“No, I do not need it,” I answer, raising my eyes from the sight of her washing the dry seed from my scaled belly. My tone is testy, but I’m grateful for the distraction. Otherwise, the memory of how that mess was created would have my male works descending all over again. “Unlike your poorly designed species, drakkon can store our liquid and solid waste until a time when it is convenient to eliminate.”
“Okay, I’m translating that as don’t bother with a bedpan because you can hold it for a freakishly long time. Got it. Thanks for letting me know. This sponge bath is crazy hot, but I was not looking forward to paying you that kind of reverence.”
Her words still my flame. She…she is paying me reverence with this bath? My immediate impulse is to open my mouth and tell her how greatly honored I am to receive such reverent attention from her.
But then I remember…
She could destroy everything. Ruin every plan I’ve ever had, including the one that has burned within me longer than any other. My revenge.
No, I cannot give in to the urge to speak reverence to her. I must resist.
I grit my shaven teeth through the rest of the bath and let out a steamed snort of relief when she finally finishes and sets the pot aside. Somehow, I managed to keep my male works from—
“What are you doing?” I find myself demanding again when without any warning at all she climbs into bed and curves her body into mine.
“Snuggling,” she answers, throwing an arm over my upper torso and laying her head upon my shoulder. “That was something else Other You liked. A lot.”
Snuggling…the word, despite its cuteness slices into me like that butcher knife I came to know so well. For she is right. I do like this snuggling. Too much. The feel of her soft and warm against my side…the unexpected skin to skin touch…. my primary seeder hardens and my secondary one squirms, both threatening to eject themselves from my stomach.
I glue my eyes to the wall screen, though I can hardly comprehend the words the narrator is saying over images of wholly inaccurate gladiator costumes.
“Are you thirsty?” Ola asks, saving me from having to come up with more commentary.
“No,” I answer shortly.
“I was going to try to get a bottle of that tsipouro Greek brandy you like, but that was a line too far for my uncles,” Ola says. “And they’re in charge of the shopping list since I have to keep my biosystem off if we don’t want everyone else in my family to descend on the house. I still haven’t figured out a way to tell my parents I’m mated now. To you. And a mom to their latest flying dragon-werewolf grandkid.”
So her fathers had not yet been told about her reappearance yet. Or that she was now my mate. These facts should please me. Less interfering parties to deal with when I imprison her again.
Yet, it does just the opposite. Instead of calming with the cold plans, I am quietly making, my mind spikes with the need to claim her again. To declare to her fathers and everyone else that she is the mother of my hatchling and therefore belongs to me.
“It is not right that you keep my hatchling from me,” I tell her, my flame burning dark.
“Yeah, not right…that’s what I said when you kidnapped my ass. Then refused to go get a wolf doctor when I went into heat. It took Other You a while to convince me to let him hit it again after that. I mean, a while and a rescue, but that’s a story for another day.”
“Hit it again?” I say after sifting through her confusing words. “Is that a euphemism for sex?”
“I don’t know what’s weirder. You always asking whether something that’s obviously a euphemism for sex is a euphemism for sex. Or me being, like, totally used to it after three months.”
“So it is true. You had sex with him? An activity beyond the hand stroking you gave to me?” I am not sure whether my flame burns baffled, jealous, or aroused as I ask this question.
She makes a snorting sound that could double as a derisive laugh. “We were stuck in a cabin, just the two of us,” she answers. “All we did was eat, fuck, and watch docs on tv. Sometimes all at the same time—well, hello there.”
My flame burns shameful and hot as she sits up to look directly at the male works that have suddenly erupted from my scaling, despite my earlier resolve. My primary cock stands upright, pulsing so hard, seed drips from the tip. Meanwhile the secondary cock squirms in the air, frantic with need.
Ola looks back at me with a smug, knowing smile. “Looks like your friends got a little excited hearing about what we got up to in that cabin.”
Yes, unfortunately, I now know exactly how I feel about her time with Other Me in the cabin, and it is a true dialectic. I am uncontrollably aroused by the thought of her and me coming together outside of breeding. I am also consumed with jealousy and the need to claim her as mine and mine alone.
But I am powerless to act on either urge, shackled as I am.
I hate this. I hate this need. This vulnerability.
“Do you want me to help you with those?” she asks.
I inwardly jolt. For her lips are no longer moving against my chest. Her voice…it is inside my head. Our mate bond truly does work in every way. I remember now how I had heard her voice so clearly in that basement. How I called back to her with my own mind.
I had known when I felt her emotions that night at the window that this could be a possibility. But I hadn’t dared to test it. I hadn’t wanted to let her in for risk of what she might find out…
Apparently, Other Damianos hadn’t been nearly as circumspect. But perhaps, this is something I can use to my advantage.
Without giving her any warning, I push into her mind with all of my effort. “You will let me out of these chains. You will show me to my hatchling. And we will all away from this place.”
She merely narrows her eyes at me. “Are you trying to—what did Other You call it? God speak me?”
Yes, I had been. But obviously it hadn’t worked. I avert my eyes, ashamed by my impotence…at least above the waist.
