by Zena Zion
“I'm not as you assume. If I have treated you as less than a person, it is my ignorance, not any kind of malice. I only ask for the opportunity to prove to you that I am not this beast you think, and that my people are not the monsters you think.”
“And if you can't?”
His next words stunned her. “Then I will find a way to send you home.”
Dragon Rider
“Tell me of yourself,” Kaelon asked quietly.
They were sitting in his dining hall, alone for the first time all day. He'd had a meeting with his generals earlier, conferring about some investigation or another that Irina couldn't fully follow.
It seemed that her translator was not very good at military terms. That was likely deliberate. But in any case, she finally had some alone time with him, and she was actually realizing how much she had looked forward to it.
It wasn't just because as soon as the other servants had gone to bed, he pulled out his remote and unlocked her collar. After weeks of living in his home, sometimes a servant but no longer a breeding slave, she had discovered that she genuinely enjoyed her conversations with him.
He was curious and intelligent, and though sometimes he didn't seem to fully grasp the topics that she brought up, like religion, he had become quite interested in both her world and her job. But he'd never asked her about her personal life before.
She said back in the heavy wooden seat, blinking up at the ceiling and trying to figure out where to begin. The translator bud chafed in her ear, and she resettled it in place before replying.
“Well, I was given up when I was a kid. Don't know anything about my real parents. Don't know if I have any siblings, nothing like that. I had a genetic test done a couple of years ago, so I know my ethnicity, I know where my ancestors came from. But me? I can’t show you a family tree. I don't have one. I'm just a stray leaf, I guess.”
“Not to me.” His voice was very matter-of-fact still. It sometimes grew gentle with her, and sometimes filled with worry when she was in pain. But most of the time, he still sounded a little bit like a general giving orders.
But when she looked him in the face, she saw him gazing at her with soft eyes, and this little smile that was almost charming.
She didn't know how this whole true mating thing worked, but sometimes when they were alone together, he looked at her like a school boy with a crush. From such a powerful and intimidating being, that kind of look was disarming.
It helped her forget that he could have killed her with a single blow. Or a single exhale, for that matter. “If you had no family, how were you raised?”
“I was in and out of foster homes. I wasn't a problem kid or anything, but I just had bad luck.” Very bad luck. “I was sent back to the youth facility three times by the time that I hit eighteen. Not because I was a bad kid or anything. I was just...unlucky.”
He tilted his head, not blinking enough, his eyes steady on hers. He rolled his golden wine goblet between his palms. “What do you mean by unlucky?”
“Well, there were the Smiths. Typical fairly well-off suburban family, figured that they would do the right thing and take in a foster kid. Problem was, Mrs. Smith's brother was a real creep and tried to put his hand down my panties when I was six.
Well, I ran away screaming to a neighbor, and told them what had happened. I don't really remember what happened next, but I do know there were a lot of cops involved. And by the time that they went home, Mrs. Smith was on the phone to the facility to send me back.”
“But you were the one who was wronged.”
“Yes, but that was her brother and I was just some kid. It didn't matter that he was evil. She just plain didn't believe me. She decided that I was trying to mess with her family, so she got rid of me.”
“That is horrific.” His expression fell into troubled lines. “What about the others?”
“Well, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews fostered a kid because they couldn't have a baby. or at least, that was what the doctor told them. Then they went to a different doctor, got some fertility treatments, she gets pregnant, and suddenly there's no more room for me in the house.
I get sent back again. Then, finally, there was Dr. Woods and his wife. They were child psychologists. Nobody knew it at the time, but they had decided that they were going to use me as the control in an experiment of nature versus nurture.
So I got treated normally, while their biological child Sam was being deprived of things like sleep and food periodically just to see how he would react. By then I was twelve, and I was starting to realize that a lot of adults out there are full of crap.
So me and Sam ran off in the local news station and gave them an exclusive on our story. Next thing we knew, Sam was being taken by his grandmother, Dr. Woods and his wife were in jail, and I was back at the facility.”
He blinked several times, his expression full of confusion. “I do not understand. Here, a fosterling is taken in exchange for one of one's own children in order to ensure a peace treaty with a neighboring noble. They're always treated well, for any complaint from them will result in the same treatment being visited on their keepers' own child.”
“Well, on our world fostering is basically temporary adoption. Sometimes, they keep you for a real long time, and you end up with something resembling a normal childhood. But for most of us, any stay with people like that is going to end up temporary.”
She took a cautious sip of the wine. She didn't know yet what fruit they pressed this stuff from, but whatever it was, when it was done fermenting it was an awful lot stronger than grape wine.
“After I finished high school, I managed to get a scholarship to a good University, and then I just kept working my way up. My ambition was to become a scientist, and explore off-world.”
“Yes, you mentioned that this was what you were doing when you were... captured.”
