by Sky Winters
Celeste thanked him by hastily pushing past him and going to Zephyr’s torso. He was so immense that all she could really make of him was a wall of teal. “Zephyr!” she shouted. “I’m here now. I’m with you.” She reached out and touched him. He was smooth, hot and semi-moist to the touch, like the frog she had always thought he resembled. She thought this was much more appealing. She found him oddly sexy this way, not at all like the slimy Earthen amphibian from her earlier imaginings.
The two fighting foes paid her no mind however, and as the ship careened downwards towards the first available planet, Celeste held onto her dragon and prayed that this would all end soon and maybe, perhaps, they could make it out of it alive. She was not even going to hope for unharmed, just alive.
When at last the space ship did land, the two monsters spared no time. Zephyr grabbed Rawrgoth by the head again and rolled with him out of the window. Well, actually, it was the side of the ship. Nothing but a jagged hole and slightly charred and melted metal remained in their wake. Celeste stood against the opposite wall, watching with a hand over her mouth.
The planet on which the Yaargothens had haphazardly landed was made of rock, thank goodness, though there were patches of lava where Celeste was used to seeing oceans and rivers. She was terrified to leave the safety of the ship, which she could hardly believe was the case were it not for the fact that these two brutal, deadly beasts were now out there in unknown, dangerous terrain, duking it out to the death, probably. She had once been flattered, but now she thought that what they were doing was extreme. She was never going to be able to forgive herself if Zephyr died for her.
Cautiously, she stepped out onto the rock of the planet. She walked towards where the two males were fighting over her. Though Zephyr was covered in glowing red gashes on his limbs and face, he was clearly winning the battle. Rawrgoth was little more than a flailing mass of bloody fur.
Her dragon was breathing heavily, a smattering of blood falling from his mouth. She could not tell if it was his blood or his enemy’s but it worried her either way.
“If you make it,” he said to Rawrgoth, “If you live long enough to leave this place, you go and tell your leadership that Daskan answered Earth’s call for help and that if Yaargoth wishes to enjoy the benefits of such a peace treaty, stealing and raping the women is not the way to do it. This is why no one ever asks Yaargoth for help.”
Zephyr was difficult to understand when he was in his dragon form, but thankfully he spoke slowly enough for Celeste to take it all in and decipher what came out of his large jaws. Once he had said his piece, he turned away from his injured adversary and looked down upon Celeste. She was no sure, but she thought that he smiled at her.
“Now let’s get you home,” he said through a growl that was almost docile.
She was unsure of what she should do now that the gargantuan dragon was done fighting. Zephyr could not simply go back onto the space ship and fly somewhere else. He had apparently flown through space, though… Feeling silly for doing so, but unable to think of anything better, Celeste carefully climbed onto his slippery back. There were not spikes like she had imagined dragons to have, but his skin was smooth and warm and not unpleasant to hold onto once she was situated. She held onto his neck, hoping that no sudden moves would make her go flying.
“Can you fly back through space?” she asked him only after she was sitting there, holding on as though he was seconds away from taking off. “I mean, there is the whole oxygen thing to consider.”
Zephyr chuckled deeply. She felt it through his long, thick neck. “I have ways of managing that.”
Walking back towards the Yaargothen space ship, he began to flap his wings and soon he was up in the air, a purplish ball of opaque energy surrounding him and the Earthling on his back.
“Wow!” she gasped out in wonder as she looked down and saw the space ship going further and further below them. Now she knew how her Daskani had rushed through space to find her again and rescue her from the clutches of Rawrgoth.
As Zephyr flew, he puffed out a steady stream of fire which lit the way and increased his speed. Celeste did not feel entirely safe up there on his back, but she was far safer with him than she was with those barbaric enemy aliens. She hugged his neck to her and gazed at the stars as they passed them.
“Now that I’m not so afraid of dying, I can see that it’s beautiful up here,” she told him. “But you do make the strangest space ship.”
