by Viola Grace
“The dragons that you met the day you were brought here. Four more members of your mother’s guard.” He smiled and held his hand out. To her surprise, he tugged her onto the platform and stood her in front of him so that the others could see her.
Wait. “How could he see me?”
“Ah, he is gifted with vision beyond vision. He can seek out and find dragons anywhere, and you and your sisters have a very distinct signature.”
“Gentlemen, Solar. Solar, the four members of the Star Guard that your mother selected as matches for you.” He whispered it in her ear and kept his arms around her.
She looked from one to the next. “How are my sisters?”
The solemn one said, “They are adapting. Each one learns at a different pace. You will see your sisters in a few weeks.”
“Why not now?”
“They need to find their place in their freedom.” He inclined his head. “It will come to each of you in different ways, but you are no longer an enclosed group. Separating you will allow you to learn how to adapt to worlds outside your own, on your own.”
She stared at him, and Denhar inclined his head to the other Star Guards. “In two days then for another update.”
The other four nodded, and their images flickered out.
Solar turned in Denhar’s embrace. “What was that?”
“We were catching up on the progress that you and your sisters are making, comparing training techniques.”
He looked down at her, and she stared up into the strange and familiar eyes of another dragon.
She blinked and felt her heart beginning to pound faster. “Was that all?”
He threaded his fingers in her hair and pressed a kiss to her lips that weakened her knees. “There were a few other things but none that involved you directly.”
She lifted a finger to her lips and felt the slight swelling that the contact caused. She could taste him, and the flavour was electricity and starlight.
Solar went up on her toes and pulled his head down to hers, insisting on the kiss. She kept kissing him as he lifted her off her feet and started moving. Power sparked between them where they touched, and to Solar’s surprise, it was not just her hands generating the wild power. His touch was sending crackles of heat through her clothing.
He tilted her down onto the long couch and caged her with his body. “I do not want you acting alone again. You are my charge, and I will be with you, or you will not leave this world.” She blushed and tried to kiss him again, but he moved away. “Fine. I will tell you whenever I head out somewhere and make sure that you can come with me.”
She grimaced, and he asked, “What?” He slowly lowered his body onto hers, and she shivered and bit her lip at the pleasant sensations that came with him.
“I am a pain in the ass. Even my sisters have a hard time working with me. I make a decision and act.” She grumbled. “We were trained as solo operatives after all.”
“You are not solo anymore. I am your new partner.” He kissed her again, and when she leaned toward him, his hands stroked her sides.
Solar wasn’t happy with being on the receiving end, so she wrapped her legs around him and flipped him until he was lying on his back on the floor, a very surprised look on his face. She planted her hands next to his head and kissed him while kneeling astride him.
The dress she was wearing had ridden up during their reversal, so it was easy for Denhar to slide his hands up the back of her thighs.
His fingers skated along her skin, and soon, a shift of cool air across her body indicated that her dress was open. His palm against her hip made her shiver, and she broke the kiss, burying her face against his neck.
She had made her bid for assertion, and now, she was unsure of what happened next. “I think we should—”
He rolled her to her back and sealed her mouth before she could say anything else. Denhar continued to touch her, stroke her and set her skin on fire.
She was unsure if it was pleasure or pain, but she knew she wanted more.
When he pressed into her, her mind rioted at the cacophony of sensations. At first, it was less than pleasant, but as she adapted and responded to his movements, she heard the music of the stars.
She kissed him, stroked him and moved with him as their bodies joined and their power sparked and swirled through the room. Light danced, fabric smouldered and she gasped as her body gripped his in a rush of pleasure and energy.
“Okay, so I see that the floor is a bit of a mistake.” Solar grunted as he helped her to her feet and resettled her clothing into modest lines.
Denhar grinned, something very lazy and satisfied in his gaze. “I tried to move us to the couch, but you bit me.”
She blinked. “Did I? I don’t recall. It’s all a bit of a blur.”
He rubbed a thumb along her collarbone. “I returned the favour, so all is forgiven.” Solar looked up at him and felt a strange harmony roll through her. “I suppose we need to figure out what happens next.”
He lifted her in his arms and walked up to the room she had been confined in.
Haringk was finishing his work on the final hinge, and he nodded and left them when they crossed the threshold.
He took her into the bathing room and stood her up. “What happens is we clear the scent of sex off us so I can think, and then, we plan an attack on the cluster of humans that Myrgik found on one of the worlds in my sector.” She smiled and let him bully her into the shower. They were going hunting. How romantic.
Chapter Ten
Solar was back in her armour and looking at the schematic that Denhar had laid out on the table in his study. “So, how do you want to do this?” He looked at her from under dark lashes. “I thought I could sweep the maps off the table and bend you over…”
Solar blushed and swallowed to hide the fact that it was the same thoughts she had when she noted the sturdiness of the wooden structure.
