by Stella Cassy
The Drakon matron at the other end of the video screen laughed. If you couldn’t hear her, and you only looked at the image, she would look like a charming, chuckling middle-aged Drakon female. But when you could hear her, the bitter coldness of her laugh rang hard and true. It cut through me like a knife.
“Because you won’t have a mate. Any mate worth a damn would reject you. Don’t you see?”
“How dare you! The mother of a mere smearling dares question the desirability of me, a royal prince and Hielsrane? This is an outrage!”
She was the mother of Illswing, a smearing who did not even know his own father. She was hardly in a position to look down on anyone.
“Ha! A royal prince? Just because your mother begged until she got a scrap of paper putting you at the very bottom of the line of succession? You’re about as royal as a smashed egg.”
How dare she! How dare she?
“You’re lucky I’m not closer. If I were, you would be in mortal danger right now. Your plan with the human slave has failed, and you and your son will fail as well. You have my word.”
“Your word? What’s that worth? About the same as your mother’s honor?”
As she began to cackle again, I could take it no more. If I couldn’t kill her myself, I could at least kill her visage. Squeezing my talons together tight I swung at her, punching my fist through the screen of the comms unit, and burying it into the wall of the ship behind, creating a dent that was monument to my rage. Immediately she was cut off. For a glorious moment I imagined that my fist had somehow gone through the screen and connected with her face. As if a wormhole had opened, allowing me to bury it between her eyes into her rotsome brain. But when I withdrew my hand, all I saw was orange blood and angry cuts.
I swung at the comms unit again. It was beyond worthless. After, I held up my hand before me. As the blood dripped from it, I swore that next time it would be hers.
When I arrived on the bridge, the crew could sense my mood, and no one dared say a thing.
“Open the medical bay immediately.”
I stamped my way out of the room. The ship was so small and worthless it didn’t have a dedicated medical officer, or even a dedicated medical facility. Our sick bay was a cupboard which when opened, allowed an operating table and machinery to unfold out. It was degrading.
I stood in the recreation room, next to the medical facility closet, while I waited for Jal, the most junior member of my crew, to prepare.
When he arrived, he greeted me with a fast, “Sir,” and immediately got to work. He opened the doors and pulled out an extending worktop loaded with electronic devices and drawers of equipment.
“Your hand, sir.”
Not allowing him to see any hint of pain on my face, I presented it to him with a bored expression. “Fix this, quickly.”
“Yes sir. I’ll do my best.”
Of course, this caused my anger to rise.
With my uninjured hand I gave him a smack across the head. “I don’t ever want to hear that again. You will obey my orders. You will not do your best, you will not attempt, you will do. And you will do exactly as I say or suffer the consequences. Is that clear?”
Jal’s voice was quiet and low when he replied. “Yes, sir.”
With the aid of the electronic doctor, he soon had the small wounds on my hand and shoulder sealed shut with blood glue, then he began to put a brace around my hand.
“What is this?”
“The system says that you have shattered two bones in your hand. A brace is required. Following your instructions, I am applying it.”
I stared at him for a moment, debating whether to push it further. But perhaps he and the computer were right. The hand did feel a little like the bones had disintegrated inside. It was all Leiren’s fault.
And the tool with which she had wounded and provoked me.
The human slave girl.
“Very well, do it quick. I’ve got to see that human.”
She needed to pay.
8
Talia
Talia
I could hear him coming long before he arrived. With great big stomping, thumping footsteps. He sounded annoyed, but I wasn’t sure whether that was true, or whether he always walked like that. I didn’t have a lot of experience with Drakon. Not yet.
I wasn’t too happy myself. In fact, I was getting more and more irate. The cage I was in was too small to even sit down properly, and I had been fighting off cramps in my legs since being shoved in there. No one had come to see me, no one had explained what was going on, or what their plans for me were. All I knew was that my uncomfortable slave existence on Minapolis had ended, and an even more uncomfortable one in a tiny cell on a small spaceship had begun.
When he entered the room I was in — which seemed to be a small cargo hold, though distinctly lacking in any cargo — his face looked furious. His vaguely reptilian eyes had narrowed, and his brow creased downward.
“How did she put you up to this? Was it one of her agents?”
While this was certainly an interesting question, I had no idea what he was talking about. He sure did seem upset.
“Who?”
“What did she tell you? That she would give you your freedom if you maimed me?’
He didn’t stop his progress as he spoke; he kept coming until he was right outside the cell. Upon reaching it, he stuck his hand against the palm reader and unlocked the door. He pulled it open, but stood in the narrow entryway, a seemingly even more immovable object than what he had replaced.
“What are you talking about? And who is it that you mean? Because if they can promise me my freedom, I’d very much like to meet them.”
That isn’t what he wanted to hear. He leaned forward, his large orange tinged head hanging just in front of mine. When I breathed in, I could smell him. He had a very masculine scent to him, like leather in an ancient forest, with vague undertones of woody smoke. He smelled rich, like an indulgent dessert by the fire on a snowy evening.
“If you lie to me, I will tear you asunder.”
