by Milana Jacks
He shook his head. “No deal.”
“What do you want?”
“Quit flying over my head. It’s scaring my people. I got enough problems with the damn Cy.”
I raised both eyebrows. Nobody had problems with the Cy. They practically didn’t exist for those of us who lived outside of the habitats, and even in the habitats, people rarely saw the aliens. “You mean problems with the cyborgs.”
“Not unless cyborgs are visiting me.”
I blinked. “Visiting you,” I repeated. Eddy might’ve lost his mind. Outlaw life was a hard one, and he’d been hustling even before the Age. I recalled his father had been rumored to be mentally unstable. Maybe Eddy got the gene.
“Yeah, motherfucker, visiting. They come and take my people, rip them right from their homes. We never see them again.”
When I leaned back, seriously considering Eddy was nuts, he took it as a sign to continue, even leaned in conspiratorially. “Don’t fucking look at me like I’m crazy. I got a witness saying she saw her mom being lifted out of bed, carried through the air, out the closed window, and into the sky.”
“Sorry, man, but that’s some crazy shit.”
“Yeah, because a man who turns into dragon is normal shit.”
“Good point.”
“You believe me now?”
“No.” Lance had seen the Cy inside the habitat so we knew they’d touched ground, but Eddy was clamming something altogether different.
He shook his head and leaned back. “Like I said, quit flying over the city, shrieking, and scaring people off the streets.”
He was talking about the dragon me, not the man me. Having a beast got confusing even for me. “I can’t do that. This is my turf.”
“Hell of a job you’re doing on your turf when the Cy are taking people out here.”
“That Cy thing is from the bad alien movies, Eddy.”
He shook his head.
I continued. “About the damn ball…”
“You stop flying over the city, and I stop the parade.”
“This was a waste of my time.” I pushed the chair back and put my palms on the table. “The girl who gave you those invitations—”
“Is a fine piece of ass.” Eddy whistled.
“Do you want to die?”
“She’s your turf too?”
“That’s right. Mine.” With that, I walked away.
Right before I hit the door, Eddy called out, “Hey, man, does Mary still make her gumbo?”
“Nah, not for a long while.” And I didn’t know why I said what I said next, but I said it anyhow. “When she does, I’ll send you an invitation.”
He pointed a finger at me. “I’ll hold you to it.”
What an unproductive afternoon.
8
Amy
The cyborg patrol had captured us, stuck their car on our car, and wouldn’t let go. Now we descended toward the station. My mind ran a mile a minute, thinking of what I’d say and how I wouldn’t implicate Nentres. I’d say I’d found the car abandoned and driven it back to the habitat like a good citizen. And the invitations? I’d figure something out when I got inside the station.
A screech sounded.
Cindy and I looked up at the same time to see a red dragon flapping his wings over the habitat. People screamed, cars rushed past us, and in a matter of seconds, the habitat appeared empty. The cyborg patrol slowed down. They must’ve communicated, because moments later, the four cars flew up to meet the dragon, but the bottom one remained attached to us and kept descending.
The dragon opened his mouth, but fire didn’t blow out of it. The dragon coughed several times, but nothing happened. Ha! I had imagined it. He spun around and smashed his tail over the plasma.
The cyborgs began firing back, which only pissed him off more.
“Open the roof, Amy,” Cindy said.
“What?”
“The roof!” Cindy banged it, ran her hand over it. “There’s no fucking latch.”
“Whatever for?”
“To get out. Duh!”
“Oh, okay. Go on.” I found the manual emergency latch, and the roof opened. She climbed onto her seat, then onto the roof. The bottom car had slowed down for landing at the station. The dragon kept attacking. Military patrols engaged their pods and flew up to defend the habitat.
A hand came into my view. Cindy’s. I took it, and she pulled me up onto the top of the car. “Oh my God.” My body couldn’t move, and I couldn’t think straight. The enormous red dragon circled the habitat, its tail whipping back and forth, scattering the patrols at his back while he chewed and spat cyborgs out of his mouth. Smoke rose from his nostrils, but there was still no fire.
