by Tia Wylder
He brought his lips up to mine. Just as we kissed, he effortlessly slid himself into me. A moan escaped my lips as he pulled out slightly and thrusted downward again. His hips moved with a perfectly rhythm. I watched the muscles in his arms and chest undulate beneath his skin as he slammed himself into me again and again.
The passion between us was undeniable. He released my wrists and I sat up. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and we sat facing each other. With his legs beneath mine grinded myself against him. He cupped one of my breasts in his hand and massaged it as I felt his hot breath against my neck.
He picked me up and walked over to the dresser where a television sat across from the bed. He threw the TV like it was nothing. I watched it slammed onto the ground as glass shattered across the floor. He sat me down on the surface of the dresser and held me in place as he thrusted into me. The dresser slammed into the wall behind us. Our thundering rhythm filled the entire room. I begged him not to stop as I felt another climax coming. The glow in his eyes intensified. We came at the same time. I screamed and he roared like the dragon he was. It shook the very walls around us. When it was all done, he carried me back to the bed and laid me down.
He didn’t climb into bed with me. Instead, he stood at the window looking out into the parking lot.
“Aren’t you going to sleep?” I asked.
“No, I’m going to stand guard,” he said.
“Could you lay with me, just until I fall asleep?”
He turned and looked at me. His eyes still had that soft glow that I couldn’t quite place.
“As you wish,” he said.
He climbed into bed with me and I rolled over onto him. My hands pressed against his chest and I listened to his heartbeat as I slowly started to fall asleep. I didn’t feel him get back up. In my dreams he never left.
Chapter Four
Dorian
I laid with many women in my youth, but this human, this Harley, she was different. She was beautiful, captivating, and full of life. There was a part of me that was drawn to her, as if my journey through the stars was always meant to end here. I felt the guiding hand of fate upon me as I looked down at her sleeping form.
I had almost fallen asleep beside her. I couldn’t allow that to happen, though. She had saved me. I believed her when she said we were being hunted. I had to keep watch, but it was hard to protect her when I did know what threat we faced. As I turned to face the window, the door to our room exploded open. Shards of wood sailed through the air as four heavily armored humans rushed inside.
I charged toward them, but their weapons were faster than me. A ball of blue light shot out from one of their contraptions. The impact made me lose control of my limbs and I fell to the ground in a heap. I felt control coming back, but the armored humans surrounded me before I could resist. They picked me up by my arms and held me on my shaking legs.
A woman walked inside as Harley hurriedly put her clothes back on. The woman had pale skin and hair black as night. Her eyes were a cold gray as she looked at me with contempt.
“It seems we’re just in time,” she said, “give him the clothes.”
One of the humans dropped a clear bag with some sort of clothing inside.
“Put those on, we don’t have much time,” the woman said.
“Who are you and what do you want?” I asked.
“Dorian, what’s happening to me?” Harley screamed.
I turned away from the humans and saw Harley standing in the corner. Tiny specks of color were breaking off of her like grains of sand. They floated upward like a reserve rain. She seemed to be crumbling like an ancient statue.
“What have you done to her?” I asked the woman.
“I didn’t do anything, it’s what you haven’t done yet that’s causing the problem.”
“Dorian!”
I had enough feeling in my legs and arms to move. I pushed through the humans and ran to Harley’s side. I reached out to her, but my hands passed right through her body. She broke apart, and disintegrated into dust before me until nothing remained but her voice that still echoed in the air like a memory.
I turned back around and saw the woman staring back at me with a stoic expression on her face.
“Start talking or I’ll kill you where you stand!” I shouted.
“Look Dorian, this little alien abduction romance of yours is over. If you come with us, I’ll explain everything,” she said.
“No, you tell me now!”
“We don’t have time, Dorian! You want to save her? You have to come with us now!”
I begrudgingly walked over and took the clothing out of the bag they provided. They were strange garments, similar to the ones that Harley had been wearing. When I was dressed we walked outside into a pitch black night. Only the strange lights built by humans illuminated the area around us. The night sky was blank, devoid of a moon or stars.
“Is there not a moon in the sky of this world? I saw it when we first arrived,” I said.
The woman nodded. “Yes, there was one.”
“What happened to it?” I asked.
“They devoured it.”
My entire body froze.
“They’re here?”
“Yes, and we don’t have much time, so you need to come with us now.”
The woman led me to another machine like the one Harley had put me in when I first arrived on Earth.
“I can fly much faster than your machine that travels along the ground,” I said.
The woman opened her mouth to say something when one of the armored humans appeared. He lifted the visor of his black helmet and I saw his face for a brief moment.
“Ma’am, I’m reading movement all around us. We may need his help,” he said.
The woman sighed.
“Well, maybe you’re alpha male attitude will come in handy, Dorian. You’re familiar with the Old Ones, yes?”
I nodded.
“Good, well the ones you’ve seen are just a fraction of the monstrosities they have at their disposal. Good news is that your dragon’s fireworks on all of them. We’re going to drive, and you’re going to follow us. Keep us safe until we arrive and I promise you’ll see your Harley again.”
