Snowed in with the Alien Dragon

by Sonia Nova

Well, if nothing else, it would have been a fun way to spend Christmas, a naughtier portion of her brain pointed out. Giving her wayward mind a mental slap, she set the book aside and glanced at Erro again. He was still out like a light, and his look was so serene he reminded her of a sleeping child. A seven foot tall, golden child, but still.

  Sleep finally crawled up on her after a while, and she felt her eyes go droopy. It really had been a long day and the exhaustion was catching up on her at last. Putting aside her book, she decided to head to bed.

  With a stretch, she got up from the loveseat and walked to her front door. Despite the fact they were in the middle of nowhere, Rachel took the advice she’d been given about interstellar lowlifes seriously enough that she had installed an alarm system at her house. Now, she padded over to engage it in a bid to keep them out of her home.

  Then, she stepped back to the couch and adjusted Erro’s blanket again. She put another log on the fire and gave the sleeping Union pilot a final look before heading off to her bedroom for some much needed rest.

  * * *

  Rachel’s heart nearly leaped out of her chest when an ear-screeching noise went off in the house. She woke up with a start, her eyes flying open and her heart pounding hard. She relaxed only slightly when she realized that the terrible noise was her door alarm. After all, waking up to the sound of the alarm system going off was probably not a good sign.

  Still wearing nothing but her long, oversized t-shirt, she ran quickly into the living room to see what was going on. To her surprise, she found Erro shivering on the floor, his hands covering his ears, and a cold blast of air – fortunately devoid of snow this time – chilling the room. A shiver ran along her spine as the cold reached her.

  “Well, at least the storm has ended,” she commented dryly as she stepped over to close the door. She left Erro where he was long enough to build up the fire again, since it seemed like he needed to be warm, and she didn’t think her aching muscles were up to lifting the big guy again.

  “Rachel?” he asked softly as he sat up, clearly trying to make sure he remembered her name.

  She looked at him, worried that he might have just fallen and hit his head again. Getting to her feet, she stepped over and ran her fingers along the back of his head, feeling for the bump she’d noticed there the night before. She quickly realized the touch might have been a mistake when he suddenly leaned forward, close enough that his face was almost touching her belly, and breathed in her scent.

  “Ele’a,” he whispered with a contented sigh.

  Rachel could feel her cheeks heat up again, but she quickly swatted the man away.

  “Okay, I really want to know what this ele’a thing you keep talking about is,” Rachel complained, knowing he couldn’t understand what she was saying anyway. “What is it, some kind of an alien sex thing?”

  Without meaning to, she surreptitiously glanced down at the area between his legs. Her cheeks burned hot as she realized that the distinct bulge was still there, and she wondered if he’d ever managed to calm down. If he had though, it hadn’t lasted, because right now, he was in full-on bulge mode again. Or maybe the thing never gave it a rest at all? The possibility left her face crimson as she moved away, intent on making them some breakfast.

  Glancing at the coffee table where Erro had left his sandwich the previous evening, she saw that he’d eaten it sometime during the night. Good, at least she knew that he was able to consume the ingredients she had on hand. That was a start.

  Walking into the kitchen, she took some eggs out of her fridge and started to prepare them breakfast. While she was cooking, Erro got up and followed her into the room, curiously looking at the stovetop. She smiled at him as he entered, but quickly caught his hand when he would have touched the burner.

  The sudden skin-on-skin contact ignited an odd heat inside her, like a small electric spark coursing between them, and she blushed. Erro seemed to have felt it too. His eyes darkened momentarily, and he was suddenly standing a lot closer than before. So close, that she could feel the warmth of his body against hers.

  Rachel dropped his hand like it burned even hotter than the stove and turned to stir the hash browns.

  Erro sighed beside her, catching her chin in his hand so she would look at him. His golden eyes swirled with an intensity she hadn’t seen before, and he pointed at the front door insistently.

