by Renard, Loki
“No!” Kate begged. “That’s my only way back. Please, you don’t understand. I can’t stay here forever. I have a home. I have a life.”
“If what can be viewed from the portal is any indication, you do not have much of a home,” he said. “And as for a life, you seemed eager enough to possibly lose it entirely by entering our realm. I have told you, Kate, some things, once done, cannot be undone. Your arrival here in our world is one of them.”
“You can’t keep me prisoner forever,” she said, her face flushing with rebellion as she threw back the covers and sat up naked, her pink-tipped breasts drawing his gaze and moderating his ire. Even when she was being an utter brat, she was alluring.
“There you are very wrong,” he growled in response. “I can and will keep you prisoner as long as you make it necessary. You can study our world, Kate. I will grant you that. I will show you places in this realm which contain wonders beyond your imagination. But you will not return to your world. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you will have your freedom.”
Her face collapsed into a shifty pout that he knew did not bode well for either of them. Best that they closed the portal soon and shut down all discussion of the possibility. Of course, it was still technically possible to open one from their side, but doing that would require gathering resources she did not have—and that was a problem for the future. The problem of the moment was the portal she had opened already, and he would breathe much easier once the wound in their world was closed.
* * *
There had to be some way around this, some way to prevent him from having the portal closed. The very idea of being trapped in a world of dragons gave Kate the beginnings of a panic attack. It was one thing to want to explore new realms, something entirely different to be trapped within one forever.
“I think you’re overreacting,” she said. “I need to be able to return to my world. And it could be useful to you to have a working portal too. Our realms don’t have to be separate. We can work together. I could go to college during the day and return here every night.”
“Except for the fact that one day in your world is ten of ours. Your body would likely not adjust well to the constant shifting of time either.”
The time differences made things interesting. She had been in the dragon realm for almost a day, but it was doubtful that anybody would have noticed that she was missing yet—if they ever noticed at all. Her rent was paid up for another month… almost a year in the dragon realm… She sat and chewed her lower lip, trying to think her way out of the situation.
“I have to be able to go back,” she said, saying nothing new.
His golden eyes seared into her with a heat that made her quiver. “You’re not going back.”
“Why? It’s not fair!”
“You came here once. If I allow you to return again, you will be able to open new portals perhaps for humans other than yourself. Less innocent humans intent on war. The last time your kind opened a portal, we lost hundreds of our best—and humans lost thousands. I make this decision to save lives on both sides of the divide. You will stay here. You will be mine.”
“No…” Kate shook her head. “I can’t live here. You don’t understand. I have a career…”
“A career in creating chaos, I take it. That is what comes of these gates between our worlds.”
“This isn’t like the first one,” she argued desperately, repeating herself. “I opened a small, stable portal, not a gaping hole in the sky. I’ve improved on the technology hugely. It’s not dangerous the same way the last one was.”
Vilka gave her a look of pity. “Do you believe our worlds went to war because of the shape or size of the portal? Dragons and humans do not belong together. There can be no peace between our peoples. My father was a general in the first dragon war. He watched the betrayal and lies unfold before his eyes. We offered a retreat once. If war comes again, there will be no retreat. And we will not lose the battle. Do you understand why it is so essential that all portals between our worlds are destroyed?”
A cold shiver ran through Kate. “I understand,” she said. “But we already know how to make portals, so another one is inevitable.”
“But humans have never been able to survive in our realm…” He paused as if he were thinking of an exception. “Most humans,” he added. “You are curious in that regard. What allows you to withstand our atmosphere?”
“Oh, it’s an anti-radiation treatment, it’s actually based on the samples of dragon DNA held in…” She stopped talking as a bolt of rage went visibly through Vilka.
“And how did you obtain these samples?”
“They’re from the war. Colleges all over the world have samples. A lot of research is still being done on dragons. People are fascinated. This is the closest thing to true alien technology anyone has seen.”
He tapped his long fingers. “This treatment… how many people know how to make it?”
“Just me,” Kate said proudly. “I developed it myself in my spare time.”
* * *
Vilka looked at her smiling face and felt an amused pity for the girl. She was evidently intelligent in many respects, but her bragging had just sealed her fate for certain. If she knew how to create a treatment that could potentially allow humans to invade the dragon realm, then she could never be allowed to leave.
“How much of this treatment do you have?”
“Well, I have enough to last several Earth weeks. I don’t know what that means over here, there’s a time shift obviously. I might have enough to last several weeks here, or I might have almost a year’s worth, depending on whether my cellular processes stay steady, or slow with time—or I might have less than I think, if I age more quickly here. I can’t really say.”
“And how will you know?”
“I can take blood and measure my levels,” she said. “If they drop at the normal rate, I will assume that my cellular processes remain at the normal level. If they drop faster or slower… then I will know the same. But either way, I will have to return to obtain more.”
