Alien Dragon's Mate: Braxan (Science Fiction Alien/BBW Romance)

by Juno Wells

  It made him suspicious. He stopped and squatted down to take a closer look, and then his skin crawled with what he saw.

  Amelia walked on past him, just tiredly glancing down. She was too exhausted to notice anything out of the ordinary.

  “Stop!” He pounced and was barely able to grab her and pull her away from the easy ground before she stepped out on it.

  She yelped and glared up at him, rubbing her arm. “What the fuck was that about?”

  He lifted a green insect off a nearby branch and tossed it onto the flat ground. It immediately disappeared, eaten from below in less than a second.

  Amelia's hand went to her mouth in horror. “Oh my fucking stars! That sand is alive!”

  He nodded. “Tiny omnivorous beings that look like sand. Each grain is one ravenous individual.”

  She sobbed once, just one heart-rending sound of hopeless despair. “Everything here wants to kill me!”

  He placed one hand on her shoulder, feeling that it would reassure her. “Forests are like that. But anything that is bad for us is equally bad for the Pirgks. Hopefully this flesh-eating sand will kill many of them for us. If ever they make it this far.”

  She leaned into his hand for a moment, then visibly pulled herself together and straightened. Her resilience warmed his heart. He led her around the murderous, living sand and further into the jungle.

  They reached a small clearing between the trees. He held up his hand and they both stood still for a moment, just listening.

  He could only hear the sounds of the jungle. There were the screams and noises of various animals and the rustle of leaves. And one more sound that was very welcome.

  But even with his dragon-augmented hearing, he could not hear the Pirgks. They would surely have made a lot of noise if they were close by.

  “I think we have put our pursuers well behind us,” he said softly. “And that means we can take a little rest.”

  Amelia looked around. “Here?”

  “It doesn't look like much, but it is a clearing. At any rate, the trees are slightly less dense here. And I hear something I think we both need.”

  She stood still for a moment, listening. “What?”

  “Don't you hear that tinkling of a running liquid? I think it's a brook.”

  She frowned and listened again. “Really? I can't hear anything like that.”

  He ducked down under a bunch of vines and jumped up to get a grip higher up on a thick branch that was hanging down, making sure to use his right hand. Whenever he used his left hand, the wound stung and ached as a warning that he was not healing.

  He hung there and lifted himself higher with one arm, absentmindedly noticing that some kind of snake-like being was breaking its fangs trying to penetrate the skin on his forearm. Ah. There was something that glittered in the sunlight. He dropped down to the ground again.

  “Only thirty paces that way. You need some hydration.”

  She frowned. “Uh-huh. We're not supposed to drink the water on alien planets before it's been tested and filtered.”

  He shrugged. “We will know if it's good to drink. If you don't want it, we will try to find another brook. Running water is usually safer.”

  “I guess we'll see,” she muttered and trudged on. It was clear to him that she didn't have many more reserves left. She was beyond exhausted.

  He looked around at the trees and bushes. Surely some of them could be eaten by humans. She didn't just need water, but real nutrition, too. Something that would give her energy.

  He touched his wound again. It was not getting better. The pain was spreading and radiating out all over his torso. And the dragon didn't like it at all. It had retreated to a distant part of his mind. He hadn't experienced that since many centuries before, when he came of age and he could Change for the first time.

  It worried him. A weak Ultraco wasn't an Ultraco at all, just a cruel joke. Something in that wound was slowly killing him.

  14

  - Amelia -

  It was a jungle from out of the worst nightmare in history. Everything seemed to be alive, even the rocks and the ground itself. The forest was just crawling with life, in a way that almost made her suspicious. And all the beings wanted to kill and eat her.

  She had followed Braxan here, more on instinct than for any rational reason. She didn't know him at all, really. For all she knew, he could be taking her to his village of cannibals and she would be their dinner. But she didn't get the feeling that he wanted to hurt her. He had saved her life too many times to count in just a few hours.

  She looked at the broad back in front of her, the muscles flexing with every move he made. The golden sheen he gave off made him look otherworldly, almost superhuman. The high-tech pants were stretched tight over his powerful thighs and his sensationally round butt, and even in her weakened state, she felt some definite tingles just being close to him.

  He puzzled her. He was not human, at least not completely. He seemed to know the jungle, because he would calmly pick weird animals and insects off their branches and toss them away as if he had expected them. But at the same time it all seemed new to him, too.

  Still she stayed close to him. He was so confident about it all, he made her feel safe. Or safer, at least. She would never feel completely safe in this jungle.

  “Ah,” he said and squatted down in front of her. “Here is a brook.” He cupped his hands and lifted the water to his nose. “Smells ... organic. But I deem it safe for quenching desperate thirst.”

  She tiredly squatted down beside him. 'Desperate thirst' described her state pretty well at that moment. If you also added that she was insanely hungry, scared out of her mind and just basically freaked out.

  It was a tiny little creek, just a foot wide, but the bottom was stony and the water looked clear enough. It ran pretty fast.

