by Celeste Raye
“Sure thing,” the black-scaled dragon said and shuffled his wings together before taking a well-deserved deep breath and heading into my father’s room.
“How are you, mother?” I asked, making small talk with her as I cupped my hands around her delicate fingers and kissed them.
She was a regal-looking woman, my mother. I’d always thought so. Many of the other female shifters grew jealous of her. Not only to be the D’sharr, but to be the most elegant of them all. She had long, white hair that fell to her feet and shimmering wings. They were unnaturally long. She was one of the fastest shifters in a flight race. Or, she used to be back when she was young.
“Are we any closer to nipping in at the Earth?” my mother asked, unsure of her pronunciation of the foreign land.
She’d heard me talk about it ever since I found my first wreckage site from the humans. I’d come back to Dobromia from an intense mission with a human weapon. A strange piece of scrap with a handle and a pull. A ‘gun,' Marina had called it.
Still, my mother was always skeptical that such a place could exist.
“Close,” I said with a smile. My attention was immediately stolen as Aurlauc peeked out of the room my father occupied and waved me in.
I kissed my mother’s hand once more and dismissed myself. “I must go.” I took one last look at her and couldn’t believe how thin she’d gotten. The silver scales that contoured her long face had even lost their luster, their shine dampened by lack of nutrients.
I followed Khrelan into the war room and watched as Diana, the brunette, excused herself with a nervous giggle.
She shut the heavy wooden door behind her. Kind of like I wished my father had of done when he brought her here in the first place. My father began speaking immediately after she dismissed herself.
“I’ve decided the women should stay,” my father said, his eye nearly twitching as the words came out of his mouth. It was then I knew there was something deeper going on.
“Is that a thing you can decide?” I asked.
By the look on Aurlauc’s face, I knew he wanted to ask it too. But for him, to defy the D’karr’s orders meant death, even if he had known him since we were both dragonlings.
“I’m D’karr,” my father said jovially, strolling around the large wooden desk in the midst of his war chamber. He slammed his thick hand against the desk and met my eyes.
I looked down at his hand, knowing where his fingers had just been. I cringed inwardly at the red tips of his index and pointer finger.
“The women will help us with our breeding problems,” Khrelan said.
“And infuriate our females,” I said, speaking of the female shifters. “Plus, we don’t have the coordinates for the Earth yet.”
“Then what have you been doing, exactly?” Khrelan demanded.
My father and Khrelan held stern faces against me, but ever-faithful Aurlauc just stared at me with innocent curiosity. I set my jaw and could feel a clicking fury rise up in me.
“It’s not an overnight process,” I said firmly. “Besides, keeping the females here means less food to go around.”
My father finally looked like he heard me and began to run a thick hand through his beard, stroking it gruffly before turning from us.
I felt a growing conflict in my belly. Keeping the women would mean keeping Marina, whom I’d grown fond of over the cycles. But, it would also mean keeping them from their mission.
If anyone knew the importance of living up to their duties, it was me.
“They have a ship, do they not?” my father asked joyfully, as though he’d come to some conclusion.
“They do,” Khrelan answered when I wouldn’t.
I looked down to the floor and felt my brow raising absent-mindedly, my eyes glazing over as my father began to spell out his plan.
“I want you to go back there and get it. Surely, they have food on there. Bring them parts.” My father waved the tips of his fingers at me. “I know you have all sorts of scrap parts in that hovel of yours. Take them back something they can use to fix the ship.”
“And the men?” Khrelan asked. “There are male humans left behind. Soldiers.”
“Hm… This may be to our benefit,” my father said curiously.
“I don’t think you’ll like them, sir,” I said quickly, stepping up from my chair. “They evoke a certain… feeling in the shifters.”
Another wave from my father, dismissing my thought. It used to be my advice that he clung to. Now it seemed he had decided I had grown weak: soft.
“I may be D’karr, but I do know a thing or two about primal competition. The urge to fight.”
“So what do we do with them?” I asked.
“Interrogate them,” my father instructed callously. “We can use this to our advantage. Get the information from them about how to find this Earth. Find out what creatures live there that might stand in our way. This way we can get our information without our new residence becoming hostile.”
I swallowed and looked to Aurlauc, who seemed to have no spine to back up my concerns. He’d always been a coward when put before my father. I sighed.
“When are we to do this?” I asked.
“Whenever you can,” the King said. “Soon. I want this planet now.”
Khrelan nodded and assured my father we would make it happen, but I wasn’t sure about the details.
I scraped the tips of my fangs along my bottom lip and watched as my father and Khrelan exited the room. I trailed behind slowly. Enough that for a brief moment it was only Aurlauc and I left in the room.
“This doesn’t feel great,” Aurlauc said unsurely.
“You’ve never been one to back down from a fight,” I laughed, though I couldn’t help but agree with him completely.
“Hey! I’m just saying what you’re thinking,” he chuckled back. “I have a feeling this isn’t going to end well.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well… The coordinates,” he insisted to me. “The humans weren’t looking for some lake or a cave. They were looking for us. Your father heard of this and now he thinks we need to strike before they do.”
