The Dragon's Pet

by Loki Renard

  “Keep your eyes open,” she grumped at him. “Just hold your lashes open.”

  Her words were reminiscent of ones he had spoken to her under very different circumstances. Becoming refugees in a world apart from their own, hated by most of the population had not been easy for Vyktor, Eldor, or the other survivors. They were accustomed to being masters of their domain, and for the moment they were like scuttling rats in someone else’s house.

  His pet had been incredibly helpful in finding ways to survive in the human world. In a few short days, she had gotten them out of the mountains and into what she called a motel. It was a small, somewhat dingy room by dragon standards, it was on level ground close to sea level, which he did not like at all, and though it was made of what she called cinder block, he still felt very exposed with walls only a few inches thick. Vyktor was used to putting half a mountain between himself and the human world.

  “There,” Aria said, sounding satisfied as she managed to slip the second sliver into his eye. “Contact lenses.”

  Vyktor looked at himself in the mirror, and saw that his eyes looked almost human. There was a round pupil instead of a narrow one, which looked rather strange to him, but did make him look more like a person. His eyes were no longer golden hued either. Aria had chosen brown for him. It transformed his face quite a great deal.

  “I look strange.”

  “You look hot,” Aria said with a grin. “And as long as you wear long sleeves and long pants, nobody is ever going to know you’re not human.”

  Aria was invaluable at the moment, taking the gold nuggets he had created in small amounts and trading them in for the currency humans preferred, pieces of incredibly flammable paper with numbers written upon them. It made little sense to Vyktor, but he accepted that it was going to take time to begin to become accustomed to the new world he found himself in.

  They had managed to touch base with seven dragons in total, including Vyktor himself. No more were forthcoming and there were no more sightings. The humans liked to broadcast everything they knew about everything at one another all day long, so Vyktor was fairly certain that only seven had survived the attempted evacuation. They took up three rooms in the little motel, staying away from the windows and away from people.

  “I think you’re right, pet,” he said, looking at himself in the mirror. “I think we can pass this way.”

  “As soon as you’re all wearing these, we can go out and start putting the gold to work,” Aria smiled happily.

  “I am grateful to you, pet. You have shown more mercy to us than we showed you.”

  “That’s true,” Aria said. “I should have made you strip naked before I helped you.”

  “I would happily do that,” Vyktor grinned, flashing a bright smile before tearing his restrictive but flimsy human coverings off.

  “Careful!” Aria squeaked. “We don’t have many spares yet. You need to wear clothes in pub… eeek!” She squealed as Vyktor swept her up off her feet and began tearing at her clothing. He wanted to bare her and bare himself. He wanted to be deep inside her. It was the only place that felt like home anymore. When making love to her, he felt a familiarity that connected him to what he was before, the powerful dragon with the pretty little pet.

  He tossed her down on the bed, running his hands over her body. Her soft, all too human frame. Did she know that it was she who prevented him from being bitter at all the human race? Some of them had lied. Some of them had enacted a terrible war crime in the final strike. If he did not have Aria, he could have become furious at the entire species. They were but seven, but seven dragons could do a great deal of damage.

  She still did not know how important she was—how crucial she had been to turning the tide of war—and how many lives she had saved through her spirited submission.

  Vyktor kissed her passionately, then trailed his mouth down her lithe body to find the sweet core of her. There he feasted, his lips and tongue paying gentle homage to his pet. Aria let out a moan and curled her fingers in his hair, her thighs beginning to tremble as she sank into the pleasure he was giving her.

  That was what he wanted to see, her writhing in pure ecstasy. It was no less than what she deserved. After all he had put her through, after he had made her the sacrificial maiden for her species, he would spend the rest of their lives ensuring that she had everything she could ever want, and more.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Vyktor, I must speak with you,” Eldor said. He came to Vyktor’s room one afternoon while Aria was out fetching food and other supplies for them. She alone knew how to pilot the motor vehicles the humans delighted in sending about their cities at hectic paces, much to Vyktor’s horror. So much of the world of man was done at a whim, vast numbers of people rushing here and there, many of them paying little attention to anything around them.

  His realm was of a more sedate, considered pace. Dragons rarely gathered in groups of more than a few hundred, certainly not in the tens of thousands as they did in the great human cities. In the midst of New York, he felt himself an insignificant speck. It was a strange feeling to have, to be surrounded by the enemy and not to be noticed by them at all.

  The dragon attacks! The television blared the words and showed images of a huge dragon the size of a city blasting blue fire from its nostrils. Vyktor snorted to himself and shook his head. The actual invasion had been less dramatic.

  The headline was not for any real event. It was for a movie that was soon to come out. The humans were already fictionalizing the events, telling the story over and over, distorting it each and every time. The hero of the story was always some brave human man, who came to the dragon’s lair and rescued the women the dragons were inevitably holding. That was a better story than the reality: that he had taken a human woman for his own and not a single male had come within miles of their base.

  “Vyktor?”

  “Sorry, I was just watching the human stories,” he said. “Wouldn’t you like to look like that in dragon form?” He gestured toward the television where the creature they said was a dragon had its claws in a great golden tower and was busy ripping it apart.

