Snatched by the Alien Dragon

by Stella Cassy

  20

  Talia

  Talia

  I was awoken with a loud thump. When I blinked my eyes open, I found I was still entwined with Rethryn, while the slow beat of his Drakon music continued to play in the background.

  “I think it’s morning…”

  Rethryn slowly came around, his first sounds being not speech, but low growls of annoyance at being awakened. I sat up on the bed, leaning against the wall at the top, looking down at my Drakon lover.

  “You’re a bit of a dragon in the morning, aren’t you?”

  He sat up, a confused look on his face.

  “I am one all the time!” he said with a hint of annoyance.

  I giggled at that. He pretty much was. Though the night before…

  “I need to have a shower before I see my family.”

  “Do not be long. It will now be morning at our destination.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Since I had no decent makeup, no hair dryer, and no wardrobe of clothes and jewelry to select between I would have struggled to take my time anyway. I suppose one of the benefits of being a possession-less slave is that it doesn’t take you as long to get ready in the morning.

  It doesn’t exactly outweigh the cons of, y’know, being a frickin’ slave though.

  It was going to be odd, seeing my family again. Meeting Mr. Mulligan the night before already felt like a dream. My stomach rumbled and I wished I had that hamburger.

  When I was dressed and prepared as best I could, I met Rethryn by the gangway.

  “What’s our status?” I asked him.

  “We arrived a short time after sunrise. We are at the address. We are currently in position at the rear of the house. We are in a courtyard area.”

  “So, we’re… visible?”

  “Yes. There appears to be a welcome committee of a sort. About a dozen men with weapons are currently surrounding the craft.”

  Uh-oh. Had they really just parked at Dad’s back door? A dozen men with guns? Dad must have really upped his security detail since I was last home. We’d have a lot to talk about.

  But first on the list would be what the hell happened to my Hamptons home.

  I was shivering with nervousness as the gangway lowered. I was to go down first to let Dad’s men know not to do anything stupid, while Rethryn and his crew would follow behind.

  This was it. This was my big moment. Finally, I’d be back home. A new home for sure, but it would be home.

  After running a hand through my wet hair a final time, I began the short walk down the gangway.

  It was a bright morning on the California coast, and I was half-squinting when I saw my father for the first time in nearly two years. He was standing on a rear terrace behind the large coastal mansion that I guessed was our new home. It was a massive, stone building, with several levels of terraces coming down from the main structure in the direction of the ocean. There were armed men scattered among the terraces, their weapons trained in my direction.

  Glancing behind me as I stepped down the gangway, I could see that there was a garden area leading to stairs going down in the direction of the ocean, and no doubt a private beach.

  “Dad!” I yelled.

  I barely paid attention to the men with the guns, they were like background scenery. It was my Dad I was looking at. My father was standing directly ahead of us, a seriously worried expression on his face.

  I started to run toward him, and that’s when he finally smiled. My father was a handsome, blond-haired man in his fifties, and after not having seen him for so long it was like I could look upon him anew, as a stranger might. He had intelligent blue eyes, and a trim, healthy figure. But what stood out the most, was his demeanor — the air of quiet confidence that could silence a room in a second with just a look. Confidence that could control a multinational conglomerate without ever seeming out of his depth.

  He opened his arms to me as I approached, and snatched me up into the air, turning me around.

  “Talia!” He squeezed me tight, and then, finally released me, holding me by the shoulders. “What on Earth is that?” He said, nodding his head behind me.

  “It’s a spaceship, Dad. I was kidnapped.”

  “By aliens?” He seemed to take the presence of the craft completely in his stride. It didn’t really surprise me though. One of dad’s strengths was that he was rarely fazed by anything that happened. It was one of the reasons he did so well in business.

  I nodded. “Yep. By aliens.”

  Glancing over my shoulder I saw that Rethryn had followed me out of the ship. He now stood a few yards in front of the bottom of the gangway, the rest of his crew in a triangle formation behind him.

  “I knew it,” he said, shaking his head, “I knew it!”

  “Knew what?”

  “That it was aliens. They said I was crazy, but I wasn’t! I knew it! There were just a couple of frames on the security cameras — at the Colorado house — but I knew those critters weren’t from Earth.

  “People tried to tell me you’d been eaten by bears, dragged away by wolves, or had run away from home in an early-life crisis. But I kept looking at that video, and I knew it, I knew it in my bones.”

  “I guess it would seem pretty unbelievable to anyone else.”

  “It did. But I was right. Now.” Dad turned, and for the first time I paid attention to someone else.

  Standing next to him was a security guard who had the air of a leader about him. Clearly he was the one in charge of the other dozen men, who were all still pointing rifles in the direction of Rethryn and his crew.

  Rethryn, for his part, was being as patient as I’d ever known him to be. He’d let me have my reunion with my father without interrupting, or demanding attention. I knew he must have been itching to begin the business of negotiation.

  I almost felt guilty about having seduced him for the purpose of getting back to Earth.

  Almost.

  “Jeffrey, eliminate them.”

  “Sir!”

  “Dad? What are you doing?”

  “No one kidnaps my little girl and gets away with it. No one.”