“I’m not lying. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was a slave in the bank, then you came along, destroyed it, and kidnapped me.”
“Kidnapped you? Or saved you from fire and the collapse of the building?”
Yeah that was one way to describe what happened.
“It was a building that you collapsed.”
“Yes. They insulted the honor of my people. They deserved it.”
His face had relaxed somewhat. I think he believed me. Which was good, because I didn’t really fancy being torn asunder for something I didn’t do. Not that the universe had been very fair to me in recent history.
We faced each other at an impasse. I had attacked him and failed once already, but that didn’t mean I was going to give up. I may not have been working for this mystery person that he was so angry about, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to do the same thing for my own reasons.
If I escaped him, perhaps I could do something with this ship. I analyzed the Drakon captain, looking for any weak spots. His strong, muscular legs didn’t look to be one of them. Nor did his thick forearms with visible muscles rippling underneath the lightly scaled skin. His broad shoulders and deep chest didn’t exactly look like weak spots either. I was half tempted to reach out and touch him, just to see if those muscles were actually as firm as they looked. But nice girls like me didn’t do things like that.
Not that I was a nice girl anymore.
No, if he had a weak spot, it would be the solar plexus. I tried to hit there earlier but failed. This time I wasn’t going to.
Fail, that is.
I slowly dropped my jaw open, made my eyes wide, and looked up to the ceiling. There was something really, really interesting up there.
Like an idiot, he followed my gaze. As soon as he did so, I kicked him as hard as I could, bracing myself against the bars behind me as I shoved my heel with all my might just below the center of his rib cage.
It worked! For half a second. He staggered backward, and that was all I needed. I was slipping out between him and the door of the cage immediately. I nearly made it to the door. Nearly.
Rethryn reached out and grabbed me by the wrist, his hand an iron vice, just as impossible to escape from as a pair of steel handcuffs. I tried to twist away from him, but all I ended up doing was chafing the skin on my wrist. He yanked on my arm, pulling me back toward him.
My chest crashed into his. He was leaning over me, so low that my breasts pressed against the hard muscles of his chest. Alarmed, I looked down and saw that my robe had ripped even further, and it was the bare flesh of my skin that was up against his. His other arm went around my lower back, making sure that I wouldn’t even try to move again.
Panting, I looked up at him. Our eyes locked. There was curiosity on both sides, as we both got our first full-on close-up look into the face of the other’s species. His musky scent was stronger up close, and the strength of his muscles against my soft body had a bewildering effect on me.
As I my eyes dilated and my heart rate increased, I could feel a new plan coming on. I reached out my free hand, gently, feeling at his waist. It was as firm as any I’d felt. I wasn’t sure whether Drakon had a six pack, but if they did, he certainly had one. Maybe it was a ten pack. I ran my fingers over the warmth of his body, feeling the scales for the first time. They were soft, yet strong. Not off-putting, like touching a snake can be. More like the comfortable strength of a well-worn saddle on your favorite horse at your Montana ranch.
If you can’t distract a guy by winding him, there’s another way that almost always works. At least it had in my experience. It was time for Plan B.
And that’s what I kept telling myself, as I did what I did next. I was just trying to distract him. Trying to give myself a chance to escape. It wasn’t because I wanted to do it. Oh no. Definitely not.
I’m pretty good at lying to myself when I want to. Almost as good as I am at lying to other people. Not that there had been much chance to do so recently.
I draped my free arm around his neck and pulled myself closer to him. Our eyes fully locked together now, I gently pushed my lips against his. It was like I had triggered an alarm. Whereas before he had just been staring at me, suddenly he was fluid, moving, pressing his lips against mine, squeezing my body hard against his, pulling me in closer with that iron-grip still around my wrist.
Hot and wet, our lips seemed almost to burn together. Kissing him was nothing like kissing a man. There was more heat. More strength in the softness. As our tongues met, I felt the tiny hairs on my arms prickling up, and my skin became like his flesh. I broke away for half a second just to breathe, just to fill my lungs with air again.
“You taste… good,” Rethryn said, a purring growl emanating from somewhere deep in his chest.
“You… too…” I couldn’t even string two words together without panting.
There was another purring growl, and then his tail whipped my legs away from underneath me and I was falling backward onto the floor. But I didn’t hit it. As I approached the metal deck, his arms caught me again and tightened around me, and he lowered me the final few inches, his giant weight lightly pressing against me as he hovered over me on hands and knees.
Staring up at him, feeling his weight, his warmth, his dragon-heat, I suddenly realized how long it had been, and that right then, I wanted him more than anything.
My plan began to fade in my mind. Screw distracting him.
Instead, lose the middle word.
He had the same idea, and he kneeled above me, suddenly driving his talons down towards me, shredding my tattered robe, tearing it open, laying me completely bare and vulnerable underneath him. I gasped up at him. He could do anything he wanted to me right then. Anything at all.
“No one’s ever done that before,” I said. I couldn’t say anything else, because his mouth was pressing against mine again, and his taloned hands were eagerly spreading my legs, pushing my thighs apart, opening me.
