by Stella Cassy
I looked back into the cave at Tarion and Dashel. Tarion, too, had shifted and Dashel was halfway there. Two Moset guards rushed toward me and met my flames, then disintegrated. My feet were barely into a full sprint before I was airborne. Another Coovoo ran shooting his laser as I engulfed him.
I didn’t look behind me again or wait for my cousin and nephew. They were as capable as I now that they were free.
My eyes scanned the greens and browns of Kanet’s lands. What was once a favorite terrain was no more appealing than the black holes of the verse. I winced but steeled my body for further attack, climbing higher. My eyes could only focus on one thing – the image of Lara in my head, her nectar skin and black swirls of soft hair. I wished she wore the same orange garment, but I knew if I ever saw her again, she would be just as conspicuous as the first time I met her if she wore the same hue as the fields below. If Lara perished, no other in my path would live.
Without any clear direction, I angled right with only my instinct to guide me to her.
25
Lara
The Empire State Building faded, and I opened my eyes. A cloud of dust surrounded the cage. I coughed and sat up. There wasn’t a stick or anything within reach. I scooted back and brushed the grit from my eyes. The front of the cage lay on the ground, half hidden in the thick, jagged grass.
I was off my feet, my face plastered against a warm body before I could look up. It wasn’t white or brown. I couldn’t move and I was off the ground, flying. Flying. The smell of smoke tickled my nose. I twisted my head to the side. His gorgeous burgundy wings flapped beside us. I blinked back the tears. It was him. It had to be him.
Almost as soon as we had taken off, we descended. Was he hurt? I looked down into a field of brown and yellow flowers. He let go of me and I stepped back enough to look into the face of his dragon.
“Lehar.” I threw my arms around him, nuzzling my face against his cool scales. He had found me. I wasn’t still dreaming. Tears rolled down my face more than they ever had on screen or off, even with the aid of eye drops.
“Lara, we have to get back to the ship,” Lehar said in the husky voice of his dragon form. My dragon alien kneeled before me.
I threw myself up on his back and wound my arms around his neck. The smile on my face lasted until he lowered and circled upon the remains of the ship.
What was left of Hielsrane Two was tilted at a 45° angle. Part of it was buried in the ground. Two other larger ships were about five hundred feet away and looked intact. We had to be taking one of those because it was obvious Lehar’s ship was going nowhere.
He touched down in a fast run and lowered himself to the ground, kicking up grasses and flowers. I slid off his back. He remained hunched over and his body contracted, warping in front of me until he was the version of Lehar I was most familiar with. He remained still for a second, panting, then he stood and walked toward me with his arms outstretched as if he had not flown us to the other side of Kanet. I took a step forward but swung around to make sure no one was around to put us both in a cage. He took me in his arms and kissed me.
“I didn’t know if you were alive or if I’d ever see you or any Drakon again,” I murmured against his skin.
“I would have found you no matter where in this verse you were, eventually.”
“Sir, one of the class A fighters is operational.” Dashel appeared from behind the ship. A red vertical gash on his dark throat disappeared below his uniform. “Capt. Tarion is already in orbit awaiting response.”
Lehar took my hand and we followed Dashel, who pointed to a round vehicle catalogued in a field of tall shrubs and grasses.
I followed them on board. Lehar didn’t let go of my hand until I was strapped in a seat just outside of the bridge. I monitored the screens, half the size of those on Hielsrane Two, and waited for over bright sun, hills and plants of Kanet to disappear, forever, I hoped.
A screen lit up in front of Lehar. Tarion’s face appeared, scowling, but not looking as intimidating as before. I was even glad to see him. I smiled at him and I didn’t care if he never smiled at me.
I was so happy that I was back with Lehar, that I hadn’t seen him for the last time. I hadn’t thought about my old life on Earth for longer stretches than I had thought possible.
“We will regroup at the space station,” Tarion said.
“En route, sir.” Lehar tapped away at the console. He paused and looked back, smiled wider than I had ever seen him.
26
Lehar
I laid Lara on the small bed and smoothed the healing balm over the minor abrasions on her hands, arms and the side of her neck. Removing her clothing slowly, I inspected every inch of her body for injuries. She was correct; she was tougher than she looked. She had fared as well as me. The Drakonian fabric we used for our uniforms had helped protect her as well. All of her clothes had to be made of the same material in the future.
She sighed and pressed her lips to the back of my hand, which assured me I was not hurting her.
“Although the Healer has cleared you, you should visit him again every solar for the rest of the week,” I said. “You could have injuries you are not yet aware of. I have already instructed him to personally review your logged vitals manually and send me a daily report.”
“Shouldn’t you be recovering too?” she said softly, pulling me down to press kisses to my ears and every part of my face.
“I did not suffer any major injuries and my minor ones are all but healed. Drakon skin is hard to penetrate.” If she had not been there, I would have collapsed in the nest which was so small there was barely room for the cleansing and elimination units and slept until Tarion’s ship arrived. But my hands couldn’t stop roving over her shoulders or her smooth arms. hugged her to me, listening to her sweet human cadence close to my ear.