  She longed to sip some of it, but she didn't trust anything on this planet anymore. “Sure it's not acid or that the rocks there aren't some kind of flesh-eating beetles?”

  He stuck one hand down into the water and took up a handful of wet gravel. “It appears safe. But here, drink from my hand.”

  He rinsed his hand and then cupped it and held it up for her, full of clear water. She took it in both of hers and carefully moved it to her lips. It didn't smell of anything, and she took a little sip. The water was fresh and even felt cool in her mouth. And the skin on his hand felt soft and warm. And clean.

  She tipped his hand and the water ran into her mouth. “That's pretty good.”

  He dipped the hand into the stream again and she drank. Now she knew she could safely cup some in her own hands and drink more efficiently, but she liked the touch of his hand on her lips. And he didn't seem to mind. If anyone had been watching, she probably would have felt pretty silly doing this, drinking from his hand like a child. But there was no one here, and it felt totally natural. Something about this man reassured her, and she wanted to show him that she trusted her. Trusting him felt good.

  Again and again he filled his palm with water, and she drank greedily until the thirst was gone. It helped sate her hunger, too, just a little.

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Thanks,” she said and held his hand for a second longer than she needed to, looking into his strange blue/yellow eyes. “That was really good.”

  She looked closer at his eyes. There was more blue now, and the yellow sectors of his irises seemed to have faded. “That's me taken care of for a little while. But how do you feel?”

  He glanced down at his chest. “I have been better.”

  His wound was bright red, and it had stopped oozing.

  She frowned. “That's not healing too well, looks like. I have a medpack here. Let me see what I can do. Can we sit here?”

  He sat down on the grass and she got the medpack out of the pocket in the utility suit jacket, then squatted down beside him. “What happened to you, anyway?”

  He shrugged, then winced in pain. “Someone shot me.”
<
br />   She got the sterilizing pack out and got some of the invisible nanogel onto her hand. “Yeah? Did you shoot back?”

  He sighed. “I did not. It was someone I would never harm.”

  She applied the gel to his wound. It would sterilize the wound, and that was the only thing that was important. But she felt the heat from the injury. That was far too hot. Nothing on a body should feel that hot.

  She got out a high-tech bandage and cut off a piece that she thought would cover the wound. It was a strange-looking wound, like a roundish hole that had been stamped into his skin. “Okay, let me guess. Your girlfriend?”

  An enigmatic smile crossed his face. “Something like that.”

  She waited while the nanogel did its thing. It would turn a milky white when the wound was completely clean and sterilized and the bandage could be applied. “Your wife? Your gay lover? What? You can tell me, I'm delirious from hunger anyway and I'll think it's just a dream.”

  He looked into the distance. “It was someone I think is important to me. Someone who I don't know that well.”

  The nanogel was taking its sweet time, but just doing something made Amelia feel better. Much better. Especially trying to heal someone. “Okay. Do you know what this mysterious person used to shoot you? An arrow? A bullet? Or is that a secret, too?”

  “Some kind of metal arrow. I didn't pay attention. The object itself was taken out, but I believe it might have left something behind. Something that festers.”

  Still the nanogel refused to turn white. That usually happened in a couple of seconds, but now at least two minutes had passed. “I think you might be right. Could be that the tip broke off and is still lodged in there. We'd need more advanced equipment to know.”

  But she doubted that was it. She had never heard of the nanogel not working. Even if there was still metal in there, the gel should be able to easily work itself all the way in, encapsulate any foreign object and render it pretty harmless before the nanoparticles would start to break it down and dissolve it, having identified it as not belonging in a healthy body.

  “Could be,” he agreed.

  She sat down on the ground, looking carefully before she did and checking it for woman-eating grass or who knew what else. “Did it happen on this planet?”

  He ignored the question and looked down on his chest. “It feels better now.”

  “Does it feel like it's healing?”

  He thought for a moment and prodded the skin around the wound with one finger. “Not really.”

  The nanogel was still clear, and Amelia didn't want to put any bandage on it before it turned white. It wouldn't stick anyway, because the nanoparticles embedded in it would recognize that the related particles in the nanogel hadn't completed their process. Well, she'd give it another few minutes.

  She put her head back and looked around and up at the trees. The orange sun was setting and the yellow sun was up now, and the stagnant air was getting even hotter. She took off the jacket that was the upper half of the utility suit. She was only wearing a cute pink shirt under it.

  She sighed. If she hadn't come with Josh to find the dragon's blood, then the Pirgks wouldn't have kidnapped her and she wouldn't be in this mess. She would still have been in a pretty bad mess, because the base didn't seem like it'd be able to resist the constant attacks by the Pirgks, but still. It had to be better than this jungle.

  She glanced up at Braxan. On the other hand, if she hadn't gone with Josh, she wouldn't have met this guy.

