“You betrayed us all for that. You should be allowed to keep it, even in death.” Puva turned her back and walked away.
I walked over to the young girl and offered my hand. Mora pulled her from behind her back and shoved her in my direction.
“Find a place for her, please, Sava!”
Hearing those words from her lips made the bile rise in my throat. For a moment I hesitated. Could I do it? Could I find a place in the world for the child of my enemy? I looked at the small Troitek child and felt the anger drain out of my body. Yes. I could find a place in the world for her.
I looked at Mora and nodded. She smiled slightly and exhaled, the fear and anxiety draining from her face. For a moment, she looked just the way Nedan did at the last moment. She was ready to die, having put in order everything that mattered most to her. Perversely, she had done all she could do to bring about the world she wanted to leave for her children. Her death wasn’t a punishment, but a price she was willing to pay.
And just like that, I forgave her.
Chapter Eleven
I threaded my fingers through Rakesh’s fire red mane. I had no intention of getting up from the bed. I had no desire to leave. I’d spent the whole night lying naked, skin to skin, entwined with his body. We knew that this was the end, but neither of us said anything.
The sight of the filtered white light pushing its way into the darkness was like a red-hot iron through my heart. Soon I would board a ship bound for my home planet. I would bring with me the might and resources of a vast empire. I would bring with me hope for the human race. But I would leave behind my very soul.
Many of the Et’em had volunteered to accompany me to Earth. In a few risings, nearly a third of the residents of Thano would board ships and leave for Earth.
“You should prepare,” he said softly.
I shook my head.
“You must prepare, Little Flame. Our people need you to be a good leader.”
“I don’t want to lead.”
“It is the price we pay for our fate,” he said, pressing his lips to my head.
“I don’t want my fate. I only want you. Can’t you come with me?”
“Our people need me here.” He turned on his side and pulled me into the curve of his body.
“I need you too.”
“Diem, if there is any way for me to return to you, I will do it. I traveled across the cosmos to find you once. I will do it again, even if it takes a lifetime. But I cannot be with you on this trip.”
He looked me in the eyes, his red eyes glowing in the dark. My skin began to glow softly.
“I’ll be waiting,” I said.
“There will be no other mate for me. No matter long it takes, I will not take another mate, and I will not sire any offspring. You have my word.”
I turned in his arms and grasped his wide face with both of my hands.
“Don’t die.”
“Without you, I am already dead, Diem. They cannot kill what has already died.”
I buried my face in his neck and breathed in his scent. If these would be the last moments for us, I didn’t want to forget a thing. I ran my hands over his body, letting the soft fuzz on his skin tickle my body. I traced the ridges of the muscles along his arms and back with my fingers. I wrapped my legs around his hips and coaxed his cock into my body. In slow, rhythmic strokes, he infused my body with his essence.
Our coming together was joyful, and our climax was achingly beautiful. Even as the day broke and life on Thano began in earnest, we refused to separate. We ate and washed together, touching at every moment, refusing to talk about what we knew was imminent.
When the moment came for us to separate, I snuck away. I was too afraid to face him and say goodbye. I sat on the bridge as the ship launched. I watched as we began to gain altitude, rising through the layers of clouds that covered the planet. My body began to hum, and I knew that Rakesh was near. Through the bay windows, I saw the shadow of a dragon through the clouds, and the stream of fire that it spat out impotently, as the ship left the atmosphere.
*****
Seven Years Later—Earth
“Mai, Mai, a ship!”
The squeak of little Micah as he burst into my bedroom shattered my peace. He jumped onto the bed and shook me awake.
“Come and see. There’s a ship,” he said. I barely opened my eyes before he leaped from the bed and dashed into the hallway. I slipped my feet into my slippers and followed his lead.
He was heavier and taller than most of the other boys his age. His peach-colored hair and long tail flapped in the air as he took the stairs two at a time.
“What ship?” I yawned, still not fully awake. “We aren’t due for an inspection for another two years.”
“I know, but there’s a ship. It even has an Et’em sigil on it,” he said.
The world stopped for a moment. Even Micah stood suspended in air as my mind raced through the possibilities. The last few years hadn’t been smooth. Getting the planetary council together had taken an act of god. Teaching humans and the Et’em to live together was still a work in progress. Rumors of civil war on Troiken and revolts on several planets had filtered their way to Earth. Just last week I’d been warned about a band of Council Loyalists wandering the empire, trying to recruit people to fight against it.
Could it be?
I began to glow. If it was a fight they wanted, I was going to give them one hell of a rumble.
“You stay here,” I told him. “Don’t come out unless I call for you.”
He nodded.
I retrieved a plasma rifle and my blades from the closet and stepped outside.
It wasn't a ship. It was a small shuttle, which meant that the ship was still in orbit. I approached slowly, letting my senses reach out and take in information around me. I could smell the artificial ozone residue on the shuttle’s hull. Though the landing had scared away all the animals, there was no sense of panic or smell of death in the air.
The door to the shuttle opened, and out stepped a large Troitek male. The fog and the dark obscured his face from me, but I could see him well enough to get one good shot off if necessary.