  Rachel understood that he wanted to go outside – although why, she didn’t know. Perhaps back to his spaceship? But she didn’t want him to get so cold she had to drag him back in again. She thought about this dilemma as she set the hash browns and scrambled eggs onto two plates and brought them over to the small kitchen table, motioning for Erro to join her there.

  They ate mostly in silence, with Erro trying to make conversation a few times, maybe just for the sake of saying something – just as she had spoken English to him the night before – and in the meanwhile, Rachel considered what to do with him and his insistence to venture outside.

  The storm had ended, so that much was good. She also knew that she had a very oversized coat hanging in the closet which, with any luck, might actually fit over Erro’s shoulders, but she doubted it would be large enough to fully close. No, it seemed more likely that they were going to need to cover him with a sweater or two first.

  And his legs? Well, maybe some leg warmers would help? They were pink, but it wasn’t likely he would know that the color was usually meant for girls anyway, right? Who knew, maybe pink was even the most masculine color there was on his planet? She could only hope so.

  Or maybe Erro didn’t even see colors. Rachel frowned at the thought. The man before her looked so eerily human at times – although an unusually attractive one – that if someone saw them eating like this, they wouldn’t think anything was amiss. But no matter how human he looked, he wasn’t one. So who knew, maybe he saw colors completely differently as well?

  Either way, Rachel was glad to discover that Erro had found his appetite at last. He seemed to be happily gorging down the breakfast, eating like a starved man and even asking for more – to which Rachel happily complied.

  While he continued to eat, Rachel hunted down warm clothes he might be able to wear and brought them all out to sit on the loveseat. His eyes followed her movements curiously, and when she began pulling on sweaters and socks, he looked as though he understood. Good thing, too. She didn’t know the Union words for ‘put these on’.

  Since she was pulling on some leggings at the time, when Erro stepped over, he started with those. Next, he tried to pull on a sweater, which was slightly too tight, and ripped at the shoulders as he attempted to work it over his bulging biceps. With a shrug, he simply ripped off the sleeves completely and tossed them aside, easily getting into the shell before reaching for the jacket. Thankfully, that one didn’t rip as well, though just as she’d suspected, he was too bulky to pull the thing closed.

  After he tried unsuccessfully to pull the jacket around himself, Erro surprised Rachel when he picked up the sleeves he’d just discarded, tied them together, and then tugged and stretched at them, testing to see if he could cinch them around his waist to close the gap instead.

  “Erro!” Rachel gasped, chuckling as she watched him.

  She really couldn’t help herself when she started to laugh. The puffy winter coat – which was a deep orange color – almost made him look like a giant pumpkin. Worse, the sleeves he was attempting to work around it were a shade of green.

  “You look like you’re working on the wrong holiday,” she told him between chuckles.

  Erro dropped the sleeves and watched her with a bemused expression on his face. The look in his eyes seemed almost predatory as he suddenly shoved her against the wall, making her gasp. Her laughter abruptly died as he pinned her there, caging her with his body, and her heartbeat sped up until she felt it in her throat.

  Before she could say or do anything to protest, Erro’s lips crushed down onto hers, hot and insistent. Stunned, Rachel forgo
t to breathe for a moment as a wave of desire unlike anything she’d ever felt before washed over her. Her whole body felt heated, and to her surprise, she found herself kissing him back. His tongue slipped into her mouth, and hers answered in kind, begging for more. When she finally came up for air, his lips didn’t fully leave hers.

  “Ele’a,” he whispered against her mouth, making her breath catch.

  Somehow, Erro saying that word right against her flesh made her melt even more. Definitely a sex thing. Her natural instinct to throw her arms around his neck kicked in, but with all the stuffing between them, there was no way her padded arms were going anywhere close to that direction.

  Instead, she used them to push him away from her, certain that now would not be the best time to encourage anything more. She reached into the pile of clothes and grabbed some mittens, taking hold of one of his hands, and then the other, to slip them on. Once his hands were protected, she turned and strode to the door, properly turning off the alarm system before she opened it this time.