“There are other ways to allow a human to live in the realm without any need for a treatment,” he said. “I do not take them lightly, but I cannot risk your return any more than I can risk your life. And it may be that what needs to happen has already been done.”
“What are you talking about?”
Vilka ran his hand over her belly. “I am talking about what may grow when a man’s seed meets a woman’s womb.”
Her eyes went wide, as if she were shocked by the possibility. “You think I could be pregnant?”
“Do not tell me your science has left you with such little knowledge of the matter of mating,” he said with a raised brow.
“Well… no, of course not, but… you are a dragon. We are not the same species. It should not be possible for us to procreate.”
“It is possible for dragons and humans to couple successfully,” Vilka said. “I know this very well. Without a shadow of a doubt, indeed.”
“How?”
His expression became instantly guarded. “That is a subject for another time.”
“Well, I can tell you that there is no risk of me being pregnant,” she said. “I have an implant.”
“What do you mean?”
“In my arm,” she pointed to her right upper limb. “It’s a little tube. It regulates my periods. It also means I cannot conceive. So even if it is possible for a dragon and a human to mate, which seems unlikely to me, conception wouldn’t occur.”
“You have never been mated, and yet you have something embedded in your body which prevents pregnancy,” he mused. “It is a strange world you come from.”
“It also stops me from bleeding every few weeks, ruining my underwear and being unable to go anywhere or do anything because of cramps,” she said. “It’s not easy being a woman, Vilka.”
“Evidently not,” he replied, unable to hide his smirk. He reached out and ran his hand over her arm, his dragon senses
more attuned now. Sure enough, he could sense it, a very small cylinder of material that was not flesh. It seemed strange that something so little could have such a powerful effect.
“That will have to be removed in time,” he said. “I want my seed to grow inside you. I want to see you grow ripe with my progeny.”
He waited for a burst of outrage, but it did not come. Instead she blushed and lowered her eyes. She could be so bold one moment, so shy the next. Everything to do with the act of mating seemed to make her retreat into a more demure state of mind.
“We hardly know one another,” she murmured toward the bedding. “How can you talk about that so soon?”
“Because I know what I want,” Vilka replied. “I have claimed you as my mate and you are mine.”
“It’s so simple for you, isn’t it,” she said. “Close the portal. Take the woman. Knock her up.”
“Almost as simple as invading another world and expecting there to be no consequences,” Vilka replied. She was spoiled, this one. She needed discipline to teach her the effect to her cause. His palms were beginning to itch with the desire to spank her bratty bottom. She did not understand how merciful he had been. There had been no punishment at all for entering his realm unbidden, and then demanding the right to continue to invade it as she pleased.
“You don’t understand,” she said, her tone returning to the strident, demanding one he really did not care for. “You have to let me go.”
“I think it is you who does not understand,” he said sternly. “But I think I can make it clear for you.”
He reached out, took her by the wrist and hauled her squirming, complaining body over his lap. Her bottom was adorable, and it would look even better marked red. He elevated his thigh so the rounds of her cheeks were turned up nice and high, perfectly positioned for his hand.
“God, Vilka! What are you doing? Let me go! Stop it now!”
Her demands were not met, but her bottom was swiftly introduced to the flat of his hand as he started to spank her, keeping a good hold of her waist as she immediately burst into bratty shrieks and complaints.
“You are ungrateful, demanding, and spoiled,” he lectured as his palm turned her cheeks a rosy red. “Your presence here could easily be interpreted as an invasion, an act of war. And yet I have shown you mercy. I have given you pleasure when I could have given you pain. I have explained my reasoning when I owed you no explanation at all, and in return you have taken no responsibility for the consequences of your actions and demanded that I allow you to do as you please.” His hand drummed against her writhing cheeks. “The answer is no. The answer will always be no. I am your master and you will stay on my leash if you have to, for as long as it takes for you to understand that.”
Kate squealed and swore, her legs kicking fiercely as she tried to wriggle out of the grip he had her in, but she had no chance of doing that. Vilka kept a firm hold of her as she fought against the spanking until she managed to tire herself out and lay panting across his lap, her pink bottom still ripe for punishment.
“You’re going to learn, Kate,” he growled down at her. “Things are simple here. I am the lord, I am your master, I am your mate. You obey me.” With that his hand came down hard on her bottom, searing her flesh with a harsh slap that made her shriek.
He ignored the high-pitched wails and cries in favor of making sure her rear was bright red and hot to the touch by the time he was finished with her. He spanked her until she began to sniff tears back, and her tone took on less attitude.
“You stay here,” he said when he was satisfied with the state of her bottom. “I’m going to bolt these doors, fix the portal, and then I will return. Get some rest. You need it.”
He slid her from his lap with one last pat to her bottom. She curled up on the bed, muttering curse words to herself and sniffling into the bedding. He knew that she was unhappy, but that would pass. Soon he would show her the pleasures and wonders of his realm and she would remember why she had come there—and forget her desire to return to Earth.
