by Lionel Law
Da’al wasn’t the only one. With three cities now growing, more shuttles than ever darted around the sky, carrying people and materials around Iðavöllr, although each area tended to have their own distinct culture. New Des Moines remained very Iovan, while Iova City was almost totally human. Tir Na Nog found a new culture, cosmopolitan in nature, and mixed in population.
“Did you see what’s on the info net right now?” Katrina asked, pointing towards the display on the wall. “It looks like Jean-Paul is getting some more reforms done in Iova City.”
“Yes, I saw. A re-establishment of the Peer test. You really think that it will help?”
Katrina nodded. “It’s a slow step back, but I think so. I talked with Jean last week, and he said he also wants to establish free public education for all. He knows if things don’t change, all of the Dirts with any talent at all will be living here with us. I had three humans come to my office last week, asking if the Council would support them opening a university. I put it on the agenda for next month’s public meeting.”
Brynnda laughed and punched her in the arm. “Ah, waiting until I’m out of the way before ramrodding your ideas through, huh? And what if I don’t want you silly humans having schools around here?”
Katrina laughed and leaned in, whispering in Brynnda’s ear. “Then after the baby comes, I’m just going to have to tie you to my bed and do my best to convince you, over and over if need be.”
Brynnda shivered at the image, biting her lip as her electric blue eyes flashed. You keep that up, and Da’al’s going to find your bed occupied more often than not.
Now now Brynn. You know Da’al’s my husband. Besides, we’re trying to follow you on the path to parenthood.
If you want any advice, I’ll be there. This isn’t my first pregnancy, although it has been a bit different than the others. I didn’t know human babies kicked so much!
We are a very mobile species, as you well know. You don’t seem to mind it all the time.
Of course not. But I will be glad when these two are out of me and I can go back to my normal waistline.
“Well, that’s only going to be a month,” Katrina said, moving back into speech. “In the meantime, we have a Council meeting to get ready for. If I can ask, what’s your view on the sex trade issue? I’ll be honest, having a city of whores is a bit uncomfortable for me.”
Brynnda nodded. “Me too. I don’t think we can ever get rid of these kept people, both Iovan and human, but we can at least regulate it. Did you like my proposal about public halls for Iovan and human relations?”
“I do, actually. If we can’t stop prostitutes, we can at least make it financially unattractive. I don’t want the health of the entire planet depending on a financial transaction.” Despite the growing number of Iovan-human relationships, most kept to their own species. After their initial immunization sex, they went back to their own lives.
“I agree. Well, let’s see what the other Councilors think. I know that Jerry Sulemenov is on our side, but I can’t get a read on Yan’suth, T’renson, or Chris Hargenson.”
Katrina nodded and picked up her data sheet, reaching out to take Brynnda’s hand. “Then let’s go, Sister. We have a future to make for your children, and hopefully mine soon too.”
*****
Da’al came into the dim house, late at night. His work with the human engineers had taken longer than he had thought, and it was past dinner time before he finished his meetings. Taking his shuttle back to Tir Na Nog, he wondered how Katrina’s Council meeting went. With Brynnda stepping away to have her babies, his wife had gotten a lot busier. Now, with the babies born, he was hopeful that his friend and wife’s lover would soon be able to come back to her work. “Katrina?” he said, opening the door. “I’m sorry I’m so late, but I’m home.”
“In here,” Katrina replied, calling from the dining room. “How was work?”
“Good. We’re thinking of launching a test shuttle within the next month. If it works, we can get a small ship ready to go to Earth and to our home planet within a year.” Da’al came into the dining room, perplexed. “Honey? Why are the lights off?”
“Sorry, just had a headache start up during the meeting. Nothing stressful, but I was sitting and listening to Chris Hargenson make a point about setting up trade zones when it came on. I just couldn’t bare the idea of turning on the lights when I came home.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? Should I call for a doctor?” Da’al asked, coming next to her and resting his hands on her shoulders.
Katrina shook her head, turning to look at him. “No. I already had everything checked out. I’m fine. In fact, I’m better than fine.”
Kissing her cheek, Da’al gave her a perplexed look. “What do you mean?”
You’ll feel it in a few weeks or months….. Daddy. But say hello to your baby.
Da’al stood, stunned, as he searched the link he shared with Katrina. There, deep in her body, he could feel the shining light of a new presence in her womb. A new light, a new hope. A new life.
“Brynnda knows?”
Katrina nodded. “I just got finished telling her. She said she’d come by tomorrow with Pa’al and Diana for a celebration if you wanted.”
“Of course.” Da’al kissed her, pulling her into his arms to swing her around once before setting her down. “Oh man, I just thought of something.”
