The Dragon’s Gift
Anastasia Chase
Seth Eden
© Copyright 2018 by Anastasia Chase & Seth Eden - All rights reserved.
This book is only for personal use. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission. The contents of this book may not be reproduced, duplicated or transmitted without direct written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters are represented as 18 or over.
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Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
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The Vampyren invaded Earth, coming from the places between the stars. They came to slake their most brutal appetites: For blood. For sex. For conquest. Within weeks their superior strength, technology and weapons turned Earth into a fallen battleground.
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Bianca loved dogs. She always had. That's why she opened the only no-kill shelter in town, and she was damn proud of that fact. They currently had one vacant position, left by her alcoholic ex-boyfriend. After him, she promised herself she wouldn't get involved with co-workers ever again. But when she saw him, the words lodged in her throat, right along with her heartbeat.
Holy cover model, Batman. This guy was gorgeous. He was tall, lean, and corded with muscle. He looked like a serious athlete, though something told her that he was one of those fortunate few that never had to work out to get good muscle tone. She felt an intense desire to strip him of that shirt and taste every inch of his yummy-looking torso, from happy trail to clavicle. But will she accept the secret he's hiding?
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Chapter 1
This day should have started out like any other morning. Get up, eat breakfast, go to work, endure the daily grind, and head back home again. Simple. Easy. Repetitive. Predictable.
Today was turning out to be anything but. Hearing the news that the space explorers who had left eight months ago had returned was enough to make Jen Davis forget about work entirely. She wasn’t the only one, it seemed, from the crowds of people she stood with, gathered in the middle of the city, watching the large holo-screens displaying the astronauts’ faces.
But she was only looking for one. One face out of many.
Eight months they’d been gone, going as far as technology could take them. No one knew how far that had been this time and they were eager to hear about it. What planets they’d seen, the stars. The alien life. Everyone knew they were out there, but the human race had yet to get far enough out to see it with their own eyes. Perhaps this time would be different, they said.
It had been impossible to maintain communication with them at those speeds and at such great distances, or else there wouldn’t be so much excitement centered on their return. And now they were home, having sent the first signal of their arrival a few hours ago at five in the morning. Hardly the time for someone like Jen to be awake, but oh how she wished now that she had been, to be one of the first to receive the news.
To be one of the first to hear Dennis’ voice. She ached at seeing his face up on that giant screen, talking to the reporter like he had simply crossed the street and was reporting what he’d seen on the other side. As if he hadn’t traveled several hundred light years and back again, and still had all his atoms held together.
She still remembered the day he left, how she’d begged him to stay, how he’d refused because this was his “duty.” He was the commander after all and had to see this through to the end.
She should have slapped him in the face back then too. Instead, she’d given him the biggest kiss she’d ever given anyone so that he wouldn’t forget her. And to give him the incentive to come back alive. Eight months of yearning. Eight months of wondering whether he would come back at all. Eight months were now over, and she didn’t have to wait any longer to see what the next step of their relationship would be.
“It’s the furthest we’ve ever gone. I’m sure by this time next year, someone else will be going even further.” Dennis nodded and smiled as he casually wiped away the dark peppering hair plastered to his forehead, his helmet under one arm. The dark grey spacesuit he wore was baggy and unflattering. Jen yearned to rip that ugly thing off him and familiarize herself with what lay underneath.
“Are you saying you’re retiring, Mister Kincaid?” the reporter asked playfully, before shoving the microphone back in his face.
“I’m afraid I am. I have too much at stake waiting for me here.” With that, he looked straight into the floating digi-cam and winked. As if he was looking right at Jen.
She felt her face warm and glanced around quickly around at the crowd to see if anyone noticed. Of course, no one paid her any mind; they had no reason to know that the famous astronaut was talking about her.
But what Jen didn’t like was the way Dennis’ eyes continued to flit about, as if he was nervous about something. Her heart instantly raced; was there something on his mind he intended to ask her about? They hadn’t known each other that long before he’d left but maybe the eight months away had made him realize…
No, she didn’t want to get ahead of herself. That would only lead to disappointment if she turned out to
be wrong. It was better to just celebrate the fact that he was back and let everything else take care of itself.
