by Maia Starr
This way the Weredragons could bring the women they had rejected as mates back with them to help cultivate their planet and study their environment. This was the trade off from our government to theirs.
We’d been at the command center for two days now, knowing that the Weredragons would arrive soon. It was out by a station in a remote area of Nevada.
I was one of thirty women who had come to the Riddell hoping for a chance to travel to another planet with a Weredragon.
My sister, Meghan, and I were complete opposites, so I was surprised when we’d both signed up to become a hopeful. Some girls, of course, signed up looking for some kind of fantastical love story. Some were researchers doing their part for intergalactic breeding. There were many breeding programs I’d heard about before, and all had success in populating new or underdeveloped planets, such as the planet Udora, which Weredragons called home.
My sister was the former, and I was the latter.
She was looking for love. I was looking for opportunity.
“They’ll be here,” I cooed gently, unsure if I was actually ready to come face to face with a half man, half dragon.
For a restaurant on government property, the establishment we sat in looked older than the crumbling monuments outside that seemed to guard the Space Port. The brick façade that covered the building was painted dust-yellow and chipping, and the countertops were painted plywood. The counters were waterlogged, and in some spots, rotting. The food was what was expected of any dive restaurant: bland.
The overwhelming draw point was its $1.99 breakfast special with large portions, cheap prices, and its close proximity to the space port that we had made our new temporary home.
The fries were sometimes freezer burnt, and the only safe thing to eat was breakfast. I’d learned this over the course of several weeks that we’d spent training with the government for our roles in the choosing ceremony.
My sister ordered two cream-filled chocolate donuts and a vegetable soup, her standby. She ordered it for lunch almost every day and worried that, should she be chosen as a Weredragon’s mate, she wouldn’t be able to find her favorite meal any longer on planet Udora.
I ordered plain toast and a chocolate milk, which I had long ago finished. My sister always took longer to eat than me because she would talk so much. Aside from a couple blips and rolls of the eye, I quite enjoyed our afternoon banter. It was the most time I got to spend with my sister during the day.
After meals, we’d be taken to various sectors of the Space Port to hone our personal skills. For me, this meant working as a nurse, or sometimes studying biology samples for the government team. I’d grown fascinated with the samples they provided from Udora and could only imagine what the environment was going to be like when I got there. I’d started dreaming about it every night for the last week.
I held my chin in my hand and watched Meghan eat her soup. She dipped her spoon into the soup, making a foul expression, as though she had just picked a cockroach out of it; her mouth scowling with every bite.
“Gross?” I asked with a genuine laugh as she struggled to slurp down her meal.
"Doesn't matter anyway," she spoke matter-of-factly as she swished her overly large spoon in the children-sized bowl. The soup bubbled from the heat and shot a droplet of soup onto her spoon. "I don't come here for the food."
Just then the waitress came up to the table and set down our meals. The plates banged against the table as though the waitress, whose name tag read 'Breanna,' had been somehow provoked.
She was large, about thrice the size of myself in width, and her gut fell into three rolls, the largest of which bumped into the table as she passed. I noticed small traces of stubble on her chin as she took out a stylus pen and scribbled the total cost of the meal onto a throwaway tablet before dropping it on the table with a loud thud. Her hair was fried blonde, and she wore way too much makeup to be legal. Upon opening her mouth, a spit bubble formed against her lips and quickly broke.
"Have a skippy day," the waitress suggested to us. Her voice was flat, as though she was addressing the weather and sounded like she had one too many cigarettes for a lifetime.
I could hear Meghan holding back laughter as I grabbed the tablet and squawked out a, “Thank you.” As soon as the waitress departed from us, Meghan burst into childlike giggles.
"Must be the charming hospitality you love, Meg.”
"Ariella!" my sister scolded and turned around to see if the pleasant waitress was still in earshot. Upon finding that she wasn't, she chuckled again. "I come here to spend quality time with your stupid face."
“That’s charming,” I snorted.
I smiled and stared down into my coffee. I hadn’t been hungry but came to spend some time with Meghan. I worried about what would happen to our relationship when we arrived on Udora. In truth, no matter how much we’d been prepped about expectations for our new lives, I had no idea if they would involve each other, even if we did live in the same facility.
This was one of those days where the sun was beating a warm heat, and barely any snow could be seen, save for a few small patches lurking around the edges of the station. The ground was no longer wet, and the sun was just warm enough to throw on a light jacket or a sweater and still feel completely comfortable.
The air smelled of nothing, a strong indication that spring would arrive any day now. I wondered if I would miss it or if we would be able to stay for my favorite season before the Weredragons arrived.
I played with my napkin, ripping off all the corners and continuing to rip down from there. Meghan hardly noticed and continued chatting away about what she hoped for in a mate and how excited she was to open her heart up again.
I looked up to respond, and before I could quip out some sarcastic reply, Meghan slammed her hands on top of mind before pointing vigorously out the window.