Cindy gripped my hand. “Okay, Amy. On three.” She stuck two fingers into her mouth and whistled. The dragon whipped his head around and gunned for us.
I was going to die. “It’s coming for us!” I prepared to jump onto the station’s platform. I’d take cyborg interrogation, hell, even jail time over the dragon, thank you very much. I bent my knees.
“One, two, three,” Cindy counted and jumped.
She pulled me with her.
I screamed at the top of my lungs and closed my eyes. Then thunk. We landed, and I rolled. I snapped my eyes open and touched the ground. Scales. Red scales. I tapped the ground again just to be sure. But yes. Dragon scales. Cold wind whipped my hair, and under my feet, his body shook as he let out a screech and burst through the plasma. Farther up his body, Cindy crawled and reached one of his horns. She hugged it and laid her cheek on it.
“Are you crazy?” I shouted.
She smiled the entire time the dragon flew. I lay plastered against his big body where I’d landed, wondering where he intended to take us. A cave. Surely a cave existed out here somewhere where he would have us for dinner. I peeked below, oh, about a thousand feet, and my stomach rose.
From the corner of my eye, I caught something. Nentres’s mansion, with probably about two hundred people standing in his front yard. As the dragon descended, multiple torches flared, the fire reaching impossible heights. Surely Nentres would come out and try to chase this thing away. Surely these people knew better than to come out in the open.
But no, I realized something was amiss when the dragon landed and the crowds cheered. Cindy slid down and disappeared into the crowd, leaving me alone. I sat back and gulped, feeling a little bit like a non-virgin sacrifice.
The dragon curved his long neck and rested his jaw between his wings. My heart couldn’t beat any faster. My knees shook, and even if I wanted to run, I couldn’t. My body locked in place, I stared at the dragon’s face.
Fire slithered around vertical pupils the size of my body. A row of smaller horns the size of my arm ran from his nose all the way to the top of his head, with two large straight black horns sweeping back and away from his face. More small horns adorned his cheeks and chin.
The creature stuck out his forked tongue and licked my hand. It was tasting! The dragon huffed out a breath and yellow smoke came out. Okay, so I was not tasty? I batted the smoke away, sulfur making me cough. As the smoke cleared, I expected him to make a meal out of me. But the creature simply stared, then inched his giant head toward me until his bottom jaw reached my feet.
We stayed looking at each other for what felt like forever, and when my shaking subsided, I looked around for a way to climb down. Under my feet, his body shifted, and I stood. Something thumped behind me. I spun around to see he’d lowered his tail. I crawled over his back and down to the tip of the tail, then finally touched ground. I wanted to kiss it, but the people stared at me.
I searched for Cindy and found her coming out of the mansion with a pair of sweatpants, which she handed to me. I took them, not knowing what to do with them. Her gaze rose, and so I turned back around.
The dragon sat on his back legs, his tail swinging back and forth. He spread his wings and stared at me. The rumble from his chest alone made me want to run, and I was pretty sure he was simply breat
hing. If he screeched right now, I’d take off and never return. Those red eyes on me? They froze me in place. If I ran, I’d fall on my face because my feet didn’t work.
“Aww, he’s showing you how big and strong he is.”
“Awww,” I echoed, thinking I was crazy, and yet I was the only sane person left standing. “How big is he exactly?”
“He’s fifty-eight feet from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail.”
I stared at her. “And you measured this?”
“Nah, not me. The dragons get themselves measured to see which one is biggest. They’re exceptionally vain creatures.”
Huh. “So is this one the biggest?”
“Knight is the biggest. He’s a white dragon. Don’t tell him I said it, though. It’s a sore spot for the vainest of them all right here. He has the biggest wingspan, though. Seventy feet. This is why he’s showing you his wings.”