Katrina smiled and kissed her husband again. “What’s that, other than you’re going to take me back to our bed and make love to me all night long?”
Da’al grinned and shook his head. “No, but that’s a great idea as well. Actually, I was just thinking…. we’re going to need a bigger house.”
The end.
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More Books By Lionel Law And Friends
If you enjoyed this, you’ll love Lionel Law’s and Shifter Club’s other books.
Here’s a preview of The Dragon’s Captive by Lionel Law and Paige Cooper:
Description:
They said dragon shifters were long extinct, but they were wrong; a small group has just awoken after a thousand year long forced hibernation.
Now unleashed back onto the world, they have two main aims: Repaying their blood enemy the vampires for forcing them into their slumber, and finding women suitable to carry on their dragon lineage.
Kira is one such woman who is captured by these dragons. Facing an impossible situation, the last thing she expects to happen is to fall for one of her captors… But that’s exactly what’s about to happen!
Enter Nico, a tall, handsome shifter capable of not only putting fear into the strongest men, but making usually cool woman act like giddy school girls facing their first crush.
Kira knows it’s wrong to give in to Nico’s desires, but with her womanly needs just as strong, who’s to says she can’t get what she wants out of this arrangement?
Suitable for over 18s only due to sex scenes so hot they’ll leave your toes curling!
Preview:
Garuf the Ancient awakened with a splitting headache and a fairly large quantit
y of remaining ire. The vampires had refused to protect the last of his kind from the slayers. Betrayal most foul! That is what had sent him and the remaining dragons into torpor, and most assuredly had ended the alliance the two races had once shared.
A thousand years must have passed, else he would not be staring up at the ceiling of the cavern into which he was currently sealed. But if the others were awake, why could he hear no sounds of movement in the outer cave? Why had a female not been sent to see to his needs?
No, the others could not possibly be awake. Which could only mean one of two things: a thousand years had not elapsed and he had awakened before his time, or something was very wrong. He hoped that it was not the latter of the two, for the loss of the last three hundred dragons currently in existence would be a bitter pill to swallow, to be sure.
For ease of movement more than anything else, Garuf shifted into his human form. He was a bulky, white man with long, bushy gold braids, much in the fashion of the ancient Nords heâd once been trying to fit in with. He found it a small matter to tear off great hunks of rock and pitch them to the side so he could step through the resulting hole.
The outer cave was silent and completely dark. The huge skeletons of many dragons littered the floor, but not nearly the numbers that he knew would be hidden in the walls themselves. These were the dragons who had not undergone hibernation right away because they were egg bound. His bond-mate, Teriasin, had been among them.
With a primal roar of anguish, Garuf rushed over to the nest she had made, but found it was empty. A large pile of bones that must belong to her decayed above the hole. He held onto one of the rib bones possessively as he cried, the pain of this loss embittering him further still.
In time, he knew that he needed to determine just who had survived. He methodically broke through every one of the two hundred and fifty sealed walls, but found no living ancient in any of them. With no other idea what to do, he next pulled every single egg from the nesting holes and cracked them open. All the females were dead, and only eight of the males were alive and at full maturation. Now, he needed only to awaken them.
Calling forth the archaic words of an ancient dragon counterspell, Garuf commanded the eight young dragons to awaken. As each one opened his eyes, all the knowledge of their people came directly into their minds, and they understood all that had transpired.
âGaruf the Ancient,â said Nicoladrius, who was the strongest among them. âYou have our loyalty, and you have our fire. What is it you desire?â
Surging up into the greater majesty of his full dragon form, Garuf bellowed only one word in answer. It was the dragon word for ârevengeâ.
*****
âAnd now, ladies, if you will all get out of the bus in an orderly fashion, I would like all the sixth years to gather at the front of the school,â said Madame Carstairs as she looked over the busload of young women from South Dakota who were once again arriving on a sunny day in late August. Most of the young women in the bus were paranormals, or associated with them in some wayâa fact which was becoming increasingly important these days.
As the forty young women filed off the bus, about half of them headed for the lines headed up by Madame Arulia and marched indoors in an orderly fashion, while a select group remained behind with Madame Carstairs to wait. Among them were some very important individuals, including princesses, ladies, and even the daughter of the famous ecologist who had finally determined the fate of the world over twenty years ago.
The Princesses, of course, were the daughters of the Jagger King, who had been elected to be the new ruler of America when the old government was dissolved after the chaos that followed in the wake of the Westhaven reports. Everleigh Westhaven had been the author, and it was her sad duty to inform the world that not only was the virus worldwide, it had also eliminated the production of Y chromosomes in every human male alive. There would never be another completely human male born, and the human females would be forced to either birth only daughters, or choose a mate from among the paranormals and become altered in order to birth a son.