“Hey, watch it!” Someone bounced into her and knocked her purse out of her hand. She struggled to bend down and pick it up with how tightly everyone was gathered around her.
“Maybe if you weren’t such a fat ass, you wouldn’t be in the way!” the stranger yelled back before weaving through the people and ultimately disappearing into the sea of gathered onlookers.
It wasn’t the first time she’d gotten compliments like that, and it wasn’t like they were lying either. She was a large girl with curves she wasn’t afraid to flaunt. Her height lent her a lot of credence too, giving her the upper hand if anyone was stupid enough to pick a fight. But the constant need to defend herself got tiring after a while, the need to reassure herself that their opinions meant nothing to her and that she was what she was. No amount of hurtful comments were going to send her to the gym and start fasting.
She’d tried that already and it didn’t work.
And that’s what she loved about Dennis. He didn’t care about her figure as long as she was happy, and he’d been there plenty of times to tell someone off for saying such hurtful things. He had become her knight in shining armor to help her with a fight she thought she would be battling for the rest of her life.
“Like I haven’t heard that before…” she groaned as she managed to catch the strap of her purse around the toe of her shoe and lift her foot high enough to reach with her hand.
A cheer erupted around her and she quickly glanced back at the screen. She’d obviously missed something but there was nothing going on to clue her in as to what that was.
What she did notice was explorers were leaving the stage, ready to give their briefings to whichever authority figure they answered to. And that meant she was going to be able to see him soon.
Soon, however, turned into 3 hours. And then 5. The excitement of it all had already worn off for Jen, and without any work to do, she was feeling terribly restless. She tried going about her day doing anything else she could think of, from shopping to tidying up her small apartment. But nothing seemed to work.
Until her phone rang.
“Dennis!” she yelled into the phone. She recognized his number instantly.
“Hey, babe. Long time no see.”
Just hearing him call her was enough to make her melt. Her skin was abuzz with electricity and it was difficult to sit still.
“Please tell me you’re free to come over.”
“Just waiting on that invitation.”
Always teasing, it was hard not to fall for him and his charming ways. She could almost forgive him for leaving her for eight months.
“Don’t be such a jerk and get your butt over here.”
He chuckled lightly on the other end before ending the call. She couldn’t help but notice he sounded a little tired but that was to be expected after such a long journey and all the meetings he’d had to go to. It was likely all he wanted was a hot meal and a soft bed to fall asleep in for a few days… but she had other plans for when he came over.
Plans, she was realizing, may have to go on hold until he recovered.
Jen decided to have a cold shower before he arrived.
Just as she was wrapping her hair in a towel, her doorbell rang. She hadn’t expected him to come over so quickly but part of her was stoked she wouldn’t have to wait any longer.
She pulled on the rest of her clothes and pulled open the door open. A peal of joy escaped her on seeing Dennis and she practically leaped into his open arms. He had to take a few steps back so as not to fall over with her, but he snickered against her cheek and kissed the top of her head.
“Oh my god, I’m so glad you’re back,” she whispered into the crook of his neck. He felt warm, smelled safe. Exactly what she’d been missing since he’d left.
Yet the look on his face told her that everything was not all right. He looked ashen. Spooked. Like he’d stared death in the face and barely made it back alive.
“Dennis… what’s wrong?” She ran her hand through his hair, hoping that would be enough to calm him down and bring back that wonderful smile of his.
He glanced back over his shoulder to make sure they were alone in the hallway before gently leading her inside. Even with the door closed, he stood by the peephole for a long time before he finally stepped away and took her hands in his.
“We need to get out of here, Jen. We need to get as far away from here as soon as we can. How fast can you pack?”
Jen waited for a count of three to see if this was some kind of a joke. It had to be because none of this was making any sense. He just got back, and he wanted to leave again?