“As for the rest, well, I'm a biologist with a specialty in medical xenobotany.” At his blank look, she explained, “I am a type of scientist who goes to other worlds and catalogs new species of plants and sometimes animals that might be able to cure human beings of various diseases.”
“So you are some sort of space-faring herbalist then?”
“That’s kind of simplistic, but you've got the basic idea.”
“Fascinating.”
“What about you?” She managed another swallow. The stuff was deceptively smooth, but she had accidentally found out what happened if she had more than half a glass at a sitting.
“I was born to a minor noble family on the southern continent. We are largely reptile shifters. We make our first change when we hit puberty. It is said that the creature that we emulate in our shift form will determine our destinies. At the time, I didn't even know what a dragon was. Some of the servants had to explain it to me.”
“I don't understand. How is it that so many of your people end up with shift forms that look like they could have either walked out of Earth's Zoology textbooks, or our books of myths and legends?”
“It is honestly a great mystery for us. There are many questions that we are left asking now that science has advanced sufficiently that we have a chance to get answers. We do not know how it is that we are genetically compatible with humans.
We do not know how it is that our shift form so often emulates creatures from Earth, or from a few other planets inhabited by intelligent beings. We have scientists who are studying these matters, but I think that even they would be baffled to discover that the two of us share a mating bond.
“At any rate, once I reached my mid-teens, I enrolled in military training, as is the tradition in my family. Within a decade, I had participated in three wars: two intercontinental and one interplanetary. I distinguished myself in battle and as a strategist, and it was decided to give me a leadership position. This kept happening. I rose through the ranks fairly quickly, in part because we are not in the habit of leading armies from our armchairs. A general who is not willing to lead a charge is not a general.”
>
“Which means that a lot of them get killed?”
“I am afraid so. Fortunately, as it turns out, this strange shift form of mine affords me greater resilience and power than many. Because of this, I have survived longer than the others. And they just kept promoting me, essentially.” He shrugged.
“I am proud to serve my people in this capacity, and I have to admit that the pay scale is fairly satisfying.” A little smirk. “But there are times when I wish that I could simply fly out to my summer retreat and stay there for more than the summer.”
“You have a summer retreat? Where is it?”
“Out in the mountains, perhaps half a day's flight from here if I use my own wings. Barely ten minutes with a hover plane, but that's no fun. It is a pristine area, heavily forested. It is used for wildlife hunting, so logging and building are not permitted, but the stone house that my father built predates that law.”
He tilted his head. “Would you enjoy time in such a place?”
A week later, walking out onto the rooftop plaza at the very top of the tower, Irina wondered if she should have said no after all. Kaelon crouched there in dragon form, a heavy leather and steel harness crossing his chest and belly and holding an odd sort of saddle to his back.
He turned his head as she walked out, and she saw that their baggage had already been strapped to the rear of the saddle.
His eyes twinkled. “I had this made special, so you could fly with me.”
“It's, uh, really something else. Does it... have seat belts?” She approached cautiously.
“Do you think that I would drop you?” He sounded indignant. “Come, climb aboard. I promise, I will not let you fall.”
“Alright, but if I end up a smear on the landscape, I'm going to haunt you. Just warning.”
She climbed aboard a little hesitantly, trying to avoid stepping on the wing folded at his side. The saddle was just a little bit too broad for her, forcing her to spread her legs wide and hang on to a saddle horn in front. She was glad that her wardrobe included trousers, or this would have been very awkward.
“Alright. Are you settled?”
“Oh, give me just a second.” She stopped to fiddle with the straps, making sure that at least she had something to grab onto if her fingers slipped from the saddle horn. This close up, she could smell him again. His scent did not change when he changed.
Now, at least, she didn't have to feel that strange about the fact that he smelled good. At least now she felt safe enough around him that she could appreciate that he was attractive...at least when he looked like a man. “Alright, I guess I'm about as ready as I'm ever going to be.”
“Okay. Deep breath. Here I go….”
Powerful wings beat the air on either side of her, and suddenly the plaza dropped away and they were in midair. She let out a scream that was half shock and half exultation, and heard him chuckle low in his throat.
“Are you all right up there?”
“I...I...I...um, I'm doing okay, just give me a moment....” She still despised being a captive. She still distrusted this place and its culture. But he at least had proven to be good company, even if he had not yet made good on his promise to one day let her go.
Her best guess was that he still thought he could not only change her mind about his world and culture, but also win her heart.
She had no idea how he planned to do all of that, but she had to admit that a retreat to the mountains didn't sound like a bad idea in that direction. It meant getting away from everyone but him.
Besides Miriam and a few of the servants that she had befriended, there was probably no one on this world that she wanted to see besides him. Now if she could only survive the flight....
They soared out over the spires of the city, far over the square where he had haggled to buy her like she was a piece of meat. She had all sorts of mixed feelings about that day now. She knew that he wasn't an evil man, but he came from an evil culture.
