“We don’t take the Lotteries lightly,” Tynan interjected. “We don’t think the Lotteries are a game. That would be an insult to all the Lacertans who’ve tried to have children that way—and all the ones who’ve succeeded in helping our world to grow. My brothers met their mates in the Lotteries. But it’s a fact that my brothers’ marriages haven’t given me any nieces and nephews yet. That’s why we’re looking for another way to help our people.”
“So, the answer to helping our people,” another Lacertan mediate, a female, chimed in, “is to try to do away with something that is a part of our way of life?”
“No one is trying to take the Lotteries away or do away with them,” Tynan insisted. “Has there been any talk at the Ruling Aerie about stopping the Lotteries? Have any laws been drafted? I haven’t seen or heard any. I doubt any such proposal would make it through Rumination. I don’t think it would get past the House of Wings or the House of Talons.”
Sierra reentered the fray. “Not only that, but have you forgotten that the human female candidates for this project were all chosen and screened using the Lottery computer system? The Morans haven’t been working against the Lottery system. They’ve been working with it.”
The female Lacertan shot back, “Some would say using it to their own advantage. What do you say to that?”
With hands defiantly on her hips, Sierra answered, “What I say is that this wasn’t your ordinary Lottery process. It must have had twice as many people submitting as your usual ones, maybe more. The computers make the process more efficient in the usual Lottery. They were even more necessary in this one. We might not be having this discussion right now if it weren’t for that.”
“We used the Lottery system in an unorthodox way,” added Tynan, “but that wasn’t to take advantage. It was only to streamline the process. If it looks like we were exercising our privileged position, it wasn’t meant to be that way at all. My brothers both presented themselves at the formal Lottery ceremony in Silverwing, the same as thousands of other people do. The charges that we’re trying to work the system from within and then take it apart and replace it are just groundless.”
“That’s right!” said Sierra. “No one is trying to take anything away from the Lacertan people. What the Morans are trying to do is give you an alternative.”
“And what about the background data on you, Ms. Smith?” asked an unsmiling male mediate. “The biographical information released about you is a picture of an adventuress—a fortune seeker. You and Prince Tynan insist that the Nest Moran didn’t enter into this project for gain. But what about you yourself?”
Sierra’s face creased into an open frown, her hands at her hips clenched into fists, and she did not care who saw it. “If you’re implying that I’m helping Prince Tynan and his family for money—selling myself to them—let me just relieve you of that idea right now. I do not need to lease my body to a wealthy family of dragons. You’re right, I have spent my career hunting fortunes and I’m a woman of independent means above my stipend because of it.
I do not need and am not interested in anyone’s money, the Morans or anyone else. And even if I were in it for that reason—so what? How would I be any different from women who used to sell their eggs, or men their sperm? Or for that matter, women who used to be paid to be surrogate parents? Were any of them so morally questionable?
You can just spare me the backward 21st-Century thinking and maybe the people of Lacerta might just try to be a little grateful to the Morans for trying to do something worthwhile for them. Because if this works for Tynan and me, you can expect this to be made available to everyone on this planet that wants a family or another child, and then we’ll just see who wants to go through the Lottery system and who’s ready to try it another way.”
That brought the discussion to a dead halt. There was such a silence on the promenade that Sierra almost feared the weredragons in the crowd might shift to reptile form and lynch her where she stood. Then again, Joanna Way had just taken it all in with a smile, as if behind her mediate’s objectivity she was thinking, That’s telling this bunch of dragons.
Sierra glanced at Tynan once more, wondering how much he disapproved of her excoriation of his people for the entire quadrant to hear. Had she sacrificed her chance to help him—to be with him? On Tynan’s face was another smile, a smile that suggested that far from disapproving, he was actually impressed.
The impromptu media conference continued with questions of how Tynan and Sierra would proceed with their own relationship once they had successfully conceived and delivered a baby, where they would live, how well Sierra was prepared to be the mother of a dragon-shifting child, and so forth.
They answered these questions much more calmly than the way Sierra put that one mediate in his place, and a short time later the hovering vehicles began to take their leave, taking away the members of the press to edit their transmissions and file their reports, which were no doubt already becoming the talk of a thousand planets, especially after Sierra’s performance.
Joanna Way was among the last to leave, and not before securing a promise from Tynan and Sierra that they would grant her an exclusive interview at a later date. Joanna’s smile at Sierra was constant throughout the rest of the experience. Sierra could sense that she and this lady would get on famously.
Finally, with all the mediates and their AI devices gone, Tynan ushered Sierra through the portal and into the shining tiled foyer of the aerie, which was of course filled with mosaics of dragons. They stood there in the middle of the great polished hall, and Sierra rubbed her neck and let out a long sigh.
“Tynan, I am so sorry,” she said.
“For what?” he asked.
