Hakona: Dragon Warrior (Scifi Alien Dragon Romance)

by Jamie Phoenix

  Kasma turned to look at her. There was nothing but hate pouring out of his eyes as he said, “you need to remove any hope of seeing your people again from your mind—now.”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but Queane dug her nails into her skin, warning her to think twice.

  “Take her away,” Kasma said with a wave of his hand.

  Queane pulled her back quickly, turning her towards the entrance of the cave. Allison had to fight the urge to look back over her shoulder at Hakona. She simply lowered her head and let Queane guide her.

  She fought to contain herself as best as she could as they weaved their way through the tunnels and halls, dimly lit with torches that seemed about to burn out. When they reached the wooden door that led to her room, Queane said something to the guards standing outside. They nodded quickly and hurried off.

  As soon as they were alone in her cell, however, Allison broke down. The tears poured out on their own accord. She couldn’t do anything to stop them. She felt her chest tighten, and her head was near the point of exploding.

  “Never?” she gasped between sobs.

  Queane led her to the mat, setting her down carefully.

  “Never?” she asked again.

  “What did you think would happen, Allison?” she asked calmly. She lowered herself down onto the ground in front of her and took her ankle in her hand.

  The contact sent a surge of pain rushing through her, and Allison let out a loud wail. It was a combination of a response to the jolt that spread out around her foot and the distress of her situation.

  “I’ve asked them to bring bandages and something to clean the wound,” Queane said as she examined her injury.

  “You knew all along, didn’t you?” Allison asked between gasps. Her breathing was labored from the strain of the emotions that were rushing through her.

  "You did not?" Queane asked her voice calm.

  “No!” she yelled.

  “I told you, you do not understand us.”

  “You’ve all known, haven’t you? You’ve all known that I would never be able to leave?”

  “Of course,” Queane replied. She continued to speak calmly, hunched over and inspecting Allison’s ankle.

  “Look at me! Damn it!” Allison demanded.

  Queane looked up slowly. “Don’t do this,” she said softly.

  “How can you say that to me?”

  Queane’s eyes were filled with concern, and Allison knew that she was only trying to help—in whatever way she could. The Samou were not the most emotional of people, and it was clear that Allison’s outbursts were unfamiliar to her.

  “Right now, you need to stay calm,” she said. “Hakona is speaking with Kasma now. He is trying to make a case to save your life, Allison. You can’t be acting this way if you hope to survive.”

  “What would it matter? I would live the rest of my life as a prisoner!” Allison said, her words still coming out in loud, emotional bursts.

  “It’s better than not living at all,” Queane said.

  “Is it?” Allison asked.

  Queane didn’t answer her question. Shortly after, there was a knock at the door, and the supplies Queane had requested were brought in. Allison sat in silence as she worked, cleaning her wound and bandaging up her ankle. When she finished, she stood and walked out of the room, not saying a word as she left.

  Allison pulled her legs up onto the mat and laid back. She stared up at the ceiling for a while, letting her mind run wild with the thoughts that filled it. She tried to imagine a life without her friends, her family, and everything she knew.

  Had she really been so stupid as to think that they would let her go? Had she really been so foolish to think that it would all end, and she would be allowed to leave?

  That night, she didn’t sleep at all.

  Chapter 8: A lot to Think About

  The next morning, instead of Queane, it was Kasma who appeared at her door after they served her breakfast. He didn’t knock before entering. Instead, he simply threw the door open and barged in, as if he were an expected and honored guest.

  “What do you want?” Allison asked him. She was weak, so her words came out a lot less forcefully than she had intended them to.

  “I just wanted to have a quick chat,” he said. He crossed the room and stood directly in front of her.

  She was still lying in bed. Her breakfast was still on the floor by the door, untouched. Her eyes were heavy with sleep, although she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep if she tried. Her mind had been racing the entire night, and it was nowhere near done yet. Not to mention that her ankle was still bothering her. Whatever ointment Queane had spread on it the night before was helping greatly, and it looked a lot better than it had, but the pain was still there.

  “I don’t want to talk,” she said, rolling over onto her side and staring at the wall.

  “That’s too bad,” Kasma said. He began to pace back and forth in front of her mat slowly. “Because I’m afraid you do not have an option.”

  She let out a soft sigh but didn't say anything.

  “You see,” he continued, “Hakona is very adamant that we keep you alive. Now, I could ask myself—why is that?”

  She still didn’t answer.

  “But, that would be horribly nosey of me, don’t you think?”

  “What are you getting at?” she asked.

  “I trust Hakona,” he said lowly. “He is a good warrior, and very dedicated to protecting our people. I know he wouldn’t be so foolish as to engage you in any form of inappropriate relationship.”

  “It’s his fault I’m here. Don’t think that I’ve forgotten that,” she said.