“Why are you helping me?” I asked.
Because Dorian, if you don’t do this, we all die. I’ve seen it more times than I care to count. Just make sure we make it there alive. Oh, and give me those clothes before you shift. No sense in ruining perfectly good designer clothing.”
I undressed and they climbed into their machine .As I transformed into my dragon form, I heard the Old Ones coming from all sides. I heard their hushed whispers floating through the air like oil in water.
My vision as a dragon was impeccable. My eyes cut through the darkness and I saw their shadowy forms closing in on us. The human’s machine of travel moved off and I flew into the air. As I soared above it, I saw the Old Ones climbing onto the road ahead of them. With a single push from my wings, I shot forward past them. I opened my mouth and sprayed liquid fire through the air. The burning light cut through the ones in the road just as the human vehicle passed through them.
I flew up higher to scout ahead. That was when I saw flying Old Ones for the first time. They were twisted dragons with tattered wings and a long neck that ended in a massive circular mouth filled with hundreds of teeth. They ignored my presence and flew down toward the moving vehicle.
I gave chase. One of them landed on the roof and dug its claws into the metal with a loud screech. I flew over it and bit down hard on its neck as I passed. It lost its grip and struggled to break free as I flew upward into the sky. I released it from my jaws just as I painted it with fire. The crumbling creature fell through the air like burning paper and dissipated into nothing.
Two more came from either side and ambushed me. They latched their claws into my sides and dug their teeth into my flesh. Down below I saw the vehicle approaching its destination.
I closed my eyes and focused all of my
energy inward. I felt pure light building inside of me. When it reached a breaking point, I saw Harley’s face as I unleashed the full extent of my power. The fire came out through the cracks in my skin and blasted outward in all directions at once.
The creatures were burned into dust and I was free to land as the humans climbed out of their machine. I landed and shifted back into my human form. The woman threw the clothes back to me and I dressed myself.
“Not bad, but we’re not out of the woods yet,” she said.
The very air surrounding us started to pull upward. I turned my head to the sky and saw the mouth of a World Eater breaking descending toward us. The light that show upward into the sky from the human’s lamps curved as it was devoured by the black hole above.
“Follow me!” the woman shouted.
One of the humans pulled out what looked like a metal staff. The top of it opened and we were suddenly enveloped in blue light. A dome above us seemed to protect from the World Eater’s pull.
The vehicle that had taken the humans here shot up into the air beside us. The ground beneath started to crumbled. We moved beneath the blue dome and into a massive building. It was breaking apart around us. The roof tore off and ascended into the sky as we entered. We sprinted across the open area and into another contraption. The room we stood in started moving down, no doubt protected by the blue dome’s influence.
“Dorian, listen to me, you have to save her!” the woman shouted.
“How?”
“They went back and killed her. Without her, the World Eaters succeed. If you save her, you’ll change everything. You’ll save us all.”
The moving room stopped and we moved out into a room with a massive metal circle. Colored wires ran into it, wrapping around the structure like snakes. The woman broke free of the blue dome and pressed several buttons on a metal box beside it.
“This is how it always happens Dorian, now it’s up to you!”
The metal circle filled with darkness.
“Go through Dorian, save her!”
Even underground, the space above us tore open. The blue dome faltered and I watched the humans and the woman ripped upward into the World Eater’s gaping maw. I ran forward as I felt its influence bearing down on me. I dove through the darkness.
I came out on the other side and found myself standing in a dark room. My entire body was glowing with a strange light. I looked to my right and saw a young girl in her bed. She had the sheets pulled up over her face, but I recognized her.
It was Harley, but she was just a child. I looked over and saw an Old One looming over her bed. I didn’t hesitate, I charged forward and took whatever hold I could on its shifting form. We stumbled backward through another portal. A terrible force all around me pulled in every direction. My body was being ripped apart. The pain was so great that I lost control. The light built up within me again until it was at a breaking point.
I exploded with the force of a dying star and pushed back the darkness around me. When I opened my eyes again, I was in my dragon from, floating in the ocean of stars. Around me, the body of a World Eater was crumbling. Had I destroyed it from the inside?
Around me I saw other World Eaters crumbling apart. Their infinite bodies stretched into the distance but even they were slowly dissipating. I was barely conscious, but I had enough energy to smile as I fell into a deep slumber. I don’t know how long I drifted through the stars, but I felt my strength coming back.
More importantly, I knew I had saved her. With her past-self safe and the World Eaters destroyed for now, Earth would be safe. I crashed after an endless amount of time. I slowly opened my eyes and found myself lying in the sand of a vast desert. The light from the star above was channeling energy into me.
A woman stood over me with a concerned expression on her face.
“Harley?” I asked.
Her eyes went wide.
“You know who I am?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Okay, wait right there, let me get you something to cover yourself with!”
She ran off to get the same blankets she had used last time I awoke on this planet. I did not know if the events would repeat as they had before, or if my influence changed the course of time.
Whatever happened, one thing was certain: we would be together.
