by Lucy Lyons
Astrid looked at Tim with new appreciation. Not that hacking evoked her admiration, but his persistence in trying to secure a piece of information did. Like her brother, now a computer systems student at University, Tim had a drive to master whatever systems in his charge, whether he was allowed that information or not.
“I was wrong. You aren’t a pervert. You’re a data daemon.”
He smiled. “Sorta. But instead of a program that initiates actions when a program is tripped, I’m more like a data dragon. I run in the background and keep an accounting of information.”
“Why would you do that?”
“It’s my job,” he said cryptically.
What? Did he mean he was a watcher of the facility employees? Who did he work for? She felt as if the floor was falling underneath her. How deep of a situation was she in?
“Should I call you Inspector Gadget?”
“Luv, that’s classified information. On a need to know basis only.”
She swallowed hard. “So why are you telling me this now?”
“Because I’d hate to see a nice bird like you get fouled by nasty politics.”
“And that’s what you think this place is?”
“Not my place to say. And there’s one thing about me that you should know.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t do more than what the program calls for.”
“Strict protocol, eh?”
He gave her a glance and shrugged his shoulders. “Government pension, luv. I don’t corrupt the data stream. And the data stream says the dragons are a danger.”
Astrid sat and studied the monitor. She came to study the dragons. She studied hard for four years to get a chance for this work. But things were rapidly devolving into an untenable situation. Calvin Porter was obviously dying, a suicide by refusing to eat. Evan Waters didn’t belong here at all. And Templeton Rawlins was slated for the executioner’s axe.
Her hands curled at her side in her frustration. This was not what the government told the people. It certainly wasn’t justice. And, if allowed, the government would let the race of dragons die from unnatural causes.
What did Tim mean when he said he didn’t do more than what the program calls for? That if he guessed she was going to do something foolish he wouldn’t stop her? Or did it mean that he’d follow ‘strict protocols’ and alert the others if she did something to help the dragons?
Tim sat with his eyes flicking from monitor to monitor. He was a serious and thorough worker but the expression on his face was inscrutable. Astrid simply had no compass here to help her decide what to do.
“So, you’ll keep a good watch on me if I go in and give him that sponge bath?”
“It’s my job,” he said with a crooked smile. “Unless, of course, I have to go the bathroom.”
“The bathroom?”
“Yes,” he said with a smirk. “I might have to rub one off, and I can’t mess up the monitors.”
“Pervert,” she said.
“There are little perks to this job.”
She clapped him on the shoulder.
“I hope you enjoy yourself then.”
“Wait a second,” he said. “I have to use the john now. Keep an eye on the boards. I’ll be right back.”
Tim launched from his seat and out the door before she could say anything. She sat looking at the screens at a loss for what to do. Then at Tim’s station she saw a blinking strip at the bottom of his main screen. With a shock she realized they were the day codes for the electric locks on the doors and shackles. Her brand new key card would handle the doors, but the codes for the shackles had to be input either from the central board here, or as a back-up, on the shackles themselves.
Astrid swallowed hard. It didn’t matter if Tim made a mistake leaving these codes in full view or did it deliberately. There was no way she’d get this information again. If she was going to do something to help the dragons, it had to be today and it had to be soon before Mrs. Parks returned from her meeting with the commandant.
Tim returned in a rush and fell into his swivel chair.
“Everything okay?” he said.
“Nothing happened.”
“Sure? These dragons are tricky.”
“If I didn’t catch it, I’m sure it’s on the tapes.”
“Right. So then, are you going to give Rawlins his sponge bath?”
“Should I?” she said.
“That’s up to you, luv,” he said staring at the screens. “That’s up to you.”
CHAPTER SIX
Tem
The acrid scent of his own cum on his chest filled his nose as he lay on his cot. The cot was a particular form of torture, the length a shade too short and the laughable thing they called a mattress too hard to be comfortable.
He growled, a low rumble that began in his throat but spread to his chest.
What? thrummed Evan.
Nothing. Thinking.
You do that, eh?
Be quiet.
Lord, you are grumpy. What’s going on? Thinking about the lovely Astrid?
Tem’s denial curdled in his throat, producing a bubbly grumble that thankfully didn’t travel through the walls. He was thinking about Astrid. Or rather discrete molecules of her scent clung around him that prevented him from not bringing images of her to mind.
The flash of her smile.
The brightness of her eyes.
Her svelte curves.
The sway of her hips.
It was enough to bring him to a half-hard state, a purgatory of repressed thoughts and un-actionable desires.
Even before his imprisonment, Tem hadn’t had such strong feelings for a female. Not that there were many she-dragons in the first place, but the very few occasions he had met one hadn’t done anything to set his heart aflame. No. The vixens he had met were cold, calculating and tended to think of dragon bulls as an amusement when convenient, and annoying the rest of the time. That dragonesses could reproduce asexually when they so desired did nothing to draw the sexes together.
