by Lili Zander
With a groan, he climaxes. Hot cum spurts between us. I start to giggle in sheer pleasure. I’m sated and drained, and it is delicious.
Ruhan raises a questioning brow. “We’re all sticky,” I tell him.
“That we are.”
I laugh again. I can’t help it. I feel so light, as if my orgasms have broken up all the worry in my chest. “Worth it.”
He shoots me a grin. “Agreed.” He gets up to rummage in his pack and produces a damp cloth. I take it from him and clean myself, giggling harder. Orgasms always leave me feeling slightly delirious, and after the last seven months, I can’t stop laughing. I can’t believe he had the alien equivalent of wet wipes handy. Maybe he’s the alien equivalent of a Boy Scout: always prepared.
“Do you want a hand with that?” Ruhan takes the cloth from me, his fingers teasing my wet entrance.
My body knows where this is going. For a second, I contemplate another orgasm, but I’ve already come twice, and I’m too sensitive for a third. “I know where this is going,” I tell him, pushing his hand away. “I don’t think I can come again.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“Don’t even think about it.”
He laughs lazily. “Come here, Lani,” he says, pulling my body against his. I rest my head on Ruhan’s chest, and he wraps an arm around me. His heat surrounds me, his heartbeat rumbling under my ear.
What happens next? Should we have sex now —is that what he expects? Is that what I want?
He strokes my skin, his touch soft and gentle. Held by him, the clamor running through my mind recedes to the background. The night claims me, and I fall asleep.
12
Ruhan
The sun hasn’t yet risen when I wake up.
For a heartbeat, I’m confused and disoriented, and then I see Lani curled up next to me, her body against mine, and it all comes rushing back.
Last night. Touching Lani, tasting her, feeling the muscles of her core gripping my fingers… Pleasure had engulfed me, and the rathr had receded so swiftly that pain became a distant memory. But it wasn’t just the absence of pain that has me questioning everything. It’s more than that. In Lani’s arms, I’d felt complete.
Her, my dragon whispers.
The beast inside me, it’s not like we’re separate consciousnesses sharing the same body. We’re not two different people with two different opinions. I don’t have conversations with the dragon. We don’t argue. That’s never how it’s been. The dragon is an integral part of me. I have one head, two legs, two hands, and whenever I need to, I can shift into a dragon. It’s that simple and that complicated.
But with Lani, things are completely different. The dragon is convinced the human woman is precious beyond compare. The dragon thinks Lani should be held and cherished and loved. And given that I didn’t think the dragon could hold separate opinions from me, I’m more than a little freaked out.
I don’t understand any of it. It’s got to be tied to the rathr. Of the six of us, Fifth understands genetics the best. Maybe he’ll be able to explain what’s going on.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t like Lani. I do. What’s not to like? She’s smart. She’s beautiful. She’s funny. She’s been exposed to one traumatic situation after another, and instead of shutting down, she’s picked herself up and is making the best of the situation.
She allows herself to be vulnerable. She’d confessed to her fear of the stasis pod, and she’d asked me to stay with her because she didn’t want to be alone in the dark. But she’s also not defined by her trauma. She’s witty and sarcastic and very real. She makes me laugh. When we’re bantering, I forget everything except how good it feels to be talking to her, laughing with her…
Sure, I like Lani a lot, but I’ve also known her for one day. The attraction between us is physical, and that’s just the way I like it. I don’t understand where the dragon is going with this holding and cherishing and loving nonsense, but it’s got to end.
This is a very bad time for the dragon to start voicing opinions. First is slaughtering Draekons, and we need to stop him. That’s the priority.
Lani sighs contentedly in her sleep and snuggles closer to me. I instinctively tighten my grip around her before I realize what I’m doing. Stop it, Ruhan, I tell myself fiercely. I don’t understand why I’m so drawn to this woman, but I’ve got to get myself under control. I’m a disciplined soldier, capable of burying my feelings and fulfilling the mission. That’s what I need to do here. Once Lani’s awake, we’ll walk to the nearest town, find our way to Hokatir, and as soon as we recover the Circada, we’ll head back to the rebellion headquarters, and then, we’ll go our separate ways.