“They’re here,” she said simply. As quickly as her words sounded out, we saw what looked like dozens of breaths of fire plummet to the earth in the distance. I could feel the vibrations beneath me like the whole Earth shook under the weight of the foreign creatures that had just invaded our airspace.
I stood up from the table, knowing that our director would want us in the station as quickly as possible.
Meghan grabbed her jacket in a rush with a smile fixed on her face from ear to ear. I hadn’t seen her this happen in quite some time. She twiddled her finger against her pockets as I reached for the bill and left exact change on the tablet.
“And no tip; I wonder why?” I said sarcastically as I dropped the change loudly, alerting several patrons to look over at us.
“Come on, come on!” Meghan urged as she rushed me toward the door.
Fair enough, I thought. I didn’t want to be there to see Breanna’s reaction to her less-than-appreciative payment.
As we reached the door, it seemed our director had already caught up to us.
“Girls,” came the smooth and sultry voice of the program coordinator, Zaphira Reneau. She spoke to us with confidence and an upturned chin as she ushered us out the door. “It’s time.”
“But they only just landed,” I said nervously and turned back toward the window.
“They’re fast,” Zaphira laughed. “Faster than you think. Now come along.”
Zaphira was like a director or a producer of sorts. She’d guided us through months of training and informational seminars. She taught us how to act, how to address our new mates, and what to expect from our new planet once the Weredragons took us back to Udora. Then she was ushering my sister and me into a shuttle packed full of women.
We reach the entrance to the landing pad, and the woman showed us out of the cramped shuttle to begin our walk down the metal corridors of the space port.
As far as we had been briefed, and what I’d gathered through word-of-mouth, from here we would be brought to a choosing ceremony in which the Weredragons would meet us and get a sense of who they would like to keep as their mates.
Zaphira told us there were no blind dates, no questions asked, and absolutely no touching. The Weredragons would simply look us over and decide on instinct who they would like to mate with. She took me aside after our first week in training and told me she had high hopes for my chances to become a mate. I smiled politely and thanked her, but inside I wasn’t too thrilled. In fact, I planned on being as charmless as possible to avoid being chosen. I would rather study biology in peace than be the mate to someone who would kill for sport.
That said, we’d been told repeatedly how attractive these men would be. Even Zaphira, who had been all business with the girls, seemed to get a sparkle in her eye whenever she spoke about the Weredragon men.
“Aren’t you excited at all?” my sister had asked me that morning as we began to get ready. We were instructed to treat every day as the day the Weredragons would arrive. Meghan took this especially to heart and would always make a big deal out of her appearance.
We weren’t required to dress or groom in any way to flatter our bodies or enhance our faces. My sister disregarded this and wore a skin-tight leather suit that left nothing to the imagination. She wanted to be chosen so badly, her desperation and hope practically dripped from her every sentence. I dressed in loose clothes just to be sure no one would care to look at me twice.
I’d wore my blonde hair in a natural mess of curls and coated my lashes with mascara, as to look halfway presentable. The rest of the women around me dressed in their best; long dresses, intricate braids, pounds of makeup.
“Yeah, I'm really excited. Yippee!” I mocked in a whisper. “Can’t you tell?”
“Don’t you want to fall in love?” she asked incredulously.
“Ah, but what is love?” I responded in a pallid tone.
“Please,” she protested with a drawn out sigh. “Don’t get philosophical on me. And don’t mock this. You should consider it an honor.”
“I’m sorry I’m not excited about being some stranger’s wife or whatever. I want to explore a new planet. That’s what I want.”
“And you can do that even if you’re chosen, so why not have the world’s most loyal guy in the world fall madly in love with you?”
Weredragon’s, as far as we’d been told, were fiercely loyal. They mated for life and would protect you with their own. Even I had to admit this was definitely a step up from Earth men as far as I was concerned.
“Yeah,” I breathed. “But…” I turned to her, and my face lit up with disinterest. “What is love?”
“Oh stop,” she said and smacked me on my arm before rolling her eyes.
We began to assemble on the landing pad and could see shots of fire in the distance, speeding through the skies. I suddenly got a knot in my stomach as I realized the men really were coming. I looked to Meghan and suddenly felt sorry for her. She had a boyfriend just weeks before this offer came up. He bailed as soon as he saw the forms arrived in the mail.
It wasn’t as though she’d asked to be a part of the program. But, he didn’t care. For him, it was an excuse to leave.
I’d heard gossip over the years about the Weredragons, though I’d never encountered one myself. We’d been briefed by the program coordinator about how the Weredragons became testy around humans males. In fact, they hated them. A rumor made official, I thought. Before a program was put in place for volunteers to mate with the race, the Weredragons used to come to Earth and slaughter the men here in order to claim the women without competition.
My sister never intended to accept the offer for the program, but when Liam left, she’d said she felt a hole in her soul. She immediately concluded that this was fortuitous timing and her soulmate must exist among the Weredragons.
