by Sky Winters
The dragon inhaled deeply, gearing up for another outburst of flames. “WHERE IS CELESTE?!” it bellowed instead.
She froze, spine going ridged. “Zephyr!” she said in a whispered exhale, too shocked to be louder. The Daskani were, after all, dragon shifters. It made sense that the General shifted. She just had never witnessed it before. It was breathtaking, to say the least. He was a monstrosity when he was in his normal form. Now that he was a dragon, he was a behemoth.
The leader of the Yaargothens came forth, eying Zephyr with his beady, dark eyes. “She is my mate now, Daskan filth,” he spat. Though he was much, much smaller than the dragon, he had no fear about size. It did not matter to his kind.
The space ship bobbed and tilted with Zephyr’s immense weight. The ship clearly cared about the size of this dragon.
“Captain, we cannot hold up like this,” one of the Yaargothen’s stated somewhat timidly. “Permission to land on the nearest planet?”
“Permission denied,” Rawrgoth snarled, not even bothering to look back at his underling. “I will take care of this.”
Celeste held onto the bars of her cell as the ship rocked and bucked forward, clearly starting to go down as the Yaargothen grew to match the size of Zephyr. She thought for sure that they were going to crash now, and all of them were going to die. All this because she would not mate with a new alien. She felt a strange sort of petty now. But oh, it felt good to know that Zephyr cared for her this much. He was willing to risk everything to save her and her honor. His honor as well, to be sure. No entitled alien was going to come around and steal his female.
There was much snarling and growling as the two beasts stared each other down. Neither seemed to want to make the first move, but even as they did not move the ship was sinking fast into the abyss of space. All kinds of sirens and flashing warning lights were going off but the monsters did not pay attention to such trivial matters. Zephyr lunged forward, moving only his head and elongated neck as he snapped at the now giant-sized Yaargothen. Rawrgoth managed somehow to dodge that and scratched Zephyr’s neck with his black, sharpened claws.
“Zephyr,” Celeste called to him pleadingly. “Zephyr, I love you! But you’re going to get us all killed!”
He snapped again, this time catching Rawrgoth’s head in his jaws. He chomped down as hard as he could, but the other beast used his long arms and claws to wrench himself free. Celeste could see a lot of blood now, coming from Rawrgoth’s head and the wound on Zephyr’s neck. There was blood in the dragon’s teeth as well. She could feel herself becoming a bit woozy.
“Captain!” another member of the Yaargothen crew shouted. “We are going down! Landing on the nearest planet is our only option!”
The members of the crew were in full-on panic mode. They rushed through the hall, doing their best to squeeze past the two alien monsters as they bit and scratched at each other. They were fighting as if in slow-mo, confined to the small space of the ship.
Suddenly, one of the crew members came to Celeste’s cell and unlocked her cage. The Yaargothen looked her in the eye. “You’re on your own. Good luck.” He said it in a way that did not sound hopeful.
Celeste thanked him by hastily pushing past him and going to Zephyr’s torso. He was so immense that all she could really make of him was a wall of teal. “Zephyr!” she shouted. “I’m here now. I’m with you.” She reached out and touched him. He was smooth, hot and semi-moist to the touch, like the frog she had always thought he resembled. She thought this was much more appealing. She found him oddly sexy this way, not at all like the slimy Earthen amphibian from her earlier imaginings.
The two fighting foes paid her no mind however, and as the ship careened downwards towards the first available planet, Celeste held onto her dragon and prayed that this would all end soon and maybe, perhaps, they could make it out of it alive. She was not even going to hope for unharmed, just alive.
When at last the space ship did land, the two monsters spared no time. Zephyr grabbed Rawrgoth by the head again and rolled with him out of the window. Well, actually, it was the side of the ship. Nothing but a jagged hole and slightly charred and melted metal remained in their wake. Celeste stood against the opposite wall, watching with a hand over her mouth.