“I thought I would have to kill every Moset and Coovoo on Kanet to find you. I would have if you had been shipped off or harmed.” I would never let anyone get close enough to capture her again.
She placed her hands on the sides of my face and drew me down on the bed beside her. She nestled against my chest, and I closed my eyes briefly. Instinctively, she attuned to me, knew when I needed her soft hands connected to me. “When you ripped the bars off that cell, I thought it was the Pax coming to take me to their ship again,” she said.
“You saw them?” I was hoping they had not shown themselves to her.
“One of them paid off the guard,” she said. “And then they went off somewhere not too far away. He said they were going to get some fuel and chrom—”
“Chromite rods?”
“Yeah, maybe that was it.”
“I heard from one of the Coovoo guards that they were trying to purchase you. Although I did take you from them, I do not think they followed us. Our scanners would have detected them. Maybe there’s something undetectable by our scans in your collar. It is unlikely, but I should have gotten rid of it”
“If you hadn’t come sooner, both times...” She buried her face in my neck.
“I should never have let Neswove see you. That is most likely how the Pax found you so quickly, but it is hard to hide such a rare beauty.” I tipped her head up, kissing her soft lips again and again until I felt her lips smile against mine.
“I believe you would have come for me,” she said. “Neswove is dead, so it’s over, right? Where do we go now?”
“That is what we have to discuss with Tarion. We will have to retaliate now that the Moset have been identified as the real instigators behind Coovoo’s rebellion.”
She sighed. “Is it necessary, Lehar?”
“Dissent is contagious and can spread to our other holdings and alliances just as easily. We must reassert our authority.”
She reached down and ran her fingertips across my caudal, curling a leg around mine. “Do you need to go back to work?”
“Not for a while, not until Tarion gets here. Carissa and Matilda have been trying to contact you for
a while but —”
Her lips were on my caudal again, her hands running down my chest and stopping at the waistband of my uniform. Slipping her fingers below the fabric, she palmed my cock. I groaned, running both my hands through her hair. I never grew tired of touching it. I loved every bit of her. She knew my mating weaknesses too well. I tipped her chin back up to my mouth and took her tongue while my fingers massaged the spot between her legs, which was one of her mating weak points.
Pulling the fabric of my uniform down, I lifted her unto my cock, and let her bob up and down in the way she liked but which made me impatient to feel every bit of her. I let her control the pace even though my dragon grumbled for more. I ignored the greedy bastard; we had a little Drakon onboard.
When I could take no more of her teasing, I rolled her beside me, onto her side so that we were face-to-face. She lifted her lips to mine as if she knew I needed her mouth on mine. I slipped my tongue into her mouth and three fingers inside her while my thumb stoked her mating heat. I put my other hand under her neck and kissed her until we were both breathless from depleted oxygen.
She broke contact with my lips and rolled over on her back with a sigh. Her hips matched the rhythm of my fingers until her sighs and moans grew louder. Her sex clenched again and again around my fingers until they were drenched with her female nectar.
“I love your mating sounds and the taste of you on my tongue,” I whispered, sucking my fingers into my mouth.
Her eyelids crinkled at the corners before lowering, shielding her darkened brown eyes. Her mouth curved up on one side. “I was so loud,” she whispered.
“Scream any time you want. I am much louder than you every time.”
She laughed. “I don’t want to put on a show for your team.”
“We are alone. They were happy to go to the station’s meeting chamber.” I took her breasts, one by one, into my mouth, nipping and tasting every part of her until her legs relaxed.
My dragon growled for release and I pulled her close to me and raised her leg up on my thigh. I slipped inside her a little at a time. A groan rumbled out. The deeper I went, the more I wanted, my dragon pushing me to go deeper than I had planned. I thrust into her so slowly my body vibrated from head to toe.
“God, that feels like nothing I’ve ever felt before meeting you.” Her moans mixed in with my heavy breathing and grunts in an effort the control my pace.
She slid a hand between us and ran her fingertips along the base of my length, the part that wasn’t inside of her. “I love you, my Drakon,” she whispered into my ear.
With a roar at a volume that relegated her mating sounds to a whisper, I buried myself fully in her and released my seed. I lay partially inside her until our breathing steadied. She didn’t withdraw from me but snuggled closer. She felt right there, an extension of myself, a vital part I could not do without.
“I like your mating words,” I said, “but you might want to only say them when we are in private.”
“Which words? I don’t remember saying much.” She smiled at me. “Except I love you.”
“Yes, those words,” I said. “It is the way you say them.”
I cradled her against me and splayed my hand over her middle. “How is my heir doing?”
She put her hand over mine and caressed the partially healed gash. “Good, I think. I wasn’t hurt much. Not like you.”
“Soon all my scratches will disappear. Lara ...” I couldn’t hold back the words any longer. “You are my life mate.”
“Does that mean you care about me?” She tapped her fingers against my chest. “That you love me?”
“It means that I will never want another female in my lifespan.”
“Like Carissa and Tarion?” she asked.
“I believe so. Much more.”
“Mmm,” she said. “I love you, Lehar Hielsrane.”