  Open mouthed, I turned and stared at Rethryn. It was too late to do anything.

  “Don’t hurt them!” I yelled.

  “I’m sorry, I have to,” Dad said. “It’s the principal of the matter.”

  But it wasn’t him I’d been speaking to. Rethryn met my eye, and he gave me a brief nod of acknowledgement.

  When the men opened fire the air filled with the sounds of loud cracks, the shots echoing from the multi-leveled terraces and bouncing from the rear-facade of the house beyond.

  “Stop it! Stop them!” I yelled.

  Dad wrapped his arm around my shoulder and held me tight.

  Heart pounding, body shaking, face pale, I watched as the Rethryn and his crew were struck by the first hail of bullets.

  “No!” I shouted.

  But it was too late.

  When the first bullets hit, Rethryn took a step backward, and then another one. His crew turned as one, but before they could head back up the gangway it started to rise on its own. Stray bullets must have affected the mechanism somehow.

  With a howl of rage, Rethryn started to sprint.

  “Why aren’t they hitting them? Hit them!” shouted Dad. “Those guns cost enough!”

  “They are hitting them,” said the security chief beside Dad.

  While the gangway to the ship finished sealing itself, Rethryn and his crew made it behind the ship, and were heading through the garden toward the stairs beyond that led down to the sea.

  But they didn’t make for the stairs directly. Instead, they were spread out wide across the width of the garden, all of them headed for the low fence that concealed the cliff.

  “If they try and jump that, they’ll be in for a nasty surprise,” Dad said with a laugh. “It’s a hundred foot drop to the beach below.”

  I knew what was going to happen, but I didn’t warn Dad. I
was too mad. As the Drakon crew reached the edge of the garden they all leaped over the fence as one.

  I’m sure Dad and his goons thought they were hurtling to their deaths. But they weren’t.

  There was a sound like a large whoomph and then, appearing in front of the fence and the cliff, seven massive dragons, flapping their wings with mighty whooshing noises, rose through the air. They went up in a spiral, round and round, up into the air until they were distant specks.

  “What just happened?” asked Dad, his eyes still locked on the sky high above.

  “You just pissed off some dragons. And if it wasn’t for me, you’d all have been burnt to a crisp.”

  “There’s no such thing as dragons,” Dad said adamantly. Though the specks now far above us told a different story.

  “Yeah. And there’s no such thing as the aliens who kidnapped me. Or,” I said, pointing in front of us, “alien spaceships.”

  “But… dragons…”

  “They are the Drakon race. And making an enemy of them is a really, really dumb thing to do, Dad.”

  Finally, as the dragon specks disappeared from our sight, my father lowered his gaze back down to Earth.

  “Making an enemy of me is a really dumb thing to do. You know the resources I control. And it’s only grown in the time you’ve been away.” Dad turned to his lieutenant. “Jeffrey, get that ship inside one of our warehouses. I want all your men sworn to security on pain of… whatever you think will be most persuasive. Let them know they will all be handsomely rewarded for participating in today’s events as well.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Jeffrey smartly. “I’ll get a couple of flatbeds and some tarps over here within the hour. Then we’ll take the craft to—”

  Dad raised his hand. “I don’t need the details. I trust you to handle it. I need to consult with my daughter now.” He turned back to me. “Let’s go inside and I’ll show you around your new home.”

  An hour later I was sitting on an outside terrace, dressed in some shorts and a light blouse that Dad said belonged to a friend of his.

  It turned out he and Mom and split up, and she was taking a sabbatical in London. It didn’t really surprise me. They hadn’t spent much time in the same house since I was a kid. Dad was always off visiting his global offices, while Mom had to fly around the world on our family jet to balls, galas and functions for the various environmental causes she supported.

  I guessed he had a new lady friend — hence the clothes — but I didn’t want to get into those details, so I didn’t pry. We had bigger things to be thinking about.

  At least his ‘friend’ had decent taste. The jean shorts were of a suitably designer brand, and the white blouse had no label, but seemed to have been handcrafted from a soft, light fabric.

  “So tell me, what was going on with — and I can’t believe I’m about to say this word again — those dragons. Where did they come from?”

  “They’re shapeshifters. When you shot at them in their humanoid form, they got angry, and turned into dragons. They’ll probably come back to kill you.”

  I didn’t sugarcoat it. I was mad at Dad. Originally, my plan had been that when I was back on Earth, I’d jettison Rethryn like last season’s clothes. But then Dad had made the decision for me, and instead of feeling relieved, I felt insulted and betrayed on the Drakons’ behalf.

  That, and I kept thinking about last night. About how Rethryn had worked to cheer me up. Now that my plan was on the verge of complete success, I was suddenly a lot less keen on it. Kind of like how you love a ten thousand dollar handbag when you see it in the shop, but when you get it back home it loses its appeal.

  “Well if they try, they’ll end up dead. Just call me Saint George the dragon slayer.”

  I snorted. There’d be fat chance of that. I’d seen what Rethryn, alone, had done to the branch of Minapolis National Holdings that I’d been at. With his entire crew, the damage they could wreak would be devastating.