There were things about it that were so corrupt that it made human society look like a shining example of morals by comparison. And she knew that even with the High Commander's ear, she wasn't going to be able to do much to improve on the situation from within.
There was nobody really back home for her. It was something she had realized lying in her bed all those nights, realizing that she didn't miss Earth so much as she missed freedom.
The only thing she really had back home were a few co-workers and fellow doctoral candidates who had received their laurels at the same time as she. There was something depressing about realizing that there was no one back home who would ever miss her. No one who would notice that she was gone.
“What is it? Why are you upset? Am I flying too fast or too high?”
“No, no. It's beautiful up here. I just...wait a second. How could you tell I was upset?”
“I don't entirely know. I can just feel it. I can feel you. I knew you weren't really scared when I took off. You are excited. But then we flew over the city and you got upset. What is it?”
“We flew over the square where I got sold. it got me thinking about bad things. It's fine, let's just leave the city behind. I really have had enough of it for a while.”
He was silent for several wing-beats as he headed for the wall that marked the edge of the city. Beyond, dense forest pressed in; in the distance, she could see the mountains rise up to pierce the cloud layer.
“I have mixed feelings when you mention that. On the one hand, I know that the whole experience caused you much pain. Yet on the other hand, without it, I would never have met you. How am I to feel about this thing? How am I to feel about the idea that you would rather leave this planet and me forever, if I let you go?”
She didn't have an answer for him. They flew on in silence for a while, and she wondered what would happen if and when she gained her freedom. Would she miss him? Yes, yes I would.
“You're the only part of this world that I don't want to leave,” she finally admitted softly.
Ambush
His retreat turned out to be a massive stone and timber structure with armored windows and four automated gun turrets outside. She peered at the turrets warily as he came in for a landing in the plaza in front of the gigantic hunting lodge. He landed as gently as he seemed able to, jolting her only a little bit as he came to a stop.
“There. Are you all right to walk?”
“I should be fine, just give me a minute.” The truth was that her legs were pretty stiff from hanging on to him for so long.
She grabbed the straps to steady herself, and swung her legs down. They promptly proved to be partly numb, and completely exhausted, almost folding under her.
She clung to the thick leather strap for a moment, feet scrambling at the ground until she managed to get them braced under her. “Whoops! Okay. I'm good.” She took a few staggering steps away from him, feeling as clumsy as an infant.
She heard his human voice behind her, laughing softly. Then a big hand reached out and settled on her shoulder, helping to steady her. “There you go. You looked like you were having a little trouble, there.”
She turned to face him, suddenly very aware of how close he was. It didn't intimidate her or scare her anymore. She didn't feel imposed on by his gigantic presence.
It certainly helped that he had left the armor off this time, wearing instead a pair of black uniform pants such as his soldiers wore, and a pair of their boots.
A deep blue shirt of some gauzy material stuck to him just a little bit thanks to the warm day. She gazed up at him as he went suddenly quiet, holding himself still, as if afraid to scare her off.
“I'm okay,” she mumbled, feeling her cheeks heat up. When exactly had she started feeling this attracted to him? Had he grown on her that much? Or was it this bond that he kept talking about? Either way, it was the best and most problematic feeling she had had in a long time.
If she let him have her heart, how could she then fly away from him afterward? She knew that his duties
would bind him to this planet forever. Could she stand to stay here? “Thanks for the catch.”
“You are welcome.” He wet his lips as he gazed down at her. “Did you...mean what you said back there? Would you miss me?”
She swallowed a lump in her throat as she stared up with him, and then stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him as far as they would go. She laid her head against his chest as he went rigid, and she heard him gasp suddenly for air.
Very, very gently, his arms went around her. She felt him bury his nose in her hair, and was absolutely shocked to feel a tingle go through her that demanded more contact.
Uh oh. That part of her that was willing to die to be free balked suddenly, as if breaking the touch barrier with him was the most dangerous thing in the world.
“Yes, I would miss you very much. Even with the way we met. Even with how much I hate the way that your world treats women, especially women of my race. Even so. I would miss you if I left.”
She felt him shudder against her, and his arms tightened around her. “Irina,” he murmured hoarsely.
“I wish I could change this whole world. Make it a better place for you. But even with all my power, I only think I could change a little. There are too many men like Torvin in this world--too many wicked men in power. I topple them as I find them, but there are always more.”
“Would you find these things more worth fighting for if I was there with you?” Her voice had gone down to a breathless whisper. She realized suddenly that she was trembling too.
“I would fight a thousand battles for the sake of justice if only you stayed,” he whispered into her hair.
She looked up at him, and saw the desperation in his eyes. Squashing a surge of apprehension, she leaned up and brushed her lips gently against his.
He responded immediately, deepening the kiss, one hand sliding up to cup the back of her head. Her knees suddenly got weak all over again, and she fell against him. He caught her, and after a moment, simply lifted her into his arms, and started carrying her inside.