“I love you, Lara Abernathy”
A blip came from the small screen to the right of the bed. Tarion’s name flashed on the screen. Lara immediately covered her head and scooted under the covers. I laughed. “I disabled video feed, Lara. Now that I have a mate, it will remain as such.” Her head popped back up over my shoulder. I rolled her in front of me where she snuggled against my chest.
Captain Tarion, Hielsrane One flashed on the screen.
“Computer, accept message,” I said. “Tarion, sir.”
“The rest of the fleet have arrived,” he said. “They are also bringing a new spaceship for you. It’s long overdue.”
“A replacement, I assume. I do not think even our engineers could piece that one back together.”
“Yes, yours. A class A level IV.”
“Level IV? I expected my usual level III.”
“Like I said, it would have happened in the near future.”
“Sir, thank you, sir.”
“They also made a stop at Kanet,” he said. “What was left of your ship, they retrieved by tractor beam.”
“Did they have any problems from the Moset?”
“They disabled a couple of their surveillance craft discreetly,” he said. “The Moset are scrambling to regroup, I think. What are your initial thoughts on how to handle them?”
“That includes any Pax in the vicinity,” I said. Lara tensed in my arms. I immediately regretted mentioning them. I rubbed my hands in circles on her back and shoulders until her muscles loosened and a tiny sigh muffled against my chest.
“At the first sign of any fighting, those cowards will be the first to leave if they are still around,” he said. “If there is no coin or credit involved, they’re not interested.”
“When I found Lara, she overheard the guards talking, and I might have an idea of a good way to disable them until we can regain control of both planets.”
“Meet us station side, we can discuss strategy, cousin,” he said. “Bring her too.”
“You don’t want to head to the space station?”
“No,” he said. “Carissa and Matilda are safe.”
“He knows I’m here?” Lara asked, tucking the bed covers underneath her chin.
“After the way I busted out of that cave with barely a look behind to find you, yes, he knows you are here. You cleanse first. It is probably best that the unit is not big enough for both of us.” I kissed her forehead. Her lips were too tempting
She went to the cleansing unit and I shifted to watch her every move.
27
Lara
On the bridge of the new ship, which seemed twice as big as the old one, I strapped into a seat off to the left of Lehar’s, within arm’s reach, which he had installed just for me with a bar for me to rest my feet on.
“Pre- liftoff preparations are underway,” the computer stated.
A low tremor went through the ship, and I gripped the hand rest. No one else did or looked concerned, but I buckled my primary straps anyway “We have quadrupled the forces,” Lehar had said. No matter how many times I reminded myself, the images of smoke and bars resurfaced.
Lehar put his hand over mine. “It is only the top level interlocking. We were caught unaware last time, but we are well prepared.”
“You caught me.” I laid my head back against the headrest. “I thought I was hiding my anxieties better than last time.”
“Everyone has battle nerves,” he responded.
“You always look so calm,” I said.
“I have coped by shutting most feelings away until the mission is complete,” he said. “You do not have to hide your true feelings from me.”
“I don’t want you to have to worry about me. If that’s the case then, when possible, I’ll just stay in our room.” He hadn’t asked again whether or not I was coming or staying at the station with Carissa and Matilda. If I were about to deliver my baby, then I would.
“Your presence is more comforting than your absence.” He kissed my mouth. I tried not to, but I glanced right and left at Dashel and the other two Drakon at their stations. They didn’t even look our way
.
“For me too.” I blew out a heavy breath. “So, what happens first?”
“Final preparations for liftoff are underway.” I buckled my secondary straps.
He pointed to the screen. “We will go with Tarion to the Moset’s main military base, where we had the meeting with Neswove. There, we will join forces and do as much damage as possible. We will let Tarion’s fleet finish the job while we head to their munitions stockpile which is where I believe you were held.”
“Won’t some of them follow us?”
“They will be too busy and if our plan goes well, they won’t even notice that half of the fleet is missing.” He faced forward like the other Drakon and busied himself with his screens of data.
I folded my hands in my lap. My eyes were glued to the screen of blue ships. I knew he hadn’t exaggerated, but it still was comforting to see all that blue. Hopefully, it stayed that way when the tan ones started to appear. I could really gauge how well we were doing without being completely in the dark about what was going on.
“Lift off underway,” he said.
He and Dashel guided the fleet back to Kanet’s outer orbit. They monitored the screens and the crew flanking them called out commands and statuses interspersed with the computers voice. All were hunched over the consoles and screens, muscles taut, their expressions grim. Lehar’s jaw and neck had muscles I had never noticed.
On the big wraparound screen, the green and yellow planet got bigger. I was just sitting there doing nothing again because I didn’t have any skills like Carissa did. I’d have to get Lehar to teach me some basics after this battle.
Our ship in the middle of the screen started flashing with concentric red circles.
“What the—” I muttered.
The ship vibrated. I gripped the console in front of me and pressed my head back into the headrest, closing my eyes. Another tiny vibration rippled through the ship and went on for so long I thought the ship would rip apart, again. I bit my lip and the iron taste of blood filled my mouth. I forced it down.
