by Maia Starr
I stopped smiling. I had to tell him the truth. I could not hurt him with a lie; I never wanted to hurt him again. “I don’t know, Kasian. I wish I could tell you, but I honestly don’t know. I won’t know until after the birth,” I said.
He ran his fingers through his long hair. I knew that move; he was angry. “What are you doing here? Do you know what’s going on here? Please tell me you are not part of this?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about. I only just arrived. Check my flight information. Check the boat I took here, and the driver. I was barely here when the SWAT team burst in.”
He sighed and said, “The SWAT team is worth the Earth Council. We discovered that some of my team is working with my brother. They are traitors. We had no way of knowing who, so the king ordered this raid. Then to find you here among them at this time.”
I gasped. This was not good. He had already thought I was working for his brother before and now for me to show up at this time. I felt sick to my stomach. I kept being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Oh, Kasian, you must believe me. I had no idea. I only came here to find you. I had to tell you about the baby. I didn’t know what else to do. You must believe me, please,” I begged.
“Commander, your brother has been captured!” a voice yelled through the door with a loud knock.
No, I thought. I was just in the process of reuniting with Kasian and now they were going to take him away. Kasian opened the door and said, “Where?”
“On the river! On a river barge heading toward the city.”
Kasian grabbed my arm and led me outside the cabin. “This is Kelly Perkins. Take her with you to the Earth Council for safety. She is with child. She is not part of this raid; she is my special guest, is that understood?”
“Yes, Commander,” the swat team man said.
“But, Kasian, wait…” I said. But it was no use. He only looked at me as he moved away and shifted. Then he followed a group of Drackon toward the river. I sighed. But I was glad that he was alive. He was still out of reach, but he was alive and that was all that I could really ask for today. There was hope.
I waited at the Earth Council for two days, growing more and more anxious. The mission was top secret and was not able to get any information out of anyone. I was given a comfortable room in the living quarters of the council with an amazing city view. Each day I looked over the courtyard wondering if I could see Kasian walk in, but I never did.
Being pregnant made me increasingly sleepy and it was during one of the many naps that I had grown used to that I had a wonderful dream about Kasian. It was back in the days before his brother made himself known to us. I was in his garden, picking vegetables for breakfast. I was going to make veggie omelets.
“Does this make you happy?” Kasian asked as I pulled potatoes from the ground.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“This type of life. Does it make you happy? Picking your own foods to cook, and living out in the wilderness? You know, my home on Mooreah is a lot like this. It is outside of the city, in the wilderness. You would like it there.”
“Mooreah. I never thought about going to Mooreah; in fact, that is why I picked you, because you were on Earth. But yes, this does make me happy. This simple life, and perhaps a few babies too.”
He laughed and kissed my lips. His kiss was so real in the dream. I thought that I could feel his lips on mine. They grazed softly over mine back and forth. I could smell his delicious, manly scent and I let out a soft moan in my sleep.
“I’ve missed that sound,” he said. But his voice was very loud and clear. I opened my eyes and couldn’t tell if I was still dreaming. Kasian was lingering above me. His hand moved my hair off my forehead.
“Kasian?”
“Yes, I’m here. I’ve returned.”
I sat up in bed and looked around. It wasn’t a dream. I threw my arms around him. “I was so worried I was never going to see you again.”
“No need to worry. I am a very strong warrior.”
“I am so happy that you are here. I know that you can never forgive me, but please do not shut me out, not now,” I said to him.
“I have come to terms with what happened. Time has helped to heal that rage. My brother admitted to me that he went after you on purpose. He held a grudge against me for stealing a female Drackon he loved when we were fifteen.”
“He did?” I said, wide eyed and filled with relief.
“Yes, he did, and he has been captured. He is on his way to a prison on Sala. He can never bother us again.”
I sighed and threw my arms around him. He rubbed my back up and down and said, “I’m so sorry for everything I put you through. It was wrong of me.”
“No, I apologize for being so reckless while I was here in the city before meeting you. I really thought I was just having my own, private bachelorette party and now I ruined everything.”
“No, you did not. We have this child,” he said putting his hand on my belly.
“But Kasian, I do not know,” I said feeling sad.
“I know, but it does not matter. I will raise it as my own. My brother is not a good Drackon warrior; he could never be a good father. If this offspring is his, we will still raise it together as a family.”
“A family? You mean…”
“Yes, if you will have me. I still want you to be my wife,” he said seriously.
“Yes! Yes, Kasian, I want you. I will be your wife,” I said.
“Good, get dressed. We will go now. There is a councilmember that can marry us today. He is waiting on the fifth floor for us,” he said smiling.
“What? Now? Are you joking or are you being serious?” I asked.
“Oh, I am not joking. I will not be letting anything get in the way of our marriage ever again, and the sooner we do it, the sooner we will be married before you clumsily fall into some trouble,” he said playfully.