I wanted him. I needed him, and I didn’t even get to see his manhood before he was rubbing it against me. I reached down with a hand, grasping him, feeling the thickness and length of a Drakon cock for the first time. Hard and ridged, it was hotter than any human’s against my hand. I wanted it in me. Now. I held it tight with my hand, rubbing it against my entrance, trying to get the head of it between my hungry lips.
“I hope you’re ready,” he growled as he broke off the kiss for a moment, before pushing his lips and tongue back against mine.
With a slow push of his hips he started to enter me, thicker and hotter than anything I’d felt before. He held my legs wide apart as he drove himself relentlessly into me, filling me up until I was quivering and tight all around him, gloriously stretched out until I gasped, and my body tensed.
Then he pushed some more, and I could do nothing but bury my hands against his head, wanting every part of him to touch me, to feel me, to squeeze me.
I’d never been so full. He began to thrust, burying himself inside me over and over again. Fast, hard, and without stopping to ask whether it hurt, or whether I was enjoying it. It was just how I wanted it. Just how I needed it.
It didn’t last long. It couldn’t. Not for me. And not for him. Both of our bodies were too ready, too hungry, aching for the other’s so much that we couldn’t hold off.
I didn’t care that I was lying on a metal floor. I didn’t care that the only clothes I had in the universe had just been torn apart. I didn’t care that the person who kidnapped me was fucking my brains out. All I wanted was that thick Drakon cock inside me as deep as it would go.
When he finished, he seemed to contract in rolling waves as a series of ridges expanded and contracted again inside me. He filled me up, shooting hot streams deep inside me. I screamed as his molten-hot release brought me to an orgasm so intense that I didn’t notice when I banged my head back on the metal floor behind me. My head was already full of stars.
He lay on top of me, panting for a moment, before rolling over onto his back. As he withdrew from me, I felt a sense of emptiness, of something missing. Couldn’t he have left it in just a bit longer?
I turned on my side, propping my head up with the palm of my hand. I watched him.
“You liked that.” His words were a statement. Not a question. He was so arrogant it made me want to smack him. Maybe stab him in the shoulder again. I glanced at the wounds I’d inflicted, but they didn’t seem very serious now. Less so than the injury to one of his hands, which I was now noticing for the first time. It hadn’t stopped him ravishing me.
“Not as much as you.”
He snorted and closed his eyes, lying back on the deck.
I watched his nude form for a minute. He was a muscular giant that should have terrified me, but somehow, he didn’t. Not then, anyway. His chest was slowly rising and falling, his eyes closed. Was he asleep? It didn’t seem to take much to wear him out if he was.
I remembered my plan. The second one. After fighting him had failed, the new idea was to distract him with my womanly wiles and then make my escape. Half-heartedly, I put it into action. I kind of just wanted to lie on top of his warm body for a while. But no, I had things to do. Or try to do.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I pushed myself up to a sitting position, crouched on my feet, and then started to tiptoe away more silently than a mouse trying to sneak something from under a resting cat’s nose.
I was almost at the door, about to break into a sprint, when I felt something lock around my ankle, tight as steel handcuffs.
“Oh no you don’t.”
Rethryn yawned as he yanked me back toward him, a look of annoyance on his face.
So much for distracting him and escaping.
9
Rethryn
Rethryn
She turned out to be quite the fun little plaything. I could see what some of my Drakon brothers saw in these human slaves. Warm and tight where you wante
d them, with enough fight and kick in them to make them interesting. Of course, it was a mistake. If word got back to my betrothed… well, I didn’t need to worry about that. She couldn’t find out.
Anyway, if this mission went well — or rather, if I could salvage it — I might be switching out my betrothed for someone a little more suited to someone of my lineage. A few ranks higher up the social ladder.
In order to stop the slave — Talia, wasn’t it? — blabbing and causing a ruckus, I had used the remains of her robe to silence her mouth and bind her wrists. She had amusingly looked quite outraged when, after our little playtime, I dragged her back and gagged her. She probably just wanted me to do her again. She had obviously been very pleased with my performance.
Feeling somewhat calmer than I had been when I arrived in the cargo hold, I headed back to my tiny cabin. When I stood inside, I looked around and imagined what would happen if I shifted into my dragon form. I would probably tear a hole through the hull, which would kill me and the rest of the crew. What kind of ship was this for a Hielsrane and a prince?
Nevertheless, it would have to suffice until I obtained something better. I used my ablution facilities to shower in the small bathroom that adjoined the main part of my room, somewhat sad to be losing the scent of the human girl on me.
My brief regret at that loss quickly turned back to anger as the powerful jets of water blasted into my scratches and the wounds on my as yet unhealed hand. That was two different women that had injured me in the span of a single solar. One from afar, one up close. There was only one of them which I would gladly throttle now though. Unfortunately, it was the one that was back on our home planet.
After I showered, I retired to my bed for some rest. I had given orders to my crew to get us away from Minapolis, and to find somewhere quiet at which to plot our next move. We would need to acquire a substantial amount of money from somewhere so that I could fulfill my mission, hopefully in a way more honorable way than begging for a loan from some yellow livered bankers.