“So this is your response to wanting me?” she asks with a shake of her head. “Trying to brainwash me into letting you go? He never tried that with me. Not even once.”
I do not have to inquire about the “he” to whom she refers.
“He was much weaker than I am,” I answer, through clenched teeth. “At least mentally.”
“No, actually…I don’t think he was.” She reaches down and begins lazily stroking both of my cocks. And they immediately begin to drool seed inside her erotic grip. It would seem in this much weakened state, I have little control over my body. At least when it comes to her. But it is different this time. The leisurely pace at which she strokes me isn’t enough.
“Faster,” I bite out.
“Try asking me nicely,” she says over our bond, raising her eyes to stare into mine. “That’s what he did…how he broke me.”
I want to break her. To tame her. To possess her. To make her mine in every way. I want that more than anything. But what she is suggesting makes no sense.
“All you have to do is say please.”
The previously never spoken word nearly rises to my lips—but no, I cannot let her best me. I re-clench my teeth and remind myself that I am the King of Drakkon.
“You will unchain me!” I push into her head with even more force than before. Then I look her directly in the eyes as I command, “You will bring my hatchling to me, and we will—”
She lets go of my cocks and rises from the bed before I can finish my god speech. “Okay, looks like you and the Wonder Twins are blue ballin’ it tonight. Have fun with that.”
“No, you will not leave me here like this, you crude she-wolf!” I call after her, yanking at my shackles. “You will not—”
I cut off when she departs from the room, the door sliding shut behind her.
She is gone, and I am not strong enough yet to escape my binds. Though, as gladiators in leather skirts clash on the wall screen, my body thrashes uncontrollably. Straining against my chains,
I know no sense, only need. Only the wanting.
She is my madness.
She is my weakness.
And I am not certain either my mind or my body can withstand another round against her.
Chapter Six
“Hey, Triple D, you ready for another round?” Ola asks when she comes through the door with her two pots the following night.
Interesting. She recognizes our exchanges for what they are. Nothing short of battle. Also… “Why are you calling me Triple D?”
“Well, both of you complained about my crude language, so I figured you’d appreciate Triple D better than Double Dick Dragon.” She clicks her teeth proudly and grins at me. “Like that alliteration? Came up with it all by myself.”
“No, I do not like that alliteration. Or the name. You may call me by my given title, King of Drakkon, or Anos if you must resort to a nickname.”
The snarky expression suddenly falls away. “How about Reverence?” she asks, her voice soft. “Can I call you that?”
My flame doesn’t just still this time, it extinguishes completely. Then roars back to life with just the thought of being called that by the mother of my hatchling.
“All you have to do is say please.”
The words pushing into my head without warning yank me back to reality. And the soft smirk she now wears reminds me how dangerous it is to fantasize about such things.
“Please is a ridiculous word,” I answer, close to hissing even though my tongue is capped. “Made up by you upright primates to mask all of your absolute hierarchies—”
“Yeah, Other You told me he used to believe that too until he realized how perfectly please and thank you paired with Reverence.”
That is…absolutely true, I realize when I can come up with no good retort.
I settle for reminding her, “I am not him. No matter what he claimed.” While reminding myself that I am not nearly as weak as the drakkon who held me captive for nearly three months.
“Believe me, I know that,” she answers. “He was my reverent soulmate. And you’re an arrogant sociopath bent on destroying my whole family.”
She pauses, her emotions radiating over our mate bond, both bitter and sweet. “But he’s inside of you. He has to be. And that’s why I’m doing this. To get him back. So that you, me, and our son can be the family he promised we’d be if I survived this birth.”
My flame flickers at her words. And once again I’m assailed with fantasy images. The two of us, sitting upon our thrones. Raising our son to rule over both the drakkon and the mutated wolf primates. Mating nightly, even outside of breeding.
My male works strain inside my scaled folds. The possibilities seducing me, along with her voice inside of my head. “All you have to do is say please.”
Such a small word. No more than six Romanized letters stood between me and the pleasure I would know inside of her.
But then my father’s voice reminds me, “I paid your mother reverence after I seeded her with you, as every drakkon does. But in the end, her death was a cause for celebration. During our short time together, I became a drakkon crazed. My duties as Royal Overlord, my ambitions—they all fell to the wayside. With her death came relief from that obsession, along with a son who will go even further than myself. Remember this when you are fated to your own mate. No matter what time period you are fated to, your most important mission…your duty…is to find a way to make our bloodline king and sire a son to continue that line. This I believe only you can do, my son.”
My father spoke these words upon me in the utter dark of night. It had been the eve before our first battle with the wolf mutations. An easy battle that he believed would be won in a rout.
He’d been more concerned with instructing me toward saving not only us exiles from what the Terrible Destroyer had wrought, but also our planet. He wanted nothing less than for me to change the course of drakkon history. And after several millennia on this planet, learning to control my infamous flame, he’d believed I could do it.
Drakkon forget nothing. I still recall clearly the burn of bright pride in my chest flame as I rushed over the mountain, so eager to make all my father’s grand visions come true.