The planet on which the Yaargothens had haphazardly landed was made of rock, thank goodness, though there were patches of lava where Celeste was used to seeing oceans and rivers. She was terrified to leave the safety of the ship, which she could hardly believe was the case were it not for the fact that these two brutal, deadly beasts were now out there in unknown, dangerous terrain, duking it out to the death, probably. She had once been flattered, but now she thought that what they were doing was extreme. She was never going to be able to forgive herself if Zephyr died for her.
Cautiously, she stepped out onto the rock of the planet. She walked towards where the two males were fighting over her. Though Zephyr was covered in glowing red gashes on his limbs and face, he was clearly winning the battle. Rawrgoth was little more than a flailing mass of bloody fur.
Her dragon was breathing heavily, a smattering of blood falling from his mouth. She could not tell if it was his blood or his enemy’s but it worried her either way.
“If you make it,” he said to Rawrgoth, “If you live long enough to leave this place, you go and tell your leadership that Daskan answered Earth’s call for help and that if Yaargoth wishes to enjoy the benefits of such a peace treaty, stealing and raping the women is not the way to do it. This is why no one ever asks Yaargoth for help.”
Zephyr was difficult to understand when he was in his dragon form, but thankfully he spoke slowly enough for Celeste to take it all in and decipher what came out of his large jaws. Once he had said his piece, he turned away from his injured adversary and looked down upon Celeste. She was no sure, but she thought that he smiled at her.
“Now let’s get you home,” he said through a growl that was almost docile.
She was unsure of what she should do now that the gargantuan dragon was done fighting. Zephyr could not simply go back onto the space ship and fly somewhere else. He had apparently flown through space, though… Feeling silly for doing so, but unable to think of anything better, Celeste carefully climbed onto his slippery back. There were not spikes like she had imagined dragons to have, but his skin was smooth and warm and not unpleasant to hold onto once she was situated. She held onto his neck, hoping that no sudden moves would make her go flying.
“Can you fly back through space?” she asked him only after she was sitting there, holding on as though he was seconds away from taking off. “I mean, there is the whole oxygen thing to consider.”
Zephyr chuckled deeply. She felt it through his long, thick neck. “I have ways of managing that.”
Walking back towards the Yaargothen space ship, he began to flap his wings and soon he was up in the air, a purplish ball of opaque energy surrounding him and the Earthling on his back.
“Wow!” she gasped out in wonder as she looked down and saw the space ship going further and further below them. Now she knew how her Daskani had rushed through space to find her again and rescue her from the clutches of Rawrgoth.
As Zephyr flew, he puffed out a steady stream of fire which lit the way and increased his speed. Celeste did not feel entirely safe up there on his back, but she was far safer with him than she was with those barbaric enemy aliens. She hugged his neck to her and gazed at the stars as they passed them.
“Now that I’m not so afraid of dying, I can see that it’s beautiful up here,” she told him. “But you do make the strangest space ship.”
He chuckled deeply again. “Let’s not make this a habit.”
CHAPTER SIX
An Epilogue
The flight back to Daskan was not terribly long, thanks to Zephyr’s fire ability and the fact that he had kept the Yaargothens from taking her all the way to their distant planet. Hyperdrive was no laughing matter, of course, but the dragon could simulate it with his p
uffs of flames and his strong, beating wings. Celeste was surprisingly able to sleep for some of the trip, and it was sleep that she badly needed. On top of everything else, she was pregnant and that did not lend itself well to dealing with stress. She was fatigued, and Zephyr understood. He was more than happy to let her sleep atop him as he cruised through space faster than the speed of light.
She awoke as he descended back onto his home planet of Daskan. Which was fortunate for her, because she was not holding on as tightly as she should have been, and she needed to do that in order to not fall off as he zoomed through the planet’s atmosphere. Celeste clutched his smooth skin as tightly as she could.