  “I have something important to talk about,” Eldor said. “Maybe you could turn the television off.”

  Vyktor slid his gaze over to Eldor. He seemed… tense, Vyktor noticed. More tense than usual, anyway. They were all tense at the moment. Being hunted did that to you.

  Though they were not easily noticed in the streets, all the remaining dragons were reluctant to expose themselves unnecessarily. Plans were underway to move to more remote areas of the world, certainly out of the continent. There was still far too much scrutiny there. Every day, the papers and television shows were full of conspiracy theories about dragons. The escape of some dragons at the final stand was being written off by the officials, but Vyktor was almost certain they knew very well that some had escaped. The roost had been raided just days after the ambush, strongly suggesting that the humans were aware there were still some loose. It was impossible to tell what the humans really knew, and what they were really up to, so the best defense in the meantime was to simply lay low and look for an opportunity to find somewhere to live where they would not be disturbed.

  “What’s wrong, Eldor?”

  “Your human,” Eldor said. “Has she secured the papers to our new home yet?”

  “Aria tells me it is not as simple as going to the 7-Eleven and buying an island,” Vyktor said. “But I have no reason to believe it will be all that much longer. She also needs to charter flights. We will have to use human transportation rather than draw attention to ourselves with…”

  “When we move, you need to leave the human behind,” Eldor interrupted him bluntly. “She will only bring trouble.”

  Vyktor was shocked. What was Eldor saying? Of all the dragons, he was the one who had benefited most from Aria’s assistance, and here he was talking about getting rid of her the moment she had served her purpose?

  “What?”

 
“You heard me,” Eldor said. “We cannot have a human with us.”

  “I would say the opposite. We absolutely need a human with us. And it should be Aria.”

  Eldor’s expression grew darker still. “She cannot be trusted.”

  “She’s the only one we can trust. She’s the only reason we’re not dead. She’s a huge part of the reason you’re not dead,” he said. He was starting to lose his temper with Eldor. Instead of being grateful for all Aria did, he was speaking about her in a tone that Vyktor found outright disrespectful. “When you were wounded, she made sure you recovered. She tended you while your wounds healed. She tended the others too. And she was the one who got us out of there. The one who told us where to fly after dark, who stole a car for us! I don’t care for human law, but she does, occasionally at least, and that was a big one to break. If she had been caught, they would have locked her up for several years in a small cage. I could not have done this all on my own. I certainly could never have gotten us into this place and found us this clothing. We have passed among these humans as if we were the same as they. That alone has kept us alive. You owe Aria your life as much as you owe it to me.”

  “I owe her nothing,” Eldor said, his upper lip curling in disdain at the very idea. “She is a human. They committed this heinous act. They are base little creatures, devoid of sense or morality. We will use our resources, build another portal, and be done with this place. Now that we know what mistake they made, it should not be difficult to replicate it.”

  Vyktor felt a rage rising in him, a protective anger that did not bode well for Eldor if they continued their conversation. Had he learned nothing during his experiences on Earth? Or was it the betrayal of the attempted retreat that he could not stomach and was taking out on Aria?

  “She was the one human who stood by us. You cannot say all humans are the same, Eldor. They are not.”

  “You trained your human,” Eldor pointed out in turn. “You took her and you thrashed her and fucked her until she had some semblance of domestication. She is your pet. But she is still human and she is still like the rest of them beneath that veneer you have instilled in her. They are a primitive species who can manipulate matter in the slowest of ways to create huge tragedy. I do not like them, and I do not like her.”

  Vyktor nodded coolly. There was nothing to be gained from drawing out this conversation. Eldor had made up his mind, and hearing Aria be the brunt of his slurs after all she had done and all she had been through made him angrier than he cared to express.

  “Build your portal,” Vyktor said. “But do not say another word against Aria. Or it will be among the last you ever utter. She is my pet, and she will be by my side as long as I draw breath. If you do not like that, feel free to go your own way and see how long it is before the humans find you out. What do you think they will do to a lone dragon? You have seen what they do to one another in the course of their wars—and they are of the same blood. What do you think they will do to a creature they loathe?”

  There was a long pause, in which Vyktor knew the argument was over. Eldor had developed a healthy fear of humans and though he might not like Aria, he wasn’t so stupid as to not realize that she was essential.

  “You will be coming with us when we return to our realm,” Eldor said. “You will come to your senses.”

  “I will not leave Aria, and I will not leave this planet. What you do is up to you.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Aria never thought she’d be buying an island. At first she didn’t know where to begin with the island buying process, but it turned out that all one had to do was fly to Greece, meet a soon to be impoverished ex-billionaire, and offer him more gold than he could carry for the title. Simple.

  For several months, Aria and the dragons lived a fairly idyllic life on their private island. It was always warm, always sunny, and Aria truly began to believe that this could be it. The war was over, and they were safe. The rebuild was underway, the economy stimulated by all the work there was to do to fix the damage that had been done in the war. Those who had been lost were mourned, and it felt as though there was a new spirit of healing. Humanity had overcome a dangerous foe and as a result there was a global celebration.