“He nearly fried me yesterday. Why does he feel he should show me anything?” There. I’d mentioned the fire.
Cindy gave me a look as if I’d said something so obviously dumb, it hurt to have to correct me. “Because you are his mate, of course.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Cindy frowned. “I thought you knew.”
“No.” I shook my head. “His mate? Mate implies…mating. We can’t mate, and not just because he doesn’t have a penis.” I pointed at the length of his belly. “See? No organs. But also because he’s a dragon and I’m…a human.”
Cindy giggled. “Oh, he’s got organs. You gotta trust me on that.”
“What do I do now?” If I thanked the dragon for saving me, maybe he would go away. Better yet… “I’m impressed!” I shouted, hoping he would take the compliment and fly away.
White light burst and cleared in a second. Nentres stood in the middle of the yard. I blinked as he walked toward me in all his naked glory.
Heat radiated from his body when he stood before me. Speechless, I handed him the sweatpants, and he dressed. It was then that I saw not one but two cocks curved up and touching his navel. He was definitely a male with the ability to reproduce.
“Amy?” he said.
“Mm-hm?”
“Look at me.”
I forced my gaze away from his crotch and up to his eyes, where angry flames blazed.
“Your spoon is in the kitchen, on the wall of fame. You can’t miss it. Go and get it and meet me in our bedroom.”
9
Nentres
Clearly, I had a brat on my hands. I’d precisely pointed out the dangers of leaving the mansion, and still, she hadn’t listened. I gave her fifteen minutes to come to terms with the orders she was to follow. I couldn’t keep her safe if she insisted on not keeping herself safe at the same time. Something would give, and it wasn’t gonna be me.
Amy didn’t head upstairs. Instead, she walked past the foyer and into the kitchen, where she’d find her spoon. I leaned a shoulder on the doorjamb and waited. Jason came to stand next to me. I glanced at his profile. Jason sported his short black hair in a military cut, and a scar ran from the corner of his right eye to the corner of his mouth, a gift from a time during his captivity. I’d bought him from his owner with a diamond princess-cut ring the man had wanted for his new bride.
Though dragons often valued jewels over people, I didn’t have a problem trading diamonds for a wolf creature. Somehow, when I’d first seen the wolf inside the cage, I’d known he was also a man.
Amy came out of the kitchen with a spoon. She paused at the foyer and waved.
I nodded and pointed at the stairs.
She bent her knees and curtsied.
Oh, the attitude.
Jason remained grim, his jaw working.
“Spit it out,” I told him.
“The cyborg patrol followed you out of the habitat.”
“Hm.” That was new. The patrol usually didn’t give a shit about what happened outside the habitat, only that people followed order inside. The cyborgs felt secure under the plasma dome, and I had disturbed that, probably terrified ninety percent of the habitants.
“They’re scouting,” Jason said.
“What do you want to do about it?”
“Lie low.”
Right. After Lance’s conflict with cyborgs in his territory, Lance and I had agreed we’d send spies inside the habitats and research the Cy aliens’ presence on the ground while keeping a low profile and going about our business as usual. We had coexisted with cyborgs since Mother Nature had created us, and there was no reason to alert them of our plan to restore the Earth to her natural state. Four dragons and some wolves were no match for the cyborg military backed up with Cy tech. The only way we could take back Earth from the Cy was with control of the elements, which we didn’t have. “I didn’t want to provoke them, but I couldn’t let them have her.”
He tucked his hands into his pockets, rocked on his heels. “Sam reported back from the outlaws.”
Sam was my bird creature, a woman gifted with a dove. Every dragon had one. “And?”
“They’re going forward with the parade.”
I wondered what Amy was doing. If I were her, I’d get naked and present me with her ass. “Hm?”
“You’re distracted. It makes you vulnerable.”
“Don’t confuse it for weakness.”
“Your spirit needs to come onboard.”
“Don’t you worry about my spirit.”