Most of the human women born in America today were accepting of this fact, and knew that one day they would become one of the five paranormal types when they were ready to mate. Europeans had elected not to allow paranormals back into their country despite the threat of extinction, preferring to simply allow the human species to die rather than consort with such unnatural beings. It had, in fact, been over a century since theyâd gone to drastic measures to rid their lands of the vermin, as they called paranormals, in the first place. The Extermination of 1932 still lived in infamy in the minds of everyone who had been involved.
The young women stood before a very old, castle-like structure nestled deep in the heart of a forest in Maine, not too far from Katahdin Mountain, just west of their location. For centuries this old place remained hidden from humans, and had catered only to magiciansâbeings who were much like humans in most respects but with an inborn ability to use magic. Back when the paranormals had been forced to live underground, most of the magicians had been rounded up and forced underground as well, but these three old women and their school had remained untouched.
Then eight years ago, when King Darius had unexpectedly been designated the new ruler of this paranormally enhanced America, the three women were quick to offer Oakenstaff School up as a place for a select group of young women to attend. They felt that a bit of magic existed in every type of human-like being, and even if they could not tap into it, each girl still could use a decent knowledge of the skills involved.
And so, ever since she was eighteenâthe age when she should have become an adult but had instead been told she must wait till she was twenty-five along with everyone elseâKira Westhaven had gone to the magician school each fall. She supposed sheâd learned a great deal more here than she would have done if she hadnât come, but magic use did not appear to be a part of it.
âI wonder why theyâve got us out here,â said Kira to Princess Emilyâher best friend in the entire world since the two had been babies.
âItâs difficult to say,â Emily replied, her dark brow raised delicately as she stood watching everything that went on around her. âMaybe a pep talk or congratulations on reaching the final year?â
âYes, that would make sense,â agreed Kira. âOr sheâs going to be a mean old witch and sort us all into different dorms now that weâre on the way out the door.â
âBite your tongue,â Emily said. âIâve only just become used to the seven of us as it is.â
âWell, I know you donât like the fact that you were paired with several totally human girls like me, butââ
âDonât be like that,â she grumbled. âYou know I donât care that both your parents are human. But Sharon and Mary are nothing like you if you havenât noticed. Youâre smart and resourceful, and you care about a lot more than the latest fashion trends, unlike that lot. Plus, it seems like most of the humans at this school were never able to master any kind of magic at all, whereas you have at least learned how to heal somebody every once in a while.â
âIâve barely been able to master that spell,â Kira complained. âI donât think humans were built to be practitioners of magic. Most of us havenât managed to do any spells at all.â
âWhich is weird when you consider this place is run by three old magicians who said their main goal was to spread magic use throughout the world,â Emily said. âI wonder why they continue to let any of you attend at all.â
âI suspect itâs entirely political,â Kira pointed out. âMost of these human girls are daughters of the old politicians who once ran the country, and still were running it back when they first began to attend. The old hags must know that sending the humans packing would piss off a lot of people. Youâll notice very few human daughters fill
in the first and second year ranks, and theyâd already been dwindling down among the thirds.â
âDonât you suppose thatâs because less of them were born?â Emily pointed out. âYouâre a dying breed, my friend. Women arenât bothering with the human males these days. I guess becoming a paranormal of some variety seems much more appealing.â
âIt does,â she admitted. âBut not just because one might wish to have a son. It just seems like paranormal men are so much hotter than human guys. Bigger, stronger, more handsome, and never lacking in purpose. Human males seem almost listless, donât they?â
âWell, then if you consider there is no human male under the age of twenty-five living, I could see where someone might be more used to the paranormal ones,â Emily commented. âBesides, youâve been living among them your entire life. Of course you would find them more to your tastes, since you donât really know any human males to begin with.â
âCanât argue with logic like that,â Kira smirked.
âGood afternoon, ladies,â called out Madame Tinker from in front of the bell tower as she floated about three feet above the hundred students who waited there. âItâs a pleasure to see all of you returning to Oakenstaff for one last school year. Iâm sure that many of you are very excited to be approaching your adulthood, and maybe some of you have already become twenty-five. Either way, you must all understand that while under this schoolâs roof, you must continue to behave with the utmost decorum. Boys will not be allowed on school grounds, but those of you who have reached the legal age will be allowed to step out from time to time should you feel the need for a tryst. Just try not to become pregnant until after graduation if at all possible.â
Most of the girls groaned as Tinker chuckled at what she considered her little joke. Tinker was bad enough in general without trying to add in âgrown-up talkâ now that they were supposedly old enough to hear it. Kira was doubly disgusted, since she had been forced to wait seven extra years to be considered an adult.