Lani might be attracted to me now, but once she discovers the full truth of who I am, she’ll be significantly less eager to share my bed. There will be other, more suitable partners in the rebellion for her.
I ignore the pang that goes through me at the thought of her with someone else. For Caeron’s sake, this is ridiculous. I’m as bad as Mardex mourning his lost love. I need to pull myself together.
Lani stirs again in my arms, and her eyes open. When her gaze rests on me, a smile touches her lips. “Hey. Sorry I fell asleep on you last night.”
Her hair is tangled, and her face is sleep-swollen, and I want to kiss every inch of her body, starting with those deliciously pouty lips. My cock stirs, but thankfully, I’m covered by a blanket, and my erection goes unnoticed. “It was perfectly understandable. You were tired.” I shoot her a grin. “You were right. An orgasm does help you relax.”
Why did those words come out of my mouth? You were going to stop obsessing over her, remember?
Her cheeks go pink, and then she chuckles. “It certainly did that,” she agrees. She sits up, gropes around for her t-shirt and covers herself, and then lifts her arms over her head and stretches lazily. “I would kill for a cup of coffee right now.”
I fight to keep from staring at her breasts. Every cell in my brain has short-circuited. She’s so pretty and soft, and her smile… When she smiles, her entire face lights up. “Coffee?” I ask, my voice hoarse. Pull yourself together.
“It’s a hot beverage,” she replies. “Back home, I used to need three cups to get out of bed.” She gives me a rueful smile. “Of course, I haven’t had a cup in seven months, so I’m pretty sure my caffeine addiction is well and truly cured.”
My mind starts to work again. I don’t know what coffee is. There’s a lot of information about Earth on my tablet, but I’ve been too busy searching for the humans to read much about their planet, something I regret now. “Is coffee a common beverage among humans?”
“You could say that. Why?”
“Because I have a food-syn in my pack.”
She looks confused. “The food synthesizers on the Konar just made Okaki food,” she says. “And Gervil didn’t even like to use them. How will it make coffee?”
“That’s a long story.”
“Do I look like I’m in a hurry?” she asks pertly. I wink at her, and she rolls her eyes. “Spill, Ruhan.”
I bite back my smile. “The Zorahn sent a delegation to Earth to accompany the human women to the Homeworld. Each spaceship had a team of three. A pilot, a technician, and a scientist. It’s the standard make-up of an outreach unit.”
She nods. “Yes, there were three people on the Sevril V.” Her face darkens. “Halfway through the journey, the scientist killed the other two and diverted the ship elsewhere. Then we were auctioned off to the highest bidder.”
I squeeze her hand in a futile gesture of comfort. “Raiht’vi was the scientist on board the Fehrat 1. She’s a powerful Highborn. She’s incredibly skilled in her own right, but also, she’s well-connected. Her father Brunox is the head of the Council of Scientists, and she was once betrothed to the High Emperor Lenox.”
“Once, but not anymore? Why not?”
“Rumor has it that Lenox isn’t a very nice person. The match was for political reasons. If h
is daughter had married into the imperial family, then Brunox would have gained even more power. But it seems that Raiht’vi’s sense of duty to her house only goes so far.”
The rebellion has messed around in my mind, implanting knowledge from the last thousand years. But implanted memories can only take you so far. I’ve been spending time with the ThoughtVaults, trying to get myself accustomed to this new age. The tech advances are staggering, of course, but tech comes easy to me, so I’ve been able to catch up. The cultural and societal changes are harder. When I was looking for the two humans, I was forced to talk to people, and each conversation only highlighted how much time has passed while I was in stasis, and how much the galaxy has changed.
Some of it is geographic. A thousand years ago, the Makpi Alliance ruled over only a dozen worlds. Now, they are a formidable force, one of the Triumvirate. But it’s the smaller changes that throw me. I don’t know what people eat nowadays. I don’t know what they read. I don’t know what they listen to, and who they accept influence from.