RIGHT BEFORE EACH BOOK TITLE:
Claimed By The Cosmic Warrior
By Jocelyn Bride
Chapter One
It happened the night of Tia Swift’s eighteenth birthday party. And there was nothing beforehand to suggest that this night would be anything but the celebration that Tia was expecting. The hours leading up to the party were quiet, calm, and prosaic, though filled with the expectation of the excitement that would follow them. Tia had no way of knowing exactly what kind of excitement awaited her. All that was on her mind at the beginning was what might be on the minds of any number of girls just turning eighteen and looking forward to welcoming in the first year of her young adulthood. All she was thinking about was choosing the perfect thing to wear.
She stood in front of the full-length virtual mirror in her bedroom, wearing just a T-shirt and workout shorts such as she would wear in the gym. Shiny black hair falling just to her shoulders framed a pretty face adorned with a broad smile. Her body was lean and tight, not stick-thin but pleasingly curved in all the right ways and all the right places, a testament to hours spent not just in the gym but on the dance floor. Inspecting herself, she found everything was ready except the wardrobe.
“Shuffle through party outfits,” Tia commanded the computer in the mirror. At her bidding, the imaging system in the glass put her in a series of simulated outfits, some low-cut, some high-cut, some skin-tight, some looser and more flowing, some luxurious, some fancy but less formal, in a range of colors. Tia saw herself as everything from elegant to scandalous to Bohemian and everything in between. Finally, she settled on one ensemble, all in deep blues and blacks. It had a low-cut top with puffed sleeves, underlaid with a camisole (because her father would be present), and Capri-type slacks with shoes whose heels were just the right height for dancing. “Accessorize,” Tia said, and the computer dutifully added to this ensemble a series of rings, bracelets, necklaces, and even a tiara, until she settled on a simple black choker with a single sapphire on it. Satisfied with her wardrobe plans for her special night, Tia ordered, “That’s it. Print it and hang it in the closet.” The computer hummed and the selected outfit, now stored in memory, disappeared from the mirror, and the specifications went to the material printer.
With that done, Tia turned away from the mirror and stepped into the center of her bedroom floor to begin a series of bends and stretches to limber up for the evening. She wanted both to look and to be in fine form for the night. Launching into her routine of bending forward and down and from side to side, and stretching and lunging while sitting and standing, Tia wished that all choices in a young girl’s life were as relatively easy as deciding what to wear to her eighteenth birthday party. Tia and her father had been on this planet for two years, having come here with colonists and settlers from across human-inhabited space, and she still did not have a steady boyfriend. It was not as if she had no options. There were plenty of boys in the colony on planet Sigma Cygni, and like any girl, Tia had been on her share of dates. The boys with whom she had gone out were handsome enough and fit enough. Some of them were varsity athletes. And some of them came from very fine Colonial families, even some who could trace their ancestry all the way back to Earth. She had enjoyed being with them. She had let them kiss her. She had let some of them do a little bit more than kiss her, and she had done a little bit more than kiss some of them, though she had yet to allow any boy to do everything. To be sure Tia had thought about letting some of them do everything because they were of the type from whom a girl would certainly want it. But it had not come to that point—yet.
Being the daughter of the Chief Administrator of the colony, Tia could well have had her p
ick of any of them. And yet she had chosen none of them. It wasn’t that she was a parochial pre-Spacer type who thought the human body was a thing to be ashamed of and pleasurable, non-reproductive sex was an act of filth. Happily, such people were all but extinct now. It was only that space was vast and full of options, and Tia wanted to be sure of availing herself of the best options from all choices available. Sometimes she wondered if she denied herself unnecessarily. After all, some of her girlfriends were certainly helping themselves to some of the boys in the colony, including some of those with whom Tia had stopped just short of everything. But no…Tia didn’t mind being a virgin and taking her time. There was no more shame in virginity than there was in indulgence. When it felt exactly right, she would let it happen. Until then, she would just have a good time.
Tonight, Tia meant to have a good time.
Chapter Two
The party was held at night in a brightly lit outdoor pavilion, under the same Milky Way seen from Earth, on a planet a hundred light years away from there. Sigma Cygni was a thriving Earth colony planet—as evidenced by the nearly two dozen teenagers gathered on the pavilion around a stage where a holographically transmitted concert had gotten under way.
Front and center of the assembled teens was the birthday girl, Tia herself. The kids swayed and shook and squealed and laughed, listening to the band whose performance came through the interstellar media relays from Mu Eridani IV, some twenty light years away. The band was all done up in lights: luminescent piping and patches on dark clothing and dark-colored instruments; a light that surged and pulsed and throbbed and strobed to match the riffs and rhythms they played. Tia, surrounded by girlfriends and flanked by boys half interested in the girls present (or each other) and half interested in the musicians, was as enraptured by the whole thing as she had expected to be when her father told her he was patching her party into the transmission of this show. She and her friends were getting a front row seat for something beamed from millions of kilometers away. The anticipation of it had been the talk of the young people of the colony for weeks. Tonight, Tia was not only the birthday girl; she was their heroine. And she was loving it.