Zephyr landed on the side of one of the planet’s rocky cliffs, clutching onto it with his long claws. Once had caught his breath some and gathered himself, he flew up into the sky again and seamlessly floated back to their white, cliffside castle. Once he landed there, Celeste carefully got from his back and climbed down to the flat surface where their home lay. She watched curiously at he shifted from his dragon form and back to his more humanoid alien form. He contorted, bones cracking and shifting back into their places. Celeste shuttered a bit, thinking about what that must feel like. She could not imagine and she did not really want to, except empathetically, she supposed.
As soon as her dragon was back to looking like her General, she rushed to him and wrapped her arms around his middle, hugging him as tightly as possible without hurting him further. The cuts on his chest and neck looked far worse now that he was more like a man and less like an unstoppable beast.
“Come on,” she told him. “Let’s get you inside and cleaned up.” She looked up at him and they kissed tenderly. Heaven help her, she loved him so much. He was now no longer the answer to Earth’s prayers. She was her literal hero. And her literal hero deserved some tender loving care.
Celeste’s pregnancy was not as long as a typical human pregnancy, but it was long enough for her. By her fifth month, her abdomen was completely swollen and she spent most of her time in bed so as not to injure herself or the baby. “I feel so lazy,” she complained to Zephyr, who continued to work as well as take care of her. It was as if he had been preparing his whole life for this, which made her realize that just as the women of Earth had long been a part of this fertilization pact, the Daskani had been planning for fatherhood. The people of Earth needed babies, and the Daskani wanted badly to have children of their own.
“Ahhhhh!” she cried out in the middle of the night, while she and Zephyr were in bed. He awoke at once and brought her into his arms, thinking that it had been one of the nightmares that had been troubling her of late. But no. This was labor pains.
“It’s happening!” Celeste shouted in agony. “It’s contractions!”
Zephyr did not know about Earthling pregnancies, but he knew what contractions were. He nodded and let go of her so that he could situate himself at the end of the bed. “Put your legs up on my shoulders,” he instructed. “Let me help you. It should not take long.”
Celeste breathed in and out. “This better not take long!” she snapped at him. Why was it that making a baby was so, so pleasant but having one was the complete opposite? Science just was not fair.
Zephyr smirked a bit, but he knew that it was not an enjoyable time for her so he kept his smiling to a minimum, which she appreciated. When he saw that she was dilated, he looked up at her face. “Push,” he urged her gently.
It hurt so much that all she wanted to do was push until it stopped hurting. But in the end, she paced herself and let Zephyr give her the command to push when she was supposed to and relax when she needed to. After several long, excruciating hours, Zephyr was holding their small, light-blue skinned son in his arms. He was crying and Zephyr was crying and Celeste was crying, too. It was equal parts wonderful, exhausting and daunting for all three of them.
Their son looked like a perfect mixture of his parents. Aside from the robin’s egg blue hue of his skin, which clearly came from his father, he had Celeste’s auburn hair and large, inquisitive eyes. Celeste wasn’t sure how well he was going to fit into society on Earth, but then he was going to be a being with two planets. And as Zephyr was so set on the idea of staying with her, their son would have his weird, alien father with him to fend off any bullies, at least.
She smiled at Zephyr. He smiled back at her.
“What do you want to name him?” he asked her. “You’re probably better at that sort of thing than I am.”
“Zenith,” she said with no hesitation. She had been considering names ever since she found out she was pregnant. “I figure it would be good to start him off at a high point, at least.”
Zephyr chuckled. “I like it,” he said. He hugged her and gently petted his tiny son’s head. They made a cute family already.
“Let’s take him home,” Celeste said then. “I cannot wait to introduce him to my planet and my people.”
Biker Romance Bonus
OUTLAW HERO
“Come on, come on, pick up,” Melanie Carr said under her breath, surprised that the payphone actually worked. She couldn’t remember the last time she had found a payphone, let alone one that still functioned. Stevie, her two-year-old son, was asleep in the carseat at her feet. She had driven all night from Dublin, Ohio to arrive in Washington DC the following morning. Melanie normally planned things better, but this time she had to act fast.
Finally, there came the sound of someone answering her call for help. “Hello?” the muffled voice of her former best friend Casey asked.