He chuckled deeply again. “Let’s not make this a habit.”
CHAPTER SIX
An Epilogue
The flight back to Daskan was not terribly long, thanks to Zephyr’s fire ability and the fact that he had kept the Yaargothens from taking her all the way to their distant planet. Hyperdrive was no laughing matter, of course, but the dragon could simulate it with his puffs of flames and his strong, beating wings. Celeste was surprisingly able to sleep for some of the trip, and it was sleep that she badly needed. On top of everything else, she was pregnant and that did not lend itself well to dealing with stress. She was fatigued, and Zephyr understood. He was more than happy to let her sleep atop him as he cruised through space faster than the speed of light.
She awoke as he descended back onto his home planet of Daskan. Which was fortunate for her, because she was not holding on as tightly as she should have been, and she needed to do that in order to not fall off as he zoomed through the planet’s atmosphere. Celeste clutched his smooth skin as tightly as she could.
Zephyr landed on the side of one of the planet’s rocky cliffs, clutching onto it with his long claws. Once had caught his breath some and gathered himself, he flew up into the sky again and seamlessly floated back to their white, cliffside castle. Once he landed there, Celeste carefully got from his back and climbed down to the flat surface where their home lay. She watched curiously at he shifted from his dragon form and back to his more humanoid alien form. He contorted, bones cracking and shifting back into their places. Celeste shuttered a bit, thinking about what that must feel like. She could not imagine and she did not really want to, except empathetically, she supposed.
As soon as her dragon was back to looking like her General, she rushed to him and wrapped her arms around his middle, hugging him as tightly as possible without hurting him further. The cuts on his chest and neck looked far worse now that he was more like a man and less like an unstoppable beast.
“Come on,” she told him. “Let’s get you inside and cleaned up.” She looked up at him and they kissed tenderly. Heaven help her, she loved him so much. He was now no longer the answer to Earth’s prayers. She was her literal hero. And her literal hero deserved some tender loving care.
Celeste’s pregnancy was not as long as a typical human pregnancy, but it was long enough for her. By her fifth month, her abdomen was completely swollen and she spent most of her time in bed so as not to injure herself or the baby. “I feel so lazy,” she complained to Zephyr, who continued to work as well as take care of her. It was as if he had been preparing his whole life for this, which made her realize that just as the women of Earth had long been a part of this fertilization pact, the Daskani had been planning for fatherhood. The people of Earth needed babies, and the Daskani wanted badly to have children of their own.
“Ahhhhh!” she cried out in the middle of the night, while she and Zephyr were in bed. He awoke at once and brought her into his arms, thinking that it had been one of the nightmares that had been troubling her of late. But no. This was labor pains.
“It’s happening!” Celeste shouted in agony. “It’s contractions!”
Zephyr did not know about Earthling pregnancies, but he knew what contractions were. He nodded and let go of her so that he could situate himself at the end of the bed. “Put your legs up on my shoulders,” he instructed. “Let me help you. It should not take long.”
Celeste breathed in and out. “This better not take long!” she snapped at him. Why was it that making a baby was so, so pleasant but having one w
as the complete opposite? Science just was not fair.
Zephyr smirked a bit, but he knew that it was not an enjoyable time for her so he kept his smiling to a minimum, which she appreciated. When he saw that she was dilated, he looked up at her face. “Push,” he urged her gently.
It hurt so much that all she wanted to do was push until it stopped hurting. But in the end, she paced herself and let Zephyr give her the command to push when she was supposed to and relax when she needed to. After several long, excruciating hours, Zephyr was holding their small, light-blue skinned son in his arms. He was crying and Zephyr was crying and Celeste was crying, too. It was equal parts wonderful, exhausting and daunting for all three of them.