“What are you talking about? Will you just–”
He was pacing back and forth like he didn’t want to be here anymore. And that was scaring her. Jen grabbed him by the arms and forced him against the nearest wall.
“Will you stop and talk to me, please?! You’re scaring me!” She gave his shoulders a good shaking and he seemed to snap out of it. But his eyes were still wide with fear.
“I’ve… we’ve made a terrible mistake. We have to go. Now.” He pushed her off him and scrambled toward the window. He looked like a paranoid man running away from the cops.
“‘Out there… we came across… we thought they were just pups. And we thought that getting some fresh meat instead of those dried rations… Only they weren’t just dogs, Jen. And now they’re after us.” Dennis quickly drew the blinds closed and strode into her room. By the fistfuls, he started pulling clothes out of her closet, breaking a few of the hangers, and tossing them onto the bed.
“Where are your suitcases?”
“Dennis…”
“‘Where are your suitcases, Jen?” He turned with fury in his eyes, annoyed with her obliviousness. “I’m not kidding around here! We’ve been running from them ever since we left, and I don’t know how I much of a head start we have.”
It slowly started to dawn on Jen that this was no longer a joke. There was no way Dennis could carry out this kind of prank for so long.
“Do they know?” She was talking about his commanding officers. The government. Heck, even the public. They couldn’t be the only ones who knew.
“They’re working on an evacuation plan as we speak. Now please, can you just start packing so we can get going?”
Evacuation plan? Where could they go if these aliens were truly coming? Going to the other side of the planet wasn’t an option, not with all the radiation that still existed outside the borders. Nor could they get everyone to just pick up their lives and leave. There just weren’t that many ships available and calling back all the ones that were still out would take longer than Dennis thought they had.
It would just have to be the two of them. Hopefully, they could get on a shuttle before anyone was the wiser so at least they could live. It felt like a selfish thought, but self-preservation was an instinct that was difficult to ignore.
“‘Where would we go, Dennis? You don’t even know if they can be reasoned with.”
“Tried. There’s a shuttle to Mercury in the next hour. We get to the dock in the next fifteen minutes, we should be able to…”
And just I like that, everything changed. There was a large hum that seemed to vibrate the very air itself, that even the windows complained in their housing. Jen swore her ears had popped and turned her deaf, as she could hear none of Dennis’ words. All she could tell was his panic increased triple-fold.
He seemed to move in slow-motion as he sprinted back to the window and threw the blinds open. There, high above the city, hovered something Jen had never seen before in her life. But she knew it was the exact thing Dennis had been fearing.
It was long, sleek, and angular, its body white with a strange metallic blue sheen that refracted the light at the right angles. She would have thought it pretty if the air in the room wasn’t so intense. The ship seemed to do nothing as it hovered, watching
to see how those on the ground would retaliate. There was no insignia to indicate where they were from, and she took that as a good sign that it likely meant they weren’t military.
That was before the humming started again. Before Jen felt like the very air was being sucked from her lungs. The windows were starting to bend outward, and the leaves on the ground outside were being pulled across the ground, toward the ship.
Dennis turned, speechless. Mouth hanging open, he grabbed her by the hand and dragged her to the door. Jen glanced back over her shoulder at the clothes still sitting on the bed.
She should have listened and not wasted precious seconds questioning his every word. Maybe then, they would already be out of there and heading to the shuttle docks.
So much for trying to rekindle the spark of their relationship.
Chapter 2
Going outside was no better; the pressure was even worse, and Jen couldn’t hear anything going on around her. Others had joined them in the street, many of them looking around confused, others pointing up at the sky where the ship continued to hover.
Leaves and papers and trash were tumbling through the streets toward some kind of epicenter and Jen swore she saw some kind of light growing in brightness from the ship’s underbelly.
Then it all stopped, and she could hear again. It was like someone unmuted everything around her so she could hear the sounds of daily life once more. Wind between the buildings, car alarms, people screaming; far from normal, but at least she could hear them.
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