all. Perhaps fyre did attract fyre. Who could say? He felt no sense of being dragon—only a powerful, primal, consuming bond. She had become the air he breathed.
Which did not bode well for the day after tomorrow.
Then she shifted again. With her hand in his, he could feel the bones rippling beneath the skin as they reformed, and then she stood before him, a human-appearing woman.
“Why did you change back?” Her demiforma state had fascinated him. He could have gazed at her all day—not that looking at a gorgeous woman afforded any hardship.
“So I could do this.” She kissed him, sweetness and spice, and a little bit of bite.
She clung to his neck, her body melding against him. He devoured her mouth, crushing her lips with a hunger deeper than desire. His cock ached, and he’d swear his blood had turned molten in his veins. He cupped her breast, stroking his thumb over the hard nipple poking through the fabric of her gown.
He kissed his way from her mouth to her jaw and then her throat, where a pulse beat a percussive rhythm. She arched her neck, granting him greater access. He tasted her with a flick of his tongue and nibbled. His teeth ached, and an unfamiliar, strong urge shot through him.
Bite her. Bite her. Bite her. Where the hell had that come from? He’d never felt an urge to chomp on a partner before. Nibble, sure. To draw blood? Never. He dragged his mouth away from the disturbing temptation.