“Who goes there!” I shouted in Troitek.
“Has it really been so long, Little Flame?”
The English was stunted, but the sound of his voice paralyzed me. I couldn’t force my feet to move forward. Even my hands gave way, dropping the rifle on the ground.
“Rakesh.” I whispered the name like a prayer, afraid that maybe this was just another in a long list of dreams that I’d had over the past seven years.
“I told you I would come for you,” he said, stepping out of the fog.
I threw myself at him, afraid that he would disappear from my sight. I held him tightly and wept.
“You’re leaking, Little Flame,” he said softly.
“I’m crying, my love.”
I looked up into his eyes. Despite the years that had passed, it seemed as if he hadn’t aged.
“Mai?” Micah’s voice pierced the darkness.
Rakesh looked down at me with surprise.
“This child?”
“He is Mora’s child. I have raised him and his sister as my own,” I said.
“Hello, child. I am Rakesh.” He bent down and caught the child up in his arms.
Micah’s eyes grew large as the name registered in his brain.
“The Red Dragon!”
Rakesh smiled patiently. He must have gotten used to that happening over the years.
“Micah, why don’t you go to Auntie Puva’s home tonight? Rakesh and I have a lot to talk about,” I said. He nodded and wriggled out of Rakesh’s grip and then took off across the yard.
“Is it safe?”
“Here? Yes. He is safe here.”
He ran his hands along my body and searched my face for something.
“You haven’t aged.”
“Neither have you,” I said.
“Aging isn’t something we do very well.
”
“Then we are just going to have to stay stuck together forever.”
“Forever?” He twisted his face up at the sound of that.
“Or however long stars last.”
Abducted By The Dragons: The Complete SeriesPreview
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They call him the Master.
Garen Karn, the leader of the dragons.
They tell me I am to mate with him.
I have no choice.
Other dragons want to kill me.
Either I mate with him, or I die.
Not much choice, is it?
***
Abducted by dragon shifters on the streets of downtown Chicago. This was something I’d always feared, but I never thought it would happen to me.
I’m the Chosen One. The prophecy says the birthmark on my skin proves it.
I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve been taken to the home of this man I don’t know.
They call him the Master.
Garen Karn, the leader of the dragons.
They tell me I am to mate with him. I have no choice. And to top it all off, there's other dragons who want to kill me. Either I mate with him, or I die.
Not much choice, is it?
And there's another crazy twist. According to them, if we mate can we save the world. Apparently, I'm the dragon's only hope for survival. Shame not all of them see it that way, though...
Chapter 1: Birthmark
I left school that hot afternoon in June, not knowing at all that my life would never be the same again. I was eighteen, and like most eighteen-year-olds, I thought I had my shit together. I was young and vivacious with the world at my feet. I was about to graduate and go onto college. I was excited about going to Columbia in the fall, where a lot of my friends would be joining me. I’d been accepted into Columbia’s journalism program, so I had every reason to walk with pep in my step.
The jean shorts and white t-shirt that I was wearing were a godsend against the oppressive heat. My long, thick black hair on the other hand… I swept it to my back in an effort to keep it off my neck. Why didn’t I bring a hair tie today? I knew what the weather was going to be like. Duh, Tatyana!
I could be scatterbrained sometimes, especially in the morning when I was half asleep and tasked with picking my outfit for the day. I was so glad that the school day was over and I could go home and take a much-needed shower after sweating so much. Morning showers just didn’t make sense in the summer.
As I turned a corner, I ran across a face that was decidedly unfriendly. A guy was standing in front of me, a few feet away, smoking a cigarette and staring at me. Really, he wasn’t just some guy. His face definitely had dragon shifter written all over it. My part of Chicago was like a haven for the beasts – part human, part dragon, typically all malice. They’d been around for longer than I’d been alive, so running into them occasionally was just a part of life for me. I always avoided them as if they were muggers, which to be fair, they might have been. Dragon shifters didn’t have the best reputation.
This one in particular, the one staring at me, stared with such shock and abhorrence, that I feared he'd start shooting flames at me any moment. He had sandy hair and wore a brown leather jacket despite the heat. Not the best at trying to blend in, this guy. I guess he was going for a James Dean look, which would’ve worked, had James Dean had glowing red-brown eyes.
I noticed that he was focused upon my exposed forearm, at my birthmark. It practically stung just from having his eyes on it. My birthmark got a lot of attention, for reasons I didn’t understand. It was a bluish-purplish color and looked more or less like a bruise. A permanent one. Shaped like a three-pronged flame that pointed towards my elbow, I’d pretended it was a tattoo when I was little. A bad-ass tattoo that proved I could do whatever I wanted because I had ‘The Devil’s Pitchfork’ on my arm. Now that I was older and had gotten so much unwanted attention because of it, I’d usually taken to wearing long-sleeved shirts or jackets to hide it from view.
I’d never quite gotten attention like I was getting now.
Mr. Dean the dragon shifter flicked his cigarette out of his hand, not even bothering to stamp it out with his foot, and he started to come towards me.
