by E. A. James
“What are the children like? What sort of hybrid comes from a cross between human and dragon? No, wait. Don’t answer that. I don’t think I want to know.”
He put his head on one side and studied her. “Why don’t you want to know? What made you change your mind about asking me?”
“Because I will never mate with you. I don’t care if the children are the most beautiful creatures in the world. I’ll never let you touch me, let alone.....” She shuddered. The thought turned her stomach.
He lowered his head until he came level with her eyes. His head inched closer and closer until his breath warmed her through her dress. The tingle of excitement scorched her flesh, the same way it did back at the mountain where he found her. He smelled her through her clothes.
She wanted more than anything to turn her face away, but his eyes held her enthralled. Her ripe petals unfurled to invite him between her legs, and a delicate blush colored her cheeks.
His nostrils flared. He smelled her desire. He could hear her heart beat and her breath rasp in and out of her lungs. He sensed the convulsive twitching of her inner channel in her aching need for...
She forced that thought of her mind. She couldn’t dream about him. She couldn’t fantasize about a dragon inserting its flesh into her. She wouldn’t be human if she gave in to the craven hunger burning her up from the inside.
With all her strength, she turned her back on him and sank down onto the rock. The volcanic heat radiating into her bones only made her desire blaze hotter. She stretched out at full length and let the heat melt her anxiety and tension away. She no longer cared if he took her or not. She was no longer human, anyway. She was nothing but a pulsating mass of primal instinct.
She wanted him. She wanted him far more than she ever wanted Marcus. That’s the real reason she managed to keep her virginity against all Marcus’s efforts to take it. She never really wanted him in the first place—not like this.
Something in Tanak’s eyes, in his flesh, in his skin, blasted away her inhibitions and left her panting and moaning in agony for him. Nothing could satisfy that craving but him.
All those other women who mated with Raveniss must be very happy they did. If the dragons excited them as much as Tanak excited her, she would eventually mate with him. It was only a matter of time.
The dragons’ bodies didn’t damage them or tear them apart. How did it work? She didn’t care. She wanted him inside her. She wanted to hurl herself on him and destroy herself against him.
He didn’t notice or pretended not to. He turned away and went back to his place. She extended her bound arms above her head and undulated against the rock. Was he watching her? Did she excite his passion as much as he excited hers?
He wasn’t watching, though. He kept his back turned, so he didn’t see her antics. She rolled over on her side and closed her eyes. She didn’t have to bother telling him anymore that she didn’t want to mate with him. He already knew the truth.
At that moment, a massive explosion rocked the whole mountain. It knocked Margila off her rock onto the cold ground. She fought to sit up in time to see one of those vehicles soaring over the bowl. A blast of some bright light burst from its nose and slammed into the mountainside. It shattered the boulders overhead and sent rocks tumbling down on top of Margila and Tanak.
Margila cried out in surprise, but she couldn’t get away with her ankles tied. Tanak crossed the bowl with one hop. “They’re attacking!”
“Who?”
“The fleet—whoever they are. You know better than I do who they are. You tell me.”
“The Axis Joint Command. That’s all I know. I overheard my father talking to one of them.”
“They must have seen me on their last flight over. They want to kill me and move on north to the Raveniss stronghold.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do?”
Another blast pounded into the mountainside. One whole side of the bowl collapsed in a shivering pile of rubble. Boulders bounced around Margila. She covered her head with her arms for protection and screamed.
“Get on my back. We have to get out of here.”
“I can’t. My legs are tied together.”
He didn’t take a moment to react. His head darted out and he lifted her up. He draped her across his back and took to the air. The bowl’s rim fell away. Margila tossed on Tanak’s back, but she dared not move around too much for fear of falling off.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the ship in hot pursuit. It fired on Tanak, and the sizzling blast sailed past his wing.
He didn’t turn around. With a few powerful thrusts of his wings, he left the ship far behind. It broke off its pursuit and returned east, the way it came. “They must be operating from the village.”
“How can you be sure? Did you fly over there since you took me from the mountain?”
“I haven’t been back, but it’s the only place that makes sense. They can park their ships on the Common and barrack their troops with the villagers.”
Margila didn’t argue. How could her quiet little village be transformed into a battleground in the short time since she left it? She didn’t have to ask that question. Her village would do anything to get rid of the Raveniss, even if it meant cooperating with a tyrant like Major Bloodkist.
Her heart sank when she thought of her father and mother hosting that man in their own home. They let him parade around the village in his dress uniform and pretend he was saving them from the dragon menace. How could they?