  “You didn’t call like… the FBI or anything?” I wasn’t really sure which agency you would call. CIA? The local military base? The sheriff’s department? Pest control?

  “No. I think this is something best dealt with by my organization. Just imagine the technology we could uncover in their ship. It could be more valuable than anything else on this planet.”

  “Yeah. Speaking of which, that’s kind of why they’re here.”

  Dad took a sip of an iced drink that he had brought out with him. It looked like a gin and tonic. I had a vodka and coke that I’d mixed so stiff the straw had melted when I put it in — almost, anyway.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The reason I brought them to Earth—”

  “You brought them?”

  “Well, kind of. I suggested it. Though since I’m only a slave, I don’t get to give the—”

  Dad nearly spat out his drink. He leaned forward, putting his drink back down on the glass-topped table in front of us with a bang.

  “Slave? Slave?”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s why I was kidnapped. To be a slave to some other aliens. Anyway, the thing is, they need money. And resources. That’s why they’re here.”

  Dad was shaking his head to himself, not really listening to what I was saying. I guess he’d just spent two years chasing after aliens no one else believed in, and now he had to believe in dragons as well.

  “These… dragons. They had you as a ‘slave’ as well?”

  When Dad said the word slave, he put air quotes around it. As if I didn’t really mean it. As if it wasn’t, actually, what I had been. What I still was. My hand went up to my neck, fingers feeling the collar still locked around it.

  “Well, yeah. But they weren’t as bad as the previous lot.”

  I didn’t think it was the best time to tell him that their leader was also my current lover. Or at least he had been until my Dad had shot him. That was probably going to put a damper on things. That, and if Rethryn figured out that me getting them to come here was mostly a ruse to get back to my own planet, he’d no doubt be beyond pissed off.

  “Well don’t worry, you’re safe now. This house may be big, but it’s as secure as anything on the West Coast. Even the windows are bulletproof. I’ll seal your room tonight, so no one — alien or otherwise — will be able to get in.”

  I bet the bankers thought their building was pretty impregnable too, but I didn’t say that out loud. If Dad wanted to think he had a castle, let him.

  “Great. Anyway. They came to Earth to make a deal. I told them that you were one of Earth’s foremost businessmen and you’d be interested. But after what you did to them…”

  Dad picked up his drink and had another sip.

  “I think I’m leaning more towards destroying them and simply analyzing their ship for new technology.”

  I shook my head. “I really don’t think that would be wise. If word got back to their home planet, Earth wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  “What is it that they want?”

  After taking a gulp of my own vodka and coke, I began to explain to Dad just what I knew of Rethryn’s mission, and how he might be able to help.

  By the time I called it a night, the idea of doing business with them had grown on him. I just hoped that when they finally returned from their flight, they were still amenable to talking.

  Unfortunately, the Drakon were in a much less charitable mood by the time they returned.

  That night I felt like a princess locked in a castle tower.

  I’d finally eaten the burger I’d been craving, and then had one more on top of it for good measure. With a few more generous vodka and cokes, I’d entered a dozey state, feeling like perhaps everything had all been a dream. Maybe I hadn’t spent the last two years as a space slave. Maybe I’d had a mental break instead.

  But then my hands went up to the collar around my neck. It was still there. When Dad finally commented on it, he’d been shocked to find out that it wasn’t actually the latest fashion accessory, and tha
t it was in fact the mark of my position. He promised he’d get an ironmonger or a surgeon to have a go at removing it the following day, and I idly wondered which one would actually be successful.

  The room I had was officially mine, but it didn’t have much of my stuff. It still felt like a guest room to me, and I’d need several shopping trips before it would feel even a little bit homely.

  But the room was a good size, with a standard four poster bed, and an en suite bathroom with a normal-sized marble tub big enough for four. I’d raided Dad’s ‘friend’s’ wardrobe — luckily, she was in Manhattan for a shopping trip so she wasn’t there to complain — for a few more outfits. At least had something to wear for the next day.

  After saying good night, Dad had locked my bedroom door. For my own safety, he said. The windows were completely sealed shut with this supposedly bullet-proof glass. The entire house had climate control, and thus didn’t need anything as old-fashioned as windows that opened and closed.

  In front of the window was a bench-seat. Sitting on it, I stared out in the direction of the ocean. There was a bright moon, and it lit the sea brightly enough that I could distinguish where the night sky ended, and the ocean began. Above it, only a few stars were visible, twinkling in the sky. Idly I wondered whether I had visited any of them, and I found my hands sliding up to my neck and fingering my collar again. My only proof that it hadn’t all been a dream.

  But as I stared out toward the quiet ocean another piece of proof of my time in space showed itself. A silhouette slowly made its way across the full moon, and it was the shadow of a dragon. I knew exactly where it was going.

  I stood up and walked back across the room to the bed. I had suspected that Rethryn would return before too long. But I didn’t know whether he would return to talk business, or whether he would come back for me.

  It was with nervous excitement that I stood there, wondering what was going to happen. I might need another vodka before the night was over.

  When he arrived, it was with uncharacteristic silence. The view out of my window was blocked by a gigantic black shadow which stopped all light from entering, and then, he shifted, landing in his humanoid form on the ledge outside.