“For having no impulse control. For losing my temper with that…idiot…when he had the nerve to bait me about my ‘biographical data,’ deliberately using my background and some trumped-up moral judgement to get a rise out of me. And I fell for it, with all the AI cameras on me. And you know people are watching and listening to that all over space.”
Tynan broke into a laugh. “I know! You were magnificent!”
Sierra was not amused. “Tynan, that’s not funny! Your parents are going to see that! They’re going to see you’ve been paired up for child rearing with some…interplanetary harpy who bitches at reporters!
What kind of image are they going to think that is for you? What kind of thing do they think that’s going to say to this whole world of people who look up to your family? After what I’ve done to your reputation, you shouldn’t be laughing, and neither will they! I hope you saved the data on the other final candidates; you might be needing to call in a backup after this.”
Tynan simmered down to a chuckle. “First, you underestimate my parents. I can’t tell you how many mediates they’ve wanted to tell off over the years. Hold this against you? I think they’re more likely to envy you. They may not be happy when the mediates go after them next, which they will. And they may not say it directly to you, but when they find out about this, I think they’ll respect you.”
“But I made such a display, right out there outside of your home…”
He cut her off sharply. “Sierra, we are the Nest Moran. Do you think we’ve never been a spectacle until now? Do you know about my ex-fiancée, and what we did, and the scandal it brought to our door?
Sierra rolled her eyes and nodded. “I wasn’t going to bring that up.”
“Liona didn’t do us—or me—any favors. We drew plenty of criticism for not seeing what was going on right under our snouts. After getting through this, we’re not going to get our scales keeled over you giving a verbal drubbing to a mediate who had it coming. This is hardly anything at all.” He held out his hands to her. “Hardly. Anything. It’s…turbulence in the wind, I promise.”
Reassured, Sierra took his hands. They were so warm. They felt so good. The rest of him must surely feel even more wonderful. She looked into his comforting smile as he dismissed the tableau that just occurred outsid
e his door. She felt him dismissing everything—except her.
“You know,” he said, “there’s something else I’d be willing to bet you’ve already done.”
Her expression brightened. Oh, there were all sorts of things she’d already done, and things she’d had done to her—most recently with Dr. Clark at New Canada and sundry men back on Earth. She guessed his meaning, but asked anyway: “What?”
“Follow me,” Tynan grinned. “You’ll see.”
Pulse quickening, nipples hardening, a particular place getting a bit damp, Sierra let Tynan lead her deeper into the home of Nest Moran.
CHAPTER SIX
Sierra had to admit this was not exactly what she thought Tynan had in mind when he led her out of the foyer.
They were now standing on a terrace at the top of the Morans’ aerie. The panorama of Nimbus City spread out beneath and before them. But there was an even nicer view to admire right beside her.
Tynan was almost naked, having shed his skinsuit and swapped it for a golden-colored loincloth. His body was every bit as superb as Sierra expected—even more so. And there was a hint of something just as wonderful bulging beneath the fabric covering his crotch. All it would take was a tug on the fastener, and she would see the dragon of the dragon.
Sierra herself was dressed as she had been all day—except for some new accessories. The harness about her shoulders, bust, and upper arms supported the energy pack across her upper back and the leathery, artificial dragon wings attached to it and folded behind her. Upon her head was a diadem that seemed as much like a tiara as like the cybernetic controls of the harness and wings that she was wearing. She felt the subtle tingle of the device pairing itself with her motor reflexes, preparing her for something that, true to Tynan’s guess, she really had already done.
So yes, his invitation was to something that she had experienced very well with weredragon men. Just not the thing she’d been expecting. Not that this would not be fun; it was just a surprise.
“Ready?” Tynan asked.
The electronic tiara she was wearing along with the wings made her feel a bit as if she actually were a dragon princess. And now she was about to fly with a dragon. “Ready,” Sierra replied.
Tynan took a step back and a deep breath. In mid-step, he was already starting to morph. In a moment his skin was all scales in patterns of light and dark green, his pecs and abs were shiny green plates, his hands and feet were taloned reptilian extremities, his neck was serpentine, his head that of a mighty horned reptile with blunted snout. His tail dropped, his wings unfurled. Sierra knew that under that loincloth he had grown a second one of the thing that gave her so much pleasure in a man: for where a male human had one of those, a male reptile had two.
Transformed to half-dragon, Tynan was now as prepared as Sierra. He gestured with a dragon limb to the expanse beyond the aerie. “You first,” he said in his half-dragon voice.
Tynan continued to give Sierra her space. Feeling herself at one with her harness, she commanded its wings to open. They spread, ready to take the air. She took a step up onto the rail of the terrace, then launched herself out and away, flapping her wings to get aloft. Soaring out over the city, Sierra felt an exultation at being in flight that was almost as delicious as the flight she took lying down with a man. At that thought, she heard the mighty flap and beat of wings behind her and peered back to catch sight of Tynan now flying in her wake. And together they were off above the domes and towers of Nimbus City.