Which was why half-dragons such as Evan existed. Male dragons were as passionate as females were dispassionate. And human women, or sometimes men, could meet the fire within a dragon’s heart with their own animal passions. Most of the time, such matings were fruitless since the intersections between dragon and human genome were few. But there had undeniably been a rise in hybrid births, no doubt a cause for alarm within the government. To Tem this rise in hybrid births made sense. Humans had an incredibly ability to harbor, combine and disseminate recessive genes. This probably led to humans with recessive genes mating with other humans with recessive genes, creating rare individuals who could bear dragon young. It was a fascinating development that he had been studying before he was arrested and imprisoned, and was something he had thought on much during these past twenty-four years.
It was important research to Tem because of the unexplained decline of the dragon population. Except for the hybrids, and the few dragon queens secreted and sequestered who could asexually reproduce, the outlook for dragon propagation was bleak.
He missed his research.
He wanted his old life back.
Through prudent investments and sensible land management, Tem’s family had lived comfortably on their estate. That was, until his mother and then his father passed on. Then Tem was alone.
His parents’ inability to produce a sibling had driven Tem into the wilderness of genetic research. He traveled the world to meet other dragons and obtain samples of their DNA. Tem spent countless hours in the salons of European high society developing criteria for determining who could harbor dragon DNA and who could not. It was tedious research, but worth it. He had developed a checklist of traits that could indicate the presence of dragon DNA.
Red hair is one trait, his brain reminded him.
I know, old man. I know.
Was this why Astrid fascinated him so? Did the patchwork of her DNA send him signals that she was a potential mat
e?
Dear Lord, no, he groaned.
There were problems with that outside his incarceration. One was the short life span of humans.
Could you survive her death? His brain asked.
It’s a little early to be talking about that.
Still, when dragons fell in love, they did so with their whole beings. When a mate died, they were likely to follow.
Maybe the dragonesses don’t have it far wrong, after all.
You can’t be responsible, reasoned Tem, for propagating a race and have a little thing like love throw a wrench in the works. Dying would be a big wrench.
Who said anything about love? rumbled the animal part of his brain. A little one on one action would feel very good.
Yes. It would.
But it would be dangerous. Wrong.
Dangerous for him, for her. Wrong because of the obvious mismatch between the two species.
Candles in the wind.
That’s what humans were. Brief was their span. One in growth, one third in propagating and raising their young, one third in slow death.
It was infuriating. Frustrating. Impossible.
Astrid.
An image of her standing before the cell block doors with her keycard in hand flashed in his mind. She stood poised as if trying to make a decision.
From where did these crazy images come? The visions of Astrid were persistent and growing more frequent. Something was going on, but he couldn’t figure out what.
“Astrid,” thrummed Evan happily.
With his jaw clenched, Tem sat and lowered his feet to the cold granite flagstone. This was another torture, that the fucking floor wasn’t warm enough to keep his feet from freezing. The thin slippers the prison gave them to wear didn’t do a thing to ameliorate the situation. He put the pain and the thoughts of cold out of his mind as he spotted Astrid give Evan a little wave while she pushed a metal cart toward Tem’s cell.
Tem did a long, slow exhale as Astrid walked the hall. He couldn’t help but notice the hardened nipples that poked and jiggled at the fabric of her uniform. He swore. The temptations of her flesh were enough to drive a dragon mad.
“Hello, Mr. Rawlins,” she said. “Are you ready for your sponge bath?”
He smiled his most predatory smile, not to welcome her, but to warn her off. For added effect, he licked his lips.
“I may be, but you, darling? Are you ready?”
Her eyelids fluttered, then her eyes settled into a smoldering half-lidded glance that went straight to Tem’s cock.
“Me being ready is not the issue. I’m just here to serve your needs.”
Inwardly, Tem gasped. Her words of submission were honey to his dragon and an unassailable draw.
No, Tem. This way lies madness.
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.”
Do not quote Hamlet to yourself. You know how the rest of that goes.
“Into my grave.”
Yes.
But Tem’s internal arguments failed against the human who stood before his cage with the promise of sweet touches and the heady perfume of her scent.
“Well, then, serve me,” he rumbled.
Her eyes twinkled with bemusement.
“Lift your arms. Walk backwards slowly,” she said in a coldly professional voice that belied the mischievous glint in her eyes.
Tem, well used to this hated exercise, raised his arms and spread his legs. Astrid hit the controls at the door, and the chains retracted slowly. He shuffled back step by step until his back hit the cold granite walls.
The door to his cell slid to the side, and Astrid strode inside. The full effect of her musky essence hit like a freight train, taking his knees out from under him.
Good thing you are chained to a wall.
Self?
Yeah?
Shut the fuck up.
Astrid’s gaze wandered over to his body, spread eagled on the wall. She took a sharp intake of breath and then shook her head. With slightly wobbly steps she moved closer to him, pulling the cart behind her. As Astrid moved within inches of him he saw that that cart held a metal bowl of steaming water, soap, and a pile of towels and washcloths.