  Eldor had been working on a version of the portal in order to get the dragons who still desired evacuation home again. He seemed to be making good progress, but Aria and Vyktor did not pay as much attention to his work. Vyktor did not like to so much as think of the possibility of returning to his realm, and Aria didn’t either. The dragon realm was the past. This was the future, sunlit days on an island so remote and so well hidden in a greater archipelago that they would never have to interact with any world other than their own little paradise ever again.

  Aria and Vyktor walked hand and hand upon the beach. It took just over two hours to circumnavigate the island, and they made the journey once a day at least. Golden sand coated Aria’s feet, little granules creeping between her toes as she walked barefoot with the man she loved more than life.

  They stopped to kiss beneath a palm tree where they often made love to one another. It was their little secluded spot, a place apart from a place. Vyktor no longer wore human clothing, and he had gotten rid of the contact lenses too. Both were stored away in the room they shared deep in the mountain.

  “I think…” Aria drew in a deep breath. “I think this is the first time I’ve ever been really happy.”

  Vyktor smiled and ran his hands down her back, pulling her close to him. “I believe I know what you mean, pet.”

  “Do you miss your realm?”

  He looked at her and she knew that the answer must be yes, even as his lips said no. “This is my home now, pet, with you. I can accept that. We have many years ahead of us here. I believe in time that the world will change and perhaps we will not always need to hide. For now, I have you, and this little world we have made together.”

  He spoke with such poetic passion that she almost believed him. But deep down, Aria knew that he could not be happy. The dragons yearned to fly, but they could not risk it. Some of the younger ones had been caught sneaking out in the dead of night and wheeling about the islands—something Eldor and Vyktor put a hard stop to once rumors of dragons began to spread through the locals.

  Living as hunted creatures was a strain, and it showed in various ways. Eldor in particular had become incredibly reclusive and angry. He would not speak to Aria at all—not that he had spoken to her much when she was their captive, but it was a different kind of silence now, a more contemptuous one.

  “I love you, pet,” Vyktor said, lowering his head to kiss her. “And I love our life together. Stop worrying.”

  She succumbed to his kiss and let her dragon lover drive all concerns from her mind with his plundering tongue.

  Suddenly, Vyktor broke the kiss, leaving her panting against his chest. He looked straight up and at the horizon and she felt every muscle in his body become tense.

  “What’s wrong?” She looked up at him with concern.

  “I think we should go back to the base,” he said. “Now.”

  “Why?” Aria looked in the direction he was staring, but her eyes could not pick out what he was seeing.

  “I think we are about to have very unpleasant company.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He pointed northeast. It took a couple of seconds, but then she saw what had him so worried. A fleet of helicopters were making their way over the open water, and under them, military speedboats fitted with significant artillery.

  Aria’s heart began to pound in her chest. Her fingers and toes tingled as adrenaline saturated her body in an instant. “Oh, god,” she gasped. “It’s an invasion!”

  “Back to base, pet,” Vyktor said calmly. “We will defend this place as best we can…”

  “We won’t be able to defend it. There’s nowhere to hide. They will tear this place apart piece by piece.” She felt her eyes welling with tears. Why couldn’t they just be left alone? None
of the dragons had taken the slightest aggressive act in return for the betrayal at the portal.

  “They won’t be able to penetrate…”

  “Yes, they will. They have bombs capable of tearing through mountains. We will hide in the base like rats and they will tear it open and pull us out.”

  “Come. Back to base,” he repeated. “We still have time. They may not know we are here. They may simply be searching.”

  They didn’t have time, though. All the time they had was borrowed. They had been out of time from the moment the portal was closed—and Aria knew it, though she had allowed herself to live in denial. But she knew when her time was up, and time was definitely up.

  Vyktor didn’t understand that though. Vyktor always thought he could fix everything. It never occurred to him that he could be defeated. He had her by the hand and was urging her up the hill toward one of the hatches. The dragons had worked hard on the rocky island, created a warren inside the hills that would have been inhospitable to your average human—but would be no challenge at all to highly trained marines. He pulled open the hatch and pushed Aria down inside it, then more or less dragged her down to the lower levels of their base, where Eldor and the others were already waiting. Apparently every dragon on the island had detected the problem already.

  “So, this is bad,” Aria said, trying for a smile that didn’t work.

  “Your military is coming for us,” Eldor said grimly. “There are no fewer than sixteen attack helicopters on their way here.”

  “How could they have found us?”

  “Satellite? Sonar? Perhaps one of the tourist planes spotted something and reported it? I don’t know. Perhaps we were betrayed.” He looked at her in a very unfriendly fashion and she sank back toward Vyktor.

  “Why would I betray you? I helped you escape!”

  “Who knows why humans do anything,” Eldor growled. “I don’t care. Fortunately, my machine is operational to some small degree. We are going to open this portal. It’s not stable, but it doesn’t matter anymore. It just needs to open long enough to allow us through. I should have opened it before now but I listened to you, Vyktor, when you said that we would be safe here.” He shot a look of pure poison in Vyktor’s direction, making Aria angry.