The climate control systems of the city took into account the flying needs of the dragon populace. The air had “sweet spots”—thermal air pockets—that circulated about inside the city structure. One of the pleasures of flying there, whether with natural or artificial wings, was feeling one’s way along to find a sweet spot, then thrill to the feeling of being lifted and supported and being able to soar almost effortlessly.
In other harness flights, Sierra had learned to do this in open atmospheres; thus, she was able to give herself into the physical act of flying and let the currents take her exactly where she wanted to go. Coasting along high above the city towers, she soon felt the terrific and exhilarating rise of hitting a thermal and let it carry her in the direction of the transparent upper part of the dome.
With open sky and the billows of perfect cumulus clouds above her and the glittering city spread out below her, Sierra gracefully grazed the air. Looking down, she found Tynan climbing after her, the thermal bearing him up to where she was circling. With the shrilling sound of a dragon’s laugh, he swished his tail to propel himself up and over her and down again, making loops around her. Sierra laughed back and let him continue his maneuvers before angling herself downward closer to the summits of the buildings.
Tynan followed her down and they found themselves in air where other Lacertans also flew. They became part of a small cloud of soaring bodies in which Sierra was the lone figure without scales or a tail. Far from finding this intimidating, Sierra enjoyed showing the dragons that she could match them move for move. Keeping pace with her in the air, Tynan let out another shrilling laugh.
Sierra smiled at him. Was she mistaken, or did she hear something in that loud, rasping dragon noise that sounded like pride? If she did, what was it that made him feel that way? Was it just the love of his dragon nature—or was his pride in something else? Perhaps it was in the company he was now keeping. They had known each other less than a day, and yet there was a feeling she was getting. It was like what she’d felt with him after she told off the mediate at his front door. He could have been proud of just himself. Or perhaps he was proud of something more. Whatever the reason for the feeling, Sierra liked it.
With a sudden, hard flap of his wings and thrash of his tail that made the air whoosh around him, Tynan took off like a rocket back down in the direction of home. Sierra beat her wings and shot away behind him, and the two of them sliced fast through the air back the way they came.
He swooped back down to the top of the aerie and beat his wings to brake his descent, then lowered himself onto the terrace and folded his wings, waiting for Sierra to come in for a landing of her own.
She touched down near him, sticking her landing like a gymnast, and drew in her wings behind her. Then, she watched appreciatively as Tynan released his dragon form and returned to being a heroically perfect young human male in a loincloth, like a jungle adventurer in some ancient pulp story.
“You were excellent,” Tynan said. “You are excellent.”
His words made her feel as if she were being lifted by another thermal. “Thank you,” said Sierra.
He held out a hand to her. “Come here,” he said.
Sierra went to him and took his hand—and he took her in his arms for the first time. His big, strong human arms her close and tightly. His swoon-inducing, handsome face hovered before hers. And then, he kissed her.
It was a kiss of air and light, a kiss that was everything that two people would ever want a kiss to be. And Tynan made it last. She gave herself into it as she gave herself into their flight. She put her arms around him and drank in the press of his male flesh against her—and the feeling, under his loincloth, of how much he appreciated it as well. Something down there was rising to the occasion of that kiss and giving Sierra a standing ovation.
Tynan pulled out of the kiss but stayed nose-to-nose with her. “Would you like to find out how really compatible we are?” he asked.
“I would,” she said unhesitatingly.
One more perfect, light, airy kiss later, they were off the terrace and back inside the aerie.
_______________
In Tynan’s sumptuous bedchamber, Sierra’s wing harness array and her tiara rested on a lounge chair. Near the foot of the bed, her clothing rested on the carpet at her feet, leaving her clad only in panties below and brassiere cups above. They were in each other’s arms and kissing again, while roaming up and down each other’s exposed skin with eager and hungry hands.
Tynan peeled the cup
s from her bosom and discarded them. With one hand he slipped under the seat of her panties and groped at her buttocks. With the other he ventured under the front of her panties and felt at the softness of her bush and the slickness of what lay under it. Sierra reached under his loincloth and caressed what had applauded her on the terrace and the full, round, warm softness behind it. He kissed her harder and more wetly, encouraging her.
“Make me naked,” he said.
Sierra quickly unfastened the loincloth and let it fall to his feet, revealing the prize that it had covered. The blunt head of Tynan’s tool crowned out from a wreath of foreskin at the end of a wonderfully thick and hard length. Sierra, well experienced with men’s equipment, guessed he had more than a couple of dozen centimeters to offer her. She had yet to sleep with a Lacertan who had less than twenty centimeters. She was more than happy to accept his offer.
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