  Erro was still standing near the wall, watching her. His breaths came out quite heavily, and his fists were clenched at his sides. Rachel sucked in a deep breath of her own as she motioned for him to follow her. She didn’t need to see the evidence between his thighs to know that kiss must have rocked his world just as much as it had rocked her own.

  CHAPTER 7

  ERRO

  The taste of Rachel’s lips was… magical. Erro could think of no better word to describe the sensation that now coursed through his body as he gazed upon her bundled up anatomy. In his mind, he visualized unwrapping her again – although he wouldn’t stop at the clothing she wore under the thick layer of outdoor gear.

  A low groan escaped his lips at the thought, and he could feel the throb of his cock underneath his own layers of clothing. She had been laughing at him, and he’d succumbed to the desire that had been building up in him ever since he’d seen her for the first time. He knew the action had been ill-advised, but by the time he managed to get his sluggish mind to give him that advice, the damage was already being done.

  She had simply looked so beautiful, laughing so happily at him, that he hadn’t been able to hold himself back.

  At least she wasn’t angry with him, even though she had pushed him away. Erro decided that the move had been more about practical concerns than it was about evasion. Her face was red, but her quickened breaths and the darkening of her green eyes looked more like desire than dread. She must simply be just as eager to get outdoors as he was. At least, that’s what he’d surmised.

  Rachel motioned for him to follow her as she stepped out the door. When he reached it himself, he caught his first real glimpse of the strange new world. It was completely blanketed in white, and he could feel even through his thick new gear that whatever the white stuff was, it was cold. Very cold.

  He reached down and picked up some of it, and it powdered between his thumb and the portion of fabric that encased all of his fingers.

  “Snow,” Rachel said as she pointed to it, and then spanned the whole region around them with a wave of her hand.

  “Snow?” Erro repeated the foreign word, frowning as he continued to stare at the odd white substance on the ground. He had never seen anything like it before. And it seemed this whole world was covered in it.

  Strange. Where the hell was he? He didn’t think he had ever even heard of a world like this before, but that might just be his head injury talking.

  As he looked around more fully, he realized that her dwelling appeared to be the only one nearby. In the horizon, a curious lump within the whiteness sported a smoking stack, and he figured out it must be another home, but it was quite a way from where the two of them stood.

  The sky above them was dark, nearly black, and it would’ve felt ominous if it weren’t for the colorful light show illuminating the darkness. Shades of green and red danced above them, glowing in the sky in a way unlike Erro had ever seen. His eyes widened in amazement, for the sight was quite beautiful.

  Faintly in the distance, somewhere beyond the smoking place, Erro could hear a muted pinging sound. If he hadn’t known what to look for, he would’ve likely missed it, but as a Union pilot, the sound was etched to the back of his mind. It seemed the homing beacon on his ship had not yet ceased to function. That was a good thing. Now, if only he could transform to his other half, he could be there in moments, find those damned translators, and explain to the female beside him exactly what was going on.

  Erro sighed in defeat. Of course, he couldn’t remember if humans also had the ability to transform, but he didn’t think so, and he could only imagine that if Rachel suddenly saw him turn into a huge and formidable beast, she might become quite frightened. Wouldn’t be the first time that happened with the member of another alien race. So for her sake, his inability to change was probably just as well.

  But that left him with one very real dilemma. How was he supposed to follow that signal, get to his ship, and finally be able to communicate with his mate? And how was he supposed to convince her to come away with him when he managed to get hold of someone at the Union base on this world?

  At least, he seemed to remember that there was an Union base here. Maybe even more than one. But the longer he stood outside, the less he seemed to be able to think as his mind froze in the cold weather that was now starting to seep through his thick layers of clothing. Even with the warm clothes, he felt almost completely overwhelmed by the icy temperatures. He didn’t just need translators, he needed some thermal shielding to help him stay warm.