Different food, different music, those things are easy to learn about. But the changes run deeper. Society has changed in subtle ways. At the time I was created, scientists were above the law. They answered to no one, and not even the High Emperor had sway over them.
Not anymore. The Crimson Citadel is still powerful, but the scientists’ rights have been curtailed. After the Draekons rebelled, Kannix had finally reined them in.
Brunox and his fellow scientists are not popular among the general populace. But it isn’t just the role of the scientists that is changing. Lenox is facing challenges as well, and most of them have to do with the rigid nature of the Zorahn caste system. The Lowborn are increasingly and vocally discontented with their lot in life. Dravex was a reformist who improved conditions for the Lowborn. When Lenox ascended the Crystal Throne, he rolled back his father’s changes. But you can’t offer people a pathway to hope, and then snatch it away from them without consequences.
The rebellion’s immediate aim is to find the Draekons imprisoned in Brunox’s underground laboratories, but Tarish’s reasons for rescuing them aren’t entirely altruistic. If it comes out that Brunox has been torturing Draekons instead of sending them into exile, the resulting outcry will shake the Empire to its foundations, and that’s exactly what Tarish is banking on to bring about true change.
These are interesting times in the High Empire. I just wish I knew what role I want to play in it.
Lani coughs. “Penny for your thoughts? That’s an expression,” she adds in clarification. “What were you thinking about?”
“I’ve been in stasis for a thousand years. I was woken up and sent to find you. And here you are.” I’m still holding her hand. I should pull it away. What I’m doing isn’t wise. “I don’t know what my future holds.”
Her expression fills with understanding. “We’re a pair, you and I,” she murmurs. Then she smiles brightly. “Hey, you actually answered my question without saying something outrageous first. We’re making progress.”
Once again, she makes me laugh. Once again, the cloud over my head lifts. “Don’t get used to it.”
“I’m not that much of a fool,” she quips. “What does Raiht’vi have to do with coffee?”
Oh, right. We were talking about the food syn. “She went to Earth, and during her time there, it seems that she developed a taste for human food. Her food syn was programmed to replicate some of her favorites.” I give her a sidelong look. “I hacked into it and copied the flavor combinations.”
“Why? So that you could feed me coffee when you found me?”
“I could pretend that’s the reason, but mostly, I was bored, and I did it to see if I still had the skills. It had been a thousand years, after all.”
She laughs out loud. “Of course you did,” she says, her voice fond. “Okay, now I’m intrigued. If the food-syn can actually make coffee, I’ll love you forever.”
Will you? For one instant, my heart stops. Then the translator kicks in, and I realize it’s just another figure of speech.
We get dressed and head back to the shuttle. I check on Mardex—he’s still in stasis. What the hell, Ruhan? I scold myself as I make Lani her coffee. You don’t even like people. You prefer tech.
But when she inhales the beverage, I hold my breath. And when she takes a sip and joy spreads over her face, I feel insanely proud of myself.
First is the priority, but I also don’t want to push Lani away. I like her, and she seems to like me. Yes, my dragon-self is acting a bit peculiar about Lani, but that reaction will go away. I’m sure Fifth will tell me there’s nothing to worry about.
She drinks a cup, and then another. Finally, she takes a deep, satisfied breath and places her hand on my forearm. “Ruhan,” she says fervently. “You are my hero.”
I look down at her hand. She looks down too, and her breath catches. “Your tattoos,” she whispers. “They’re almost gone.”
Bast. I’ve painted testing tattoos on my forearm, but they don’t survive long after a shift. I’d shifted to dragon right before Hokatir. I should have reapplied the ink as soon as I’d got on the shuttle, but I’d been too preoccupied about landing in Nestri.
Lani’s not stupid. She heard me tell Mardex to apply the testing tattoos. She’s going to figure out the truth right about…
“You’re a Draekon.”
…now.
“Yes,” I admit reluctantly. I’d have preferred to avoid this conversation. Not about changing into a dragon—that part is pretty amazing. But the rest of it? We were the first Draekons ever made. The six of us were created in a lab by the Supreme Mother and then honed into battle weapons by the Zorahn Warlords. Our reputation is fearsome. On Nestri, they still know me as the Draekon Conqueror.