Chapter Six
Left in the dragon’s room with her bottom stinging and her pride even more so, Kate was in no mood for surrender. She would not allow them to destroy her portal. It was more than a gateway between worlds. It was her work. Her proof of concept. If they broke it, nobody would ever know what she had achieved—and that would be the tragedy.
There was only one way to protect her portal. She had to get to it before they could break it, get through and shut it down from the Earth side. That wasn’t going to be easy. They had a head start and the ability to fly, but she couldn’t just sit there with a sore bottom and let the dragons destroy her work. She had to at least try to defend it.
“And I’m not doing it naked either,” she muttered to herself. She had no clothing of her own left, but clothing was merely the fashioning of cloth. She could walk between worlds; making something to wear should not be beyond her abilities.
In quick order, the silken sheet became a robe about her body, a comfortable and light garment that she enjoyed all the more for knowing how subversive it was to be wearing something in this realm of the ever nude.
Thankfully the dragon had left her bag in the room with her. He had no idea what a mistake that had been, probably because he was too busy being distracted by taking her virginity and spanking her shamelessly. Kate’s face took on a pink hue as the memories of his body against hers, surging inside her, threatened to derail her thought processes.
“I knew sex would be a distraction,” she lectured herself as she went through her bag to find the materials she was going to need. Getting out of the room was her first priority, and she was pretty sure she could do that.
The door did not pose as much of an obstacle as Vilka probably thought it did. It was bolted on the outside, which would have been enough to keep most people contained, but Kate’s bag held a strong magnet capable of getting traction on the bolt through the wood panel. She held it to the door, heard it catch and then slide, and grinned to herself as it fell into the open position and the doors swung free. She shut the doors behind her as she left and re-bolted the lock. If anyone came to check, they’d think she was still in there.
Stepping into the fortress proper, Kate knew she had her work cut out for her. The dragon’s flight had taken a little over five minutes. If they had traveled about a hundred miles per hour, then the portal was probably twelve miles away. That would take at least three hours to walk—but she didn’t intend on walking.
Sneaking around the campus and getting let into places she wasn’t technically supposed to be had made Kate a practiced liar. It wasn’t something she was overtly proud of, but it was a useful skill and she tried to use it for good.
“Excuse me, sir?” She addressed the first naked dragon man she found, carefully keeping eye contact. The fortress was full of muscular males with their rears and everything else on display, a playground for a promiscuous girl, probably, but Kate was not that kind of girl and she had more on her mind than sex, though she couldn’t help but blush and avert her gaze every time some nude male strolled by.
“You’re Vilka’s mate,” the dragon man said. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m just helping him shut the portal,” she said, lying through her teeth with casual alacrity. “I have some extra notes that I need to get to him. They don’t realize it, but if they do what they’re planning on doing, they will create a much bigger portal, so we have to get a message to him.”
“I’ll tell him,” the dragon nodded.
“No, you’ll have to take me,” Kate insisted. “See, there are some fine equations involved. Essentially, the tangential quantum hypotenuse needs to be in line with the various cofactors, not including the enzymatic processes which are, of course, native to this realm. And then you have to account for wind speed, momentum, and the first four laws of trigonometry…”
“Alright!” The dragon held up his hands in surrender. “I’ll take you to Vilka. Come out t
o the landing.”
Kate tried not to grin as she followed the man she had managed to baffle with her bullshit. It was amazing how a serious face and a bunch of big words could get you almost anything you wanted. She was not looking forward to another flight, but what had to be done, had to be done.
“Make sure to drop me right next to the portal,” she said. “There’s not a moment to spare, you understand?”
The dragon shifted, taking his flight form, a brilliant jet black tipped with yellow scaling. Not for the first time, Kate noted that this dragon was quite different from Vilka. In fact, all the others seemed to be. There were quite a number of small physical variations that made her wonder if Vilka’s form was different due to his dominance—like a Silverback gorilla, or if, perhaps, there were some other reason for it.
The thoughts were driven entirely out of her head as the dragon wrapped its claws around her and took to the air. This time, Kate managed to keep her eyes open as she was buffeted by the winds and swept over the foreign realm for perhaps the last time. If she was going to open another portal, it would have to be somewhere other than her apartment. It would have to be somewhere private and discreet, and hopefully outside Vilka’s territory. He had taken her virginity, but she would not allow him to claim the rest of her existence as well.
The portal soon came into view, a small circle of dragons standing around it in their human forms. She couldn’t make out what they were doing, exactly, but the sight made her stomach clench all the tighter with fear. They were truly going to try to close it, and if they did, she did not know how long it would take her to generate another one on this side of the divide. The dragons didn’t seem to use any kind of persistent electrical circuitry, which meant there was no generator or grid to draw from. If she had to make her own portal, she’d have to create a power station first. It would be a technical nightmare.