Nope. Not today, sir. I backed away from him and went down an alley in the opposite direction. I quickened my pace, widening the distance between us. Whatever he wanted wasn’t good. In fact, he probably wanted to fry me up and eat me.
One thing about dragon shifters in downtown Chicago was that whenever you saw one, you were sure to find others soon. They were pack animals. People had taken to referring to them as gangs, because that was basically how they acted. They were tough, violent murderers who usually got away with whatever they wanted because no human could fight a giant, flame-blowing dragon. They didn’t exactly fit into jail cells.
Sure enough, as I continued running along the alley, I came upon two more shifters. They looked at me with bulging, glowing eyes of gold and green. As the other shifter had done, they came towards me, but this time, they didn’t take their time – they started chasing me down the alleys!
I ran for my life, not knowing what they wanted and not wanting to find out. It definitely couldn’t be something good. Finally, I got to West Harrison. I knew that there was a bus stop around there. If I could just jump aboard a bus, the shifters would get off my tail. Sure enough, a bus appeared. I wasn’t quite at the stop, but I hauled ass to catch up with it, waving my arms frantically in order to get the driver’s attention.
He stopped with a loud exhale from his gas pipe and opened the door, glaring at me almost as angry as the dragons had. “If you ain’t at the stop, I ain’t stopping for you next time,” he grumbled as I climbed on and took a seat.
“Thank you,” I said to him meekly and tired from my running. I was a thin girl, but that didn’t mean I was in marathon shape.
My thoughts, as usual, weren’t as polite. Gogogogogooooo!
As the bus slowly meandered down the streets, my stomach dropped. The bus had succeeded in getting me away from those guys, but it was taking me in the wrong direction from my home. I was old enough that my parents wouldn’t be watching the clock and biting their nails worrying about where I was, but I had to get home in order to shower and get my homework done for the next day. Those shifters had royally fucked up the rest of my evening.
I sighed and leaned back in my chair, not saying anything as I periodically craned my neck to watch the shifters get smaller and smaller in the back window of the bus.
After at least twenty minutes of riding the wrong bus, I pulled the cord so the driver would let me off. There was a stop across the street that would take me where I needed to go. Mi casa. The driver must still have been fairly pissed at me, because he took off like a shot as soon as I stepped off, not even acknowledging my additional muttered ‘thanks.’ I took my phone out of the pocket of my shorts and checked the time.
Shit, it was practically five-thirty already. I guessed that all those detours had really cost me. Trying to mentally start the night’s essay, I waited for the walk sign so I could cross and get to the correct bus stop. I heard some rustling and some footfalls behind me and glanced around.
“You've got to be kidding me,” I said to the gang of five dragon shifters that appeared as if by magic. It wasn’t even different guys; it was all of the ones I’d run into back by my school. “What, did you fly here?”
I didn’t bother with the bus stop now, but I ran down the street in an effort to try and evade them. It didn’t work out so well, though, as I ran smack into the chest of one of the glowing-eyed creeps.
“No! Goddammit! Let me go!” I shouted, hoping that I sounded irate, but knowing that I mostly sounded scared and defeated.
“Calm down,” the shifter said in a deep voice. “Stop fl
ailing. This will be much easier for you if you just relax.”
I looked up at his face, and realized that it was the James Dean guy. He held his arm around me, keeping one of his hands tight on my wrist so I wouldn’t be able to get away from him without hurting myself quite a bit in the process. He smelled like cigarettes and heavy cologne.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked him, trying my best to calm down enough so he might let down his guard and I could make a break for it.
“Our leader, Garen, will be interested in meeting you,” the shifter replied as he walked along the street with me. I felt like I could’ve been in the middle of being murdered in broad daylight and none of the people around would’ve cared. Folks saw us as we walked past, but they either didn’t give a damn, or they were too afraid for their own skins to do anything to help me.
Shifter boy shoved me along, into an alley. My feet stumbled over the blanket of old, partially wet newspapers that lined the pavement. Gross, I thought. Is this Garen homeless, living in a dumpster or something? I didn’t know if that made this predicament worse for me or not, really. If I was going to be fed to a dragon, it didn’t exactly matter where the dragon lived, did it?
I didn’t have too long to pity myself and think Why me? because soon I was brought into a tall, nondescript apartment building. The dragon shifter and I breezed right past the concierge and the lobby, and went right to the elevator. He forced me in and let the doors close, then punched in a floor number and stood there, still holding onto me. The elevator didn’t play any music, which made this whole experience even more awkward and nerve-wracking. After staring at me so much out on the street, this guy didn’t seem to be able to make eye contact with me anymore. I was clearly of deep interest to him, but maybe it wasn’t a personal interest that he had in me.
Maybe I was simply valuable to dragons. To this Garen person.
It seemed that I didn’t have long before I would find out for myself.
“What’s your name anyway?” I asked this leather-clad thug in an effort to make some conversation since my mind was racing with unanswered questions. “And who’s Garen?”
A Pet For The Commander: The Complete Series Page 28