Their son looked like a perfect mixture of his parents. Aside from the robin’s egg blue hue of his skin, which clearly came from his father, he had Celeste’s auburn hair and large, inquisitive eyes. Celeste wasn’t sure how well he was going to fit into society on Earth, but then he was going to be a being with two planets. And as Zephyr was so set on the idea of staying with her, their son would have his weird, alien father with him to fend off any bullies, at least.
She smiled at Zephyr. He smiled back at her.
“What do you want to name him?” he asked her. “You’re probably better at that sort of thing than I am.”
“Zenith,” she said with no hesitation. She had been considering names ever since she found out she was pregnant. “I figure it would be good to start him off at a high point, at least.”
Zephyr chuckled. “I like it,” he said. He hugged her and gently petted his tiny son’s head. They made a cute family already.
“Let’s take him home,” Celeste said then. “I cannot wait to introduce him to my planet and my people.”
Bear Shifter Romances
Goldie & the Two Bears
Chapter One
“I’m done with men. I just have no luck with them at all,” Goldie Dawson confided to her friend Greta over drinks at The Pavilion, a local watering hole that they frequented.
“You’re just a bit jaded for now. You’ll come around,” Greta laughed, sipping her martini and eyeing a hunky guy at a table across the room. No matter where they went, Greta was always on the lookout for someone to fill her bed. She never wanted them to hang around, never seemed to need them for more than getting laid. It was a trait that Goldie envied in some ways.
“No. I don’t think so. Maybe I’ll just become a lesbian or perhaps a nun,” she said dryly.
“First of all, you aren’t into women and secondly, you love sex way too much to become a nun. Unless you find a wayward priest to fool around with in the convent, you’d never survive a vow of chastity,” Greta told her, her attention returning to the table as a woman joined the brief object of her affection at his table.
“That’s probably true. I’m just so tired of getting screwed over,” she groaned. “I’m either too big or not big enough. When did everyone become a size zero or concave, if there is such a thing?”
“Blame fucking Twiggy. She started all this skinny bitch nonsense. It’s insane for men to expect women to be so thin. I’m a size eight and you’d think I were a whale according to some folks. Fuck them. I like to eat.”
“Me too. Of course, I’m a bit thicker than you, but still, a size sixteen isn’t a crime. Wasn’t Marilyn Monroe this size and she fucked a president!”
“You’re beautiful. I don’t know how anyone could look at you and not think so. You have curves in all the right places. There was a time when women would kill for your hourglass figure.”
“You’d be surprised. Of course, there are some out there that find it a huge turn on that I have some curves. I had one guy that wanted to coat me in butter and lick me from head to toe. They take it too far. It’s more of a fetish than a preference. Quite disturbing is what it is.”
“You are fucking kidding me?! Butter? Sounds like a real nut-job, if you ask me. What happened to the Roberts guy, the producer you were seeing?”
“He was a climber. When we met, he seemed to be really into me, but then I caught him with someone else, someone who could do more for his career.”
“What? No way? Who?”
“Well, you know he is a producer and script writer, but he hasn’t really had anything big. Even though I just do costume design for City in Siege, I know a lot of people. I introduced him to some of them, sort of got him in the loop and off the ground. He repaid me by hooking up with one of the producers on my TV series.”
“You’re kidding me! When did that happen?”
“Last weekend. I invited him to a wrap party we were having at the end of shooting. It’s a pretty popular show, so I knew there would be a lot of people there who could help him out and sort of get his foot in the door. I introduced him to Amelda Harmon, one of the primary producers of the show and they were chatting for a bit. Perhaps I should have seen what was happening between them but I didn’t. I stepped away to speak to someone and those two disappeared. I found them in a back room, making out pretty hot and heavy like two horny teens.”
“Oh, my fucking God! What did you do?”
“I shut the door and left him there with her. I wanted to throw things at him and call him names, but instead, I just felt horrified and ran.”
“That’s it? You didn’t say anything to him? No confrontation?”