I swallowed, hard. “Well that’s less than comforting,” I said in an unnerved tone, scratching my arm and suddenly avoiding his gaze.
“He had the tower set up,” he blinked.
The tower. A great spire set in the fields near Graynar. It was designed to keep prisoners in. If he was prepping it for the women, it could be assumed he wasn’t expecting an easy relent from our human friends.
“I see,” I said slowly, dragging out the words.
“So, what do we do?” he asked, as though there were some other answer. “I know…” He shrugged. “I know about you and Marina. I know she means a great deal to you.”
“She means nothing to me,” I spat surely. “We follow orders because they were given to us by our D’karr.”
“What about Marina?” he asked, his expression seeming to droop unsurely.
“What about her?”
“Tredorphen,” he urged through clenched teeth, his voice barely registering in a whisper. He grabbed my arm and squeezed it, looking quickly to the doorway and then to me. “Whatever you do and wherever you go, I will follow. Say you want to rebel, and I will be there next to you.”
I slapped him. The sting of the contact burned my hand.
“That is the D’Karr you speak of betraying,” I seethed. Aurlauc’s eyes went wide. Too embarrassed to rub his cheek, his expression was only that of shock. “Never be heard saying such things again.”
Chapter 9 - Tredorphen
Marina
Making love had become a regular routine in my day, it seemed. In accordance with his father’s wishes, Tredorphen continued to show me around the land, and the shifters helped my people get biological samples.
Despite our weighty commission, every moment we were alone was a moment he had to possess me. To ‘claim’ me, as he liked to say. And in the moments afterward he would rea
ssure me, and perhaps himself, that I was his, and he would caress my body with his large hands and feel every inch of me as if to make sure I was real.
There was something disturbingly good about the feel of him inside me; about the wild instinct that took over his body and his eyes as they glazed over with a happy, contented lust.
And I had to admit that there was overwhelming electricity about it. Being with him, the immense girth of him, and getting to train someone untouched about the exact way to please me was like having my own personal playground.
I’d never been with a man who never failed to get me off each and every time, until now.
Still, I was beginning to think it was more than a sexual pull that drew me to him. He was endlessly handsome. A little egotistical, sure, but he had the goods to back it up, mostly.
And he protected me, constantly.
I writhed against his body as we lay naked on a small beach-like outcropping near the serpent’s sea. My breasts moving up and down with the effort and he reached up to cup them. He grabbed my hips and guided my body to grind against his until I was exploding with ecstasy. Like most other men, this was when Tredorphen would become the most aroused. I could see it in his eyes. But, unlike other men, he could always last until the job was done.
I felt the contractions inside of me as I weakly grinded against him, his moans and breaths growing slower as my movements came to a halt.
He went to scoop me into his arms, but I batted him away playfully. “I can’t; I have to go to the lab,” I spoke of our makeshift science cave.
“Stay,” he insisted, pulling me down to his face and drawing me into a long, passionate kiss.
“I can’t,” I laughed. “I’m supposed to meet my sister.”
Were it anyone else, I knew he would have insisted I remain with him until he was done lavishing his attention on me. But he would never say no if it involved Athena.
“Does she know about us?” he asked with a wince.
“No,” I laughed, pulling my shirt from the ground and throwing it on over my naked body. “Why, have you told anyone?”
“No!” he laughed. “No. I don’t think it’s appropriate that anybody knows.”
I nodded, continuing to dress. I agreed with him completely, but his hesitation to speak openly about it made me feel sick.
“And just why do you want to keep me your dirty little secret?” I asked, trying to sound charming as I got off of him.
“Because dirty little secrets are the best kind,” he said.
Tredorphen stood, and I marveled at his perfectly sculpted body and charming expression. He continued to grin at me with a cocky ambiance and watch me carefully as he started putting his clothes back on.
“Stop smiling at me like that,” I giggled. “It makes me want to come up and hurt you.”
“I’d like to see you try,” he dared.
Our physical connection was so intense, it was almost all I could think about. His thick muscles, his blue eyes, the way his shifter form was so unbelievably warm.
And he was possessive in a way I wasn’t used to. He made it very clear that I was his, and despite having been independent most of my adult life, I loved it. I craved it. This feeling that I was special.
Other nights I would have to remind myself that we were still playing a game… weren’t we? Every day that passed was another opportunity for us to relentlessly question one another about our races and our differences.
Everything seemed so clear just a few weeks ago. Yet, neither one of us had been eager to discuss the ramifications of our actions or what they meant: how much of it was real.
“Off you go,” Tredorphen said as he watched me make my way back to the main research area.
“Off I go,” I repeated, suddenly not wanting to leave. “What will you do?” I asked, wondering if he would accompany the scientists and I would get to lust after him from afar for the rest of the day.
“I have some journeying to do, unfortunately.”
“Oh,” I said, my stomach feeling sick. “How long will you be gone?”
“Not long,” he said, immediately putting me at ease. Right up until he said, “A handful of cycles, at most.”