Then again, how could they do anything else? They just lost their only child, their daughter, to the dragon. To them, she was dead. They had no idea another life waited for her in the far north. They had no idea the very same Major Bloodkist would kill her along with the rest of the Raveniss.
Tanak landed on another mountaintop far away from the last one and Margila slid to the ground. No volcanic caldera sheltered them here. The bitter wind scoured the peak and moaned among the rocks. It blew right through her thin dress and chilled her to the bone. The ground on which she sat froze her even more.
Tanak checked the sky. Then he noticed her huddled on the ground. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find a better place for you, and you must be hungry. I was just about to go hunting when that thing came along. The night is coming on. We’ll have to spend the night here and move on in the morning.”
She couldn’t answer through her chattering teeth.
“Come here and lie against my side. I’ll keep you warm.”
He curled his long body around her. A mesmerizing heat radiated from his skin and penetrated her frozen limbs. She rested her head and side against his bulk. His body rose and fell with his breath. “Tanak?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t you think you could untie me now? I couldn’t run away now if I wanted to.”
He didn’t answer for a long time. “All right. I suppose I could.”
He didn’t move, though, and neither did she. They just lay, one against the other, in the peace of the moment. “Tanak?”
“What is it?”
“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”
“What possible reason could I have to lie to you?”
“You wouldn’t tell me it’s nice in your northern kingdom when it isn’t, would you? You wouldn’t lie to me about that just to get me to consent to mate with you, would you?”
He let out a long breath. “I have no reason to lie to you about that when I want you to love me and be happy there. If I lied about it, you would discover the truth as soon as I took you there. That would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?”
She didn’t answer. She hid her face against his side.
“I’m not lying about it, Margila. The women who come to live with my people are very happy. They live in a beautiful, safe city far away from war and hunger and strife. Their children receive the best education available anywhere in the galaxy. They grow up tall and straight and strong, and they take their place in our society with honor an
d support from the whole community. You have nothing to worry about for your life in the north or from my people. You have only to love me. Everything else will take care of itself.”
Her shoulders shook with emotion. “How can I love you? You’re a dragon, and I’m human. I’m not supposed to mate with you. I’m supposed to mate with another man of my own kind. That’s only natural.”
“Look beyond my appearance. You know me well enough by now to know I would never lie to you or harm you in any way. Can you love me for myself, in spite of being different? Can you let yourself share your heart and your life with me?”
“I only wish I could. Everything would so much simpler if I did.”
He rumbled deep in his chest. “There’s no hurry. We have all the time in the world.”
She let the subject die and fell asleep there, against his side. He wrapped his long tail around her to keep her warm, and the wind pounded against his back and blew over her head.
CHAPTER SIX
Margila woke in the first light of dawn and looked around her. The ropes that bound her wrists and ankles for the last days lay in shreds on the ground. She rubbed the painful welts on her skin and moved her arms and legs freely for the first time since she was bound.
Tanak lay in the same position, with his body wrapped around her and his skin glowing with heat to keep her comfortable. She stood up and stretched her legs. She got a good look at rugged mountain ranges running away in all directions. Not a single house or wisp of smoke interrupted that wilderness. She sat back down in the pocket of warmth against his side.
His voice rumbled inside his chest. “Good morning. How are you today?”
“I’m very well. Thank you for letting me go.”
“You’re welcome.”
She looked up into his face. “I feel like we can talk for the first time since you took me from the mountain. I feel like there’s nothing standing between us anymore.”
“I’m sorry I had to keep you tied up. I shouldn’t have.”
“Oh, yes, you should have. You were right about me. I would have run away the very first chance I got, even if it meant dying in the mountains. I didn’t care, as long as I got away from you.”
“And now? Do you still want to run away?”
“You were right about something else. I have nowhere to go. My only option is to go north with you.”
“Are you prepared to do that?”
She stared down at the ground. “I want to go north. I want to start a new life with your people, but I would be lying if I said I wanted to mate with you. I care about you, but I don’t feel that way about you. I’m sorry.”
“I understand. I appreciate your honesty.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Nothing. We wait until you change your mind about me.”
“How can we wait? You can’t leave me alone here while you go hunt, and I’ll die without food and water.”
“That is true. I will have to think of something else. Perhaps I could take you back to the caldera.”
“Is that wise? That ship might come back. It could attack us again, and we might not be lucky enough to get away this time.”