“Nope. Nothing. He hasn’t even bothered to call and I haven’t bothered to try to contact him. I guess he got what he wanted. She will be able to introduce him to people I can’t and, at some point, he will probably meet someone with even more pull in the industry and abandon her for them. All I know is it isn’t my problem. Whatever he wanted, it wasn’t me, it was just what I could do to help him.”
“That sucks. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s disappointing, but I wasn’t that hung up on him. I mean, I thought we had a good thing. He’s gorgeous, hot as fuck in bed, motivated . . . you know, the total package. Turns out it was all for show though. He didn’t mean any of it. People like him know how to play the game to get what they want. I should have known better.”
“Men are pigs.”
“I know, right? I swear there is something wrong with all of them. They are too pushy or too wimpy. Great to look at, but shit in bed. Gorgeous, but unemployed or live with their mom. It’s always something. Then, there is Greg Roberts, who seems to have it all, but is only after what he can get from you. He’ll do the same to her and then be on to the next one that can help his career. Fuck him.”
“I’ll toast to that. Fuck him. Fuck them all!” Greta laughed raising her glass in salute.
“You know, I honestly think that is the answer.”
“What is the answer?” Greta asked, looking both amused and confused.
“To just fuck them all. Do what I want and have fun. If men can run around and just fuck indiscriminately, why can’t I?”
“Very true. Men do that and they are playboys. We do it and we are sluts. Here’s another toast to being a common whore!” Greta laughed, raising her glass once more.
“To whores! Fuck yeah!” Goldie cheered.
The two women giggled playfully and continued their drinking, chatting until it was closing time and things began to wind down around them. Catching a cab back to Goldie’s place, they sat in her living room and talked some more. It was one of those rare nights that they hadn’t had in a while. Goldie had missed their girl time.
“Maybe you just need a break. Why not get out of LA and take it easy for a bit while the show is on hiatus for the season? You could go up to Big Bear Lake. Ian and Randy still have a cabin up there. They have plenty of room and they love visitors.”
“Hmm. I don’t know. I don’t want to intrude.”
“Oh, please. You know how those two are. They live to entertain. Call them up and ask them if you can come up for a week or even a couple of weeks. You deserve a little down time.”
“It’s three a.m.,” Goldie laughed.
“Okay, perhaps wait until tomorrow, but you knew that I didn’t mean right this second,” she replied, rolling her eyes playfully.
“I’ll think about it.”
“You do that. In the meantime, I’m going to crash in your spare bedroom. I’m wiped!”
“Make yourself at home. I think I’m going to call it a day, as well.”
The two women hugged one another and headed to bed, where they fell fast asleep. When Goldie woke up the next morning, Greta was already gone, having an early call at the magazine where she worked as a photographer. Sitting at the kitchen table with a bit of a hangover, Goldie waited for her coffee and aspirin to kick in. An hour later, she found herself feeling more human, showered and wondering what she should do now that she was free for at least six weeks. She sighed and picked up the phone. Ian answered on the first ring with an inviting hello that instantly put her at ease.
Chapter Two
“You have no idea how much I appreciate you letting me stay on such short notice,” she told Ian and Randy over breakfast the following morning. It had been a long drive, but after talking to Ian, she had headed out as soon as she could pack, arriving late in the afternoon. They already had plans and were heading out upon her arrival, leaving her to her own devices for the evening.
Deciding to take Greta’s advice, she had taken the rest of the day to make arrangements for a house sitter and get packed for an extended visit to Big Bear Lake. The fresh air would hopefully be enough to clear her head and give her a fresh perspective on things. She had told Ian and Randy all about Greg Roberts over bacon, eggs, and toast.
“No problem, honey. We’re glad to have you. Now, listen, we’re having a party later and there will be loads of straight men there for you to meet. You just shake that piece of shit Greg Roberts off your mind and we’ll find you someone way better! We are geniuses at matching up like minds!”
“Oh, no, no, no. The last thing I want is a new man. I’m in for some “me” time. Let’s just let things be, shall we?” she said.