I smiled bashfully at him and walked back over, cupping his perfectly chiseled face in my hands. “Well,” I breathed with a blush, “now I wish I didn’t have to go.”
He swallowed. “It’s just a couple cycles.”
I nodded but wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the statement. The truth was, either way, we would be parting ways eventually. I lowered my brows into a frown that I hoped he wouldn’t see. He brushed his hand through my blonde hair and kissed me once more.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll fly you back.”
We made our way back to the bustling, warm caves that we had made our makeshift laboratory. Most of our work had to be done at night, due to the heat. I told Athena I would meet her to discuss some of my findings.
I walked up to her in the heat and took a seat next to her at a wooden desk where my crew had set up various vials marked and labeled with their contents.
“Hello, stranger,” Athena greeted, never looking up at me. Her tone wavered even with only four syllables to work with.
“Hey, I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” I said wholeheartedly, setting my hand on her shoulder.
I sat at the desk and began pulling out samples and setting them on the desk one by one until they created a small row of seven.
“So, how do we feel about our new company?” I asked with a small smile, unsure suddenly how to behave around my own sister.
She watched me, her eyes flicking around like a scanner. I hated being under her watch. “Oh, you know, just peachy. I love being hit on by dragon men,” she snorted, seeming done with her visual interrogation.
“I thought you were the one going on about how hot they were?” I said with a laugh.
“Eh,” she shrugged, twisting a finger around the vial. “It fades.”
“You seem to like Aurlauc,” I said enthusiastically. “Or, at least, not hate him.”
“I don’t hate them,” Athena argued. “I’m just happier on my own planet.”
“My little sister, fleeing from adventure? Who are you and what have you done with Athena?”
My sister laughed until her verbal expression turned to a dim sigh. “You know,” she began slowly, “Peter’s been asking about you. Says you’re always off with the prince.”
“Right,” I said, too quickly. “They call him D’nebu’a. That’s his title,” I gushed. “And yes, he’s been showing me around, as you know.”
“Riiight,” my sister taunted. “Well, doesn’t that just make you the royalest of them all? And what about Petey; you guys have a thing going yet?”
“He wishes,” I said, sticking my tongue out playfully.
Another pang of guilt flashed through my body from the back of my neck to my toes. I’d forgotten all about Peter. I sighed inwardly.
“‘Atta girl!” she announced loudly. “Never settle!”
The two of us stared at the samples in silence until the minutes became almost comically long. My breathing quickened suddenly, and Athena put her hand on my back.
“What is it?” Athena asked softly.
I looked up, and our eyes met, hers turning from stunned to concerned all at once. “What?” she repeated with less compassion. “What is it? Because I know you didn’t bring me here to gush about your science. I think you know me well enough to know I have no interest in this stuff. I’m not even a scientist!”
“I slept with him, okay?” I seethed in a whisper, my face scrunching up with pain and embarrassment.
Athena clicked her jaw shut and stayed still for long enough that I started to feel my hands shaking. I just wanted her to say something.
“I really, really, really hope you’re talking about Peter,” she snapped, not looking at me.
“Tredorphen,” I whispered again, my eyes flicking to the door
to see if anyone was near our private conversation. The coast was clear.
The moments dragged on in painful agony, and I grinded my teeth together before pleading, “Come on, sis. Say something, please? Lecture me! Laugh! Just do something!”
“Okay,” my sister said slowly. Too slowly. “You wanted it, I assume? I shouldn’t be blasting this thing’s head off with my laser?”
I rolled my eyes, and a deep ruby flush crossed the apples of my cheeks. “I wanted it,” I murmured.
“Then there really has been a switch-up because suddenly you’re the impulsive one and I’m the only one left standing with any brains about the situation! The shifters aren’t charming, Rina! They’re totally messed up. They want something from us, and I don’t just mean an easy screw with you.” She huffed violently and spun completely on her boot before batting a glass off the table so it flung across the floor, my sample reduced to nothing. “Have you completely lost your mind?”
“Like I don’t feel bad enough about it already?” I whined.
“And what about Peter? I thought you liked him?”
“And I thought you hated him,” I argued.
She laughed in frustration and threw her hands in the air. “Do you like the guy or not?”
“I did,” I pleaded. “I do! I don’t know what happened. I’m playing him for information, that’s all.”
“No, no way. Nu-uh!” my sister projected loudly, waving a finger in front of her face. “If this was a mission thing, there’s no way you’d be telling me about it. Admit it; you’re looking for sisterly advice.”
“Fine!” I shouted, glaring at her. “I’m looking for advice!”
“Here’s some,” she spat. “Don’t be so damn stupid!”
I inhaled sharply and felt all of the emotion leave my face. “Well, I guess I won’t be getting any sympathy from you.”
“I’m just…” she turned back to face me and pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. “I’m a little… concerned. I thought you had a plan here?”
“Yeah,” I argued. “And my plan is working. We’re here, aren’t we? We got to Dobromia. We found a new species. We’re doing our job, and I got us here!”