“The truth is, I would be taking my life in my hands hunting for you anywhere. Those ships will be surveying the whole planet. They’ll attack any dragon they see, and I can’t hide from them forever.”
“So what choice do we have? You have to take me north.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t run the risk. We have a strict rule that no maiden can come to the stronghold until she gives herself to the dragon that took her. I would be driven out and probably killed if I took you back now.”
“Why? Why such a harsh rule?”
“You know the answer to that if you only think about it. You have to give yourself to me completely, in full awareness of what you’re doing and with your whole heart, without reservation. If you don’t do that, you won’t fit into our society. You won’t embrace the Raveniss as your own people, and you won’t help us fight the humans in this war. You can only be on one side, and we need to know you’re with us all the way. You won’t be allowed in the stronghold until you make that commitment.”
“It seems a little too harsh for my taste. It seems there could be some compromise, especially given the situation we’re in.”
“It is humans who created a situation in which there can be no compromise. You’ve been our enemy all your life. Now you have to decide to join us and make humans your enemies. You make the commitment, not just to me and my people, but to yourself.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Do you really want those villagers as your people? Do you want to cast your lot with them and live hand to mouth for the rest of your life? Do you want ignorant peasantry to be the highest and best you can aspire to? Or do you want to join an advanced race that can compete with the richest and brightest anywhere? Do you want your children to till the soil and slave for their daily bread, or do you want them to read and write and learn and communicate with other sentient races on other planets? Do you want them to take their place in an intergalactic community with a future, or do you want them to sacrifice their children to some barbaric seasonal ritual?”
Margila stiffened. “This is my people you’re talking about.”
He put his head down and closed his eyes. “Exactly. When you can see them the way I see them, then you’ll be ready to go north to the stronghold. Not before.”
She left it at that. What was the sense in arguing? They were too far apart to agree on something so fundamental to them both. The life she left behind in the village, the life she cherished above everything, the life she longed to share with Marcus and in which to bear his children—to Tanak, this was all rude squalor.
She couldn’t stop herself, though, from dreaming of something more. The pictures he wove in her mind of worlds extending beyond the broken fields and Common—how could she resist that? Who wouldn’t want something grand and promising like that for herself and her children?
If only she could have that with a human man, she would grab it with both hands. After all, what could a human man do for her that Tanak couldn’t do? Did it really come down to a few seconds of intimacy? When she looked the unvarnished truth in the face, what argument could she have against giving herself to him? She certainly didn’t have many options.
She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. Tanak haunted her dreams, but not in his dragon form. In her dreams, she met an enchanted lover in the shape of a man. He wore glittering green armor and a spiked helmet, and his auburn hair hung down to his shoulders. She met him in a craggy mountain pass, where they flew into each other’s arms in tumultuous passion.
She woke up buzzing with fresh desire, but when she put her hand on the scaly skin under her cheek, her body tensed. He wasn’t that knight in the mountains. He was nothing but a dragon. She couldn’t even touch him without cringing.
She got up to stretch, and he unwound his tail to let her step out on the treacherous rocks by herself. The wind tossed her dress around her body, but the sun warmed her. She lifted her arms to the dawn. How wonderful to be free at last!
She didn’t have time to enjoy her newfound freedom before one of those sky vessels whizzed over the countryside, headed straight toward them. Tanak raised his head to look at it. It hovered over the peak for a moment before a thunderous clap shook the whole sky. At the same moment, dozens of armed men materialized on the mountainsides. The armed men wore the same uniform as Major Bloodkist, but Margila registered that only at a distance.
Battle helmets covered the soldiers’ faces and made them look like giant ants. They rushed up the mountainsides and fired their weapons on Tanak. Energy blasts burst from their weapons and slammed into the rocks. They shattered and sprayed dust and rock in every direction. Tanak unwound his long body, and his tail thrashed through the air toward the men.
Margila darted toward him when another blast ripped past her. It crashed into the rock just in
ches from her head and sent her scurrying for cover. Tanak bellowed at the men and let out a jet of orange flame from his mouth. It swept across the landscape and cleared ten men in one pass.
He couldn’t fight them all at once, though. No sooner had he scorched those men than their comrades moved in behind him. They fired their weapons on him and one of them hit him in the back.
Tanak reared up on his hind legs. His wings beat the air, and he let out a piercing screech that stood Margila’s hair on end. All thought of crouching in fear evaporated from her mind. She rushed forward, straight into the path of those guns.
Tanak saw her first and called out, “Margila, no!” but he couldn’t stop her. She ran between him and soldiers in the very act of firing on him.