  For the first time she was calm enough to take him in properly. His skin definitely had a scaly look, but it could be a trick of the light. His skin felt normal enough when she treated his wound, not hard like scales. It looked most of all like a seriously badass tattoo that covered parts of his torso and added to his outlaw look. It was a pretty fetching look, too. With his piercing eyes with the weird color scheme, the bulging muscles and the skin that shone with the healthiest glow she had seen, he looked like he came right out of a fairy tale from medieval times. The golden tinge to his hair shone in the sun and reminded her of a crown. Ah, of course. If he came out of a fairy tale, he would of course be the hero who defeated the enemies and became king in the end. Yes, definitely a king. With that complete confidence, that was his role. A young, totally cool king with an easy smirk, a glint in his eye and a soft heart that made it impossible for him to see a woman attacked without coming to her defense and kicking the asses of six or seven big assailants.

  An alien king, she reminded herself. There was no doubt about that. Those chest muscles were different than those of any human, like a thick band of sinewy tissue across his ordinary pectorals.

  “Why do you have those muscles across your chest?” The question came out of her mouth almost by itself, surprising them both.

  He shrugged. “I was born with them. It didn't cross my mind to ask my birth mother why.”

  “Okay. So you have a mother. Is she still on your home planet?”

  He got to his feet and gazed into the jungle. “I wonder if this brook ends up in a pond or something similar. It's getting a mite warm.”

  Oh well. He didn't like answering questions. It made sense, too. He was his own man, and probably didn't appreciate being subjected to interrogations. But it only made her more curious about him.

  He walked back to the brook and looked up and down the stream. Amelia tied the suit jacket around her waist and went after him. She didn't like being too far away from him in this crazy jungle.

  “When do you think we can go back to the crater?”

  He turned around and looked back the way they had come. She followed his gaze. The trees had cleared up enough that they could see the rim of the crater above the treetops, like a tall and wide mountain behind them.

  “To get to your base by the safest route, which is the one that makes your walk from the edge of the crater to the base as short as possible, we should walk about a sixth around it.”

  “Oh, you know where our base is?”

  He looked away. “Perhaps. But it's a long walk. And I think you need nutrition. I'll look for something you might eat.”

  He turned again, stepped over the little stream and started walking further into the jungle. She hurried to follow him. As soon as he was more than a few paces away, she felt afraid in this terrible forest.

  It annoyed her, too. She had never been a tender little blossom who needed a man to take care of her. She could take care of herself just fine. Always had. But here and now, she would rather be close to him than alone. That was just the way it was, and she would have to live with it. His broad back reassured her.

  They continued for another half hour, following the stream. Amelia checked her comms unit. The disruptive orange sun was setting, and soon only the yellow sun would be in the sky. That usually didn't interfere much with communications unless it flared. She'd try to contact the base then. For all the good it would do. They couldn't send anyone all the way out here. If the base still existed.

  There were so many 'ifs' with the whole situation that she felt her good mood evaporate again. She was still in seriously deep trouble. And the nanogel didn't seem to have done anything for Braxan's wound.

  There was another clearing among the trees, and in the middle of it the stream fell over some rocks and into a small lake surrounded by white sandy beaches and round rocks, with trees that looked like coconut palms standing here and there in the sand. It looked so much like an idyllic beach in some vacation paradise on Earth that Amelia froze in her tracks. “Yeah, that can't be good.”

  If there was one thing she'd learned about this jungle, it was that anything that looked even remotely nice was probably a trap where some terrible alien creature was just waiting to eat you in the most horrific way.

  Braxan sent her an amused glance and walked straight onto the sandy beach without hesitation, then waded into the water until it almost reached the knees of his borrowed pants. “Very pleasant,” he said and plunged a hand into the water like a
shot, pulling out a glittering being that looked so much like a fish it pretty much had to be one.

  Amelia bent down and peered suspiciously at the sand, then tiptoed slowly onto it and over to the sandy beach. “This is just too ... nice. What kind of monster is waiting to ambush us here?”

  Braxan tossed the fish back into the water and looked around. “I see no indications of any monsters at present. Possibly this is just what it looks like – a wholesome little lake with fresh water and open air.”

  Amelia had gone through a whole lot of courses before she was sent out to colonize the galaxy, including survival courses. She hadn't paid that much attention, because she had never intended getting stranded on an alien world anyway. But one thing she remembered was that if you found yourself far from where you wanted to be, on an alien world, then you should get any pleasure you could to strengthen your morale. Even a drink of water or a piece of chewing gum could strengthen your resolve and keep you going for just a couple of more hours. No one at the course had mentioned how to approach an alien oasis that looked like a piece of a tropical island, but she felt it had to work pretty well for strengthening morale. She felt better already. But the hunger was starting to gnaw at her.

  Braxan waded back ashore and dipped his hand into a pocket. “I found these along the way. They have a sweet juice in them. Try a little taste.”

  He held out his hand. In his palm lay a little heap of purple berries, plump and ripe and tempting.

  “They look great,” Amelia agreed. “But they have to be poisonous, right?”

  Braxan shrugged. “I've eaten two, and I feel no ill effects.” He popped another one into his mouth and chewed it. “Sweet.”

  Just seeing it made Amelia's mouth water. She gingerly picked up a berry and turned it over in her fingers. “You sure they aren't the eggs of some nightmarish monster or that the juice won't explode inside us after ten minutes?”