  Tugging at Rachel’s arm, he pointed to the sky, then brought his arms downward in a violent arc, motioning as though he’d slammed his hand on the ground. She nodded her understanding, but then looked worriedly at a strange, wheeled vehicle that was mostly buried in the snow. He could see by her expression that she didn’t believe the thing would be moving anytime soon.

  Giving him an apologetic smile, she then rushed over to a small building beside her dwelling. When she tugged on the side of it, a tall door creaked open, revealing another, much smaller vehicle inside.

  Or at least, Erro thought it was a vehicle. Unlike the one standing outside, this one didn’t look like it was made to accommodate anyone inside it. It also didn’t have wheels, but long, smooth poles instead, and he had no idea how it could carry anyone – let alone the two of them. Erro frowned in confusion. How she thought they would be able to travel anywhere in it was beyond him. Unless of course, the thing could fly. But somehow, it didn’t look very aerodynamic, and with how primitive this world had proven to be until now, he doubted that was the case.

  Still, when Rachel walked toward it, he followed. Obviously, she wouldn’t own the thing if she didn’t think it was of some use to her, right? But then he thought about that weird tree she’d been hanging decorations all over, and the transmission orb that wasn’t a transmission orb after all, and stifled a derisive snort. He really couldn’t be sure of that.

  Rachel patted the back of the vehicle, giving him a significant look as if telling him sit down there. Then, she walked to the ther side of the vehicle and hopped on it herself, getting behind two oddly shaped handles that were clearly meant to be used to navigate the vehicle through the snow.

  Cautiously, Erro climbed on the back of the vehicle, sitting down behind her in the spot she had pointed out to him. He watched as Rachel stuck a small piece of metal into a hole on the consul. When she turned it, the sound of an engine roared to life, and a mischievous grin spread on Erro’s lips. Maybe this thing was going somewhere after all.

  Somehow or other, Rachel backed up the vehicle onto the top of the snow, and they began to glide over it just like a boat over water. Erro watched with fascination as they went quickly over the white desert, heading toward the beacon signal. He frowned at the realization. Could she hear it too? He hadn’t given her any directions to the ship after all.

  But when Rachel took a few odd turns, not going directly to the
ship but obviously taking another route, Erro realized that she wasn’t tracking the sound. She seemed to be heading back to the location of the ship based on her memory. He found that impressive, considering it was probably buried fairly deep under the white fluff by now. How did one navigate in this environment anyway? He couldn’t see any direction guide in the front of the vehicle at least.

  “Ar’eta!” he yelled out after a moment when they arrived near the vessel and almost passed it by. Fortunately, the word was one she seemed to understand, and she quickly stopped as he’d requested.

  Erro scrambled off the vehicle as they came to a halt and shambled his way over to his ship – which, as he had guessed, was covered in white. The icy cold snow made his legs prickle and grow numb, but once he managed to climb inside, he knew he’d be able to remedy that problem in a short time, so he pushed on through. Starting to dig through the snow, he clawed his way to the entrance of the ship and jumped in.

  Inside, Erro had enough room to yank off the crude outerwear and toss it aside. He opened a little cabinet door and tugged free two translators and a small silver disk. He pulled at a similar disk at the neckline of his spacesuit, and the black garb disappeared, temporarily leaving him unclothed except for the necklace he’d pulled the disk out of.

  His whole body shivered and threatened to freeze on spot, but when he tucked the other disk into place, his covering returned – except that it was no longer black. Instead, it was a muted shade of silver, and the new clothes kept him warm and dry as he rushed back over to Rachel’s vehicle again.

  She stood next to the little snow glider now, and her brows rose in surprise as he hurried back toward her. Erro couldn’t help but grin at her, happy that he would at last get to communicate with his one and only ele’a.

  Popping one of the translators into his ear, he passed the other one to her. She looked at it a bit warily, but eventually took it in her hand and inserted it into her ear. Erro smiled at her, unable to contain his enthusiasm.