“Kasian!” I said. Then I kissed him hard and fast. Before I knew it, we were ravaging each other. So much longing and desire had been held back for so long. I pulled away from him and said, “Do you think that the councilmember can wait another hour or two?” I said breathlessly.
“He is going to have to,” he said as he kissed me and pushed me back on the bed. Then he made love to me. This time, with all the animosity between us gone. It was beautiful and sensual as he took his time savoring every inch of me, and took my time enjoying his every touch. Tears rolled down my face as I had finally had what I wanted since I first saw his photo: his love.
After two hours of making love, we forced ourselves out of bed, but only for an hour. We went down to the fifth floor and were quickly married in a brief and simple ceremony. It was perfect. Then it was only an elevator ride back to the room, which we would make our honeymoon suite for a week. We never left the bed.
When the time came, our hybrid Drackonian son was born. He was perfect and the Drackon test proved that he was Kasian’s child. His blond locks and blue eyes left no doubt in my mind anyway. We named him Kild. It was a mixture of the wild from the forest that we loved, and the initial of our names: Kasian and Kelly. And although we started our family on Earth, we eventually moved to Kasian’s home on Mooreah. If I had known that Mooreah was something out of a medieval fairy tale, I would have wanted to move there sooner. It was stunning, and it was perfect for our perfect family.
The End(flip next page for me bonus books!)
Caridan: Dragons Of Udora
(Aliens Of Udora)
By Maia Starr
Caridan
(Dragons Of Udora)
By Maia Starr
Chapter One
Ariella
“When are they coming?”
My sister’s impatient words teetered between excitement and love-struck girl. Even though she was five years my senior, my 27-year-old sister still had the ability to believe in fairytales and happy endings.
We’d been waiting all morning watching out the spacious wind
ow of a local diner at the Command Center Riddell for the arrival of the creatures that would come to claim us.
The Weredragons were coming.
Every year, females were allowed to sign up as a potential mate for the alien Weredragon species to choose from. There were thirty girls to their twelve dragons. The men would select their mates, and those who weren’t chosen by a Weredragon would come aboard their ship. For this reason, the government only allowed educated, professional women to sign up. Their specialties included scientists, doctors, foreign ministers, botanists, and biologists, like myself.
This way the Weredragons could bring the women they had rejected as mates back with them to help cultivate their planet and study their environment. This was the trade off from our government to theirs.
We’d been at the command center for two days now, knowing that the Weredragons would arrive soon. It was out by a station in a remote area of Nevada.
I was one of thirty women who had come to the Riddell hoping for a chance to travel to another planet with a Weredragon.
My sister, Meghan, and I were complete opposites, so I was surprised when we’d both signed up to become a hopeful. Some girls, of course, signed up looking for some kind of fantastical love story. Some were researchers doing their part for intergalactic breeding. There were many breeding programs I’d heard about before, and all had success in populating new or underdeveloped planets, such as the planet Udora, which Weredragons called home.
My sister was the former, and I was the latter.
She was looking for love. I was looking for opportunity.
“They’ll be here,” I cooed gently, unsure if I was actually ready to come face to face with a half man, half dragon.
For a restaurant on government property, the establishment we sat in looked older than the crumbling monuments outside that seemed to guard the Space Port. The brick façade that covered the building was painted dust-yellow and chipping, and the countertops were painted plywood. The counters were waterlogged, and in some spots, rotting. The food was what was expected of any dive restaurant: bland.
The overwhelming draw point was its $1.99 breakfast special with large portions, cheap prices, and its close proximity to the space port that we had made our new temporary home.
The fries were sometimes freezer burnt, and the only safe thing to eat was breakfast. I’d learned this over the course of several weeks that we’d spent training with the government for our roles in the choosing ceremony.
My sister ordered two cream-filled chocolate donuts and a vegetable soup, her standby. She ordered it for lunch almost every day and worried that, should she be chosen as a Weredragon’s mate, she wouldn’t be able to find her favorite meal any longer on planet Udora.
I ordered plain toast and a chocolate milk, which I had long ago finished. My sister always took longer to eat than me because she would talk so much. Aside from a couple blips and rolls of the eye, I quite enjoyed our afternoon banter. It was the most time I got to spend with my sister during the day.
After meals, we’d be taken to various sectors of the Space Port to hone our personal skills. For me, this meant working as a nurse, or sometimes studying biology samples for the government team. I’d grown fascinated with the samples they provided from Udora and could only imagine what the environment was going to be like when I got there. I’d started dreaming about it every night for the last week.
I held my chin in my hand and watched Meghan eat her soup. She dipped her spoon into the soup, making a foul expression, as though she had just picked a cockroach out of it; her mouth scowling with every bite.