The rebellion injected a slow-acting toxin into me in part to get me to do their bidding, but also as a precautionary measure. Worst case scenario: if they brought me out of stasis and I went on a killing rampage, I’d be dead in three months.
I terrify people. I don’t want to frighten Lani. It’s a long way back to the Rebellion Headquarters; the journey would be a lot easier if she trusted me.
Really? That’s the only reason you don’t want her to be afraid of you? So that the journey back will be more pleasant?
“The tattoos are fake?”
“Yes,” I say again. “Every Zorahn male in the High Empire is tested every year for the Draekon mutation. Without the testing tattoos, I’d stand out.” I grimace. “I should have remembered that they fade when I shift.”
She goes very still. “You can shift into a dragon?”
“Yes.” I pull my pack over to me and rummage through it, looking for the pen I gave Mardex. “It’s a handy skill. I can also fly and breathe fire.” I shoot her a smile. “Though, given how Nestri feels about Draekons, maybe I’ll hold off on both those things until we get out of here.”
She doesn’t smile back. She pulls away from me. “How very convenient it must be to be you,” she says stiffly. “We’re walking to the nearest town, right? Let’s go.”
She marches outside. I take a quick moment to grab supplies—the AWG, the food-syn, and backup field rations—and chase after her. Blue skitters across the shuttle and crawls up my shoulder, but I’m too puzzled to spare him a glance.
What just happened?
One moment, Lani was smiling at me. The next, she’s ice.
One moment, she was touching me, but now she’s not, and the absence stings deeper than the rathr.
Is it because she found out I’m Draekon? But she didn’t react this way yesterday when she’d found out Mardex was Draekon. She’d been fascinated, not repulsed.
What the hell did I do to antagonize her?
This is why I prefer tech.
13
Lani
I’m not happy, and that’s an understatement. I’m seething. And the worst thing is, this is my own fault.
Ruhan looks like a player. He’s gorgeous and charm
ing. He laughs easily. His smile is the textbook definition of panty-melting. And, if he can shift into a dragon, that means he has a mate. A mate that he’s evidently perfectly okay cheating on.
With me.
Ugh, ugh, and more ugh.
I should have seen the warning signs. After all, I was there when Mardex talked about his mate, and how there could be no one else for him. Ruhan hadn’t been sympathetic. No, instead, he’d rolled his eyes.
Some Draekons—like Mardex—seem to believe in monogamy, fidelity, and true love. And then there’s Ruhan, who evidently likes to thrust his ample cock into as many willing pussies as possible.
Last night, I was one of them. We didn’t go all the way, but that’s a technicality. Shame fills me. I am so gullible. Such a fool. Back on Earth, I had a list of first-date questions, and the most important one was ‘Are you single?’ But on this alien planet, all my common-sense rules had gone flying out of the window.
Admit it, Lani. You saw the outline of his cock, and your brain stopped working. You had an attack of insta-lust. Or, in this case, insta-stupidity.
Gah. I hate cheaters. I really, really do. And I’m furious with Ruhan. I don’t want to be the other woman, and against my will, he’s dragged me into this situation. And, even worse, I’ll have to be somewhat civil to the asshole for the rest of the trip, otherwise I’ll end up stranded in the middle of an alien planet where, judging by my experience with Gervil, everyone wants to chop me up like meat, cook me into a stew, and slurp me down. I can’t even stomp off in a huff, the way I really want to.
Ruhan falls into step with me. “Lani,” he says, sounding both confused and exasperated. “Has something upset you?”
“Has something upset me?” I laugh incredulously. The utter nerve of the guy. Look at him, framing what he did in passive voice, as if he didn’t play the leading role in what happened. I walk faster, refusing to look at him. If I look into those green, green eyes, I have a sneaking suspicion I’d burst into tears. I’d been vulnerable last night, and I thought he was trustworthy. I’m not sure if I’m more upset because he made me a party to his infidelity, or because I misjudged him so badly. “Yeah, I’d say so.”