He gave me a side-eye and a smirk. “The mating dance is not fun.”
“It is if you’re a good dancer.”
“And you are, of course.” He rolled his eyes.
“The very best, dearest. About the outlaws… Send Sam back. I want to know if people are disappearing.”
“She said they believe the Cy are coming and taking them?”
“Nah, but I don’t think Eddy’s lying about losing people at random. Somethin’s going on in town, and I wanna know what it is.”
“That something is your ball, the one that’s drawing all the attention. Everyone within a five-hundred-mile radius is talking about a handsome Southern man with a vast fortune who is in need of a wife.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Did you just quote Jane Austin?”
“I’m surprised you knew.”
“Momma made me read. In want of a wife, by the way.”
“Speaking of your parents, they’re coming for the ball.”
I glanced at the ceiling. “Why?”
“Amy invited them.”
“How did she even know about them?”
“Cindy.”
“And how did she invite them?”
“George went to get them.”
“Aren’t y’all just so well organized. I wonder what I’d do without y’all in my business. Tell them not to come. I’ll bring Amy to Texas…sometime.”
“You tell them that.”
I checked his watch. “Anything else?”
“I’ll find you later. We’ll chat some more.” He clapped me on my back.
I climbed the steps two at a time and entered my room, where Amy had just finished showering. She sat on the bed, towel still around her body.
“You can take that off,” I said. “You won’t need it.”
Amy hooked a thumb around the top of the towel, and it pooled around her waist. Then she scooted up on the bed and spread her legs.
I rested my hands on her knees and stared at her pussy. I couldn’t resist her pussy, which was precisely why she’d showed it to me. She counted on me wanting it, and I wanted it. I ran a finger down the warm slit and spread the moisture down to her little hole. Amy didn’t flinch when I tried to poke her ass. “Are you a virgin here?” I pressed inside, and she relaxed her muscles for an easier entry. That a girl.
“Yes.”
“You won’t be for long.”
“You have two dicks,” she said.
“I’m also a dragon.”
“I was terrified of the dragon. Why didn’t you tell me?”
>
I pushed my thumb inside her pussy and wiggled it. “Because I didn’t have to tell you. I reckon I told you about the dangers when you leave the mansion, though. A little fear of something goes a long way.”
“You only said not to go into town.”
I narrowed my eyes. Amy would give me attitude. She wouldn’t own what she’d done today. There was only one way to deal with my spirit. My way. “Amy,” I said firmly.
She took notice of my tone and propped her upper body on her elbows, giving me her full attention. With her hair fanning out around her head, her beautiful eyes and pouty mouth, Amy was so pretty, I almost forgot why I was upset with her in the first place. Almost.
I teased her clit. “You stole from me,” I said.
“Oh, come on. It was a junkyard car.”
“Sure. But it’s still a car on my property.”
“I borrowed it. I would’ve returned it, and besides, you don’t need a car. You can fly.”
“You’re missing the point.” On purpose, I was sure. Amy knew exactly what I was getting at.
She looked away.
Damn right!
“How many invitations did you pack into the car?” From the top of the nightstand, I picked up the spoon and spun it in my hand.
“No more than two hundred,” she whispered.
“Your ass will burn for a week. Count from one, then one hundred. We’ll do five today because I’m convinced this is the last time I’ll have to do this.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.”
“It’s gonna hurt.”
“It hurts me that I have to do it. But discipline is discipline. Rules are rules. Stay in the mansion, Amy. The property is vast. There’s a lot to do around here.”
“But how would I get the invitations out?”
“You ask someone to get them out for you. You’re an event planner, not an event doer. George could’ve handled the invitations. But that’s not the point. I want you to understand it’s not about the damn papers or anything related to the ridiculous ball I have to hold, it’s about your safety. Now, you have trouble with rules. Turn around.”
Amy thought about it for a second, then asked, “Is this how everyone is punished around here?”