“You know what I mean.”
He sighed. “Spoilsport.”
She looked at him in astonishment and noted that there was quite a bit of lightness in his manner now. He was looking at her like she used to look at the pastries that were brought in for their birthday. The treat was not sanctioned, but their handlers snuck them past security for a special treat. She was feeling like that forbidden treat every time Denhar looked at her.
“The humans have spread their settlement thin. They are even building structures of a permanent nature. We either get them out now or we will have a problem later.”
They discussed a plan of attack and finally came up with a scheme that would allow them the most coverage with the least exposure.
“You are not to dismount from my neck unless I tell you to. Are we clear on that, Solar?” She nodded with a frown. “We are clear. I get it. I understand. I am fine with it. I won’t get off. I promise.”
He nodded tersely. “Good. Are you ready?” She grinned. “Of course. I was born for this.” He sighed and led the way out of his home and into the courtyard. He shifted into his huge dragon form and offered her his claw to assist in her mounting him. Come along, Solar. This is not my preferred method of having your legs around me, but it will have to do.
Shut it, pointy. She settled into place and tapped her heels against his neck. Heeyah, Denhar. Let’s get going. We are burning daylight.
He snorted and took a few steps until he had some momentum, taking off with a surge of his hind legs. Yes, mistress, but you know that daylight is its own fire, right?
She laughed and enjoyed the sensation of flight as they went higher and higher. He flew them above the atmospheric containment and held her with her facing the sun until her skin gleamed and glowed with power.
Once she was fully charged, he opened a rift and dove through it, with the appearance of a falling star carrying them into the space above the colony.
She held her breath as they screeched to the surface, landing with a blast of power that would mimic a meteor half their size. He obliterated his
claw marks with a few huge sweeps of his tail, so the colonists should not know that they were being hunted.
Once they were down, he glided off behind the local mountain range and waited for predawn to turn into bright daylight.
She shivered and hunched low on Denhar’s neck. Holding that much power in was difficult, and she had never really tried to hold the energy of a sun inside her before.
Stay steady. The rotation is almost complete. There, the pinking of the sky has begun. Let’s go.
Three hundred people were in this colony, and they were all going home today.
Denhar crept up on the colony, staying low to avoid detection. Are we close enough?
We are. She looked at the colonists in the square, their smiling faces and morning greetings livening up the dawn, and she opened a rift under their feet.
The first seventy-five villagers didn’t even make a sound. One moment they were there, the next, she had opened a rift under their feet. She heard the weapons fire before she saw it, and she crouched tight to Denhar’s neck.
Her goal was to pick off the villagers one by one, and she did so, using the power collected and the burning rays of the sun this world orbited.
They ran along and were dropped back to Earth without ceremony. A few blundered directly into rifts created in their path.
It took hours, but finally, the count was down below six. Solar could feel the wrongness that came along with the Earthers. They didn’t belong on this world. The rifts they had created needed to be healed, and for that, they needed to be on the other side.
Denhar moved closer to the colony, and he exhaled a blast of power that killed the six men in military garb who were not foolish enough to fall into her trap.
They would be returned to Earth dead or alive, and it seemed that dead was the way these men were going.
She waited until Denhar walked up to the corpses, and she sent them through the rifts to be buried on their home world, where they belonged.
Can you heal the dimensional fabric?
Of course. I haven’t even touched the power I stored.
It was true, Solar had been using the sunlight on her shoulders to power her gateways.
She closed her eyes and extended her arms. The gaping black holes that the humans had punched in the dimensional fabric were blazing at her with dark intensity. She poured power around the edges and the rifts slowly closed. It took a while.
Denhar sat comfortably on the ground waiting for her to finish, his head extended so that she wouldn’t be caught in the folds of his wings.
The sun was directly overhead when she slumped over his neck. “Okay, I am done. It’s all sealed up.”
He moved carefully and took off with a slow, even pace, his wing beats pulling them into the sky before he opened a rift and took them home.
She didn’t remember getting home, but when she woke in the night, she was in his arms once again. Solar sighed, and the moment that he realized she was awake, his hands explored her from neck to ankles.
No words were spoken. He moved his mouth over her body in the wake of his fingers, and her own vocalizations were confined to sighs and moans.
He paused, and his eyes stared into hers, You fainted.
Did I? I apologize. I was a little tired.
I was worried. He resumed licking and nibbling at her skin.
She twisted in his arms and held on when he moved over her once again. This time, his kiss didn’t make her want to assert her own dominance. His was just fine with her.
Chapter Eleven
Solar crept into the bathroom in the dark of the night. Mother?
Yes, Solar?
Can you tell the others that the humans are no longer using the lab as their base of operations? They are using a private facility now and the others need to see it before they keep sending the humans home. We don’t want them trapped underground, now do we?