“Gross?” I asked with a genuine laugh as she struggled to slurp down her meal.
"Doesn't matter anyway," she spoke matter-of-factly as she swished her overly large spoon in the children-sized bowl. The soup bubbled from the heat and shot a droplet of soup onto her spoon. "I don't come here for the food."
Just then the waitress came up to the table and set down our meals. The plates banged against the table as though the waitress, whose name tag read 'Breanna,' had been somehow provoked.
She was large, about thrice the size of myself in width, and her gut fell into three rolls, the largest of which bumped into the table as she passed. I noticed small traces of stubble on her chin as she took out a stylus pen and scribbled the total cost of the meal onto a throwaway tablet before dropping it on the table with a loud thud. Her hair was fried blonde, and she wore way too much makeup to be legal. Upon opening her mouth, a spit bubble formed against her lips and quickly broke.
"Have a skippy day," the waitress suggested to us. Her voice was flat, as though she was addressing the weather and sounded like she had one too many cigarettes for a lifetime.
I could hear Meghan holding back laughter as I grabbed the tablet and squawked out a, “Thank you.” As soon as the waitress departed from us, Meghan burst into childlike giggles.
"Must be the charming hospitality you love, Meg.”
"Ariella!" my sister scolded and turned around to see if the pleasant waitress was still in earshot. Upon finding that she wasn't, she chuckled again. "I come here to spend quality time with your stupid face."
“That’s charming,” I snorted.
I smiled and stared down into my coffee. I hadn’t been hungry but came to spend some time with Meghan. I worried about what would happen to our relationship when we arrived on Udora. In truth, no matter how much we’d been prepped about expectations for our new lives, I had no idea if they would involve each other, even if we did live in the same facility.
This was one of those days where the sun was beating a warm heat, and barely any snow could be seen, save for a few small patches lurking around the edges of the station. The ground was no longer wet, and the sun was just warm enough to throw on a light jacket or a sweater and still feel completely comfortable.
The air smelled of nothing, a strong indication that spring would arrive any day now. I wondered if I would miss it or if we would be able to stay for my favorite season before the Weredragons arrived.
I played with my napkin, ripping off all the corners and continuing to rip down from there. Meghan hardly noticed and continued chatting away about what she hoped for in a mate and how excited she was to open her heart up again.
I looked up to respond, and before I could quip out some sarcastic reply, Meghan slammed her hands on top of mind before pointing vigorously out the window.
“They’re here,” she said simply. As quickly as her words sounded out, we saw what looked like dozens of breaths of fire plummet to the earth in the distance. I could feel the vibrations beneath me like the whole Earth shook under the weight of the foreign creatures that had just invaded our airspace.
I stood up from the table, knowing that our director would want us in the station as quickly as possible.
Meghan grabbed her jacket in a rush with a smile fixed on her face from ear to ear. I hadn’t seen her this happen in quite some time. She twiddled her finger against her pockets as I reached for the bill and left exact change on the tablet.
“And no tip; I wonder why?” I said sarcastically as I dropped the change loudly, alerting several patrons to look over at us.
“Come on, come on!” Meghan urged as she rushed me toward the door.
Fair enough, I thought. I didn’t want to be there to see Breanna’s reaction to her less-than-appreciative payment.
As we reached the door, it seemed our director had already caught up to us.
“Girls,” came the smooth and sultry voice of the program coordinator, Zaphira Reneau. She spoke to us with confidence and an upturned chin as she ushered us out the door. “It’s time.”
“But they only just landed,” I said nervously and turned back toward the window.
“They’re fast,” Zaphira laughed. “Faster than you think. Now come along.”
Zaphira was like a director or a producer of sorts. She’d guided us through months of training and informational seminars. She taught us h
ow to act, how to address our new mates, and what to expect from our new planet once the Weredragons took us back to Udora. Then she was ushering my sister and me into a shuttle packed full of women.
We reach the entrance to the landing pad, and the woman showed us out of the cramped shuttle to begin our walk down the metal corridors of the space port.
As far as we had been briefed, and what I’d gathered through word-of-mouth, from here we would be brought to a choosing ceremony in which the Weredragons would meet us and get a sense of who they would like to keep as their mates.
Zaphira told us there were no blind dates, no questions asked, and absolutely no touching. The Weredragons would simply look us over and decide on instinct who they would like to mate with. She took me aside after our first week in training and told me she had high hopes for my chances to become a mate. I smiled politely and thanked her, but inside I wasn’t too thrilled. In fact, I planned on being as charmless as possible to avoid being chosen. I would rather study biology in peace than be the mate to someone who would kill for sport.
That said, we’d been told repeatedly how attractive these men would be. Even Zaphira, who had been all business with the girls, seemed to get a sparkle in her eye whenever she spoke about the Weredragon men.
