by Sky Winters
The space ship bobbed and tilted with Zephyr’s immense weight. The ship clearly cared about the size of this dragon.
“Captain, we cannot hold up like this,” one of the Yaargothen’s stated somewhat timidly. “Permission to land on the nearest planet?”
“Permission denied,” Rawrgoth snarled, not even bothering to look back at his underling. “I will take care of this.”
Celeste held onto the bars of her cell as the ship rocked and bucked forward, clearly starting to go down as the Yaargothen grew to match the size of Zephyr. She thought for sure that they were going to crash now, and all of them were going to die. All this because she would not mate with a new alien. She felt a strange sort of petty now. But oh, it felt good to know that Zephyr cared for her this much. He was willing to risk everything to save her and her honor. His honor as well, to be sure. No entitled alien was going to come around and steal his female.
There was much snarling and growling as the two beasts stared each other down. Neither seemed to want to make the first move, but even as they did not move the ship was sinking fast into the abyss of space. All kinds of sirens and flashing warning lights were going off but the monsters did not pay attention to such trivial matters. Zephyr lunged forward, moving only his head and elongated neck as he snapped at the now giant-sized Yaargothen. Rawrgoth managed somehow to dodge that and scratched Zephyr’s neck with his black, sharpened claws.
“Zephyr,” Celeste called to him pleadingly. “Zephyr, I love you! But you’re going to get us all killed!”
He snapped again, this time catching Rawrgoth’s head in his jaws. He chomped down as hard as he could, but the other beast used his long arms and claws to wrench himself free. Celeste could see a lot of blood now, coming from Rawrgoth’s head and the wound on Zephyr’s neck. There was blood in the dragon’s teeth as well. She could feel herself becoming a bit woozy.
“Captain!” another member of the Yaargothen crew shouted. “We are going down! Landing on the nearest planet is our only option!”
The members of the crew were in full-on panic mode. They rushed through the hall, doing their best to squeeze past the two alien monsters as they bit and scratched at each other. They were fighting as if in slow-mo, confined to the small space of the ship.
Suddenly, one of the crew members came to Celeste’s cell and unlocked her cage. The Yaargothen looked her in the eye. “You’re on your own. Good luck.” He said it in a way that did not sound hopeful.
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 was 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.”
MPREG Romance
Alpha Bear
Chapter 1
I ducked out of the way of the fist hurdling toward my face. I could feel the disturbance of the air on my cheek from Walker’s power.
“Fuck off, man!” I growled.
“You fuck off, Decker!”
What a clever retort.
“You don’t want to make me angry, Walker,” I said as evenly as possible. But it was too late. I was already balling my fists, and powerful surges of adrenaline were coursing through my body. If I wasn’t careful, I would shift soon. Then he would be really sorry for messing with the man destined to be alpha.
Walker’s response was to throw another badly-aimed blow toward me. Again, he missed. I was getting really tired of him trying to start some kind of pissing contest with me. All Walker had ever wanted was to be the most powerful bear shifter in New Orleans, and had coveted the alpha position since we were kids. Now that we were adults and it was clear that he was bottom of the barrel in the hierarchy, he was always trying to climb the ladder by picking fights with me. Unfortunately for both of us.
“I’m serious, Walker. Leave.”
I couldn’t believe I was able to muster so much patience for this man. But when he tried to strike me in the face again, that was the last straw.
“God damn it,” I growled. I unleashed a violent roar that made Walker’s shit-brown eyes widen in terror. He was about to see what he got for fucking with someone more powerful than he was.
“Hey, guys, what’s going on?”
I was surprised out of my fury by Jake’s silky sweet voice. I hesitated before striking Walker and looked over my shoulder at the man I’d been in love with since junior high. Jake was grinning knowingly at me. He had seen this fight before, many times, and it never ended any differently.
“Same old,” I grumbled, my racing heart beginning to feel the seductive effects of Jake’s comforting presence. I was somehow sedated, and couldn’t keep my eyes off of Jake as he made his way toward us.
“You both know this isn’t worth it,” Jake said, walking between me and Walker. I cringed when Jake’s muscular arm draped over Walker’s shoulder. They looked briefly at each other and I couldn’t help but feel a jealous bile rise in my throat. “Why don’t you guys find something better to do? Like buying me a beer in the best pub in all of goddamn New Orleans?”
I sighed. Walker was lucky Jake was there. I wouldn’t have been able to keep from beating his ass for anyone else.
“Fine,” Walker grumbled. He knew he would have ended up in the hospital without Jake’s intervention, but was still infuriatingly cocky about it.
I followed a few steps behind Walker as Jake led the way to the bar that our bear pack owned and operated, right in the hustle and bustle of downtown New Orleans. Soon, Jake fell behind and walked beside me, his grey eyes sparkling.
“You almost lost it back there, Deck,” he said. “You know you have to be careful. What if a human sees you two fight and it gets out of hand? You could shift right in front of them and really cause problems.”
“Well I didn’t,” I grumbled.
“Thanks to me!” Jake exclaimed. “You know how sad this place would be if you got found out?”
“That’s probably what Walker is counting on,” I said, glancing at Jake. His face seemed dark for a moment, and I felt an odd pang of concern. Jake was a carefree type of guy. If he ever worried, it was usually cause for alarm. I liked to think I knew him better than the back of my hand, and felt a strong urge to ask him what was on his mind.
“Well, you just be careful,” Jake said, before I had a chance.
His face brightened up with his characteristic grin. I forgot my worry, and Jake glanced around to make sure nobody was watching before
he squeezed my hand. I felt a surge of warmth course through me. He was always looking out for me, even when it meant he could get in trouble for it.
“Aha!” Jake exclaimed. “Beer time!”
We had arrived at the pub, and Walker pushed violently through the door. I cringed, but Jake smiled warmly at me.
“Don’t let him get to you,” Jake said, his grey eyes boring reassuringly into mine. “We all know who the real alpha is around here.”
“Not yet,” I sighed, stealthily kissing Jake on the cheek. “But that will change soon enough.”
Jake’s face grew dark again, and I frowned. Something really was on his mind.
“That’s right,” Jake said, with no trace of the darkness on his face coming through in his voice. “Everything changes eventually.”
I had no idea how right he was.
Chapter 2
“I’m going out, babe,” Jake called.
I opened my eyes and groaned when the light pierced into them. I was still tangled in the bedsheets, left in the same exhausted position I’d been in when Jake had finished with my body. We’d been out drinking with Walker until daylight. When we got back to our apartment, Jake had been unusually aggressive with me. I figured it was just from the excitement of the fight he had prevented.
“Okay,” I mumbled, glancing at the clock. Jesus. We’d only been sleeping for two hours. What could he possibly be doing?
Whatever it was, I didn’t care so long as I got to go back to sleep.
I heard the front door slam shut, and the jingle of his keys as he locked up behind himself. I curled up in the spot where Jake’s body had been, feeling comfortable beyond words as I snuggled into the feathery pillow that was ripe with his scent. I fell into a sleep-like state as my mind replayed the first time we’d kissed.
“You looked good out there,” I’d said, trying not to show on my face just how unbelievable I found Jake’s perfect form as he sprinted around the track. Black bears were fast – really fast – and in order to fit in to human society, we had to find ways to channel our true selves and use it to fit in with the rest of the crowd. It was a difficult balance, but it was one that Jake had found easily by joining the track team in high school.