“Casey?” Melanie replied. “This is Melanie Carr from Ohio State, your sophomore roommate. We talked on Facebook recently about me visiting?”
There was a slight sigh on the other end that Melanie suspected she was not intended to hear. “It got that bad?”
She clutched the hard, metal, barely bendable phone cord and a sob came out as she spoke. “Yes,” she said. “It got that bad. I’m at a gas station outside 270. What’s your address again?”
After packing her kid back into the car, she made her way to Casey’s house in the DC suburbs, somehow finding it through her tears and the fog of the early morning. She was relieved to see that she would not have to go through the awkward business of ringing the doorbell once there; Casey was already standing on the front porch, waiting for her.
Melanie put the car into park and got out, keeping the back door of her small, white SUV open so she could retrieve her son and her luggage once the reintroductions were over. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her green rain jacket and walked up to greet her waiting friend. “I never intended to spring this up on you, but…”
Casey looked at her college friend. Melanie looked remarkably the same even though they were now eight years older. She was still slender with long, curly golden brown hair, blue-green eyes and a cute dusting of freckles across her nose. But the purple bruise around her left eye… That was new.
“Hush,” Casey said as soon as she noticed that. She opened her arms for Melanie, who gladly fell into them. Casey was several inches shorter than her friend, with short blonde hair and glasses, and she had always been the more nurturing of the two. Even now, even though Melanie had a toddler, Casey was more mothering. Melanie needed a friend like Casey back in her life.
They unpacked the car together and took little sleepy Stevie up to one of the bedrooms so he could continue to sleep, oblivious to his mother’s problems. “Thank you,” Melanie said, pulling her long hair into a ponytail. She looked exhausted. “Jake hit me for the last time. He went to bed and I hit the road. I promise, it will only be for a few days. Once I can get a job, we’ll be out of your hair.”
Casey waved that off, smiling at her friend. “You can stay as long as you need. I’ve got this house all to myself, and it’s so good to see you again.” She gently rubbed Melanie on her upper arm. “Get some sleep and you can start thinking about jobs and stuff later. You’ve got my number, right?”
Melanie smiled back, appreciative.
“I do. Thank you so much.”
She went up to her bedroom that she would be sharing with Stevie for the time being. He was still fast asleep, wrapped up in the blankets. She did her best to get in beside him without waking him, and was soon asleep, too.
When Melanie woke up, it was well into the middle of the afternoon. Stevie was playing quietly with some of his toys in the corner, but he was relieved when he saw that she was awake. “Mommy, where are we?”
She rushed to his side as he sat on the floor. She had been unable to pack all of his toys up so quickly in their spontaneous move, but she managed to bring his favorites along with them. “We’re at my nice friend Casey’s house,” she told him. “We’re going to be living here for a while until we get a new house.”
“Where are we?” he asked again, not understanding that they were far away from what they called home. “Where’s Daddy?”
Melanie bit her lip. “We’ve moved away from Daddy,” she told him, trying to give him the news as gently as possible. “We are going to live in Washington DC now. You will love it here. This is where all of the presidents live!” She widened her eyes and her mouth as she told him that, so he would feel excited rather than concerned about his no-good father.
Stevie gasped a little bit. “Even Taft??” The little boy had a strange fascination with President William Howard Taft ever since Melanie had shown him a picture of America’s heftiest president. Stevie liked him because ‘he looks like a walrus.’
“Even Taft,” Melanie said, nodding wisely. “If you are very good, I will take you to visit him at some point. Would you like that?”
Gasping even more, Stevie grinned. “Yes! I am very good!”
She laughed. “You have to prove it to me, though.” She looked at her watch. It was nearing five p.m. and Casey would be home from work soon. Casey worked for a TV news station in DC, and that had allowed her to be able to afford her nice house in the suburbs. Melanie was hoping that she might have the same luck if she got out there and applied herself. “My nice friend is almost home from work and Mommy needs you to stay with her for a while, okay?”