Of course not, child. I will tell them. So, how are you enjoying life with my guard?
Solar was unsure if the blush came across on the psychic plane. It is taxing, but I am beginning to adjust. Did you always have him in mind for me?
Being a seer comes when you least expect it. It was confusing for me to see five of my Star Guard with what seemed like the same female of my line, but once I realized that your eyes were different, it struck me as making perfect sense. The others are too young or not strong enough to deal with you, so I chose my guard based on what I had seen and gave them instructions before I left. I am sorry that your father shunned them, but it has all worked out for the best.
You just gave us to them?
No, child. He had to earn you, and he will continue to earn you until the day that you both enter the light for the final time.
Enter the light?
Ask Denhar. They are his people. There was a gentle stroke from her mother’s mind. You are all making me so proud. I could see these moments but never imagine how they would make me feel. It is worth the discomfort to see you growing so strong.
Discomfort?
Never mind, child. Go back to your mate. He is wondering what we are talking about, and I do not wish to fill him in.
I love you, Mother.
I love you, Solar. Now go.
Solar splashed water on her face and dried her skin with a flare of heat. She returned to bed and lay down next to her mate, staring at his face and the cascade of snow-white hair that tried to tumble over his shoulders whenever he wasn’t holding it back. “Hello.”
He smiled. “How is your mother?”
“Apparently in some kind of discomfort, but she told me not to worry about it.”
“Am I correct in thinking that you don’t remember meeting her?”
She shook her head. “I have never met her. She started talking to us when we were children, but we were never supposed to let our handlers know.”
He stroked his hand along her shoulder, down to her wrist and then up again. “You had handlers?”
“Yes. One for each of us when we left the nursery. We were divided up by our base groupings and educated separately due to our particular talents. Our handlers had to spar with us, make sure we were fed and massage muscles when they tightened up. Of course, our handlers were all in radiation suits constantly, and we were in containment uniforms. No one ever thought to teach us to control it.”
He transferred his stroking to the curve of her hip and the upper thigh. “That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”
She grinned. “They were afraid of us. They didn’t know what we were, and therefore, we didn’t know what we were. Well, not until Ruby blasted loose. They had it hard. They had implanted tethers.”
“Why didn’t you?”
She chucked and mimicked his stroke of her arm on his shoulder and bicep. “Radiation interfered with it. We fried them before they could be installed, so they had to be content with the containment suits being our only way to contain our energy. They had no idea that we didn’t care whether the suits were intact or not, once we found out that our lives were forfeit if we returned, there was no going back.”
“What of the other two sets aside from the gems?”
She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his neck. “The goddesses are on their own world and learning how to deal with the elements, the plants and flowers are dealing with nature.”
“You are not going to tell me more than that?” He pressed her back into the bedding, and she moved suddenly and flipped him to his back.
“No. You don’t need to know, and they need to work this out for themselves before a herd of dragons sweeps down on them. We know that we are being hunted, Denhar. There is no mystery as to why either.”
He tried to look innocent, but he was having a problem concealing his expression as she straddled him with her hands on his shoulders.
“Mother told us about the birthrate, and every dragon I have seen so far has been a male. The dragon king married mother to get daughters, and here we are. The miracle is that no
ne of his favourites have found us yet.” She kissed the column of his throat and felt the muscle flex.
“Perhaps, they are being led along false trails?”
She raised her head. There were five of her mother’s guard that were unaccounted for. “Are you kidding?”
“Inch down a little and find out for yourself.” She laughed. “Not about that, about the false trails.”
He chuckled. “We obey Eiwyn without question. If she says we are to obfuscate the traces of her daughters, we do so. If she says we are to train them to contain their powers, we do so.” Solar raised her brows. “So, you were ordered to do this?” She rocked against him.
He shivered. “No, it may have been suggested, it may have been encouraged, but it was never ordered. I knew you were my mate the moment I faced you on that blasted world.” She laughed and started to move with him.
“Funny, I thought you were a jackass. It’s a good thing that it is never too late to make a better impression.”
* * * *
Worlds away, Eiwyn stood in her case and smiled.
Soon. She would be back her in husband’s arms soon, and when she was, she was going to have to have a talk with him about his interference in what she had foreseen.
She figured he would let her talk about three months after their reunion. That is when the bed would give out.
About the Authors
Viola Grace was born in Manitoba, Canada where she still resides today. She really likes it there. She has no pets and can barely keep sea monkeys alive for a reasonable amount of time. Her line of day job tends to be analytical which leaves her mind hopping to weave stories. No co-worker is safe from her character analysis. In keeping with busy hands are happy hands, her hobbies have included cross-stitch, needlepoint, quilting, costuming, cake decorating, baking, cooking, metal work, beading, sculpting, painting, doll making, henna tattoos, chain mail, and a few others that have been forgotten. It is quite often that these hobbies make their way into her tales.