  Her jaw was clenched. She was angry—with Hakona and with herself. It was true, that he was the one that selected her to be their prisoner. He had known the entire time that she would never be allowed to leave, and he had kept that information from her. Those were the thoughts that had been at the forefront of her mind the entire night before. She felt like an idiot for even entertaining the idea that she had feelings for him. He was just like all the other Samou—heartless, cold, and always keeping her in the dark about everything.

  “Not to mention he’s already promised to Hamala,” Kasma said slowly.

  Even though her back was to him, Allison could feel his eyes burning into her. He was trying to judge her reaction; she knew that. Of course, she wanted to react to the news—yet another secret he had kept from her.

  She wasn’t surprised, though. She had expected as much. The woman who was always with him was clearly very possessive of him. No, she wasn’t surprised. That didn’t mean she wasn’t hurt, though.

  “We have a very select process for choosing mates here,” Kasma explained. “And Hakona and Hamala have been paired since they were children. It’s only a matter of time before the bond is made.”

  The more he spoke, the more questions filled her mind. She resisted any urge to ask, though. She didn’t care anymore. Her body was too weak and her mind exhausted from trying to piece together what little information she did have.

  “I only say this, because you need to understand my confusion as for his desire to spare your life.”

  “I honestly don’t know why he would want that,” she muttered.

  “His reasons were valid enough, but still, I needed to be sure.”

  “What were his reasons?” She rolled over and looked up at Kasma.

  The patterns weaved into his skin reflected the soft light coming from the torch in the corner of the room. Looking at him from that angle, he appeared even more imposing, and his presence even more terrifying than it normally did. He stared down at her, his black eyes shining.

  “On the one hand, we don’t believe in killing unless it is absolutely necessary,” he explained. “As I’m sure you’ve discovered about us.”

  “I have,” she nodded.

  “He claims that you do not pose a threat to us.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “In addit
ion, he thinks you can still give us information.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  Kasma laughed, “to save your life, of course.”

  “At the cost of the lives of everyone I know?”

  “Lives will be lost either way,” he replied coldly. “It’s more a question of—do we attack now and kill everyone that’s on the ground already? Or wait until the others get here and take them all out at one time?”

  “You don’t have to kill them!” she exclaimed. She pushed herself up and threw her legs over the edge of the mat. The quick, sudden movement made her feel slightly dizzy, but she grabbed onto the edges of the cot and steadied herself.

  “We do,” he said firmly.

  “I thought you didn’t like to kill? I mean, Christ! You care about trees and plants and all that shit!”

  “We will only kill if it’s necessary. And in this case, it is.”

  “You don’t know that,” she said. Her eyes burned with tears again, but she swallowed hard and refused to let them fall.

  “Tell me, what did you know about our planet before you came here?”

  “Nothing,” she answered quickly.

  “Wrong.”

  “It’s the truth! We didn’t know anything about this place.”

  “You’re not the first from your planet to come here,” he explained. He paused, letting his words work their way through her.

  She shook her head. “That’s not true.” Kasma, Hakona, and even Queane had hinted that fact to her before, but she was still in denial, and hearing the words actually spoken only caused her to dive deeper into a state of rejection.

  “It is.” Kasma let out a long sigh, followed by a quick laugh. “This problem facing your planet has been one that your kind has been aware of for quite a while now.”

  “I know that.”

  "Did you know that about ten years ago a group of explorers was sent out on the very same mission you came here to complete?"

  “No.”

  “They found our planet, and, like you, they began to destroy it. We tried, in that moment, to be kind to them. To engage with them, and create a relationship, a sort of understanding between our two groups.”

  She didn’t reply. She tried to follow what he was saying, but she couldn’t.

  “It was clear that we wouldn’t be able to come to an agreement about how we would go about cohabitating here. So, your group of explorers agreed to leave.”

  “Who was on the team?”

  “A Doctor Cooper was one of them.”

  “That’s a lie! Dr. Cooper would have told us. He would have explained everything to us.”

  “You haven’t even let me tell you the best part,” Kasma said, leaning forward and staring down at her.

  “What?”

  “About six months after that team left, a group of military personnel showed up. They came with guns, grenades, other forms of weapons that only pathetically weak and scared people would need.”

  “What happened?”

  “We lost 20 of our own. None of them survived.”

  “None of that is true,” she said shaking her head quickly.

  “I’m afraid it is, Allison. So, you see. We know what your people want. We’ve tried to interact with them before. We gave them the chance to live here with us peacefully.”

  She felt a knot form in her stomach. She tried to speak, but her words caught in her throat. The tears continued to sting her eyes, but she fought to hold them in.

  “And it’s clear that Hakona was right about one thing—you had no idea. It’s almost comical how little you all know about each other. You don’t communicate, do you? You all live among a cloud of secrets, and no one cares to ask for the truth.”

  “I didn’t know,” she said under her breath.

  “Now you do. Your kind has known about our planet for a long time. They have been longing to come here, to overtake it. They don’t care about us, or what destruction they may bring with them. They only want to conquer and occupy. If we let your kind come here, it won’t be long before our planet is in the same state that yours is now.”