I also remember what happened to those reveries of glory soon after I flew over that mountain. They had turned into a pile of ash at the sight of a wolf mutation running his sword into the drakkon I revered most.
My father had instantly reshelled, but even before that, I knew this wound would be more than his shell could handle. He would die if I did not fly him directly to the medical units in the glacier station we’d established above Zone 4. I’d thought of nothing but saving my sire. And I’d run toward him with such urgency, I had been wholly unprepared for the attack of another mutation in dog form.
The sword had been wielded by Ola’s father, Fenris, now the so-called Alpha King of Michigan. And her other father, the Michigan beta Olafr…he had been the dog who had prevented me from getting my father to the glacier station in time to save his life.
My father’s flame, his belief in me…they had both been extinguished upon that field. Because of Ola’s fathers. Because of the Betrayer King.
Drakkon forget nothing.
Since that morn, I have thought of my sire daily. The visceral ache of his loss, the void he left behind—it has not been healed by time as the upright primates claim. It has grown into a festering wound inside of me. And it is an injury that can only be soothed by the revenge I must wreak.
No, I will not say please.
I will not exchange my pride for the pleasure of mating with Ola. For then what would she seduce me into next? The answer was as obvious as the shackles around my wrist.
First came please. Then would come a request to spare her fathers…and only death would keep me from exacting my revenge upon them. Well, death and…
I push all thoughts of the alternative from my head and resolve to stick to my original scheme. I must get strong again. Then I must imprison her and break her, just as I planned to before.
“Do you plan to starve me because I refuse to utter your unnecessary courtesy word?” I ask her with a bored tone, feigning as if I am more interested in the food she has brought me than any pleasure she might offer.
It is a triumph to see the way her shoulders deflate. I’m aware I am being what the anthros call petty. But I find it very satisfying this eve to act in such a fashion.
It took hours, not minutes for my male works to retract last night after she left me in that state. And even if I am not truly more interested in food than the pleasure of her sex, the fact is I should be.
I will need nutrients to break these chains, and I can already feel my drakkon strength returning after last night’s consumption of meat.
Given her angry glare, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she stormed out of the room instead of feeding me. So I am relieved when she sits down on the side of the bed, albeit with a huff.
“What are you watching?” she asks when she notices the inane action entertainment playing on the wall screen.
The story was so grating, I’d muted it shortly before she entered. “Something called Hard Death,” I answer as yet another building is blown up behind the film’s hero. “And you were right. The pretender must have been indulging you. This plot seems little more than an excuse to level a city and chase each other in gaudy drones.”
Instead of taking offense, she grins and stops the spoon just an inch from my mouth to say, “So, you were thinking about me. Smirking Cat Emoji. That’s a start.”
I have done a lot more than think about her all day. But out loud I insist, “I was curious about my doppelganger. I thought this might give me some more insight into his motive.”
“Which was…?”
“What do you believe it was?” I am honestly curious about her answer.
“Okay, well…” She dips the spoon to scoop up more stew. “I’ve been thinking about that and have mostly come up with a whole bunch of I don’t know. But I thi
nk this might be a time traveling situation. Which would mean you and me are fated mates.”
I still. “Why do you believe that?”
“Mostly because he kept on calling me his fated mate,” she admits with a wry grin. “I thought he was being, you know, really intense and dramatic—he could be like that. But then when he Michael J. Foxed out…”
“Michael J. Foxed?” I ask.
“Yeah, you know, like in Back to the Future.” Her face falls when I continue to regard her with a quizzical look.
“Oh come on. I know you said you don’t like movies, but you didn’t even see Back to the Future? How about Star Wars?”
I frown. “I have vague memories of hearing about these films. But I do not like the so-called science fiction the upright primates produced prior to the current century. It was—”
“I know, I know. So absurdly unrealistic. Other You gave me this speech about a thousand times. But lucky you, you’re all tied up. So unlike him, you’ve got to watch Back to the Future with me.”
This is how I come to spend the next hour watching a—well, absurdly unrealistic is the only way to describe it—depiction of time travel while Ola feeds me. “That’s what I was talking about!” Ola says, pointing the spoon at the screen when the main character begins to fade in a rather rudimentary display of special effects.
“So you believe he simply faded away due to an event that didn’t happen in his own timeline.” I keep my voice neutral, but in truth, I’m impressed by how close her hypothesis is to mine.
“Yeah, I think…” she scrunches her brow over the stew pot. “I think I might have died in childbirth or something tragic like that. And maybe our child too—the way he was talking about our future, I honestly don’t think he could have left a kid behind just to come back for me. Also, he was obsessed with having me train for labor and when the baby came, everything went exactly to plan. His plan. Like seriously, the pushing part was done in under ten minutes. And my recovery…well, here I am, serving you stew. My lady parts aren’t even sore a week after birth, which I didn’t even know was possible.”
Her Dragon King (Her Dragon King Duet Book 2): 50 Loving States, North Dakota Pt. 2 Page 5