“So,” he rumbled. “You are going to wash me down?”
She shook her head and pointed to her earplugs.
“Take them out,” he mouthed.
She shook her head again.
“Sorry, Mr. Rawlins. But I will try to be as quick and efficient as possible.”
She stepped closer and unbuttoned the shirt he put on earlier. It was specially constructed so that the under seams of the arms would pull apart to accommodate the shackles that would never come off. She pulled apart the seams and slipped off the shirt, exposing his chest to the cold of the cell.
Astrid soaped a washcloth and soaked it in the steaming water. The gentle and sensual movement of her hands fascinated Tem. She took a deep breath as she pressed the cloth to his cum covered chest.
“My,” she breathed, “you did make a mess of yourself.”
But her mouth didn’t move.
Wait.
He heard that—her thoughts.
What?
“Yes, I did,” he answered.
Her eyes flew open wide and she stumbled back.
“What? What was that?” she said, her voice panicked.
Tem would have done anything to assure her that this was all right. But he couldn’t.
Because he knew this was the worst thing that could happen between them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Astrid
Astrid swallowed hard as her heart hammered in her chest. She never imagined that touching the dragon would have such a startling result. But what was more: Tem was more distressed than she.
Pressing her lips together, she stepped forward again and pressed the washcloth to his chest.
Is this too hot?
Not hot enough, replied Tem.
She felt then how terribly cold he was in this cell, day after day, year after year and shivered.
I’m so sorry, she thought.
So, he replied, am I. But with you touching me, not.
She continued the slow decent of the soaped cloth down his chest and got lost in the landscape of his broad pectoral muscles. He seemed to sigh and then, incredibly, rumble in a low grumbly purr. It soothed her to hear that sound though it should have alarmed her. It wasn’t a human sound.
But I’m not human, Tem replied.
She rinsed the cloth and made it hot again, then retraced the motions of her hands. He sucked in a deep breath.
Does it matter? she thought. That you aren’t human?
It always mattered to me, replied Tem. But why shouldn’t it matter to you?
Astrid didn’t know. In all the lore she ever studied she never heard of this, of telepathy between humans and dragons.
It’s very rare, he replied. Almost a myth.
Astrid was in a rhythm now: rinse, stroke, rinse his skin, her hand swirling on his neck, chest and abdomen. She had removed the mess from Tem’s chest, but that wasn’t what was motivating her to continue touching him.
If felt so good, so very satisfying to have her hands on his body, it didn’t occur to her she should stop. It was as if she was in a fever dream where the line that marked reality blurred. Her only awareness was her hands brushing on his skin, which drew the most delicious purrs from the man.
Or dragon.
It hardly mattered.
His scent rose to her nose, leading her along a path of intoxication that drew her farther, not just into him, but herself.
His rhythmic purrs turned into thrums that vibrated through her body. She felt as if she were a violin on which he was playing the most intimate tunes. The vibrations surged down her spine, and up her thighs to her core, setting alight a fire that had been only hinted at in her young fumblings at love. But these pulses were deeper, fuller, searing pathways of white heat through her nerve endings.
You must s
top, said Tem’s mind. You don’t know what you are getting yourself into.
Stop. How could she? There was only one purpose, here, now, and that was to touch this man, this dragon, this gorgeous male, and resonate with his essence.
You don’t sound like you want to stop.
Damn me. Wanting and needing are two different things.
And what do you want? What do you need?
I want your hands on me. I need you not to do that.
Astrid smiled the kind of smile that only an inexperienced woman could, one of innocence and mischief. She was on the edge of discovery, of treading a new and foreign country, and she did not care if she had the visa to do it.
Her breathing sped as she untied the string of Tem’s sweats. He pulled against his bonds in protest.
Do not act as if you don’t want this, she told him with her mind.
God help me, yes, I do.
All I’m going to do is touch you, she sent innocently.
All? All? You have me begging against my better nature with a sponge bath, woman.
She chuckled and pulled down his pants to reveal the magnificent piece of him that pointed straight and proud toward her. Astrid closed her eyes as she stroked it tentatively and was surprised at how soft the skin felt, almost like velvet, yet held what seemed like a steel rod within. Pre-cum leaked at the tip and she palmed it. The heat from his head filled the palm of her hand and she cooed as she twisted her hand this way and that, spreading around his natural lubrication.
His scent, rich and musky, rose off him and she could not resist the urge to bend her head and touch her tongue to his flesh.
Oh, good Lord, groaned Tem.
She had never done this and the taste, slightly salty but laden with undertones that declared “male”, intrigued her.
I need more.
You are playing with fire.
Yes, but you are a dragon.
That should be your warning.
Of what? How delicious you are?
Tem made a throaty noise that teetered between approval and disapproval of her intended action.
You have me at your mercy, he replied.
I think you enjoy that.