She told me the day before we’d left for Riddell that Liam had called her all broken up about the separation, but something told me he’d rather be safe cooking steaks at his restaurant than being cooked by a jealous Weredragon.
The girls chattered excitedly behind us about their new mates and how much they were looking forward to seeing such dreamy men. We were told they would have rippling muscles and captivating eyes. I had to fight off rolling mine as the women nattered on about these hunky aliens.
“It’s not like a romance, you know,” Zaphira said, stopping in her tracks as she lined us up in a row on the landing pad, the heels of her boots clicking an echo through the room. “Your match,” she clarified.
I raised a brow. “How do you mean?”
“Don’t expect him to know what to do with you,” she said simply and kept walking. “Sexually, or otherwise.”
I turned to my sister, and we exchanged a humorous but hushed giggle, and the women behind us followed suit. “That’s comforting,” I whispered to Meghan, and she smiled. On the contrary, the sexual prowess of the Weredragons was highly regarded in the whispers of the media.
“Oh stop,” came the protest from Zarphia’s assistant Amelia. “Not everyone is going to have the same experience you–”
“That’s enough.” Zaphira interrupted.
The comment took me by surprise, and I stopped in my tracks. The rest of the women kept walking, now even farther ahead of my sister and I.
Zaphira was absolutely beautiful, I thought. She looked around forty or so with short black hair and blunt-cut bangs. She had high cheekbones and pale blue eyes. Something about her seemed so elegant and so put together that, even though I was nearly 20 years her junior, I was almost jealous of her beauty.
The more I studied her, the more I noticed her scars; the deep white scratches the cascaded down her arms, neck, and one down the side of her face. They were faint, but they were there. I’d noticed the one on her cheek before but never thought much of it.
Now I realized she’d been a Weredragon’s mate before – and it hadn’t gone well.
Chapter Two
Caridan
A voice shouted to me in a roar of fire and heat and as I’d plummeted through the sky.
I looked over to see Ikar staring into me as though he wanted to rip my neck out. I saw the spot of a tooth against the white scales of his lip as he smirked. I tried my hardest to have my eyes betray nothing.
I looked back down toward the ground and could still feel the sting of cold of the Earth’s atmosphere washing off my scales. I wasn’t among those who loved Earth like other dragons did. To me, the Earth represented a cold planet that was had to get into a held a whole lot of rules.
Udora’s rules were clear-cut, and there was no red tape to cut through. Not nearly as much, anyway. You were assigned a duty, you bred to continue your people, and you worked hard. Here on the Earth, there were so many things to consider. You used to be able to come and take what you liked. Now to claim a mate you now had to consult with a council of government officials, have special women assigned, and make deals to take a group of them back to your land when all you came for was one.
I breathed out and began to slow my pace as we descended to the space station. We hadn’t transformed yet, but I could sense the ground coming up closer and closer to my periphery. It was almost time.
Transforming was the painful part – at least for those scorned like myself.
Those who displeased the Udora Koth, or council, were punished. Pain, I’d learned, was their favorite curse.
A roar from Targeg gained my attention. He nodded his snout in my direction, and I could already see him transforming. He is the only loyal one among them, and so I nodded in kind.
His snout was stout and pointed, with spines along his jawline and protruding out the back of his small, square head. His scales were a deep black with a blue sheen. Flecks of yellow were scattered amongst the blue and filled out in all his spines and spikes.
The scales of him began to fade as skin formed around his eyes. Always his eyes first. Targeg was always the first to take human form in any given situation. He didn’t like scaring the women, and he didn’t like flying. That’s not to say he wasn’t good at it, but he never made a show of it. He was one of the rare
ones who liked legs better than wings.
He swung his wings rapidly. Even when taking on human form, his wings were larger than the rest, making his body seem that much smaller in comparison. Targeg knew my transformation was inevitable and painful and so he looked my way and slowed his descent to match my speed. Others slowed their pace as well, but not as moral support.
I could see the ground below us now; a dull sheen of gray tarmac and faint bodies in the distance. I could feel the fire surrounding my whole body as my scales begin to recede.
Pain shot through my shoulder blades as my wings shrunk down to fit the human form that was sorely making its way through my body. My face cracked and I winced in agony as the spines from my snout withdrew and my eyes centered to the front of my face. Any onlooker would see this transformation as an awe-inspiring scene that would take but a moment. But I felt everything; every bone popping into place, every scale burning into my skin like acid. I felt the throbbing pain in my gums as my teeth accommodated the flesh around them.
Purple scutes ran down my throat and arms, always present, as though to remind me of what I truly was.
I roared in agony and felt the fire leave my throat in a hot flash that weaved pain through my tongue. The men around me stared, and a hush fell over the crowd. I reminded myself that not all dragons could shoot fire, but all wished they could. I looked around the group of us and lifted my head as I set my jaw to everyone who dared to look my way.
Let them stare.
Targeg hit the ground with force and clomped his feet into the Earth, rocks jutting up around his feet as he landed.
“See?” he said jovially and slapped me hard on the wing. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”