  “What do you want to know?” she asked quietly. She didn’t want to help them, but she did want him to leave her alone. Her head was spinning and her heart ached. She felt like the world around her had come crashing down. In the span of just a few minutes, everything she thought she knew was quickly proven wrong.

  “It’s simple, really. We only want to know how long it will take for the others your camp has called for to arrive?”

  “I don’t know,” she said with a shrug.

  “Not the answer we were looking for.”

  “I didn’t even know they were requesting others be brought here,” she countered. “I didn’t know they would attack you! How would I know how long it will take them to get here?”

  “How long would a trip from your planet to ours take?” he asked. “It’s as simple as that.”

  “I don’t know exactly,” she replied. “We went to a lot of other planets before we came here.”

  “Guess.”

  She thought for a few moments. Planet 48-Z was on their way back to Earth, so it couldn’t take that long to get there.

  “A month and a half?” she guessed. “Maybe a little more?”

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  “Can you leave, please?” she asked weakly.

  “Of course,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m sure you have a lot you want to think about.”

  Chapter 9: A Blissful Distraction

  For the next few days, Queane didn’t come to bring her to the fields. She didn’t care. She didn’t have the energy to work. Still, they fed her. It wasn’t much—clearly whatever leftovers they had from their community meal.

  She didn't have much of an appetite, anyway. She ate what she needed to to make sure that starvation never fully set in. It wasn't her physical health she was worried about, though.

  It was her mental health that she felt quickly failing her. She tried, again and again, to process what Kasma had said to her. Could it be possible? Could it be true that Dr. Cooper knew about the Samou before they ever arrived to Planet 48-Z? Was it always his intention to bring them there?

  Kasma had mentioned to her previously that there were other planets that would serve their purpose nearby. Why didn’t they just go to one of those? Was there some sort of personal vendetta that Dr. Cooper had against the Samou? Was it really a fight that happened a decade before that had driven him to return to the place where so many lives had been lost already?

  She had known Dr. Cooper for a very long time. She couldn’t believe that he would do something like that—that he would even be involved in something like that. But, it made sense. She never understood why they felt the need to bring the military with them on their mission. A few soldiers for protection, sure. But, a mini military fleet? It never added up.

  She felt angry and betrayed. Not just by her own people, but by the Samou as well. Not all of them—only one of them to be exact. Hakona had known all of that. He had known all along what was going on, and he never told her.

  It was true that they had never been able to spend much time together, but she thought that what time they had spent had been genuine. She felt like she was forming some sort of a connection with him.

  Now, she just felt like an idiot. Could she really have been so naïve?

  She started to feel suffocated in her small room. She wanted to go outside. The cramped space and poor lighting were starting to make her go crazy. She needed fresh air. She needed space to think!

  By the end of the third day of being locked up, alone, no interaction with anyone, she knew she was about to lose it completely. Then, the last thing that she wanted to happen did.

  She heard someone outside her door. She recognized his voice immediately, even though she didn’t understand the words, spoken in the clicks and chatter of their native language.

  After a quick exchange with the guard who had been post
ed outside her room, he pushed the door open.

  “Allison,” he said her name in a whisper.

  “Go away,” she ordered him.

  “Please,” Hakona said as he walked over towards her. “Let me explain.”

  She pushed herself up quickly. She wasn’t sure where or how she found the strength to do so, but she did. And once she started, her body continued to move on its own accord, the inertia propelling her forward. The pain in her ankle had all but gone. The only bolts of discomfort she felt came from her chest.

  She stood to her feet and crossed the room, meeting him half way. As soon as he was inches away from her, she reached up and pushed back against his chest. It was hard as a rock, but she didn’t care. She pushed at him as hard as she could. He didn’t budge.

  He tried to reach out and take her arms in his hands, but she pulled them back quickly, “Get out!” she yelled, balling up her fists and throwing them desperately against him.

  “Stop,” he said softly.

  She didn’t stop. She continued to beat at his chest, tears of frustration, hurt, anger, and pure rage pouring out of her eyes. She hit him again and again. He didn’t react. He stood, motionless, staring down at her with an expression of confusion and pain in his eyes.

  “Go!” she cried again.

  “No,” he said. He stepped towards her. She didn’t step back. The heat coming off his body wrapped around her, and she felt the soothing feeling it gave her start to work through her. She pushed those feelings aside, though, and let her anger once again take over.

  He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to him. She was still flailing about, wildly trying to escape his grasp. He wasn’t forceful as he held her close to him. But still, her strength was nothing compared to his, and she couldn’t push herself free.

  She could feel his heart beating in his chest. It was strong and fast. “Allison, please. You need to calm down.” He spoke to her in a hushed, soothing tone. “If you don’t, someone will come.”

  She continued to push back against him. He tightened his grasp on her slightly and suddenly a relaxing feeling washed over her. It was the same as the night they had spoken about the Samou’s planned attack. It was as if he had done something to her. Somehow he had calmed her down, against her own will.